Behind curtains of velvet with gold fleurs-de-lis, in a bed of carved oak, a lady, half naked, leaning on her arm, stared at him with eyes wide open with terror.
La Mole sprang toward her.
"Madame," cried he, "they are killing, they are butchering my brothers—they seek to kill me, to butcher me also! Ah! you are the queen—save me!"
And he threw himself at her feet, leaving on the carpet a large track of blood.
At the sight of a man pale, exhausted, and bleeding at her feet, the Queen of Navarre started up in terror, hid her face in her hands, and called for help.
"Madame," cried La Mole, endeavoring to rise, "in the name of Heaven do not call, for if you are heard I am lost! Assassins are in my track—they are rushing up the stairs behind me. I hear them—there they are! there they are!"
"Help!" cried the queen, beside herself, "help!"
"Ah!" said La Mole, despairingly, "you have killed me. To die by so sweet a voice, so fair a hand! I did not think it possible."
At the same time the door flew open, and a troop of men, their faces covered with blood and blackened with powder, their swords drawn, and their pikes and arquebuses levelled, rushed into the apartment.
Coconnas was at their head—his red hair bristling, his pale blue eyes extraordinarily dilated, his cheek cut open by La Mole's sword, which had ploughed its bloody furrow there. Thus disfigured, the Piedmontese was terrible to behold.
"By Heaven!" he cried, "there he is! there he is! Ah! this time we have him at last!"
La Mole looked round him for a weapon, but in vain; he glanced at the queen, and saw the deepest pity depicted in her face; then he felt that she alone could save him; he threw his arms round her.
Coconnas advanced, and with the point of his long rapier again wounded his enemy's shoulder, and the crimson drops of warm blood stained the white and perfumed sheets of Marguerite's couch.
Marguerite saw the blood flow; she felt the shudder that ran through La Mole's frame; she threw herself with him into the recess between the bed and the wall. It was time, for La Mole, whose strength was exhausted, was incapable of flight or resistance; he leaned his pallid head on Marguerite's shoulder, and his hand convulsively seized and tore the thin embroidered cambric which enveloped Marguerite's body in a billow of gauze.
"Oh, madame," murmured he, in a dying voice, "save me."
He could say no more. A mist like the darkness of death came over his eyes, his head sunk back, his arms fell at his side, his legs gave way, and he sank on the floor, bathed in his blood, and dragging the queen with him.
At this moment Coconnas, excited by the shouts, intoxicated by the sight of blood, and exasperated by the long chase, advanced toward the recess; in another instant his sword would have pierced La Mole's heart, and perhaps Marguerite's also.
At the sight of the bare steel, and even more moved at such brutal insolence, the daughter of kings drew herself up to her full stature and uttered such a shriek of terror, indignation, and rage that the Piedmontese stood petrified by an unknown feeling; and yet undoubtedly had this scene been prolonged and no other actor taken part in it, his feeling would have vanished like a morning snow under an April sun. But suddenly a secret door in the wall opened, and a pale young man of sixteen or seventeen, dressed in black and with his hair in disorder, rushed in.
"Wait, sister!" he cried; "here I am, here I am!"
"François! François!" cried Marguerite; "help! help!"
"The Duc d'Alençon!" murmured La Hurière, grounding his arquebuse.
"By Heaven! a son of France!" growled Coconnas, drawing back.
The duke glanced round him. He saw Marguerite, dishevelled, more lovely than ever, leaning against the wall, surrounded by men, fury in their eyes, sweat on their foreheads, and foam in their mouths.
"Wretches!" cried he.
"Save me, brother!" shrieked Marguerite. "They are going to kill me!"
A flame flashed across the duke's pallid face.
He was unarmed, but sustained, no doubt, by the consciousness of his rank, he advanced with clinched fists toward Coconnas and his companions, who retreated, terrified at the lightning darting from his eyes.
"Ha! and will you murder a son of France, too?" cried the duke. Then, as they recoiled,—"Ho, there! captain of the guard! Hang every one of these ruffians!"
More alarmed at the sight of this weaponless young man than he would have been at the aspect of a regiment of reiters or lansquenets, Coconnas had already reached the door. La Hurière was leaping downstairs like a deer, and the soldiers were jostling and pushing one another in the vestibule in their endeavors to escape, finding the door far too small for their great desire to be outside it. Meantime Marguerite had instinctively thrown the damask coverlid of her bed over La Mole, and withdrawn from him.
When the last murderer had departed the Duc d'Alençon came back:
"Sister," he cried, seeing Marguerite all dabbled with blood, "are you wounded?" And he sprang toward his sister with a solicitude which would have done credit to his affection if he had not been charged with harboring too deep an affection for a brother to entertain for a sister.
"No," said she; "I think not, or, if so, very slightly."
"But this blood," said the duke, running his trembling hands all over Marguerite's body. "Where does it come from?"
"I know not," replied she; "one of those wretches laid his hand on me, and perhaps he was wounded."
"What!" cried the duke, "he dared to touch my sister? Oh, if you had only pointed him out to me, if you had told me which one it was, if I knew where to find him"—
"Hush!" said Marguerite.
"And why?" asked François.
"Because if you were seen at this time of night in my room"—
"Can't a brother visit his sister, Marguerite?"
The queen gave the duke a look so keen and yet so threatening that the young man drew back.
"Yes, yes, Marguerite," said he, "you are right, I will go to my room; but you cannot remain alone this dreadful night. Shall I call Gillonne?"
"No, no! leave me, François—leave me. Go by the way you came!"
The young prince obeyed; and hardly had he disappeared when Marguerite, hearing a sigh from behind her bed, hurriedly bolted the door of the secret passage, and then hastening to the other entrance closed it in the same way, just as a troop of archers and soldiers like a hurricane dashed by in hot chase of some other Huguenot residents in the Louvre.
After glancing round to assure herself that she was really alone, she again went to the "ruelle" of her bed, lifted the damask covering which had concealed La Mole from the Duc d'Alençon, and drawing the apparently lifeless body, by great exertion, into the middle of the room, and finding that the victim still breathed, sat down, placed his head on her knees, and sprinkled his face with water.
Then as the water cleared away the mask of blood, dust, and gunpowder which had covered his face, Marguerite recognized the handsome cavalier who, full of life and hope, had three or four hours before come to ask her to look out for his interests with her protection and that of the King of Navarre; and had gone away, dazzled by her beauty, leaving her also impressed by his.
Marguerite uttered a cry of terror, for now what she felt for the wounded man was more than mere pity—it was interest. He was no longer a mere stranger: he was almost an acquaintance. By her care La Mole's fine features soon reappeared, free from stain, but pale and distorted by pain. A shudder ran through her whole frame as she tremblingly placed her hand on his heart. It was still beating. Then she took a smelling-bottle from the table, and applied it to his nostrils.
La Mole opened his eyes.
"Oh!mon Dieu!" murmured he; "where am I?"
"Saved!" said Marguerite. "Reassure yourself—you are saved."
