The pompous cortege of the Cardinal halted at the beginning of the camp. All the armed troops were drawn up in the finest order; and amid the sound of cannon and the music of each regiment the litter traversed a long line of cavalry and infantry, formed from the outermost tent to that of the minister, pitched at some distance from the royal quarters, and which its purple covering distinguished at a distance. Each general of division obtained a nod or a word from the Cardinal, who at length reaching his tent and, dismissing his train, shut himself in, waiting for the time to present himself to the King. But, before him, every person of his escort had repaired thither individually, and, without entering the royal abode, had remained in the long galleries covered with striped stuff, and arranged as became avenues leading to the Prince. The courtiers walking in groups, saluted one another and shook hands, regarding each other haughtily, according to their connections or the lords to whom they belonged. Others whispered together, and showed signs of astonishment, pleasure, or anger, which showed that something extraordinary had taken place. Among a thousand others, one singular dialogue occurred in a corner of the principal gallery.
“May I ask, Monsieur l’Abbe, why you look at me so fixedly?”
“Parbleu! Monsieur de Launay, it is because I’m curious to see what you will do. All the world abandons your Cardinal-Duke since your journey into Touraine; if you do not believe it, go and ask the people of Monsieur or of the Queen. You are behind-hand ten minutes by the watch with the Cardinal de la Vallette, who has just shaken hands with Rochefort and the gentlemen of the late Comte de Soissons, whom I shall regret as long as I live.”
“Monsieur de Gondi, I understand you; is it a challenge with which you honor me?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Comte,” answered the young Abbe, saluting him with all the gravity of the time; “I sought an occasion to challenge you in the name of Monsieur d’Attichi, my friend, with whom you had something to do at Paris.”
“Monsieur l’Abbe, I am at your command. I will seek my seconds; do you the same.”
“On horseback, with sword and pistol, I suppose?” added Gondi, with the air of a man arranging a party of pleasure, lightly brushing the sleeve of his cassock.
“If you please,” replied the other. And they separated for a time, saluting one another with the greatest politeness, and with profound bows.
A brilliant crowd of gentlemen circulated around them in the gallery. They mingled with it to procure friends for the occasion. All the elegance of the costumes of the day was displayed by the court that morning-small cloaks of every color, in velvet or in satin, embroidered with gold or silver; crosses of St. Michael and of the Holy Ghost; the ruffs, the sweeping hat-plumes, the gold shoulder-knots, the chains by which the long swords hung: all glittered and sparkled, yet not so brilliantly as did the fiery glances of those warlike youths, or their sprightly conversation, or their intellectual laughter. Amid the assembly grave personages and great lords passed on, followed by their numerous gentlemen.
The little Abbe de Gondi, who was very shortsighted, made his way through the crowd, knitting his brows and half shutting his eyes, that he might see the better, and twisting his moustache, for ecclesiastics wore them in those days. He looked closely at every one in order to recognize his friends, and at last stopped before a young man, very tall and dressed in black from head to foot; his sword, even, was of quite dark, bronzed steel. He was talking with a captain of the guards, when the Abbe de Gondi took him aside.
“Monsieur de Thou,” said he, “I need you as my second in an hour, on horseback, with sword and pistol, if you will do me that honor.”
“Monsieur, you know I am entirely at your service on all occasions. Where shall we meet?”
“In front of the Spanish bastion, if you please.”
“Pardon me for returning to a conversation that greatly interests me. I will be punctual at the rendezvous.”
And De Thou quitted him to rejoin the Captain. He had said all this in the gentlest of voices with unalterable coolness, and even with somewhat of an abstracted manner.
The little Abbe squeezed his hand with warm satisfaction, and continued his search.
He did not so easily effect an agreement with the young lords to whom he addressed himself; for they knew him better than did De Thou, and when they saw him coming they tried to avoid him, or laughed at him openly, and would not promise to serve him.
“Ah, Abbe! there you are hunting again; I’ll swear it’s a second you want,” said the Duc de Beaufort.
“And I wager,” added M. de la Rochefoucauld, “that it’s against one of the Cardinal-Duke’s people.”
“You are both right, gentlemen; but since when have you laughed at affairs of honor?”
“The saints forbid I should,” said M. de Beaufort. “Men of the sword like us ever reverence tierce, quarte, and octave; but as for the folds of the cassock, I know nothing of them.”
“Pardieu! Monsieur, you know well enough that it does not embarrass my wrist, as I will prove to him who chooses; as to the gown itself, I should like to throw it into the gutter.”
“Is it to tear it that you fight so often?” asked La Rochefoucauld. “But remember, my dear Abbe, that you yourself are within it.”
Gondi turned to look at the clock, wishing to lose no more time in such sorry jests; but he had no better success elsewhere. Having stopped two gentlemen in the service of the young Queen, whom he thought ill-affected toward the Cardinal, and consequently glad to measure weapons with his creatures, one of them said to him very gravely:
“Monsieur de Gondi, you know what has just happened; the King has said aloud, ‘Whether our imperious Cardinal wishes it or not, the widow of Henri le Grand shall no longer remain in exile.’ Imperious! the King never before said anything so strong as that, Monsieur l’Abbe, mark that. Imperious! it is open disgrace. Certainly no one will dare to speak to him; no doubt he will quit the court this very day.”
