Those were busy days in Paris! So manifold were the intrigues, so frequent the changes, so rapid the events, of that time, that it would have required almost more than mortal strength and activity, in those who played any prominent part amongst the factions of the day, to accomplish the incessant business of every succeeding hour, had not that levity, for which the Parisians have been famous in every age of history, stood them in better stead than philosophy could have done, and taught them to consider the fierce turmoil of party, the eager anxiety of intrigue, and even the appalling scenes of strife and bloodshed in which they lived, rather as playthings and as pageants, than as fearful realities.
No sooner had the conference terminated, of which we have given an outline in the last chapter, than Madame de Montpensier, leaving her brother of Mayenne to break his somewhat bitter jest upon the leader of the lansquenets, hurried from the room; but, ere the conversation which succeeded was over, though it lasted but a very brief space, she reappeared, covered with what was then called a penitent's cloak, and holding her mask in her hand, as if prepared to go forth.
Beckoning Wolfstrom towards her, she spoke with him for a few moments, in an under tone; and then, concluding with, "Well, be as quick as possible, and bring me some certain tidings," she again quitted the apartment, without making Mayenne, who was conversing upon lighter matters with the Duchess de Guise and the Chevalier d'Aumale, a sharer in her plans and purposes.
We shall not follow the progress of her chair through the long, tortuous, busy streets of Paris; nor record how her attendants cleared the way through many a crowd, gathered together round the stall of some great bookseller, or before the stage on which some itinerant friar, like a mountebank of modern times, sold his treasure of relics, or chaplets, or authentic pictures of saints and martyrs, or the still-valued indulgence, which the church of Rome did not fail to grant to those who had money and folly enough to purchase either the right of eating flesh, while others were doomed to fish, or the gratification of any other little carnal inclination, not held amongst irremissible sins. Suffice it that--amidst stinks, and shouts, and bawlings, mingled now and then with the "shrill squeaking of the wry-necked fife," and various savoury odours were wafted from the kitchens in which cooks, and traiteurs, and aubergistes prepared all sorts of viands, from the fat quail, and luscious ortolan, to good stout horse-flesh and delicate cat--the Princess's vehicle bore her on, till wide at her approach flew open the gates of the Dominican convent, in the rue St. Jacques, and, entering the first court, the Duchess set down, under the archway, on the left-hand side.
After whispering a word to thefrere portier, the errant daughter of the noble house of Guise was led through the long and narrow passages of the building, not to the parlour which usually formed the place of reception by the priors of the convent, but to a small room, which had but one door for entrance, and but one narrow window to admit the needful light. The furniture was as simple as it could be, consisting of five or six long-backed ebony chairs, a table, a crucifix, a missal, and a human skull, not, as usual, nicely cleaned and polished, so as to take away all idea of corruption from the round, smooth, meaningless ball of shining bone, but rough and foul as it came from the earth, with the black dirt sticking in the hollows where once had shone the light of life, and the green mould of the grave spreading faint and sickly over the fleshless chaps.
Standing before the table, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and his dark gleaming eye fixed upon the memento of the tomb, stood a tall pale man, habited in the black robe of a prior of the order of St. Dominick, with the white under-garment of the Dominicans still apparent. He raised his eyes as the Duchess entered, but fixed them again immediately upon the skull; and, ere he proceeded to notice in words the approach of his visitant, he muttered what appeared to be a brief prayer, and bowed towards the cross.
"Welcome, madam!" he said, at length; "I have been eagerly expecting you; for it will not be long ere vespers, and we have much to consider."
"I have been forced to delay," replied the Duchess, "in order to save some of our very best schemes from going wrong. But is not Armandi come? He should have been here an hour ago."
"He is here, though he has not been here so long," replied the Prior. "I made them keep him without till you came; for I love not his neighbourhood."
"I ought to pray your forgiveness, father, for bringing him here at all," said the Duchess; "but, in truth--"
"Make no excuse, lady, make no excuse!" answered the Prior. "We labour for the holy church--we labour for the faith; and there is no weapon put within our reach by God, but we have law and licence to use it against the rank and corrupted enemies of the church militant upon earth. Did not the blessed St. Dominick himself say, 'Let the sword do its work, and let the fire do its work, till the threshing-floor of the house of God be thoroughly purged and purified of the husks and the chaff which pollute it?' Did not he himself lead the way in the extirpation of the heretics of old, till the rivers of Languedoc, from their source even to the ocean, flowed red with the foul blood of the enemies of the faith? And shall we, his poor followers, halt like fastidious girls at any means of pursuing the same great object, of obtaining the same holy end? As I hope to reach the heaven that has long received our sainted founder, if this Armandi can find means of accomplishing our mighty purpose, I will embrace him as a brother, and pronounce with my own lips his absolution from all the many sins of his life, on account of that worthy act in defence of the Catholic faith. Shall I call him in?"
"By all means!" said the Duchess, seating herself near the table: "by all means! let us hear what he has devised."
