He called for a servant to bring him a change of clothes.
"But, Monseigneur," said poor Aloyse, at the end of her arguments, "Madame de Castro herself has remarked that you have shunned the Louvre hitherto. You have not thought best to go there once since your return."
"I have not been to see Madame de Castro because she has not summoned me," said Gabriel. "I have avoided the Louvre because I had no reason to go there; but to-day a feeling that I cannot resist urges me to go (although my action may result in nothing), for Madame de Castro wishes to see me. I have sworn, Aloyse, to allow my own will to slumber, and to leave everything to God and my destiny, and I am going to the Louvre at once."
Thus Diane's step bade fair to produce the opposite effect from that contemplated by her.
Gabriel met with no opposition to his entrance to the Louvre. Since the taking of Calais the name of the young Comte de Montgommery had been heard too often for any one to think of refusing him leave to enter the suite of apartments occupied by Madame de Castro.
Diane, with one of her women, was engaged at the moment on some fancy-work. Very frequently she involuntarily let her hands fall in her lap, and would sit and dream about her interview with Aloyse that morning.
Suddenly André entered in great bewilderment.
"Madame, Monsieur le Vicomte d'Exmès!" he announced. (The boy had not ceased to call his old master by that name.)
"Who? Monsieur d'Exmès! here!" Diane repeated, overwhelmed.
"Yes, Madame, he is close behind me," said the page. "Here he is."
Gabriel appeared at the door, doing his best to control his emotion. He bowed low to Madame de Castro, who, in her confusion, did not at first return his salute.
However, she dismissed the page and her maid with a gesture, and they were left alone. Then they approached, and their hands met in a cordial grasp.
For some seconds they remained with hands joined, gazing at each other in silence.
"You thought best to come to my house, Diane," said Gabriel at last, in a deep voice. "You wished to see me, to speak with me; so I have hastened to you."
"Did it need that action on my part, Gabriel, to apprise you that I wanted to see you? Did you not know it well enough without that?"
"Diane," Gabriel replied with his sad smile, "I have given sufficient proofs of courage heretofore, so I may venture to confess that in coming to the Louvre, I am afraid."
"Afraid of whom?" asked Diane, who was herself afraid of the effect of her own question.
"Afraid of you!—of myself!" replied Gabriel.
"And that is why you chose rather to forget our former affection?—I speak of the legitimate and sanctified side of it," she hastened to add.
"I should have preferred to forget everything, I confess, Diane, rather than put foot inside the Louvre. But alas! I could not. And the proof—"
"The proof?"
"The proof is that I seek you always and everywhere; that though dreading your presence I would have given anything in the world to see you a moment in the distance. The proof is, too, that while prowling about Fontainebleau, or Paris, or St. Germain, around the royal châteaux, instead of desiring what I was supposed to be on the lookout for, it has been you, your sweet and lovely face, a sight of your dress among the trees, or on some terrace, that I have longed for and invoked and coveted! Last of all the proof lies in this fact: that you had only to take one step toward me to make me forget prudence, duty, terror, everything! And here I am in the Louvre, which I ought to shun. I reply to all your questions. I feel that all this is hazardous and insane, nevertheless I do it. Have I given you proof enough now, Diane?"
"Oh, yes, Gabriel, yes," said Diane, hastily, trembling with excitement and emotion.
"Ah, would to Heaven that I had been wiser," continued Gabriel, "and had adhered to my former resolution to see you no more, to flee from you if you summoned me, and to keep silence if you questioned me! That would have been much better for both of us, Diane, believe me. I knew what I was doing. I preferred to cause you anxiety rather than real grief. Oh, my God! why am I without power to withstand your voice and your look?"
Diane began to understand that she had really been wrong in her desire to be relieved from her mortal uncertainty. Every subject of conversation was painful for them, every question concealed a danger. Between these two beings whom God had created for happiness perhaps, there was no possibility of aught but doubt and peril and misery, thanks to the machinations of man.
But since Diane had thus challenged fate, she had no desire to avoid it; quite the contrary. She would go to the bottom of the abyss to which her anxiety had exposed her, though she were to find there nought but despair and death.
After a thoughtful silence, she began thus:—
"I was desirous to see you, Gabriel, for two reasons;
"I had an explanation to make to you in the first instance, as well as one to ask at your hands."
"Speak, Diane," replied Gabriel. "Lay bare my heart, and rend it at your will. It is yours."
"In the first place, Gabriel, I felt that I must let you know why, after I received your message, I did not at once assume the veil you sent back to me, and enter some convent immediately, as I expressed my intention of doing in our last sad interview at Calais."