“I have heard this, Monsieur, but I have an affair—”
“It is lucky for you he stopped short in the middle of your career.”
“An affair of honor—”
“Whereas Mazarin is quite a friend of yours.”
“But will you, or will you not, listen to me?”
“Yes, a friend indeed! your adventures are always uppermost in his thoughts. Your fine duel with Monsieur de Coutenan about the pretty little pin-maker,—he even spoke of it to the King. Adieu, my dear Abbe, we are in great haste; adieu, adieu!” And, taking his friend’s arm, the young mocker, without listening to another word, walked rapidly down the gallery and disappeared in the throng.
The poor Abbe was much mortified at being able to get only one second, and was watching sadly the passing of the hour and of the crowd, when he perceived a young gentleman whom he did not know, seated at a table, leaning on his elbow with a pensive air; he wore mourning which indicated no connection with any great house or party, and appeared to await, without any impatience, the time for attending the King, looking with a heedless air at those who surrounded him, and seeming not to notice or to know any of them.
Gondi looked at him a moment, and accosted him without hesitation:
“Monsieur, I have not the honor of your acquaintance, but a fencing-party can never be unpleasant to a man of honor; and if you will be my second, in a quarter of an hour we shall be on the ground. I am Paul de Gondi; and I have challenged Monsieur de Launay, one of the Cardinal’s clique, but in other respects a very gallant fellow.”
The unknown, apparently not at all surprised at this address, replied, without changing his attitude: “And who are his seconds?”
“Faith, I don’t know; but what matters it who serves him? We stand no worse with our friends for having exchanged a thrust with them.”
The stranger smiled nonchalantly, paused for an instant to pass his hand through his long chestnut hair, and then said, looking idly at a large, round watch which hung at his waist:
“Well, Monsieur, as I have nothing better to do, and as I have no friends here, I am with you; it will pass the time as well as anything else.”
And, taking his large, black-plumed hat from the table, he followed the warlike Abbe, who went quickly before him, often running back to hasten him on, like a child running before his father, or a puppy that goes backward and forward twenty times before it gets to the end of a street.
Meanwhile, two ushers, attired in the royal livery, opened the great curtains which separated the gallery from the King’s tent, and silence reigned. The courtiers began to enter slowly, and in succession, the temporary dwelling of the Prince. He received them all gracefully, and was the first to meet the view of each person introduced.
Before a very small table surrounded with gilt armchairs stood Louis XIII, encircled by the great officers of the crown. His dress was very elegant: a kind of fawn-colored vest, with open sleeves, ornamented with shoulder-knots and blue ribbons, covered him down to the waist. Wide breeches reached to the knee, and the yellow-and-red striped stuff of which they were made was ornamented below with blue ribbons. His riding-boots, reaching hardly more than three inches above the ankle, were turned over, showing so lavish a lining of lace that they seemed to hold it as a vase holds flowers. A small mantle of blue velvet, on which was embroidered the cross of the Holy Ghost, covered the King’s left arm, which rested on the hilt of his sword.
His head was uncovered, and his pale and noble face was distinctly visible, lighted by the sun, which penetrated through the top of the tent. The small, pointed beard then worn augmented the appearance of thinness in his face, while it added to its melancholy expression. By his lofty brow, his classic profile, his aquiline nose, he was at once recognized as a prince of the great race of Bourbon. He had all the characteristic traits of his ancestors except their penetrating glance; his eyes seemed red from weeping, and veiled with a perpetual drowsiness; and the weakness of his vision gave him a somewhat vacant look.
He called around him, and was attentive to, the greatest enemies of the Cardinal, whom he expected every moment; and, balancing himself with one foot over the other, an hereditary habit of his family, he spoke quickly, but pausing from time to time to make a gracious inclination of the head, or a gesture of the hand, to those who passed before him with low reverences.
The court had been thus paying its respects to the King for two hours before the Cardinal appeared; the whole court stood in close ranks behind the Prince, and in the long galleries which extended from his tent. Already longer intervals elapsed between the names of the courtiers who were announced.
“Shall we not see our cousin the Cardinal?” said the King, turning, and looking at Montresor, one of Monsieur’s gentlemen, as if to encourage him to answer.
“He is said to be very ill just now, Sire,” was the answer.
“And yet I do not see how any but your Majesty can cure him,” said the Duc de Beaufort.
“We cure nothing but the king’s evil,” replied Louis; “and the complaints of the Cardinal are always so mysterious that we own we can not understand them.”
The Prince thus essayed to brave his minister, gaining strength in jests, the better to break his yoke, insupportable, but so difficult to remove. He almost thought he had succeeded in this, and, sustained by the joyous air surrounding him, he already privately congratulated himself on having been able to assume the supreme empire, and for the moment enjoyed all the power of which he fancied himself possessed. An involuntary agitation in the depth of his heart had warned him indeed that, the hour passed, all the burden of the State would fall upon himself alone; but he talked in order to divert the troublesome thought, and, concealing from himself the doubt he had of his own inability to reign, he set his imagination to work upon the result of his enterprises, thus forcing himself to forget the tedious roads which had led to them. Rapid phrases succeeded one another on his lips.