The Prior of the Dominican, or rather, as it was called in Paris, the Jacobine, convent, proceeded to the door, and made a sign to some one, who, standing at the end of the long passage, seemed to wait his commands; and, after a momentary pause, an inferior brother of the order appeared, introducing the perfumer, habited in the same silks and velvets wherewith we have seen him clothed when visited by Beatrice of Ferrara, about an hour before. With a courtly sliding step, inclined head, and rounded shoulders, Armandi advanced towards the spot where the Duchess was seated; and, after laying his hand upon his breast, and bowing low and reverently, drew back a step beside her chair, as if waiting her commands, with a look of deep humility. The Prior of the Jacobines seated himself at the same time, and looked towards the Duchess, as if unwilling himself to begin the conversation with the worthy coadjutor who had just joined them. Madame de Montpensier, whose acquaintance with Armandi was of no recent date, had not the same delicacy on the subject, but at once began, in the familiar and jocular tone which the light dames of Paris were but too much accustomed to use, towards the smooth minister of evil that stood before her: "Well, pink of perfumers," she said, "let us hear what means your ingenious brain has devised for accomplishing the little object I mentioned to you some days ago."
"Beautiful as excellent, and bright as noble!" replied Armandi, in his sweetest tone; "adorable princess, whose charms the lowest of her slaves may reverently worship, sorry I am to say, that the enterprise which you have been graciously pleased to propose to me, I--luckless I!--am unable to undertake."
The Duchess heard all his rhodomontade upon her charms--although the very broadness of Armandi's flattery savoured somewhat of mockery--with more complaisance than had been evinced towards him by Beatrice of Ferrara; but the Prior listened with impatience to his waste of words, and seemed to hear his concluding declaration with disappointment and indignation.
"How is this?" cried he, "how is this? Surely thou, unscrupulous in everything, affectest no vain qualms in regard to the tyrant at St. Cloud! If thou holdest dear the Catholic faith,"--and the keen eyes of the Prior fixed searching upon the soft smiling countenance of the poisoner--"if thou art not infidel, or atheist, or Huguenot, thou wilt clear away thy many sins, by exercising a trade, hellish in other circumstances, in the only instance where it is not only justifiable and praiseworthy, but where, by the great deliverance of the church, it may merit you hereafter a crown of glory. Or is it, perchance," he added, "that thou fearest because this tyrant is a king, and the son of thy former patroness? I tell thee, that were he thine own brother, as a good Catholic, thou shouldest not hesitate."
Armandi listened to the vehement declamation of the monk with his usual composed air, and half subdued smile, and at the end replied, with every apparent reverence--"No, holy Father Bourgoin; you mistake entirely your humble and devoted servant. I am not so presumptuous as to think, that what such a holy man as you tells me to do can be against either right or religion; and, besides, I would humbly beseech you to give me absolution for anything I might do at your command; so that, being a sincere and devoted Catholic, my conscience would be quite at ease." There was the slightest possible curl on Armandi's lip as he spoke, which in the eyes of the Dominican looked not unlike a sneer; but his manner, as well as his words, was in every other point respectful, and he went on in the same tone:--"Neither is it, reverend father, that the royal object of the ministry which you wish me to practise, has had more than one crown put upon his head, which makes me halt; for I never yet could discover that the holy oil with which he is anointed has the least resemblance to that elixir of life which forbids the approach of death; or that in the golden circlet with which his brows are bound lies any antidote for certain drugs that I possess. Nor am I moved by considering that his most Christian Majesty is the son of my dear and lamented mistress; for, taking into account the troublous world in which we live, and the many difficulties, dangers, and disasters which surround Henry at this moment, truly it would be no uncharitable act to give him a safe and easy passport to another world."
"Then why, why," demanded the Duchess, "why do you hesitate to do so?"
"Sweet lady! it is because I cannot," answered Armandi: "the King's precautions put all my arts at fault. Not a dish is set upon his table, but a portion of it is tasted two hours before; his gloves themselves are made within the circle of the court; his own apothecary prepares the perfumes for his toilet; and the cosmetic mask Which he wears in bed, to keep his countenance from the chill night air, is manufactured by his own royal hands."
Madame de Montpensier and the Prior looked at each other with somewhat sullen and disappointed looks; and Armandi added, "Unless you can get me admitted to his household, I fear my skill can be of no avail."
"We have no such interest with the effeminate tyrant," replied Madame de Montpensier, "and so this scheme is hopeless," she added. "But I fear me, Armandi, that, from some love to this tyrant, or to his minions, your will is less disposed to find the means than the means difficult to be found."
"No, as I live, beautiful princess!" answered the poisoner, with more eagerness than he often displayed. "No, as I live! I had once a daughter, lady, as beautiful as you are; and it was her father's pride that she should be wise and chaste: when one mid-day, in the open streets of Paris, my child was met by the base minion, Saint Maigrin, hot with pride, and vice, and wine. He treated her as if she had been an idle courtesan; and how far he would have carried his brutality, none but the dead can tell, had not a gentleman, whose name I know not, rescued her from his hands: although so hurt and terrified, that, ere long, she died. I called loudly for justice, lady--I called with the voice of a father and a man; but I was heard by this Henry, who has never been a father, and is but half a man. He mocked me openly: but the house of Guise, in revenging their own wrongs, revenged mine; and you may judge whether I would not willingly aid you to remove from the earth one who has cumbered it too long."