La Mole turned his eyes on the queen, gazed earnestly for a moment, and murmured,
"Oh, how beautiful you are!"
Then as if the vision were too much for him, he closed his lids and drew a sigh.
Marguerite started. He had become still paler than before, if that were possible, and for an instant that sigh was his last.
"Oh, my God! my God!" she ejaculated, "have pity on him!"
At this moment a violent knocking was heard at the door. Marguerite half raised herself, still supporting La Mole.
"Who is there?" she cried.
"Madame, it is I—it is I," replied a woman's voice, "the Duchesse de Nevers."
"Henriette!" cried Marguerite. "There is no danger; it is a friend of mine! Do you hear, sir?"
La Mole with some effort got up on one knee.
"Try to support yourself while I go and open the door," said the queen.
La Mole rested his hand on the floor and succeeded in holding himself upright.
Marguerite took one step toward the door, but suddenly stopped, shivering with terror.
"Ah, you are not alone!" she said, hearing the clash of arms outside.
"No, I have twelve guards which my brother-in-law, Monsieur de Guise, assigned me."
"Monsieur de Guise!" murmured La Mole. "The assassin—the assassin!"
"Silence!" said Marguerite. "Not a word!"
And she looked round to see where she could conceal the wounded man.
"A sword! a dagger!" muttered La Mole.
"To defend yourself—useless! Did you not hear? There are twelve of them, and you are alone."
"Not to defend myself, but that I may not fall alive into their hands."
"No, no!" said Marguerite. "No, I will save you. Ah! this cabinet! Come! come."
La Mole made an effort, and, supported by Marguerite, dragged himself to the cabinet. Marguerite locked the door upon him, and hid the key in her alms-purse.
"Not a cry, not a groan, not a sigh," whispered she, through the panelling, "and you are saved."
Then hastily throwing a night-robe over her shoulders, she opened the door for her friend, who tenderly embraced her.
"Ah!" cried Madame Nevers, "then nothing has happened to you, madame!"
"No, nothing at all," replied Marguerite, wrapping the mantle still more closely round her to conceal the spots of blood on her peignoir.
"’Tis well. However, as Monsieur de Guise has given me twelve of his guards to escort me to his hôtel, and as I do not need such a large company, I am going to leave six with your majesty. Six of the duke's guards are worth a regiment of the King's to-night."
Marguerite dared not refuse; she placed the soldiers in the corridor, and embraced the duchess, who then returned to the Hôtel de Guise, where she resided in her husband's absence.
Coconnas had not fled, he had retreated; La Hurière had not fled, he had flown. The one had disappeared like a tiger, the other like a wolf.
The consequence was that La Hurière had already reached the Place Saint Germain l'Auxerrois when Coconnas was only just leaving the Louvre.
La Hurière, finding himself alone with his arquebuse, while around him men were running, bullets were whistling, and bodies were falling from windows,—some whole, others dismembered,—began to be afraid and was prudently thinking of returning to his tavern, but as he turned into the Rue de l'Arbre Sec from the Rue d'Averon he fell in with a troop of Swiss and light cavalry: it was the one commanded by Maurevel.
"Well," cried Maurevel, who had christened himself with the nickname of King's Killer, "have you finished so soon? Are you going back to your tavern, worthy landlord? And what the devil have you done with our Piedmontese gentleman? No misfortune has happened to him? That would be a shame, for he started out well."
"No, I think not," replied La Hurière; "I hope he will rejoin us!"
"Where have you been?"
"At the Louvre, and I must say we were very rudely treated there."
"By whom?"
"Monsieur le Duc d'Alençon. Isn't he interested in this affair?"
"Monseigneur le Duc d'Alençon is not interested in anything which does not concern himself personally. Propose to treat his two older brothers as Huguenots and he would be in it—provided only that the work should be done without compromising him. But won't you go with these worthy fellows, Maître La Hurière?"
"And where are they going?"
"Oh,mon Dieu! Rue Montorguen; there is a Huguenot minister there whom I know; he has a wife and six children. These heretics are enormous breeders; it will be interesting."
"And where are you going?"
"Oh, I have a little private business."
"Say, there! don't go off without me," said a voice which made Maurevel start, "you know all the good places and I want to have my share."
"Ah! it is our Piedmontese," said Maurevel.
"Yes, it is Monsieur de Coconnas," said La Hurière; "I thought you were following me."
"Hang it! you made off too swiftly for that; and besides I turned a little to one side so as to fling into the river a frightful child who was screaming, 'Down with the Papists! Long live the admiral!' Unfortunately, I believe the little rascal knew how to swim. These miserable heretics must be flung into the water like cats before their eyes are opened if they are to be drowned at all."
"Ah! you say you are just from the Louvre; so your Huguenot took refuge there, did he?" asked Maurevel.
"Mon Dieu!yes."
"I gave him a pistol-shot at the moment when he was picking up his sword in the admiral's court-yard, but I somehow or other missed him."
"Well, I did not miss him," added Coconnas; "I gave him such a thrust in the back that my sword was wet five inches up the blade. Besides, I saw him fall into the arms of Madame Marguerite, a pretty woman, by Heaven! yet I confess I should not be sorry to hear he was really dead; the vagabond is infernally spiteful, and capable of bearing me a grudge all his life. But didn't you say you were bound somewhere?"
"Why, do you mean to go with me?"
"I do not like standing still, by Heaven! I have killed only three or four as yet, and when I get cold my shoulder pains me. Forward! forward!"
"Captain," said Maurevel to the commander of the troop, "give me three men, and go and despatch your parson with the rest."
Three Swiss stepped forward and joined Maurevel. Nevertheless, the two companies proceeded side by side till they reached the top of the Rue Tirechappe; there the light horse and the Swiss took the Rue de la Tonnellerie, while Maurevel, Coconnas, La Hurière, and his three men were proceeding down the Rue Trousse Vache and entering the Rue Sainte Avoye. "Where the devil are you taking us?" asked Coconnas, who was beginning to be bored by this long march from which he could see no results.
"I am taking you on an expedition at once brilliant and useful. Next to the admiral, next to Téligny, next to the Huguenot princes, I could offer you nothing better. So have patience, our business calls us to the Rue du Chaume, and we shall be there in a second."
"Tell me," said Coconnas, "is not the Rue du Chaume near the Temple?"
"Yes, why?"
"Because an old creditor of our family lives there, one Lambert Mercandon, to whom my father wished me to hand over a hundred rose nobles I have in my pocket for that purpose."
"Well," replied Maurevel, "this is a good opportunity for paying it. This is the day for settling old accounts. Is your Mercandon a Huguenot?"
"Oho, I understand!" said Coconnas; "he must be"—
"Hush! here we are."
"What is that large hôtel, with its entrance in the street?"
"The Hôtel de Guise."
"Truly," returned Coconnas, "I should not have failed to come here, as I am under the patronage of the great Henry. But, by Heaven! all is so very quiet in this quarter, we scarcely hear any firing, and we might fancy ourselves in the country. The devil fetch me but every one is asleep!"