“We shall soon take Perpignan,” he said to Fabert, who stood at some distance.
“Well, Cardinal, Lorraine is ours,” he added to La Vallette. Then, touching Mazarin’s arm:
“It is not so difficult to manage a State as is supposed, eh?”
The Italian, who was not so sure of the Cardinal’s disgrace as most of the courtiers, answered, without compromising himself:
“Ah, Sire, the late successes of your Majesty at home and abroad prove your sagacity in choosing your instruments and in directing them, and—”
But the Duc de Beaufort, interrupting him with that self-confidence, that loud voice and overbearing air, which subsequently procured him the surname of Important, cried out, vehemently:
“Pardieu! Sire, it needs only to will. A nation is driven like a horse, with spur and bridle; and as we are all good horsemen, your Majesty has only to choose among us.”
This fine sally had not time to take effect, for two ushers cried, simultaneously, “His Eminence!”
The King’s face flushed involuntarily, as if he had been surprised en flagrant delit. But immediately gaining confidence, he assumed an air of resolute haughtiness, which was not lost upon the minister.
The latter, attired in all the pomp of a cardinal, leaning upon two young pages, and followed by his captain of the guards and more than five hundred gentlemen attached to his house, advanced toward the King slowly and pausing at each step, as if forced to it by his sufferings, but in reality to observe the faces before him. A glance sufficed.
His suite remained at the entrance of the royal tent; of all those within it, not one was bold enough to salute him, or to look toward him. Even La Vallette feigned to be occupied in a conversation with Montresor; and the King, who desired to give him an unfavorable reception, greeted him lightly and continued a private conversation in a low voice with the Duc de Beaufort.
The Cardinal was therefore forced, after the first salute, to stop and pass to the side of the crowd of courtiers, as if he wished to mingle with them, but in reality to test them more closely; they all recoiled as at the sight of a leper. Fabert alone advanced toward him with the frank, brusque air habitual with him, and, making use of the terms belonging to his profession, said:
“Well, my lord, you make a breach in the midst of them like a cannon-ball; I ask pardon in their name.”
“And you stand firm before me as before the enemy,” said the Cardinal; “you will have no cause to regret it in the end, my dear Fabert.”
Mazarin also approached the Cardinal, but with caution, and, giving to his mobile features an expression of profound sadness, made him five or six very low bows, turning his back to the group gathered around the King, so that in the latter quarter they might be taken for those cold and hasty salutations which are made to a person one desires to be rid of, and, on the part of the Duke, for tokens of respect, blended with a discreet and silent sorrow.
The minister, ever calm, smiled disdainfully; and, assuming that firm look and that air of grandeur which he always wore in the hour of danger, he again leaned upon his pages, and, without waiting for a word or a glance from his sovereign, he suddenly resolved upon his line of conduct, and walked directly toward him, traversing the whole length of the tent. No one had lost sight of him, although all affected not to observe him. Every one now became silent, even those who were conversing with the King. All the courtiers bent forward to see and to hear.
Louis XIII turned toward him in astonishment, and, all presence of mind totally failing him, remained motionless and waited with an icy glance-his sole force, but a force very effectual in a prince.
The Cardinal, on coming close to the monarch, did not bow; and, without changing his attitude, with his eyes lowered and his hands placed on the shoulders of the two boys half bending, he said:
“Sire, I come to implore your Majesty at length to grant me the retirement for which I have long sighed. My health is failing; I feel that my life will soon be ended. Eternity approaches me, and before rendering an account to the eternal King, I would render one to my earthly sovereign. It is eighteen years, Sire, since you placed in my hands a weak and divided kingdom; I return it to you united and powerful. Your enemies are overthrown and humiliated. My work is accomplished. I ask your Majesty’s permission to retire to Citeaux, of which I am abbot, and where I may end my days in prayer and meditation.”
The King, irritated by some haughty expressions in this address, showed none of the signs of weakness which the Cardinal had expected, and which he had always seen in him when he had threatened to resign the management of affairs. On the contrary, feeling that he had the eyes of the whole court upon him, Louis looked upon him with the air of a king, and coldly replied:
“We thank you, then, for your services, Monsieur le Cardinal, and wish you the repose you desire.”
Richelieu was deeply moved, but no indication of his anger appeared upon his countenance. “Such was the coldness with which you left Montmorency to die,” he said to himself; “but you shall not escape me thus.” He then continued aloud, bowing at the same time:
“The only recompense I ask for my services is that your Majesty will deign to accept from me, as a gift, the Palais-Cardinal I have erected at my own expense in Paris.”
The King, astonished, bowed his assent. A murmur of surprise for a moment agitated the attentive court.
“I also throw myself at your Majesty’s feet, to beg that you will grant me the revocation of an act of rigor, which I solicited (I publicly confess it), and which I perhaps regarded too hastily beneficial to the repose of the State. Yes, when I was of this world, I was too forgetful of my early sentiments of personal respect and attachment, in my eagerness for the public welfare; but now that I already enjoy the enlightenment of solitude, I see that I have done wrong, and I repent.”