"Then you absolutely cannot do it?" demanded the priest.
"I cannot," answered Armandi; "but, if I may say so, reverend father, I think you can."
"Ay, and how so?" asked the Prior, eagerly: "if it rests with me, it is done; for, so help me Heaven! if this right hand could plant a dagger in his heart, I would not pause between the conception and the act: no, not the twinkling of an eye!--no, not the breathing of a prayer! so sure am I that, by so doing, I should better serve the Catholic faith, than had I the eloquence of St. Paul to preach it to the world. How can I do it?"
"Very simply, I think," replied the poisoner. "I have often remarked, standing by the gate of your convent, or kneeling at the shrines at Notre Dame, a dull, heavy-looking man, pale in the face, strong in the body, and having but little meaning in his eye, except that when before some relic, or the image of some favourite saint, a wild and uncertain fire is seen to beam up but for a moment, and go out again as soon. He seems about twenty years of age; and I met him now just going forth as I came hither."
"Oh, yes! I know him well," replied the Prior: "you mean poor Brother Clement; a simple, dull, enthusiastic youth, whose strong animal passions now, most happily for himself, all centre in devotion."
A dark and bitter smile curled the lips of René Armandi as he listened to the Prior's account of the person on whom he himself had fixed as a fit instrument for the foul and bloody schemes that were agitated so tranquilly in their strange conclave. "Yes," he said; "yes, stupid he is; wild, visionary, and enthusiastic, he seems to be; and the same animal passions, which once plunged him in brutal lusts and foul debauchery, may now act as a stimulus to drive home the dagger in the cause of the Catholic faith!"
The gleaming eyes of the Prior fixed sternly upon the countenance of the poisoner while he spoke; and it seemed that no very Christian feelings were excited in the bosom of the monk by the bitter and sneering tone which the Italian employed. The suggestion, however, which his words had implied, rather than expressed, instantly caught his attention, and diverted his mind towards more important matter. "Ha!" he exclaimed; "ha! think you he could be prevailed upon?"
"I have often remarked, reverend father," replied Armandi, who had caught the transitory look of wrath as it had passed over the monk's countenance, and who, being but little disposed to make an enemy of one both powerful and unscrupulous, now spoke in a milder and more deferential tone--"I have often remarked, reverend father, that there are men in whose souls the animal part seems to be so much stronger than the intellectual, that mere appetite drives them on to coarse extremes in everything, however opposite and apparently incompatible. Thus, do we not see," he asked, lowering his tone, as if he suspected that the case he was about to put might be that of his auditor; "do we not see that men, who, in their youth, have given themselves up somewhat too freely to gallantry, and to those fair sins which the church condemns in vain, in after-years wear the bare stones with their bended knees, and tire all the saints in the calendar with penitence and prayer?"
"Thou speakest profanely," said the Prior: "is it not natural and just that men, who have great sins to atone for, should do the deeper penance when their conscience is awakened to repentance? But what if it were even as thou wouldst sneeringly imply? How does this affect our Brother Clement?"
"If I reason wrongly," replied Armandi, "my reasoning affects him not; but if my view is right, it matters much. I doubt, good father, that it is always true repentance which brings the libertine to the altar. My conviction is, that it is but one appetite gone, and another risen up in its place; and amongst such men, had I some good and reasonable cause,--some powerful motive to stir them up to action,--it is amongst such men, I say, that I should seek for one to undertake fearlessly, and execute resolutely, such a deed as that which has been proposed to me: and let me say too," he continued, a natural tendency to sneer at his companions getting the better of the moderation he had assumed; "and let me say, too, that I would seek for one whose reasoning powers, in the nice balance of the brain, would kick the beam when the opposite scale were loaded with animal passion and vagrant imagination. Do you understand me?"
The Prior made no reply; but, starting up from his seat, walked up and down the room with his hands clasped, his head bent, and his lips muttering. In the meanwhile, Madame de Montpensier beckoned Armandi towards her, and held with him a brief conversation in an under tone. His communication with her, however, seemed to be much more free and unrestrained than it had been with the monk; for jest and laughter appeared to take the place of shrewd and somewhat bitter discussion; and, though looks of intelligence and significant gestures made up fully one half of what passed, the lady and the poisoner seemed to understand each other perfectly. Their conversation ended by Madame de Montpensier exclaiming aloud, "Oh, never fear, never fear! To attain that object I will act the angel myself, and go any lengths in that capacity."
"Reverend father," continued the Princess, "this scheme is a hopeful one, easily executed, and involving no great risk."
The Prior paused, and turned to listen to the Duchess, who knew much better how to treat him than Armandi. "What is the scheme, lady?" he demanded: "as yet I have heard of none, except vague hints regarding a brother of the order, mingled with sneers at religion and religious men, which, in better days, would have had their reward."