And indeed the Hôtel de Guise seemed as quiet as in ordinary times. All the windows were closed, and a solitary light was burning behind the blind of the principal window over the entrance which had attracted Coconnas's attention as soon as they entered the street.
Just beyond the Hôtel de Guise, in other words, at the corner of the Rue du Petit Chantier and the Rue des Quatre Fils, Maurevel halted.
"Here is the house of the man we want," said he.
"Of the man you want—that is to say"—observed La Hurière.
"Since you are with me we want him."
"What! that house which seems so sound asleep"—
"Exactly! La Hurière, now go and make practical use of the plausible face which heaven, by some blunder, gave you, and knock at that house. Hand your arquebuse to M. de Coconnas, who has been ogling it this last half hour. If you are admitted, you must ask to speak to Seigneur de Mouy."
"Aha!" exclaimed Coconnas, "now I understand—you also have a creditor in the quarter of the Temple, it would seem."
"Exactly so!" responded Maurevel. "You will go up to him pretending to be a Huguenot, and inform De Mouy of all that has taken place; he is brave, and will come down."
"And once down?" asked La Hurière.
"Once down, I will beg of him to cross swords with me."
"On my soul, ’tis a fine gentleman's," said Coconnas, "and I propose to do exactly the same thing with Lambert Mercandon; and if he is too old to respond, I will try it with one of his sons or nephews."
La Hurière, without making any reply, went and knocked at the door, and the sounds echoing in the silence of the night caused the doors of the Hôtel de Guise to open, and several heads to make their appearance from out them; it was evident that the hôtel was quiet after the manner of citadels, that is to say, because it was filled with soldiers.
The heads were almost instantly withdrawn, as doubtless an inkling of the matter in hand was divined.
"Does your Monsieur de Mouy live here?" inquired Coconnas, pointing to the house at which La Hurière was still knocking.
"No, but his mistress does."
"By Heaven! how gallant you are, to give him an occasion to draw sword in the presence of his lady-love! We shall be the judges of the field. However, I should like very well to fight myself—my shoulder burns."
"And your face," added Maurevel, "is considerably damaged."
Coconnas uttered a kind of growl.
"By Heaven!" he said, "I hope he is dead; if I thought not, I would return to the Louvre and finish him."
La Hurière still kept knocking.
Soon the window on the first floor opened, and a man appeared in the balcony, in a nightcap and drawers, and unarmed.
"Who's there?" cried he.
Maurevel made a sign to the Swiss, who retreated into a corner, whilst Coconnas stood close against the wall.
"Ah! Monsieur de Mouy!" said the innkeeper, in his blandest tones, "is that you?"
"Yes; what then?"
"It is he!" said Maurevel, with a thrill of joy.
"Why, sir," continued La Hurière, "do you not know what is going on? They are murdering the admiral, and massacring all of our religion. Hasten to their assistance; come!"
"Ah!" exclaimed De Mouy, "I feared something was plotted for this night. I ought not to have deserted my worthy comrades. I will come, my friend,—wait for me."
And without closing the window, through which a frightened woman could be heard uttering lamentations and tender entreaties, Monsieur de Mouy got his doublet, his mantle, and his weapons.
"He is coming down! He is coming down!" muttered Maurevel, pale with joy. "Attention, the rest of you!" he whispered to the Swiss.
Then taking the arquebuse from Coconnas he blew on the tinder to make sure that it was still alight.
"Here, La Hurière," he added, addressing the innkeeper, who had rejoined the main body of the company, "here, take your arquebuse!"
"By Heaven!" exclaimed Coconnas, "the moon is coming out of the clouds to witness this beautiful fight. I would give a great deal if Lambert Mercandon were here, to serve as Monsieur de Mouy's second."
"Wait, wait!" said Maurevel; "Monsieur de Mouy alone is equal to a dozen men, and it is likely that we six shall have enough to do to despatch him. Forward, my men!" continued Maurevel, making a sign to the Swiss to stand by the door, in order to strike De Mouy as he came forth.
"Oho!" said Coconnas, as he watched these arrangements; "it appears that this will not come off quite as I expected."
Already the noise made by De Mouy in withdrawing the bar was heard. The Swiss had left their hiding-place to arrange themselves near the door, Maurevel and La Hurière were going forward on tiptoe, and Coconnas with a dying gleam of gentlemanly feeling was standing where he was, when the young woman who had been for the moment utterly forgotten suddenly appeared on the balcony and uttered a terrible shriek at the sight of the Swiss, Maurevel, and La Hurière.
De Mouy, who had already half opened the door, paused.
"Come back! come back!" cried the young woman. "I see swords glitter, and the match of an arquebuse—there is treachery!"
"Oho!" said the young man; "let us see, then, what all this means."
And he closed the door, replaced the bar, and went upstairs again.
Maurevel's order of battle was changed as soon as he saw that De Mouy was not going to come out. The Swiss went and posted themselves at the other corner of the street, and La Hurière, with his arquebuse in his hand, waited till the enemy reappeared at the window.
He did not wait long. De Mouy came forward holding before him two pistols of such respectable length that La Hurière, who was already aiming, suddenly reflected that the Huguenot's bullets had no farther to fly in reaching the street from the balcony than his had in reaching the balcony.
"Assuredly," said he to himself, "I may kill this gentleman, but likewise this gentleman may kill me in the same way."
Now as Maître La Hurière, an innkeeper by profession, was only accidentally a soldier, this reflection determined him to retreat and seek shelter in the corner of the Rue de Braque, far enough away to cause him some difficulty in finding with a certain certainty, especially at night, the line which a bullet from his arquebuse would take in reaching De Mouy.
De Mouy cast a glance around him, and advanced cautiously like a man preparing to fight a duel; but seeing nothing, he exclaimed:
"Why, it appears, my worthy informant, that you have forgotten your arquebuse at my door! Here I am. What do you want with me?"
"Aha!" said Coconnas to himself; "he is certainly a brave fellow!"
"Well," continued De Mouy, "friends or enemies, whichever you are, do you not see I am waiting?"
La Hurière kept silence, Maurevel made no reply, and the three Swiss remained in covert.
Coconnas waited an instant; then, seeing that no one took part in the conversation begun by La Hurière and continued by De Mouy, he left his station, and advancing into the middle of the street, took off his hat and said:
"Sir, we are not here for an assassination, as you seem to suppose, but for a duel. I am here with one of your enemies, who was desirous of meeting you to end gallantly an old controversy. Eh, by Heaven! come forward, Monsieur de Maurevel, instead of turning your back. The gentleman accepts."
"Maurevel!" cried De Mouy; "Maurevel, the assassin of my father! Maurevel, the king's assassin! Ah, by Heaven! Yes, I accept."
And taking aim at Maurevel, who was about to knock at the Hôtel de Guise to request a reinforcement, he sent a bullet through his hat.