"Have I reproached you in the least as to that, Diane?" returned Gabriel. "I told André to say to you that I gave you back your promise, and those were no mere empty words on my part; I meant what I said."
"I also mean to become a nun, Gabriel, and be sure that I have simply postponed carrying out my resolve."
"But why, Diane,—why renounce the world in which you were made to shine?"
"Set your mind at rest upon that point, dear friend; it is not altogether to remain faithful to the oath I took, but to satisfy the secret longing of my soul as well, that I intend to leave this world where I have suffered so bitterly. I must have peace and rest, and I know not now where to find either except with God. Do not envy me this last refuge."
"Oh, but I do envy you!" said Gabriel.
"But you see," continued Diane, "I have had a good reason for not at once carrying out my unalterable purpose; I wished to be sure that you gratified the request I made in my last letter,—that you forbore to make yourself judge and executioner; that you did not attempt to anticipate God's will."
"If one only could anticipate it!" muttered Gabriel.
"In short, I hoped," Diane went on, "that I might be able, in case of need, to throw myself between the two men whom I love, but who abhor each other; and who can say that I might not thus prevent a disaster, or a crime? Surely you do not blame me for such a thought as that, Gabriel?"
"I cannot blame an angel for doing what the angelic nature prompts, Diane. You have been very generous, but it is easy to understand it of you."
"Ah!" cried Madame de Castro, "how can I know that I have been generous, or to what extent I am generous now? I am wandering in darkness and at hazard! Besides, it is upon that very point that I wish to question you, Gabriel; for I desire to know my destiny in all its horror."
"Diane, Diane, it is a fatal curiosity!" said Gabriel.
"No matter!" replied Diane, "I will not live in this fearful perplexity and anxiety another day. Tell me, Gabriel, have you become convinced that I am really your sister, or have you absolutely lost all hope of ever learning the truth as to that strange secret? Tell me, I ask,—nay, I implore you!"
"I will tell you," said Gabriel, mournfully. "Diane, there is an old Spanish proverb which says that we must always be prepared for the worst. I have, therefore, accustomed myself, since our parting, to look upon you in my thoughts as my sister. But the truth is that I have obtained no new proof; only, as you say, I have no more hope, no more means of acquiring proof."
"God in Heaven!" cried Diane. "The—he who might furnish these proofs, was he no longer alive when you returned from Calais?"
"He was, Diane."
"Ah, I see, then, that the sacred promise made to you was not redeemed? Who, then, told me that the king had received you with wonderful favor?"
"All that was promised, Diane, was strictly performed."
"Oh, Gabriel, with what an ominous expression you say that! What fearful puzzle still underlies all this, Holy Mother of God!"
"You have asked me, Diane, and you shall know the whole," said Gabriel. "You shall share equally with me in my awful secret. And, indeed, I shall be glad to know what you think of what I am about to disclose to you,—whether, after you have heard it you will still persist in your clemency, and whether your tone and your features and your movements will not in any event belie the words of forgiveness which may come to your lips.—Listen."
"I listen in fear and trembling, Gabriel."
Thereupon, Gabriel, in a breathless, quivering voice, told Madame de Castro the whole sombre story: of the king's reception of him, and how Henri had again reaffirmed his promise; the remonstrances which Madame de Poitiers and the constable had seemed to be making to him; of the night of feverish anguish that he had passed; of his second visit to the Châtelet, his descent into the bowels of the pestilence-laden prison, and the lugubrious narrative of Monsieur de Sazerac,—in short, everything.
Diane listened without interrupting him, without an exclamation or a movement, as mute and rigid as a statue, her eyes fixed in their sockets, and her very hair fairly standing on end.
There was a long pause when Gabriel had finished his gloomy story. Then Diane tried to speak, but could not, for her tongue refused to perform its office. Gabriel seemed to feel a dreadful species of pleasure as he observed her anguish and her terror. At last, she succeeded in ejaculating,—
"Mercy for the king!"
"Ah!" cried Gabriel, "do you ask for mercy for him? Then you, too, must judge him guilty! Mercy? Ah, your very appeal is a condemnation! Mercy? He deserves death, does he not?"
"Oh, I did not say that," replied Diane, in dismay.
"Indeed you did say it, in effect! I see that you agree with me, Diane. You think and feel as I do. But we come to different conclusions in accordance with the difference in our natures. The woman pleads for mercy, and the man demands justice!"
"Ah!" cried Diane, "rash, insane creature that I am! Why did I tempt you to come to the Louvre?"
As she said these words some one rapped softly at the door.
"Who is there? What is wanted?Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Madame de Castro.
André partially opened the door.
"Excuse me, Madame," said he, "a message from the king."
"From the king!" echoed Gabriel, whose face lighted up.
"Why do you bring me this letter now, André?"