"No, no, good father," replied the Duchess; "poor Armandi means no evil. Answer me one or two questions: think you not that Henry,--the excommunicated tyrant, the sacrilegious murderer of one of the prelates of the holy church, the friend of heretics, who is at this moment doing all that he can to spread heresy and destroy the Catholic faith in France;--think you not that he is without the pale of law, and that any means are justifiable to stop him in his damnable course, and save the holy church and the Catholic population in this country?"
"Not only do I think so," replied the Prior, vehemently, "but I think that he who does stop him in his course will gain a crown of glory, and would obtain, should death befall him in the act, the still more glorious crown of martyrdom."
"That is enough, that is enough!" replied the Duchess; "I will explain to you the whole scheme when we are alone. You, Armandi, go and prepare everything that you spoke of,--the rose-coloured fire, and the dress, and the wings, and come to me to-night, that we may arrange all the rest."
With profound and repeated bows, the perfumer was in the act of taking his departure from the apartment where this iniquitous conference had taken place, when three soft taps on the door arrested his progress, and the next moment the same monk who had ushered him thither on the arrival of the Duchess, announced that a noble gentleman without craved to speak with Madame de Montpensier, according to her own appointment.
"Give him admittance, father! give him admittance!" cried the Princess; "it is our faithful friend Wolfstrom, who brings me news of other feats accomplished in the same good cause that occupies us here."
The order for his admission was immediately given by the Prior; and as Armandi passed out, the leader of the lansquenets entered, exchanging glances of recognition with the poisoner, the circle of whose acquaintances had extended itself, by one means or another, to almost every one possessing any degree of rank, wealth, or influence in Paris.
"Well, lady!" said the soldier of fortune, after a formal bow to the Prior, "the stag is safely housed, and we wait but your commands to follow up the sport."
"But have you learned any particulars of his mind and character?" demanded the Duchess, eagerly; "have you discovered which way we best may lead or drive him to the point? Remember, our time is but short, and much remains to be done in those brief three days."
"Good faith! there seems but little to be learned, lady," replied the soldier. "As I promised, I took care that he should have companionship with none but those who would take up every light word, to let us see into the dark nooks of his heart, and report all truly that they learned; but, by the Lord! it seems that there are no dark nooks to be found out! All is open and clear--he seems simple as the day, religious in the true Catholic faith, sir Prior, bold and calm, but having little to take hold of, if it be not his devotion."
"Of whom speak you?" demanded the Prior, while Madame de Montpensier fixed her fine dark eyes thoughtfully on the ground; "is it of the young St. Real, of whom our noble lady here spoke some days since?"
Albert of Wolfstrom nodded; and the Prior also fell into a fit of meditation, seeming to revolve, like the Duchess, the means of dealing with one of those characters, whose right simplicity of nature renders them much more difficult to manage than even the wily, the worldly, and the shrewd.
"We must think of this matter, Sir Albert," said the priest, "we must think of this matter. Is he in safety at your house, do you think?"
"Why, by my honour, that is doubtful," answered the German. "My lansquenets have active duty to perform; people are coming in and out at all hours; and I never know when his Highness the lieutenant-general himself may not make his appearance there."
"That will never do!" said the Duchess; "that will never do--we must send him to the Bastile. Mayenne will never venture there; for he knows very well that within those walls he would meet many a sight which his fine notions of honour and justice would compel him to inquire into, to the mortification of his policy, and the destruction of his prospects. We must have him to the Bastille."
"Your pardon there, madame," said the soldier, somewhat uncourteously; "my prisoner goes not to the Bastille, wherever he goes! That foul burgher demagogue Bussy le Clerc shall hold at his good pleasure no prisoner of mine."
Madame de Montpensier's dark eye flashed, and her cheek reddened as she listened to the bold tone of the mercenary leader; but all the tangled and complicated political intrigues in which his services were necessary, and perhaps some more private considerations also, rendered her unwilling to break with one whose faith and integrity were somewhat more than doubtful. She smothered her anger, therefore, and, after a few moments' thought, replied, "I have it, I have it! He shall be brought here. You say, Sir Albert of Wolfstrom, that, notwithstanding the intimacy of his father with the Huguenots, he seems to hold fast by the Catholic faith. You, reverend father, shall try your oratory upon him; and, if possible, we must make him benefit by all that we do to lead on Brother Clement to the point we desire. You object not to this plan; do you, Sir Albert?"
"It is more hopeful than the Bastile," replied the soldier; "and I will bring him here with all my heart: but yet," he continued, with a doubtful shake of the head: "but yet--though I cannot tell why--but yet I have some fears that you will not find this young roebuck so easy to manage as you imagine. There is something about him, I don't know what, that makes me doubt the result."
"Oh! but we have means that you know not of," replied the Duchess, "which, if he be in faith and truth a son of the holy church, must bring him over to the Union for her defence."
"Well, well, I will bring him here," said the mercenary leader; "and you, fair lady and reverend father, must do the rest."
"Away, then, quick! and you will find me here at your return," replied the Duchess; "but take care that you meet not with Mayenne by the way, for he will set him free to a certainty; and then all that we have done will only tend to drive him over to the other party, instead of gaining a powerful adherent for the League."