At the noise of the report and Maurevel's shouts, the guard which had escorted the Duchesse de Nevers came out, accompanied by three or four gentlemen, followed by their pages, and approached the house of young De Mouy's mistress.
A second pistol-shot, fired into the midst of the troop, killed the soldier next to Maurevel; after which De Mouy, finding himself weaponless, or at least with useless weapons, for his pistols had been fired and his adversaries were beyond the reach of his sword, took shelter behind the balcony gallery.
Meantime here and there windows began to be thrown open in the neighborhood, and according to the pacific or bellicose dispositions of their inhabitants, were barricaded or bristled with muskets and arquebuses.
"Help! my worthy Mercandon," shouted De Mouy, beckoning to an elderly man who, from a window which had just been thrown open in front of the Hôtel de Guise, was trying to make out the cause of the confusion.
"Is it you who call, Sire de Mouy?" cried the old man: "are they attacking you?"
"Me—you—all the Protestants; and wait—there is the proof!"
That moment De Mouy had seen La Hurière aim his arquebuse at him; it was fired; but the young man had time to stoop, and the ball broke a window above his head.
"Mercandon!" exclaimed Coconnas, who, in his delight at sight of this fray, had forgotten his creditor, but was reminded of him by De Mouy's apostrophe; "Mercandon, Rue du Chaume—that is it! Ah, he lives there! Good! Each of us will settle accounts with our man."
And, while the people from the Hôtel de Guise were breaking in the doors of De Mouy's house, and Maurevel, with a torch in his hand, was trying to set it on fire—while now that the doors were once broken, there was a fearful struggle with a single antagonist who at each rapier-thrust brought down his foe—Coconnas tried, by the help of a paving-stone, to break in Mercandon's door, and the latter, unmoved by this solitary effort, was doing his best with his arquebuse out of his window.
And now all this dark and deserted quarter was lighted up, as if by open day,—peopled like the interior of an ant-hive; for from the Hôtel de Montmorency six or eight Huguenot gentlemen, with their servants and friends, had just made a furious charge, and, supported by the firing from the windows, were beginning to repulse Maurevel's and the De Guises' force, who at length were driven back to the place whence they had come.
Coconnas, who had not yet succeeded in smashing Mercandon's door, though he was working at it with all his might, was caught in this sudden retreat. Placing his back to the wall, and grasping his sword firmly, he began not only to defend himself, but to attack his assailants, with cries so terrible that they were heard above all the uproar. He struck right and left, hitting friends and enemies, until a wide space was cleared around him. As his rapier made a hole in some breast, and the warm blood spurted over his hands and face, he, with dilated eye, expanded nostrils, and clinched teeth, regained the ground lost, and again approached the beleaguered house.
De Mouy, after a terrible combat in the staircase and hall, had finally come out of the burning house like a true hero. In the midst of all the struggle he had not ceased to cry, "Here, Maurevel!—Maurevel, where are you?" insulting him by the most opprobrious epithets.
He at length appeared in the street, supporting on one arm his mistress, half naked and nearly fainting, and holding a poniard between his teeth. His sword, flaming by the sweeping action he gave it, traced circles of white or red, according as the moon glittered on the blade or a flambeau glared on its blood-stained brightness.
Maurevel had fled. La Hurière, driven back by De Mouy as far as Coconnas, who did not recognize him, and received him at sword's point, was begging for mercy on both sides. At this moment Mercandon perceived him, and knew him, by his white scarf, to be one of the murderers. He fired. La Hurière shrieked, threw up his arms, dropped his arquebuse, and, after having vainly attempted to reach the wall, in order to support himself, fell with his face flat on the earth.
De Mouy took advantage of this circumstance, turned down the Rue de Paradis, and disappeared.
Such had been the resistance of the Huguenots that the De Guise party, quite repulsed, had retired into their hôtel, fearing to be besieged and taken in their own habitation.
Coconnas who, intoxicated with blood and tumult, had reached that degree of excitement when, with the men of the south more especially, courage changes into madness, had not seen or heard anything, and noticed only that there was not such a roar in his ears, and that his hands and face were a little dryer than they had been. Dropping the point of his sword, he saw near him a man lying face downward in a red stream, and around him burning houses.
It was a very short truce, for just as he was approaching this man, whom he recognized as La Hurière, the door of the house he had in vain tried to burst in, opened, and old Mercandon, followed by his son and two nephews, rushed upon him.
"Here he is! here he is!" cried they all, with one voice.
Coconnas was in the middle of the street, and fearing to be surrounded by these four men who assailed him at once, sprang backward with the agility of one of the chamois which he had so often hunted in his native mountains, and in an instant found himself with his back against the wall of the Hôtel de Guise. Once at ease as to not being surprised from behind he put himself in a posture of defence, and said, jestingly:
"Aha, father Mercandon, don't you know me?"
"Wretch!" cried the old Huguenot, "I know you well; you are engaged against me—me, your father's friend and companion."
"And his creditor, are you not?"
"Yes; his creditor, as you say."
"Well, then," said Coconnas, "I have come to settle our accounts."
"Seize him, bind him!" said Mercandon to the young men who accompanied him, and who at his bidding rushed toward the Piedmontese.
"One moment! one moment!" said Coconnas, laughing, "to seize a man you must have a writ, and you have forgotten to secure one from the provost."
And with these words he crossed his sword with the young man nearest to him and at the first blow cut his wrist.
The wounded man retreated with a howl.
"That will do for one!" said Coconnas.
At the same moment the window under which Coconnas had sought shelter opened noisily. He sprang to one side, fearing an attack from behind; but instead of an enemy he saw a woman; instead of the enemy's weapon he was prepared to encounter, a nosegay fell at his feet.
"Ah!" he said, "a woman!"
He saluted the lady with his sword, and stooped to pick up the bouquet.
"Be on your guard, brave Catholic!—be on your guard!" cried the lady.
Coconnas rose, but not before the second nephew's dagger had pierced his cloak, and wounded his other shoulder.
The lady uttered a piercing shriek.
Coconnas thanked her, assured her by a gesture, and then made a pass, which the nephew parried; but at the second thrust, his foot slipped in the blood, and Coconnas, springing at him like a tiger-cat, drove his sword through his breast.
"Good! good! brave cavalier!" exclaimed the lady of the Hôtel de Guise, "good! I will send you succor."
"Do not give yourself any trouble about that, madame," was Coconnas's reply; "rather look on to the end, if it interests you, and see how the Comte Annibal de Coconnas settles the Huguenots."
At this moment old Mercandon's son aimed a pistol at close range to Coconnas, and fired. The count fell on his knee. The lady at the window shrieked again; but Coconnas rose instantly; he had knelt only to avoid the bullet, which struck the wall about two feet beneath where the lady was standing.
Almost at the same moment a cry of rage issued from the window of Mercandon's house, and an old woman, who recognized Coconnas as a Catholic, from his white scarf and cross, hurled a flower-pot at him, which struck him above the knee.