The attention of the spectators was redoubled, and the uneasiness of the King became visible.
“Yes, there is one person, Sire, whom I have always loved, despite her wrong toward you, and the banishment which the affairs of the kingdom forced me to bring about for her; a person to whom I have owed much, and who should be very dear to you, notwithstanding her armed attempts against you; a person, in a word, whom I implore you to recall from exile—the Queen Marie de Medicis, your mother!”
The King uttered an involuntary exclamation, so little did he expect to hear that name. A repressed agitation suddenly appeared upon every face. All waited in silence the King’s reply. Louis XIII looked for a long time at his old minister without speaking, and this look decided the fate of France; in that instant he called to mind all the indefatigable services of Richelieu, his unbounded devotion, his wonderful capacity, and was surprised at himself for having wished to part with him. He felt deeply affected at this request, which had probed for the exact cause of his anger at the bottom of his heart, and uprooted it, thus taking from his hands the only weapon he had against his old servant. Filial love brought words of pardon to his lips and tears into his eyes. Rejoicing to grant what he desired most of all things in the world, he extended his hands to the Duke with all the nobleness and kindliness of a Bourbon. The Cardinal bowed and respectfully kissed it; and his heart, which should have burst with remorse, only swelled in the joy of a haughty triumph.
The King, deeply touched, abandoning his hand to him, turned gracefully toward his court and said, with a trembling voice:
“We often deceive ourselves, gentlemen, and especially in our knowledge of so great a politician as this.”
“I hope he will never leave us, since his heart is as good as his head.”
Cardinal de la Vallette instantly seized the sleeve of the King’s mantle, and kissed it with all the ardor of a lover, and the young Mazarin did much the same with Richelieu himself, assuming, with admirable Italian suppleness, an expression radiant with joy and tenderness. Two streams of flatterers hastened, one toward the King, the other toward the minister; the former group, not less adroit than the second, although less direct, addressed to the Prince thanks which could be heard by the minister, and burned at the feet of the one incense which was intended for the other. As for Richelieu, bowing and smiling to right and left, he stepped forward and stood at the right hand of the King as his natural place. A stranger entering would rather have thought, indeed, that it was the King who was on the Cardinal’s left hand. The Marechal d’Estrees, all the ambassadors, the Duc d’Angouleme, the Due d’Halluin (Schomberg), the Marechal de Chatillon, and all the great officers of the crown surrounded him, each waiting impatiently for the compliments of the others to be finished, in order to pay his own, fearing lest some one else should anticipate him with the flattering epigram he had just improvised, or the phrase of adulation he was inventing.
As for Fabert, he had retired to a corner of the tent, and seemed to have paid no particular attention to the scene. He was chatting with Montresor and the gentlemen of Monsieur, all sworn enemies of the Cardinal, because, out of the throng he avoided, he had found none but these to speak to. This conduct would have seemed extremely tactless in one less known; but although he lived in the midst of the court, he was ever ignorant of its intrigues. It was said of him that he returned from a battle he had gained, like the King’s hunting-horse, leaving the dogs to caress their master and divide the quarry, without seeking even to remember the part he had had in the triumph.
The storm, then, seemed entirely appeased, and to the violent agitations of the morning succeeded a gentle calm. A respectful murmur, varied with pleasant laughter and protestations of attachment, was all that was heard in the tent. The voice of the Cardinal arose from time to time: “The poor Queen! We shall, then, soon again see her! I never had dared to hope for such happiness while I lived!” The King listened to him with full confidence, and made no attempt to conceal his satisfaction. “It was assuredly an idea sent to him from on high,” he said; “this good Cardinal, against whom they had so incensed me, was thinking only of the union of my family. Since the birth of the Dauphin I have not tasted greater joy than at this moment. The protection of the Holy Virgin is manifested over our kingdom.”
At this moment, a captain of the guards came up and whispered in the King’s ear.
“A courier from Cologne?” said the King; “let him wait in my cabinet.”
Then, unable to restrain his impatience, “I will go! I will go!” he said, and entered alone a small, square tent attached to the larger one. In it he saw a young courier holding a black portfolio, and the curtains closed upon the King.
The Cardinal, left sole master of the court, concentrated all its homage; but it was observed that he no longer received it with his former presence of mind. He inquired frequently what time it was, and exhibited an anxiety which was not assumed; his hard, unquiet glances turned toward the smaller tent. It suddenly opened; the King appeared alone, and stopped on the threshold. He was paler than usual, and trembled in every limb; he held in his hand a large letter with five black seals.
“Gentlemen,” said he, in a loud but broken voice, “the Queen has just died at Cologne; and I perhaps am not the first to hear of it,” he added, casting a severe look toward the impassible Cardinal, “but God knows all! To horse in an hour, and attack the lines! Marechals, follow me.” And he turned his back abruptly, and reentered his cabinet with them.
The court retired after the minister, who, without giving any sign of sorrow or annoyance, went forth as gravely as he had entered, but now a victor.