"No fear, no fear!" replied Wolfstrom. "The distance is but a hundred yards; and I will post scouts at the end of the street before we set out." So saying, the leader of the lansquenets took his departure, leaving Madame de Montpensier with the Prior of the Jacobine convent, with whom an eager and interesting conversation instantly took place, the consequences of which we may have to detail hereafter.
We must now turn once more to the young Marquis of St. Real; and, although the events which had befallen him since the death of his father may have been gathered by the reader from what has passed in the chapters immediately preceding, it may not be unnecessary to recapitulate here, as briefly as possible, the occurrences which had placed him a prisoner in the midst of Paris.
According to the promise which Henry of Navarre had obtained from the old Marquis of St. Real on his death-bed, that nobleman's son, as soon as possible after the last rites had been paid to his father's memory, had prepared to take the field in behalf of one of the great contending parties which then struggled for mastery in France. He had applied for and obtained, both from King Henry III. on the one part, and from the Duke of Mayenne on behalf of the League, a safe-conduct to visit the camp and the capital, accompanied by twenty retainers. The rest of his forces, it was expressly stipulated, were to remain at the distance of fifteen leagues from the royalist army; and the position of the two kings, as they advanced to lay siege to Paris, had compelled him, in compliance with this stipulation, to deviate from his direct road to Paris, and accompany, for a short way, his cousin, who was advancing to reinforce the troops of Longueville and La Noue. Although strongly pressed by messengers from those two generals to decide at once in favour of the royal cause, and join the partisan force which they commanded, St. Real steadily refused to do so, till, according to the determination he had expressed, and in consideration of which he had obtained a safe-conduct from Mayenne, he should have visited the head-quarters of the king and of the League.
As soon as he had obtained such a position for his forces as enabled him to leave them in perfect security, he set out with his small train, purposing to proceed first to the camp of the two Henrys, as the nearest at the moment, and then to visit Paris. He had scarcely advanced, however, half a day's march on his way, when he was suddenly surrounded by an immensely superior body of reitters and lansquenets, who had been sent forth from Paris for the express purpose of obtaining possession of his person. How Madame do Montpensier had gained such accurate intelligence of all his movements, was a matter of surprise even to her own immediate confidants; but it was very well understood that the orders, in consequence of which this bold stroke was executed, emanated from her; and the leaders of the mercenaries, who captured St. Real, were not only furnished with the exact details of his line of march, but also with a ready answer to the indignant appeal which he instantly made, on his arrest, to the safe-conduct he possessed under the Duke of Mayenne's own hand. That safe-conduct, they replied, had been given him in order to facilitate a peaceful visit to Paris; while he, on the contrary, had not only led his troops into such a position as to enable him to give strong support to the Duke of Longueville, but had even detached a body to aid that nobleman in the battle of Senlis.
It was in vain St. Real explained to his captors, that the troops which had left him were the immediate retainers of his cousin, the Count d'Aubin, over whom he had no authority, and that he himself had positively refused to take part with the Duke of Longueville. His remonstrance was without effect; and, although he well knew his own innocence, he could not but admit that the reasoning against him was specious. In reply to all his explanations, the captain of the lansquenets simply urged that he had no power to release him, and that his justification must be made to the Duke of Mayenne himself. To submit, therefore, was a matter of necessity; and, as he was in every respect well treated, the young Marquis did submit without any very angry feelings, concluding that he might as well reverse the order of his proceedings, and first visit Paris instead of the royal camp.
On his arrival in the capital, he demanded to be carried instantly to the presence of the Duke of Mayenne; but this application was evaded, it being boldly asserted by those who held him in their hands that the Duke was absent from the city. Hitherto his attendants had been permitted to bear him company; and as he had ridden through the crowded streets of the city, he had felt less as a prisoner than as a voluntary visiter of the great metropolis; but when, after having been detained for some time at the house of Albert of Wolfstrom, he was told that he must accompany his captor to the convent of the Dominicans, whither only one servant could be permitted to attend him, he began to suspect that the bonds of his imprisonment were being straitened; and he remonstrated with calm but firm language, reiterating his demand to be brought before the Duke of Mayenne, and expressing his determination to hold the name of that nobleman up to the reprobation of all honourable men, if he suffered any of his adherents to violate the safe-conduct from his hand with impunity.
Wolfstrom, however, who on more than one occasion had shown himself but little tender of his own fair fame, could not be expected to feel much solicitude for that of another; and, although he held the potent Duke in some degree of awe, he had become hardened by the impunity which every sort of falsehood enjoyed in the good easy times of civil war, and doubted not that, in the end, he should find means of extricating himself from the consequences of the present intrigue, as he had done in regard to many which had preceded, namely, by the unlimited command of impudence, shrewdness, and three thousand mercenaries.
He turned a deaf ear, therefore, to the complaints of St Real; and the young Marquis was conducted to the convent of the Jacobins, in the midst of precautions which he did not fail to mark, and from which he augured little good in regard to the intentions of his gaolers.