"Capital!" said Coconnas; "one throws flowers at me and at the other, flower-pots; if this goes on, they'll be tearing houses down!"
"Thanks, mother, thanks!" said the young man.
"Go on, wife, go on," said old Mercandon; "but take care of yourself."
"Wait, Monsieur de Coconnas, wait!" said the young woman of the Hôtel de Guise, "I will have them shoot at the windows!"
"Ah! So it is a hell of women, is it?" said Coconnas. "Some of them for me and the others against me! By Heaven! let us put an end to this!"
The scene in fact was much changed and was evidently approaching its climax. Coconnas, who was wounded to be sure, but who had all the vigor of his four and twenty years, was used to arms, and angered rather than weakened by the three or four scratches he had received, now faced only Mercandon and his son: Mercandon, an aged man between sixty and seventy; his son, a youth of sixteen or eighteen, pale, fair-haired and slender, had flung down his pistol which had been discharged and was therefore useless, and was feebly brandishing a sword half as long as the Piedmontese's. The father, armed only with an unloaded arquebuse and a poniard, was calling for assistance. An old woman—the young man's mother—in the opposite window held in her hand a piece of marble which she was preparing to hurl.
Coconnas, excited on the one hand by threats, and on the other by encouragements, proud of his two-fold victory, intoxicated with powder and blood, lighted by the reflection of a burning house, elated by the idea that he was fighting under the eyes of a woman whose beauty was as superior as he was sure her rank was high,—Coconnas, like the last of the Horatii, felt his strength redouble, and seeing the young man falter, rushed on him and crossed his small weapon with his terrible and bloody rapier. Two strokes sufficed to drive it out of its owner's hands. Then Mercandon tried to drive Coconnas back, so that the projectiles thrown from the window might be sure to strike him, but Coconnas, to paralyze the double attack of the old man, who tried to stab him with his dagger, and the mother of the young man, who was endeavoring to break his skull with a stone she was ready to throw, seized his adversary by the body, presenting him to all the blows, like a shield, and well-nigh strangling him in his Herculean grasp.
"Help! help!" cried the young man; "he is crushing my chest—help! help!"
And his voice grew faint in a low and choking groan.
Then Mercandon ceased to attack, and began to entreat.
"Mercy, mercy! Monsieur de Coconnas, have mercy!—he is my only child!"
"He is my son, my son!" cried the mother; "the hope of our old age! Do not kill him, sir,—do not kill him!"
"Really," cried Coconnas, bursting into laughter, "not kill him! What, pray, did he mean to do to me, with his sword and pistol?"
"Sir," said Mercandon, clasping his hands, "I have at home your father's note of hand, I will give it back to you—I have ten thousand crowns of gold, I will give them to you—I have our family jewels, they shall be yours; but do not kill him—do not kill him!"
"And I have my love," said the lady in the Hôtel de Guise, in a low tone, "and I promise it you."
Coconnas reflected a moment, and said suddenly:
"Are you a Huguenot?"
"Yes, I am," murmured the youth.
"Then you must die!" replied Coconnas, frowning and putting to his adversary's breast his keen and glittering dagger.
"Die!" cried the old man; "my poor child die!"
And the mother's shriek resounded so pitifully and loud that for a moment it shook the Piedmontese's firm resolution.
"Oh, Madame la Duchesse!" cried the father, turning toward the lady at the Hôtel de Guise, "intercede for us, and every morning and evening you shall be remembered in our prayers."
"Then let him be a convert," said the lady.
"I am a Protestant," said the boy.
"Then die!" exclaimed Coconnas, lifting his dagger; "die! since you will not accept the life which those lovely lips offer to you."
Mercandon and his wife saw the blade of that deadly weapon gleam like lightning above the head of their son.
"My son Olivier," shrieked his mother, "abjure, abjure!"
"Abjure, my dear boy!" cried Mercandon, going on his knees to Coconnas; "do not leave us alone on the earth!"
"Abjure all together," said Coconnas; "for oneCredo, three souls and one life."
"I am willing," said the youth.
"We are willing!" cried Mercandon and his wife.
"On your knees, then," said Coconnas, "and let your son repeat after me, word for word, the prayer I shall say."
The father obeyed first.
"I am ready," said the son, also kneeling.
Coconnas then began to repeat in Latin the words of theCredo. But whether from chance or calculation, young Olivier knelt close to where his sword had fallen. Scarcely did he see this weapon within his reach than, not ceasing to repeat the words which Coconnas dictated, he stretched out his hand to take it up. Coconnas watched the movement, although he pretended not to see it; but at the moment when the young man touched the handle of the sword with his fingers he rushed on him, knocked him over, exclaiming, "Ah, traitor!" and plunged his dagger into his throat.
The youth uttered one cry, raised himself convulsively on his knee, and fell dead.
"Ah, ruffian!" shrieked Mercandon, "you slay us to rob us of the hundred rose nobles you owe us."
"Faith! no," said Coconnas, "and the proof,"—and as he said these words he flung at the old man's feet the purse which his father had given him before his departure to pay his creditor,—"and the proof," he went on to say, "is this money which I give you!"
"And here's your death!" cried the old woman from the window.
"Take care, M. de Coconnas, take care!" called out the lady at the Hôtel de Guise.
But before Coconnas could turn his head to comply with this advice, or get out of the way of the threat, a heavy mass came hissing through the air, fell on the Piedmontese's hat, broke his sword, and prostrated him on the pavement; he was overcome, crushed, so that he did not hear the double cry of joy and distress which came from the right and left.
Mercandon instantly rushed, dagger in hand, on Coconnas, now bereft of his senses; but at this moment the door of the Hôtel de Guise opened, and the old man, seeing swords and partisans gleaming, fled, while the lady he had called "Madame la Duchesse," her beauty terrible in the light of the flames, dazzling with diamonds and other gems, leaned half out of the window, in order to direct the newcomers, pointing her arm toward Coconnas.
"There! there! in front of me—a gentleman in a red doublet. There!—that is he—yes, that is he."
Marguerite, as we have said, had shut the door and returned to her chamber. But as she entered, panting, she saw Gillonne, who, terror-struck, was leaning against the door of the closet, staring at the traces of blood on the bed, the furniture, and the carpet.
"Ah! madame!" she cried when she saw the queen. "Oh! madame! tell me, is he dead?"
"Silence!" said Marguerite in that tone of voice which gives some indication of the importance of the command.
Gillonne was silent.
Marguerite then took from her purse a tiny gilded key, opened the closet door, and showed the young man to the servant. La Mole had succeeded in getting to his feet and making his way to the window. A small poniard, such as women at that time were in the habit of carrying, was at hand, and when he heard the door opening he had seized it.
"Fear nothing, sir," said Marguerite; "for, on my soul, you are in safety!"
La Mole sank on his knees.
"Oh, madame," he cried, "you are more than a queen—you are a goddess!"