There are moments in our life when we long ardently for strong excitement to drown our petty griefs—times when the soul, like the lion in the fable, wearied with the continual attacks of the gnat, earnestly desires a mightier enemy and real danger. Cinq-Mars found himself in this condition of mind, which always results from a morbid sensibility in the organic constitution and a perpetual agitation of the heart. Weary of continually turning over in his mind a combination of the events which he desired, and of those which he dreaded; weary of calculating his chances to the best of his power; of summoning to his assistance all that his education had taught him concerning the lives of illustrious men, in order to compare it with his present situation; oppressed by his regrets, his dreams, predictions, fancies, and all that imaginary world in which he had lived during his solitary journey-he breathed freely upon finding himself thrown into a real world almost as full of agitation; and the realizing of two actual dangers restored circulation to his blood, and youth to his whole being.
Since the nocturnal scene at the inn near Loudun, he had not been able to resume sufficient empire over his mind to occupy himself with anything save his cherished though sad reflections; and consumption was already threatening him, when happily he arrived at the camp of Perpignan, and happily also had the opportunity of accepting the proposition of the Abbe de Gondi—for the reader has no doubt recognized Cinq-Mars in the person of that young stranger in mourning, so careless and so melancholy, whom the duellist in the cassock invited to be his second.
He had ordered his tent to be pitched as a volunteer in the street of the camp assigned to the young noblemen who were to be presented to the King and were to serve as aides-de-camp to the Generals; he soon repaired thither, and was quickly armed, horsed, and cuirassed, according to the custom of the time, and set out alone for the Spanish bastion, the place of rendezvous. He was the first arrival, and found that a small plot of turf, hidden among the works of the besieged place, had been well chosen by the little Abbe for his homicidal purposes; for besides the probability that no one would have suspected officers of engaging in a duel immediately beneath the town which they were attacking, the body of the bastion separated them from the French camp, and would conceal them like an immense screen. It was wise to take these precautions, for at that time it cost a man his head to give himself the satisfaction of risking his body.
While waiting for his friends and his adversaries, Cinq-Mars had time to examine the southern side of Perpignan, before which he stood. He had heard that these works were not those which were to be attacked, and he tried in vain to account for the besieger’s projects. Between this southern face of the town, the mountains of Albere, and the Col du Perthus, there might have been advantageous lines of attack, and redoubts against the accessible point; but not a single soldier was stationed there. All the forces seemed directed upon the north of Perpignan, upon the most difficult side, against a brick fort called the Castillet, which surmounted the gate of Notre-Dame. He discovered that a piece of ground, apparently marshy, but in reality very solid, led up to the very foot of the Spanish bastion; that this post was guarded with true Castilian negligence, although its sole strength lay entirely in its defenders; for its battlements, almost in ruin, were furnished with four pieces of cannon of enormous calibre, embedded in the turf, and thus rendered immovable, and impossible to be directed against a troop advancing rapidly to the foot of the wall.
It was easy to see that these enormous pieces had discouraged the besiegers from attacking this point, and had kept the besieged from any idea of addition to its means of defence. Thus, on the one side, the vedettes and advanced posts were at a distance, and on the other, the sentinels were few and ill supported. A young Spaniard, carrying a long gun, with its rest suspended at his side and the burning match in his right hand, who was walking with nonchalance upon the rampart, stopped to look at Cinq-Mars, who was riding about the ditches and moats.
“Senor caballero,” he cried, “are you going to take the bastion by yourself on horseback, like Don Quixote—Quixada de la Mancha?”
At the same time he detached from his side the iron rest, planted it in the ground, and supported upon it the barrel of his gun in order to take aim, when a grave and older Spaniard, enveloped in a dirty brown cloak, said to him in his own tongue:
“‘Ambrosio de demonio’, do you not know that it is forbidden to throw away powder uselessly, before sallies or attacks are made, merely to have the pleasure of killing a boy not worth your match? It was in this very place that Charles the Fifth threw the sleeping sentinel into the ditch and drowned him. Do your duty, or I shall follow his example.”
Ambrosio replaced the gun upon his shoulder, the rest at his side, and continued his walk upon the rampart.
Cinq-Mars had been little alarmed at this menacing gesture, contenting himself with tightening the reins of his horse and bringing the spurs close to his sides, knowing that with a single leap of the nimble animal he should be carried behind the wall of a hut which stood near by, and should thus be sheltered from the Spanish fusil before the operation of the fork and match could be completed. He knew, too, that a tacit convention between the two armies prohibited marksmen from firing upon the sentinels; each party would have regarded it as assassination. The soldier who had thus prepared to attack Cinq-Mars must have been ignorant of this understanding. Young D’Effiat, therefore, made no visible movement; and when the sentinel had resumed his walk upon the rampart, he again betook himself to his ride upon the turf, and presently saw five cavaliers directing their course toward him. The first two, who came on at full gallop, did not salute him, but, stopping close to him, leaped to the ground, and he found himself in the arms of the Counsellor de Thou, who embraced him tenderly, while the little Abbe de Gondi, laughing heartily, cried:
“Behold another Orestes recovering his Pylades, and at the moment of immolating a rascal who is not of the family of the King of kings, I assure you.”