The distance from the dwelling of the mercenary leader to the convent was but short; and the people of Paris were well accustomed to see parties of soldiers pass through their streets: but the indescribable pleasure of staring, in this instance, as in all others, collected a little crowd round the centre of bustle; and the gates of the Jacobins, as they opened to receive St. Real, were surrounded by between twenty and thirty persons of different conditions. To those who have eaten sufficiently of the tree of good and evil in a great capital to knowthat they are naked, the presence of a gaping mob to witness the fact of their being dragged along like culprits by a party of rude soldiers, would be a subject of annoyance. St. Real felt injured, but not ashamed or afraid; and fixing his eye upon the most respectable personage of the crowd, he suddenly stopped where he stood, and, ere any one could prevent him, exclaimed, in a loud and distinct voice, "My friend, if the Duke of Mayenne be in Paris, you will serve both him and me by telling him that the Marquis of St. Real is here detained, contrary to the Duke's safe-conduct and his honour."
"You will tell him no such thing, as you value your ears!" shouted Albert of Wolfstrom, fixing his eyes upon the Parisian with a marking glance, which seemed to intimate that he would not be easily forgotten by the wrath of the German leader in case of disobedience. The Parisian drew back, determined from the very first to practise that sort of wisdom which those long resident in great cities, and much habituated to scenes of contention and intrigue, do not fail to acquire; namely, to meddle with nothing that does not personally concern them. There was another person present, however, whose diminutive stature, and the simplicity of garb which he had assumed, combined to conceal him from the notice of either St. Real or the mercenary leader; no other, indeed, than the young Marquis's dwarf page, Bartholo; who, peeping through the open spaces between the other personages that formed the little crowd, saw and heard all that passed without attracting notice himself. Slipping out at once from amongst the rest, he made his way down the street, holding one of his usual muttered consultations with himself.
"Now, shall I tell Mayenne," he said, "that the great baby is caught, and shut up here in the Jacobins, like a young imprudent rat, in a politic rat-trap; or shall I let him lie there for his pains, till that spoilt boy, D'Aubin, has married the other fair-haired baby, and that matter is irrevocable?"
He paused for a moment at the end of the street, revolving the question he had put to himself in silence. "No, no," he added, at length; "no, no, there I might outwit myself; these Leaguers are too cunning for that. If they can't get St. Real on any other terms, they may marry him to this Eugenie de Menancourt, and spoil all my schemes at once. If Mayenne hears publicly where he is, he must set him free, for his honour's sake. Then will he go off, in the heat of his anger, to the people at St. Cloud; D'Aubin will come over to the League, marry the girl, and all will be safe. Yes, yes, to Mayenne! I will to Mayenne!"
In consequence of this determination, he proceeded as quickly, but as quietly as possible, to the Hotel de Guise, and demanded to speak with the Duke of Mayenne,--a privilege which every one in Paris claimed in regard to that leader, whose power was principally based upon his popularity. The Duke, however, had by this time set out to watch the progress of the skirmishes which were taking place almost hourly in the Pré aux Clercs, and the dwarf, not choosing that the tidings he had to communicate should be given in any other than a public manner, refused to intrust them to Mayenne's retainers, and retired, resolving to repeat his visit early the next morning.
In the mean time St. Real was hurried into the convent, the gates were shut, and, preceded by two or three of the Dominicans, he was led along the dark and gloomy passages of the building, towards the apartment in which the Prior and Madame de Montpensier were still in conference. Here, however, he was stopped at the door; and Albert of Wolfstrom, entering alone, held a brief but rapid conversation with the Prior. It ended in St. Real being led back again across the great court to a distant part of the monastery, where, after climbing two flights of steps, he was ushered into a corridor extremely narrow, but of considerable length. In the whole extent of wall, however, which this corridor presented, there only appeared three doors, besides the low arch by which he entered. Two of these opened on the left, and were close together; the other was at the further end of the passage.
Albert of Wolfstrom and his soldiers paused at the entrance; but the monks led St. Real on, and, in a moment after, the Prior himself followed. He seemed to regard the young stranger with some degree of interest, and addressed him with mildness and urbanity. "I am told, my son," he said, "that it is necessary, for reasons into which I have no authority to inquire, to hold you as a prisoner till the decision of the lieutenant-general of the kingdom is known in regard to your destination; but at the same time the members of the holy Catholic Union, whose object is solely to maintain the faith and liberties of the people, and to oppose the progress of tyranny and heresy, desire that you should not be treated as a common prisoner of war, but rather should have every comfort and convenience till your fate is otherwise decided. For this purpose, they have consigned you to our care rather than to the rude durance of the Bastille; and, instead of assigning you one of the common cells of the brotherhood, I have directed that you should be placed here, where you can have more space and convenience. Yonder door, at the farther end of the corridor, belongs to a cell fitted for your attendant; this first door on the left leads to an apartment which we shall assign to one of our brethren of St. Dominick, through whom you can communicate with the convent and the world without. This is your own apartment--"
As he spoke, he opened the second of the two doors, which stood close together on the left, and led St. Real into a spacious and well-furnished chamber. It was airy, but somewhat dim, as it derived its only light from a window, which appeared, by its great height and Gothic shape, to have once formed part of some church or chapel. At the present moment, such arrangements had been made--amongst the various alterations which the old building must have undergone--that this single window, which reached from the ceiling to the floor, served to give light both to the room in which St. Real stood, and to the other immediately by its side, which together must have once formed but one large chamber. The thin partition of woodwork which separated the one room from the other, was supported, from the floor to the roof, by the strong stone pillar that divided the Gothic window into two parts; and thus, though the two chambers were completely distinct, they both had an equal share of light.