"Do not agitate yourself, sir," said Marguerite, "your blood is still flowing. Oh, look, Gillonne, how pale he is—let us see where you are wounded."
"Madame," said La Mole, trying to fix on certain parts of his body the pain which pervaded his whole frame, "I think I have a dagger-thrust in my shoulder, another in my chest,—the other wounds are not worth bothering about."
"We will see," said Marguerite. "Gillonne, bring me my balsam casket."
Gillonne obeyed, and returned holding in one hand a casket, and in the other a silver-gilt ewer and some fine Holland linen.
"Help me to lift him, Gillonne," said Queen Marguerite; "for in attempting to get up the poor gentleman has lost all his strength."
"But, madame," said La Mole, "I am wholly confused. Indeed, I cannot allow"—
"But, sir, you will let us do for you, I think," said Marguerite. "When we may save you, it would be a crime to let you die."
"Oh!" cried La Mole, "I would rather die than see you, the queen, stain your hands with blood as unworthy as mine. Oh, never, never!"
And he drew back respectfully.
"Your blood, sir," replied Gillonne, with a smile, "has already stained her majesty's bed and chamber."
Marguerite folded her mantle over her cambric peignoir, all bespattered with small red spots. This movement, so expressive of feminine modesty, caused La Mole to remember that he had held in his arms and pressed to his heart this beautiful, beloved queen, and at the recollection a fugitive glow of color came into his pallid cheeks.
"Madame," stammered La Mole, "can you not leave me to the care of the surgeon?"
"Of a Catholic surgeon, perhaps," said the queen, with an expression which La Mole understood and which made him shudder. "Do you not know," continued the queen in a voice and with a smile of incomparable sweetness, "that we daughters of France are trained to know the qualities of herbs and to make balsams? for our duty as women and as queens has always been to soften pain. Therefore we are equal to the best surgeons in the world; so our flatterers say! Has not my reputation in this regard come to your ears? Come, Gillonne, let us to work!"
La Mole again endeavored to resist; he repeated that he would rather die than occasion the queen labor which, though begun in pity, might end in disgust; but this exertion completely exhausted his strength, and falling back, he fainted a second time.
Marguerite, then seizing the poniard which he had dropped, quickly cut the lace of his doublet; while Gillonne, with another blade, ripped open the sleeves.
Next Gillonne, with a cloth dipped in fresh water, stanched the blood which escaped from his shoulder and breast, and Marguerite, with a silver needle with a round point, probed the wounds with all the delicacy and skill that Maître Ambroise Paré could have displayed in such a case.
"A dangerous but not mortal wound,acerrimum humeri vulnus, non autem lethale," murmured the lovely and learned lady-surgeon; "hand me the salve, Gillonne, and get the lint ready."
Meantime Gillonne, to whom the queen had just given this new order, had already dried and perfumed the young man's chest and arms, which were like an antique model, as well as his shoulders, which fell gracefully back; his neck shaded by thick, curling locks, and which seemed rather to belong to a statue of Parian marble than the mangled frame of a dying man.
"Poor young man!" whispered Gillonne, looking not so much at her work as at the object of it.
"Is he not handsome?" said Marguerite, with royal frankness.
"Yes, madame; but it seems to me that instead of leaving him lying there on the floor, we should lift him on this couch against which he is leaning."
"Yes," said Marguerite, "you are right."
And the two women, bending over, uniting their strength, raised La Mole, and laid him on a kind of great sofa in front of the window, which they opened in order to give them fresh air.
This movement aroused La Mole, who drew a long sigh, and opening his eyes, began to experience that indescribable sensation of well-being which comes to a wounded man when on his return to consciousness he finds coolness instead of burning heat, and the perfumes of balsams instead of the nauseating odor of blood.
He muttered some disconnected words, to which Marguerite replied with a smile, placing her finger on her lips.
At this moment several raps on the door were heard.
"Some one knocks at the secret passage," said Marguerite.
"Who can be coming, madame?" asked Gillonne, in a panic.
"I will go and see who it is," said Marguerite; "remain here, and do not leave him for a single instant."
Marguerite went into the chamber, and closing the closet door, opened that of the passage which led to the King's and queen mother's apartments.
"Madame de Sauve!" she exclaimed, suddenly drawing back with an expression which resembled hatred, if not terror, so true it is that a woman never forgives another for taking from her even a man whom she does not love,—"Madame de Sauve!"
"Yes, your majesty!" she replied, clasping her hands.
"You here, madame?" exclaimed Marguerite, more and more surprised, while at the same time her voice grew more and more imperative.
Charlotte fell on her knees.
"Madame," she said, "pardon me! I know how guilty I am toward you; but if you knew—the fault is not wholly mine; an express command of the queen mother"—
"Rise!" said Marguerite, "and as I do not suppose you have come with the intention of justifying yourself to me, tell me why you have come at all."
"I have come, madame," said Charlotte, still on her knees, and with a look of wild alarm, "I came to ask you if he were not here?"
"Here! who?—of whom are you speaking, madame? for I really do not understand."
"Of the king!"
"Of the king? What, do you follow him to my apartments? You know very well that he never comes here."
"Ah, madame!" continued the Baronne de Sauve, without replying to these attacks, or even seeming to comprehend them, "ah, would to Heaven he were here!"
"And why so?"
"Eh,mon Dieu! madame, because they are murdering the Huguenots, and the King of Navarre is the chief of the Huguenots."
"Oh!" cried Marguerite, seizing Madame de Sauve by the hand, and compelling her to rise; "ah! I had forgotten; besides, I did not think a king could run the same dangers as other men."
"More, madame,—a thousand times more!" cried Charlotte.
"In fact, Madame de Lorraine had warned me; I had begged him not to leave the Louvre. Has he done so?"
"No, no, madame, he is in the Louvre; but if he is not here"—
"He is not here!"
"Oh!" cried Madame de Sauve, with an outburst of agony, "then he is a dead man, for the queen mother has sworn his destruction!"
"His destruction! ah," said Marguerite, "you terrify me—impossible!"
"Madame," replied Madame de Sauve, with that energy which passion alone can give, "I tell you that no one knows where the King of Navarre is."
"And where is the queen mother?"
"The queen mother sent me to find Monsieur de Guise and Monsieur de Tavannes, who were in her oratory, and then dismissed me. Then—pardon me, madame—I went to my room and waited as usual."
"For my husband, I suppose."
"He did not come, madame. Then I sought for him everywhere and asked every one for him. One soldier told me he thought he had seen him in the midst of the guards who accompanied him, with his sword drawn in his hand, some time before the massacre began, and the massacre has begun an hour ago."
"Thanks, madame," said Marguerite; "and although perhaps the sentiment which impels you is an additional offence toward me,—yet, again, I thank you!"
"Oh, forgive me, madame!" she said, "and I will return to my apartments stronger for your pardon, for I dare not follow you, even at a distance."
Marguerite extended her hand to her.
"I will go to Queen Catharine," she said. "Return to your room. The King of Navarre is under my protection; I have promised him my alliance and I will be faithful to my promise."