“What! is it you, my dear Cinq-Mars?” cried De Thou; “and I knew not of your arrival in the camp! Yes, it is indeed you; I recognize you, although you are very pale. Have you been ill, my dear friend? I have often written to you; for my boyish friendship has always remained in my heart.”
“And I,” answered Henri d’Effiat, “I have been very culpable toward you; but I will relate to you all the causes of my neglect. I can speak of them, but I was ashamed to write them. But how good you are! Your friendship has never relaxed.”
“I knew you too well,” replied De Thou; “I knew that there could be no real coldness between us, and that my soul had its echo in yours.”
With these words they embraced once more, their eyes moist with those sweet tears which so seldom flow in one’s life, but with which it seems, nevertheless, the heart is always charged, so much relief do they give in flowing.
This moment was short; and during these few words, Gondi had been pulling them by their cloaks, saying:
“To horse! to horse, gentlemen! Pardieu! you will have time enough to embrace, if you are so affectionate; but do not delay. Let our first thought be to have done with our good friends who will soon arrive. We are in a fine position, with those three villains there before us, the archers close by, and the Spaniards up yonder! We shall be under three fires.”
He was still speaking, when De Launay, finding himself at about sixty paces from his opponents, with his seconds, who were chosen from his own friends rather than from among the partisans of the Cardinal, put his horse to a canter, advanced gracefully toward his young adversaries, and gravely saluted them.
“Gentlemen, I think that we shall do well to select our men, and to take the field; for there is talk of attacking the lines, and I must be at my post.”
“We are ready, Monsieur,” said Cinq-Mars; “and as for selecting opponents, I shall be very glad to become yours, for I have not forgotten the Marechal de Bassompierre and the wood of Chaumont. You know my opinion concerning your insolent visit to my mother.”
“You are very young, Monsieur. In regard to Madame, your mother, I fulfilled the duties of a man of the world; toward the Marechal, those of a captain of the guard; here, those of a gentleman toward Monsieur l’Abbe, who has challenged me; afterward I shall have that honor with you.”
“If I permit you,” said the Abbe, who was already on horseback.
They took sixty paces of ground—all that was afforded them by the extent of the meadow that enclosed them. The Abbe de Gondi was stationed between De Thou and his friend, who sat nearest the ramparts, upon which two Spanish officers and a score of soldiers stood, as in a balcony, to witness this duel of six persons—a spectacle common enough to them. They showed the same signs of joy as at their bullfights, and laughed with that savage and bitter laugh which their temperament derives from their admixture of Arab blood.
At a sign from Gondi, the six horses set off at full gallop, and met, without coming in contact, in the middle of the arena; at that instant, six pistol-shots were heard almost together, and the smoke covered the combatants.
When it dispersed, of the six cavaliers and six horses but three men and three animals were on their legs. Cinq-Mars was on horseback, giving his hand to his adversary, as calm as himself; at the other end of the field, De Thou stood by his opponent, whose horse he had killed, and whom he was helping to rise. As for Gondi and De Launay, neither was to be seen. Cinq-Mars, looking about for them anxiously, perceived the Abbe’s horse, which, caracoling and curvetting, was dragging after him the future cardinal, whose foot was caught in the stirrup, and who was swearing as if he had never studied anything but the language of the camp. His nose and hands were stained and bloody with his fall and with his efforts to seize the grass; and he was regarding with considerable dissatisfaction his horse, which in spite of himself he irritated with his spurs, making its way to the trench, filled with water, which surrounded the bastion, when, happily, Cinq-Mars, passing between the edge of the swamp and the animal, seized its bridle and stopped its career.
“Well, my dear Abbe, I see that no great harm has come to you, for you speak with decided energy.”
“Corbleu!” cried Gondi, wiping the dust out of his eyes, “to fire a pistol in the face of that giant I had to lean forward and rise in my stirrups, and thus I lost my balance; but I fancy that he is down, too.”
“You are right, sir,” said De Thou, coming up; “there is his horse swimming in the ditch with its master, whose brains are blown out. We must think now of escaping.”
“Escaping! That, gentlemen, will be rather difficult,” said the adversary of Cinq-Mars, approaching. “Hark! there is the cannon-shot, the signal for the attack. I did not expect it would have been given so soon. If we return we shall meet the Swiss and the foot-soldiers, who are marching in this direction.”
“Monsieur de Fontrailles says well,” said De Thou; “but if we do not return, here are these Spaniards, who are running to arms, and whose balls we shall presently have whistling about our heads.”
“Well, let us hold a council,” said Gondi; “summon Monsieur de Montresor, who is uselessly occupied in searching for the body of poor De Launay. You have not wounded him, Monsieur De Thou?”
“No, Monsieur l’Abbe; not every one has so good an aim as you,” said Montresor, bitterly, limping from his fall. “We shall not have time to continue with the sword.”
“As to continuing, I will not consent to it, gentlemen,” said Fontrailles; “Monsieur de Cinq-Mars has behaved too nobly toward me. My pistol went off too soon, and his was at my very cheek—I feel the coldness of it now—but he had the generosity to withdraw it and fire in the air. I shall not forget it; and I am his in life and in death.”