"This chamber is somewhat obscure," continued the Prior; "but in the alterations which were made in this building, some twenty years ago, we could not arrange things better. What are now sleeping rooms were then part of the old chapel, and this high window looked out to the Prior's dwelling." So saying, he advanced and opened the casement, a great part of which, swinging back on its creaking and clattering hinges, gave admittance to the free air of summer from without, and showed to St. Real the heavy walls of another body of the building rising up before the window, at the distance of scarcely five feet. Running along upon the same level as the chamber in which he stood, might be seen one of those Gothic passages of fretted stone-work, which, in churches, are called monks' galleries; while, at the distance of about twenty feet below, appeared between the two buildings the narrow paved alley which united the inner to the outer court of the Dominican convent.
The Prior proceeded with some more excuses for the dimness of the chamber; but as soon as he had concluded, St. Real, who had listened calmly, replied, "I complain not of the apartment, father, I have slept in worse; but I complain of imprisonment, when my safety and freedom were guaranteed to me by the Duke of Mayenne himself. However, let me warn you, that I am aware, from some circumstances which occurred at the gate of the convent, that his Highness of Mayenne is purposely held in ignorance of my imprisonment. I acquit him therefore of all dishonourable conduct: but how you, and others, will answer to him for bringing his honour and good faith in question, you must yourself consider."
"For my actions," replied the Prior, somewhat sternly, "I am prepared, my son, not only to answer to him, but to God. Those of others I have nought to do with. It suffices for me, that I have authority from those who have a right to give it, to detain you here till I am assured that the lieutenant-general thinks it fit that you should be set at liberty. You are ungrateful, my son, for kindness felt and shown: you might have undergone harsher treatment, had you been consigned to the Bastille."
"Father, I am not ungrateful," replied St. Real, whose simple good sense was no unequal match for even monkish shrewdness; "but when an act of injustice is committed, it is somewhat hard to require that the sufferer should be well pleased that that act of injustice is not greater than it is. To confine me here is wrong--to confine me in the Bastille were worse; but, surely, I cannot be expected to feel grateful to the thief who cuts my purse, simply because he does not cut my throat also!"
"Your language is hard," replied the Prior, "and your similes are indecent towards a minister of the religion you profess to hold; I shall, therefore, waste no more words upon you, young sir. Your conduct, however, makes no change in my purposes. The treatment you receive shall be as gentle and as good as if you were grateful for kindness, and courteous towards those whom you should respect. You will one time know me better; and you may be sure, even now, that I have no purposes to serve by your detention; as you will find by our intercourse, be it long, be it short, that I shall strive for nothing but, if possible, to lead you in that course in which your honour, your happiness, and your best interests, here and hereafter, are alone to be found."
St. Real made no reply; and the Dominican, bowing his head with an air of conscious dignity, withdrew from the apartment, and, proceeding through the doorway by which he had entered, left the young Marquis and his attendant alone. The sound of turning keys and drawing bolts succeeded, and St. Real for the first time found himself a prisoner indeed. Now "The soul, secure in its existence, may smile at the drawn dagger, and defy its point;" yet there are many things which may happen to the body, that defy the soul to preserve her equanimity, although they be much less evils, in comparison, than that irretrievable separation of matter and spirit, which we are accustomed to look upon with more indifference. For a moment or two, St. Real lost his calmness, and, striding up and down the room with his arms folded on his breast, gave way to that bitterness of spirit, which every noble heart must feel on the loss of the great, the incomparable, the inestimable blessing of liberty. His more philosophical attendant, who had been selected in haste from among the rest of his followers, without any great attention to his mental qualities, consoled himself, under the privation which so painfully affected his master, by examining every hole and corner in the apartments to which they were consigned; and comforted himself not a little, under all their woes and disasters, by the sight of soft and downy beds, rich arras, and velvet hangings. Before his perquisitions were well complete, however, and just as his master was reasoning himself into calmer endurance of an event he could not avoid, the door once more opened, and admitted a brother of the order, on whose appearance and demeanour we must pause for a moment.
He was younger than any of the friars that St. Real had yet seen,--pale in countenance, heavy in expression, with a certain degree of sadness, if not wildness, in his eye, and that close shutting of the teeth and compression of the lips, which, in general, argues a determined disposition. A little above the middle height, he was powerful in limb and muscle; but the appearance of strength and activity, which his form would otherwise have displayed, was contradicted by a certain slouching stoop, which deprived his demeanour of all grace; while the habit of gazing, as it were, furtively from under the bent brows which almost concealed his eyes, gave his dull countenance a sinister expression, not at all prepossessing.
"Benedicite!" said the friar, as he advanced towards St. Real; "benedicite!"