"But suppose you cannot obtain access to the queen mother, madame?"
"Then I will go to my brother Charles, and I will speak to him."
"Go, madame, go," said Charlotte, leaving Marguerite room to pass, "and may God guide your majesty!"
Marguerite darted down the corridor, but when she reached the end of it she turned to make sure that Madame de Sauve was not lingering behind. Madame de Sauve was following her.
The Queen of Navarre saw her go upstairs to her own apartment, and then she herself went toward the queen's chamber.
All was changed here. Instead of the crowd of eager courtiers, who usually opened their ranks before the queen and respectfully saluted her, Marguerite met only guards with red partisans and garments stained with blood, or gentlemen in torn cloaks,—their faces blackened with powder, bearing orders and despatches,—some going in, others going out, and all this movement back and forth made a great and terrible confusion in the galleries.
Marguerite, however, went boldly on until she reached the queen mother's antechamber. But this room was guarded by a double file of soldiers, who allowed only those who had a certain countersign to enter. Marguerite in vain tried to pass this living barrier; several times she saw the door open and shut, and each time she saw Catharine, her youth restored by action, as alert as if she were only twenty years of age, writing, receiving letters, opening them, addressing a word to one, a smile to another; and those on whom she smiled most graciously were those who were the most covered with dust and blood.
Amid this vast tumult which reigned in the Louvre and filled it with frightful clamors, could be heard the rattling of musketry more and more insistently repeated.
"I shall never get to her," said Marguerite to herself after she had made three ineffectual attempts to pass the halberdiers. "Rather than waste my time here, I must go and find my brother."
At this moment M. de Guise passed; he had just informed the queen of the murder of the admiral, and was returning to the butchery.
"Oh, Henry!" cried Marguerite, "where is the King of Navarre?"
The duke looked at her with a smile of astonishment, bowed, and without any reply passed out with his guards.
Marguerite ran to a captain who was on the point of leaving the Louvre and was engaged in having his men's arquebuses loaded.
"The King of Navarre!" she exclaimed; "sir, where is the King of Navarre?"
"I do not know, madame," replied the captain, "I do not belong to his majesty's guards."
"Ah, my dear Réné," said the queen, recognizing Catharine's perfumer, "is that you?—you have just left my mother. Do you know what has become of my husband?"
"His majesty the King of Navarre is no friend of mine, madame, you ought to remember that. It is even said," he added, with a contraction of his features more like a grimace than a smile, "it is even said that he ventures to accuse me of having been the accomplice, with Madame Catharine, in poisoning his mother."
"No, no!" cried Marguerite, "my good Réné, do not believe that!"
"Oh, it is of little consequence, madame!" said the perfumer; "neither the King of Navarre nor his party is any longer to be feared!"
And he turned his back on Marguerite.
"Ah, Monsieur de Tavannes!" cried Marguerite, "one word, I beseech you!"
Tavannes, who was going by, stopped.
"Where is Henry of Navarre?"
"Faith," he replied, in a loud voice, "I believe he is somewhere in the city with the Messieurs d'Alençon and de Condé."
And then he added, in a tone so low that the queen alone could hear:
"Your majesty, if you would see him,—to be in whose place I would give my life,—go to the king's armory."
"Thanks, Tavannes, thanks!" said Marguerite, who, of all that Tavannes had said, had heard only the chief direction; "thank you, I will go there."
And she went on her way, murmuring:
"Oh, after all I promised him—after the way in which he behaved to me when that ingrate, Henry de Guise, was concealed in the closet—I cannot let him perish!"
And she knocked at the door of the King's apartments; but they were encompassed within by two companies of guards.
"No one is admitted to the King," said the officer, coming forward.
"But I"—said Marguerite.
"The order is general."
"I, the Queen of Navarre!—I, his sister!"
"My orders admit of no exception, madame; I pray you to pardon me."
And the officer closed the door.
"Oh, he is lost!" exclaimed Marguerite, alarmed at the sight of all those sinister faces, which even if they did not breathe vengeance, expressed sternness of purpose. "Yes, yes! I comprehend all. I have been used as a bait. I am the snare which has entrapped the Huguenots; but I will enter, if I am killed in the attempt!"
And Marguerite ran like a mad creature through the corridors and galleries, when suddenly, as she passed by a small door, she heard a sweet song, almost melancholy, so monotonous it was. It was a Calvinistic psalm, sung by a trembling voice in the next room.
"My brother the king's nurse—the good Madelon—she is there!" exclaimed Marguerite. "God of the Christians, aid me now!"
And, full of hope, Marguerite knocked at the little door.
Soon after the counsel which Marguerite had conveyed to him, after his conversation with Réné, and after leaving the queen mother's chamber, in spite of the efforts of the poor little Phœbe,—who like a good genius tried to detain him,—Henry of Navarre had met several Catholic gentlemen, who, under a pretext of doing him honor, had escorted him to his apartments, where a score of Huguenots awaited him, who had rallied round the young prince, and, having once rallied, would not leave him—so strongly, for some hours, had the presentiment of that fatal night weighed on the Louvre. They had remained there, without any one attempting to disturb them. At last, at the first stroke of the bell of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, which resounded through all hearts like a funeral knell, Tavannes entered, and, in the midst of a death-like silence, announced that King Charles IX. desired to speak to Henry.
It was useless to attempt resistance, and no one thought of it. They heard the ceilings, galleries, and corridors creaking beneath the feet of the assembled soldiers, who were in the court-yards, as well as in the apartments, to the number of two thousand. Henry, after having taken leave of his friends, whom he was never again to see, followed Tavannes, who led him to a small gallery next the King's apartments, where he left him alone, unarmed, and a prey to mistrust.
The King of Navarre counted here alone, minute by minute, two mortal hours; listening, with increasing alarm, to the sound of the tocsin and the discharge of fire-arms; seeing through a small window, by the light of the flames and flambeaux, the refugees and their assassins pass; understanding nothing of these shrieks of murder, these cries of distress,—not even suspecting, in spite of his knowledge of Charles IX., the queen mother, and the Duc de Guise, the horrible drama at this moment enacting.
Henry had not physical courage, but he had better than that—he had moral fortitude. Though he feared danger, yet he smiled at it and faced it; but it was danger in the field of battle—danger in the open air—danger in the eyes of all, and attended by the noisy harmony of trumpets and the loud and vibrating beat of drums; but now he was weaponless, alone, locked in, shut up in a semi-darkness where he could scarcely see the enemy that might glide toward him, and the weapon that might be raised to strike him.
These two hours were, perhaps, the most agonizing of his life.
In the hottest of the tumult, and as Henry was beginning to understand that, in all probability, this was some organized massacre, a captain came to him, and conducted the prince along a corridor to the King's rooms. As they approached, the door opened and closed behind them as if by magic. The captain then led Henry to the King, who was in his armory.