“We must think of other things now,” interrupted Cinq-Mars; “a ball has just whistled past my ear. The attack has begun on all sides; and we are surrounded by friends and by enemies.”
In fact, the cannonading was general; the citadel, the town, and the army were covered with smoke. The bastion before them as yet was unassailed, and its guards seemed less eager to defend it than to observe the fate of the other fortifications.
“I believe that the enemy has made a sally,” said Montresor, “for the smoke has cleared from the plain, and I see masses of cavalry charging under the protection of the battery.”
“Gentlemen,” said Cinq-Mars, who had not ceased to observe the walls, “there is a very decided part which we could take, an important share in this—we might enter this ill-guarded bastion.”
“An excellent idea, Monsieur,” said Fontrailles; “but we are but five against at least thirty, and are in plain sight and easily counted.”
“Faith, the idea is not bad,” said Gondi; “it is better to be shot up there than hanged down here, as we shall be if we are found, for De Launay must be already missed by his company, and all the court knows of our quarrel.”
“Parbleu! gentlemen,” said Montresor, “help is coming to us.”
A numerous troop of horse, in great disorder, advanced toward them at full gallop; their red uniform made them visible from afar. It seemed to be their intention to halt on the very ground on which were our embarrassed duellists, for hardly had the first cavalier reached it when cries of “Halt!” were repeated and prolonged by the voices of the chiefs who were mingled with their cavaliers.
“Let us go to them; these are the men-at-arms of the King’s guard,” said Fontrailles. “I recognize them by their black cockades. I see also many of the light-horse with them; let us mingle in the disorder, for I fancy they are ‘ramenes’.”
This is a polite phrase signifying in military language “put to rout.” All five advanced toward the noisy and animated troops, and found that this conjecture was right. But instead of the consternation which one might expect in such a case, they found nothing but a youthful and rattling gayety, and heard only bursts of laughter from the two companies.
“Ah, pardieu! Cahuzac,” said one, “your horse runs better than mine; I suppose you have exercised it in the King’s hunts!”
“Ah, I see, ‘twas that we might be the sooner rallied that you arrived here first,” answered the other.
“I think the Marquis de Coislin must be mad, to make four hundred of us charge eight Spanish regiments.”
“Ha! ha! Locmaria, your plume is a fine ornament; it looks like a weeping willow. If we follow that, it will be to our burial.”
“Gentlemen, I said to you before,” angrily replied the young officer, “that I was sure that Capuchin Joseph, who meddles in everything, was mistaken in telling us to charge, upon the part of the Cardinal. But would you have been satisfied if those who have the honor of commanding you had refused to charge?”
“No, no, no!” answered all the young men, at the same time forming themselves quickly into ranks.
“I said,” interposed the old Marquis de Coislin, who, despite his white head, had all the fire of youth in his eyes, “that if you were commanded to mount to the assault on horseback, you would do it.”
“Bravo! bravo!” cried all the men-at-arms, clapping their hands.
“Well, Monsieur le Marquis,” said Cinq-Mars, approaching, “here is an opportunity to execute what you have promised. I am only a volunteer; but an instant ago these gentlemen and I examined this bastion, and I believe that it is possible to take it.”
“Monsieur, we must first examine the ditch to see—”
At this moment a ball from the rampart of which they were speaking struck in the head the horse of the old captain, laying it low.
“Locmaria, De Mouy, take the command, and to the assault!” cried the two noble companies, believing their leader dead.
“Stop a moment, gentlemen,” said old Coislin, rising, “I will lead you, if you please. Guide us, Monsieur volunteer, for the Spaniards invite us to this ball, and we must reply politely.”
Hardly had the old man mounted another horse, which one of his men brought him, and drawn his sword, when, without awaiting his order, all these ardent youths, preceded by Cinq-Mars and his friends, whose horses were urged on by the squadrons behind, had thrown themselves into the morass, wherein, to their great astonishment and to that of the Spaniards, who had counted too much upon its depth, the horses were in the water only up to their hams; and in spite of a discharge of grape-shot from the two largest pieces, all reached pell-mell a strip of land at the foot of the half-ruined ramparts. In the ardor of the rush, Cinq-Mars and Fontrailles, with the young Locmaria, forced their horses upon the rampart itself; but a brisk fusillade killed the three animals, which rolled over their masters.
“Dismount all, gentlemen!” cried old Coislin; “forward with pistol and sword! Abandon your horses!”
All obeyed instantly, and threw themselves in a mass upon the breach.
Meantime, De Thou, whose coolness never quitted him any more than his friendship, had not lost sight of the young Henri, and had received him in his arms when his horse fell. He helped him to rise, restored to him his sword, which he had dropped, and said to him, with the greatest calmness, notwithstanding the balls which rained on all sides:
“My friend, do I not appear very ridiculous amid all this skirmish, in my costume of Counsellor in Parliament?”
“Parbleu!” said Montresor, advancing, “here’s the Abbe, who quite justifies you.”
And, in fact, little Gondi, pushing on among the light horsemen, was shouting, at the top of his voice: “Three duels and an assault. I hope to get rid of my cassock at last!”