St. Real made some ordinary answer in Latin; but the dull unreplying countenance of the monk showed that his stock of Latinity did not extend even to the common phrases in use amongst persons of his profession; and the young Marquis proceeded in French: "You are, I presume, the brother appointed to keep watch over us in our confinement?"
"The Prior has given me, for a penance," replied the monk, "the task of lying in a down bed, and waiting your will in communicating with the parlour and the refectory, till to-morrow morning. I am commanded to ask you if you will have supper: it grows late."
"I am here, father," replied St. Real, with a smile, "as a bird in a cage, and you must feed me at what hours you please: it matters but little to me."
The monk gazed on him, for a moment, in sullen silence, as if he hardly attended to his reply, or hardly understood its meaning; and then, as his slow comprehension did its work, he turned away with a few muttered, half-intelligible words, and left the apartment, going apparently to command the meal of which he had spoken. It was soon after brought in; and, during its course, the Dominican sat by, turning over the leaves of his breviary in silence, from time to time reading a few sentences, and filling up the intervals in gazing vacantly upon the pages, seemingly occupied in dull and gloomy dreams.
The meal did not occupy much time; and after it was concluded, St. Real, anxious to hear something more precise concerning the state of the capital, and to obtain some information in regard to his own situation, endeavoured to enter into conversation with the monk; but the course of all their thoughts lay in such different lines, that he soon perceived the attempt would be in vain. The Dominican sat and listened, and replied either by monosyllables, or by long fanatical tirades, in general totally irrelevant to the topic which called them forth; and, as twilight began to grow upon the world, the young Marquis abandoned the endeavour, and intimated, by his silence, a desire to be left alone. It was long before the other gratified his inclination in this respect, however, but sat mute and absent, still turning over the leaves of his breviary, and gazing, from time to time, upon the face of his companion. Nor was it till St. Real expressed his desire to have a lamp, and to be left to his own thoughts, that the monk deemed it advisable to retire.
Fatigued in body and mind by the events of the day, St. Real soon cast himself down to rest; and sleep was not long in visiting his eyelids. His slumber was profound also; and he awoke not till various sounds in the immediate vicinity of his chamber disturbed his repose somewhat rudely.
The nature of the first noises that roused him he could not very well distinguish, for slumber, though in flight, still held, in some degree, possession of his senses. They seemed, however, as far as he could remember afterwards, to have proceeded from some smart blows of a hammer upon a wooden scaffolding; but, before he was well awake, those sounds had ceased, and a buzzing hum, like that of a turner's wheel, or a quickly moved saw, had succeeded. St. Real listened attentively; and, having convinced himself that the noises, by whatever they were occasioned, were not produced by anything in his own chamber, but rather seemed to proceed from some part of the building opposite his window, he addressed himself to sleep again, and not without success.
But his repose was not so full and tranquil as before. His former slumbers had been profound, forming one of those dreamless, feelingless, lapses of existence, which seem given us to show how the soul, even while dwelling in the body, can pause with all her powers suspended, unconscious of her own being, till called again into activity by some extraneous cause. The sleep which succeeded, however, was very different: dreams came thick and fast; some of them were confused and wild, and indistinct, but some were of that class of visions in which all the objects are as clear and definite as during our waking moments,--in which our thoughts are as active, our mind is as much at work, our passions are as vehemently excited, as in the strife and turmoil of living aspiration and endeavour--dreams which seem given to show us how intensely the soul can act, and feel, and live, while the corporeal faculties, which are her earthly servants, are as dead and useless as if the grave's corruption had resolved them into nothing.
At one moment it seemed that he was in the battle-field, amidst the shout and the cry, and the clang of arms, and the rush of charging squadrons; and then he was in the flight of the defeated army, and he knew all the bitter indignation of reverse, and all the burning thirst to retrieve the day, and he felt all the vain effort to rally the flying, and the hopeless and daring effort to repel the victor; and then again, when all was lost, and not the faint shadow of a despairing hope remained, he was hurrying his rapid course across some dark and midnight moor; and, while he spurred on his own weary horse, he held in his hand the bridle rein of another, who bore one for whom he felt a thousand fears which he knew not for himself; and ever and anon, as he turned to look, the soft sweet eyes of Eugenie de Menancourt would gaze upon him with imploring earnestness. Then, suddenly, the figure changed, the rein dropped from his hand, and, armed all in steel, with lance couched and visor up, as if galloping to attack him, appeared his cousin, Philip d'Aubin; and, with a feeling of horror and a sudden start, St. Real woke.
The sounds that he now heard--for as yet the night had by no means assumed her attribute of quietness--were certainly not calculated to produce the painful sensations that he had just undergone. There was music on the air--soft and delicate music,--not gay, and yet not sad, but with a certain wild solemnity of tone, that well accorded with the hour, and seemed calculated to raise the thoughts to high and unearthly aspirations. At first, the music was solely instrumental; but, in a moment or two afterwards, two sweet voices were heard, singing, with a peculiarly thrilling softness of tone, that seemed to have something supernatural in its clear melody. St. Real listened; and, though the sounds must have proceeded from some distance, yet the words were pronounced so distinctly, that he lost not a syllable of the song they poured upon the night.