When they entered, the King was seated in a great arm-chair, his two hands placed on the two arms of the seat, and his head falling on his chest. At the noise made by their entrance Charles looked up, and Henry observed the perspiration dropping from his brow like large beads.
"Good evening, Harry," said the young King, roughly. "La Chastre, leave us."
The captain obeyed.
A gloomy silence ensued. Henry looked around him with uneasiness, and saw that he was alone with the King.
Charles IX. suddenly arose.
"Par la mordieu!" said he, passing his hands through his light brown hair, and wiping his brow at the same time, "you are glad to be with me, are you not, Harry?"
"Certainly, sire," replied the King of Navarre, "I am always happy to be with your Majesty."
"Happier than if you were down there, eh?" continued Charles, following his own thoughts rather than replying to Henry's compliment.
"I do not understand, sire," replied Henry.
"Look out, then, and you will soon understand."
And with a quick movement Charles stepped or rather sprang to the window, and drawing with him his brother-in-law, who became more and more terror-stricken, he pointed to him the horrible outlines of the assassins, who, on the deck of a boat, were cutting the throats or drowning the victims brought them at every moment.
"In the name of Heaven," cried Henry; "what is going on to-night?"
"To-night, sir," replied Charles IX., "they are ridding me of all the Huguenots. Look yonder, over the Hôtel de Bourbon, at the smoke and flames: they are the smoke and flames of the admiral's house, which is on fire. Do you see that body, which these good Catholics are drawing on a torn mattress? It is the corpse of the admiral's son-in-law—the carcass of your friend, Téligny."
"What means this?" cried the King of Navarre, seeking vainly by his side for the hilt of his dagger, and trembling equally with shame and anger; for he felt that he was at the same time laughed at and threatened.
"It means," cried Charles IX., becoming suddenly furious, and turning frightfully pale, "it means that I will no longer have any Huguenots about me. Do you hear me, Henry?—Am I King? Am I master?"
"But, your Majesty"—
"My Majesty kills and massacres at this moment all that is not Catholic; it is my pleasure. Are you a Catholic?" exclaimed Charles, whose anger was rising higher and higher, like an awful tide.
"Sire," replied Henry, "do you remember your own words, 'What matters the religion of those who serve me well'?"
"Ha! ha! ha!" cried Charles, bursting into a ferocious laugh; "you ask me if I remember my words, Henry! 'Verba volant,' as my sister Margot says; and had not all those"—and he pointed to the city with his finger—"served me well, also? Were they not brave in battle, wise in council, deeply devoted? They were all useful subjects—but they were Huguenots, and I want none but Catholics."
Henry remained silent.
"Do you understand me now, Harry?" asked Charles.
"I understand, sire."
"Well?"
"Well, sire, I do not see why the King of Navarre should not do what so many gentlemen and poor folk have done. For if they all die, poor unfortunates, it is because the same terms have been proposed to them which your Majesty proposes to me, and they have refused, as I refuse."
Charles seized the young prince's arm, and fixed on him a look the vacancy of which suddenly changed into a fierce and savage scowl.
"What!" he said, "do you believe that I have taken the trouble to offer the mass to those whose throats we are cutting yonder?"
"Sire," said Henry, disengaging his arm, "will you not die in the religion of your fathers?"
"Yes,par la mordieu! and you?"
"Well, sire, I will do the same!" replied Henry.
Charles uttered a roar of rage and, with trembling hand, seized his arquebuse, which lay on the table.
Henry, who stood leaning against the tapestry, with the perspiration on his brow, and nevertheless, owing to his presence of mind, calm to all appearance, followed every movement of the terrible king with the greedy stupefaction of a bird fascinated by a serpent.
Charles cocked his arquebuse, and stamping with blind rage cried, as he dazzled Henry's eyes with the polished barrel of the deadly gun:
"Will you accept the mass?"
Henry remained mute.
Charles IX. shook the vaults of the Louvre with the most terrible oath that ever issued from the lips of man, and grew even more livid than before.
"Death, mass, or the Bastille!" he cried, taking aim at the King of Navarre.
"Oh, sire!" exclaimed Henry, "will you kill me—me, your brother?"
Henry thus, by his incomparable cleverness, which was one of the strongest faculties of his organization, evaded the answer which Charles IX. expected, for undoubtedly had his reply been in the negative Henry had been a dead man.
As immediately after the climax of rage, reaction begins, Charles IX. did not repeat the question he had addressed to the Prince of Navarre; and after a moment's hesitation, during which he uttered a hoarse kind of growl, he went back to the open window, and aimed at a man who was running along the quay in front.
"I must kill some one!" cried Charles IX., ghastly as a corpse, his eyes suffused with blood; and firing as he spoke, he struck the man who was running.
Henry uttered a groan.
Then, animated by a frightful ardor, Charles loaded and fired his arquebuse without cessation, uttering cries of joy every time his aim was successful.
"It is all over with me!" said the King of Navarre to himself; "when he sees no one else to kill, he will kill me!"
"Well," said a voice behind the princes, suddenly, "is it done?"
It was Catharine de Médicis, who had entered unobserved just as the King was firing his last shot.
"No, thousand thunders of hell!" said the King, throwing his arquebuse across the room. "No, the obstinate blockhead—he will not consent!"
Catharine made no reply. She turned her eyes slowly where Henry stood as motionless as one of the figures of the tapestry against which he was leaning. She then gave a glance at the King, which seemed to say:
"Then why he is alive?"
"He is alive, he is alive!" murmured Charles IX., who perfectly understood the glance, and replied to it without hesitation,—"he is alive—because he is my relative."
Catharine smiled.
Henry saw the smile, and realized that his struggle was to be with Catharine.
"Madame," he said to her, "the whole thing comes from you, I see very well, and my brother-in-law Charles is not to blame. You laid the plan for drawing me into a snare. You made your daughter the bait which was to destroy us all. You separated me from my wife that she might not see me killed before her eyes"—
"Yes, but that shall not be!" cried another voice, breathless and impassioned, which Henry instantly recognized and which made Charles start with surprise and Catharine with rage.
"Marguerite!" exclaimed Henry.
"Margot!" said Charles IX.
"My daughter!" muttered Catharine.
"Sire," said Marguerite to Henry, "your last words were an accusation against me, and you were both right and wrong,—right, for I am the means by which they attempted to destroy you; wrong, for I did not know that you were going to your destruction. I, sire, owe my own life to chance—to my mother's forgetfulness, perhaps; but as soon as I learned your danger I remembered my duty, and a wife's duty is to share her husband's fortunes. If you are exiled, sire, I will follow you into exile; if you are put into prison I will be your fellow-captive; if they kill you, I will also die."
And she offered her husband her hand, which he eagerly seized, if not with love, at least with gratitude.
"Oh, my poor Margot!" said Charles, "you had much better bid him become a Catholic!"
"Sire," replied Marguerite, with that lofty dignity which was so natural to her, "for your own sake do not ask any prince of your house to commit a cowardly act."
Catharine darted a significant glance at Charles.