Saying this, he cut and thrust at a tall Spaniard.
The defence was not long. The Castilian soldiers were no match for the French officers, and not one of them had time or courage to recharge his carbine.
“Gentlemen, we will relate this to our mistresses in Paris,” said Locmaria, throwing his hat into the air; and Cinq-Mars, De Thou, Coislin, De Mouy, Londigny, officers of the red companies, and all the young noblemen, with swords in their right hands and pistols in their left, dashing, pushing, and doing each other by their eagerness as much harm as they did the enemy, finally rushed upon the platform of the bastion, as water poured from a vase, of which the opening is too small, leaps out in interrupted gushes.
Disdaining to occupy themselves with the vanquished soldiers, who cast themselves at their feet, they left them to look about the fort, without even disarming them, and began to examine their conquest, like schoolboys in vacation, laughing with all their hearts, as if they were at a pleasure-party.
A Spanish officer, enveloped in his brown cloak, watched them with a sombre air.
“What demons are these, Ambrosio?” said he to a soldier. “I never have met with any such before in France. If Louis XIII has an entire army thus composed, it is very good of him not to conquer all Europe.”
“Oh, I do not believe they are very numerous; they must be some poor adventurers, who have nothing to lose and all to gain by pillage.”
“You are right,” said the officer; “I will try to persuade one of them to let me escape.”
And slowly approaching, he accosted a young light-horseman, of about eighteen, who was sitting apart from his comrades upon the parapet. He had the pink-and-white complexion of a young girl; his delicate hand held an embroidered handkerchief, with which he wiped his forehead and his golden locks He was consulting a large, round watch set with rubies, suspended from his girdle by a knot of ribbons.
The astonished Spaniard paused. Had he not seen this youth overthrow his soldiers, he would not have believed him capable of anything beyond singing a romance, reclined upon a couch. But, filled with the suggestion of Ambrosio, he thought that he might have stolen these objects of luxury in the pillage of the apartments of a woman; so, going abruptly up to him, he said:
“Hombre! I am an officer; will you restore me to liberty, that I may once more see my country?”
The young Frenchman looked at him with the gentle expression of his age, and, thinking of his own family, he said:
“Monsieur, I will present you to the Marquis de Coislin, who will, I doubt not, grant your request; is your family of Castile or of Aragon?”
“Your Coislin will ask the permission of somebody else, and will make me wait a year. I will give you four thousand ducats if you will let me escape.”
That gentle face, those girlish features, became infused with the purple of fury; those blue eyes shot forth lightning; and, exclaiming, “Money to me! away, fool!” the young man gave the Spaniard a ringing box on the ear. The latter, without hesitating, drew a long poniard from his breast, and, seizing the arm of the Frenchman, thought to plunge it easily into his heart; but, nimble and vigorous, the youth caught him by the right arm, and, lifting it with force above his head, sent it back with the weapon it held upon the head of the Spaniard, who was furious with rage.
“Eh! eh! Softly, Olivier!” cried his comrades, running from all directions; “there are Spaniards enough on the ground already.”
And they disarmed the hostile officer.
“What shall we do with this lunatic?” said one.
“I should not like to have him for my valet-dechambre,” returned another.
“He deserves to be hanged,” said a third; “but, faith, gentlemen, we don’t know how to hang. Let us send him to that battalion of Swiss which is now passing across the plain.”
And the calm and sombre Spaniard, enveloping himself anew in his cloak, began the march of his own accord, followed by Ambrosio, to join the battalion, pushed by the shoulders and urged on by five or six of these young madcaps.
Meantime, the first troop of the besiegers, astonished at their success, had followed it out to the end; Cinq-Mars, so advised by the aged Coislin, had made with him the circuit of the bastion, and found to their vexation that it was completely separated from the city, and that they could not follow up their advantage. They, therefore, returned slowly to the platform, talking by the way, to rejoin De Thou and the Abbe de Gondi, whom they found laughing with the young light-horsemen.
“We have Religion and justice with us, gentlemen; we could not fail to triumph.”
“No doubt, for they fought as hard as we.”
There was silence at the approach of Cinq-Mars, and they remained for an instant whispering and asking his name; then all surrounded him, and took his hand with delight.
“Gentlemen, you are right,” said their old captain; “he is, as our fathers used to say, the best doer of the day. He is a volunteer, who is to be presented today to the King by the Cardinal.”
“By the Cardinal! We will present him ourselves. Ah, do not let him be a Cardinalist; he is too good a fellow for that!” exclaimed all the young men, with vivacity.
“Monsieur, I will undertake to disgust you with him,” said Olivier d’Entraigues, approaching Cinq-Mars, “for I have been his page. Rather serve in the red companies; come, you will have good comrades there.”
The old Marquis saved Cinq-Mars the embarrassment of replying, by ordering the trumpets to sound and rally his brilliant companies. The cannon was no longer heard, and a soldier announced that the King and the Cardinal were traversing the lines to examine the results of the day. He made all the horses pass through the breach, which was tolerably wide, and ranged the two companies of cavalry in battle array, upon a spot where it seemed impossible that any but infantry could penetrate.