"Madame, they told me it was urgent."
"Very well, give it me. What does the king want of me? You may go, André. If there is any reply, I will call you."
André left the room. Diane broke the seal of the king's letter, and read in a low tone, and with increasing terror, what follows:—
MY DEAR DIANE,—I am told that you are at the Louvre; do not go out, I beg you, until I have visited you in your apartments. I am at a sitting of the council which is likely to end at any moment. When I leave the council-chamber I will come immediately to you. Expect me very soon.It is a long while since I have seen you alone! I am in low spirits, and feel that I must have a few moments' talk with my beloved daughter. Farewell for the moment.HENRI.
MY DEAR DIANE,—I am told that you are at the Louvre; do not go out, I beg you, until I have visited you in your apartments. I am at a sitting of the council which is likely to end at any moment. When I leave the council-chamber I will come immediately to you. Expect me very soon.
It is a long while since I have seen you alone! I am in low spirits, and feel that I must have a few moments' talk with my beloved daughter. Farewell for the moment.
HENRI.
Diane, with colorless cheeks, crumpled the letter in her hands when she had read it.
What should she do?
Dismiss Gabriel at once? But suppose on his way out he should meet the king, who might arrive at any moment!
Should she keep the youth with her? The king would find him there when he came in.
To warn the king would excite his suspicion, while on the other hand to warn Gabriel would simply arouse his anger by seeming to dread it.
A meeting between these two men, each of whom was so threatening to the other, now appeared inevitable, and it was she herself, Diane, who would gladly shed her own blood to save them, who had brought about the fatal encounter!
"What does the king write to you, Diane?" asked Gabriel, with an assumed tranquillity which was belied by the trembling of his voice.
"Nothing, nothing, really," replied Diane. "A reminder of the reception this evening."
"Perhaps I discommode you, Diane," Gabriel remarked. "If so, I will go."
"No, no, don't go!" cried Diane, hastily. "But then," she continued, "if you have any business which demands your immediate attention elsewhere, I should not like to detain you."
"That letter has troubled you, Diane. I fear that I have wearied you, and will take my leave."
"You weary me, my friend! Can you believe it?" said Madame de Castro. "Was it not I who went in search of you, in some measure? Alas! I fear, very imprudently. I will see you again, but not here—at your own house. The first opportunity that presents itself for me to get away, I will come to see you, and resume this sweet though painful interview. I promise you. Rely upon me. At the moment, you are right, I confess; I am somewhat preoccupied and in pain. I feel as if I were in a burning fever—"
"I see, Diane, and I will leave you," replied Gabriel, sadly.
"We shall meet again soon, my friend," said she. "Now go, go!"
She accompanied him as far as the door.
"If I keep him here," she thought, "it is certain that he will see the king; if he goes away at once, there is at least a chance that they may not meet."
Yet she hesitated still, and was anxious and tremulous.
"Pardon me, Gabriel," said she, quite beside herself, as they stood on the threshold; "just a word more.Mon Dieu! Your narrative has upset me so that it is hard for me to collect my thoughts. What was I about to ask you? Ah, I know! Just one word, but one of much importance. You have not yet told me what you intend to do. I begged for mercy, and you cried, 'Justice!' Pray tell me how you hope to obtain justice!"
"I do not know yet," said Gabriel, gloomily; "I trust in God for the event and the opportunity."
"For the opportunity!" repeated Diane, with a shudder. "For the opportunity,—what do you mean by that? Oh, come back, come back! I cannot let you go, Gabriel, until you have explained to me that word 'opportunity;' stay, I implore you!"
Taking his hand, she led him back into the room.
"If he meets the king elsewhere," thought poor Diane, "they will be quite alone,—the king without attendants, and Gabriel with his sword at his side; whereas if I am present, I can at least throw myself between them, and implore Gabriel to withhold his hand, or intercept his blow. Yes, he must remain.
"I feel better now," said she, aloud. "Remain, Gabriel, and let us renew our conversation, and do you give me the explanation I ask. I am much better."
"No, Diane; you are even more excited than you were," replied Gabriel. "Do you know what has come into my mind as an explanation of your alarm?"
"No, indeed, Gabriel. How should I know?"
"Well," said Gabriel, "just as your cry for mercy was an avowal that the crime was patent in your eyes, so your present apprehensions show that you believe the chastisement would be legitimate. You dread my vengeance for the culprit; and since you appreciate the justice of it, you are keeping me here to warn him of possible reprisals on my part, which, though they might terrify and afflict you, would not astonish you,—which would, on the other hand, seem quite natural to you. Am I not right?"
Diane was startled, so truly had the blow struck home. Nevertheless, collecting all her force, she said,—
"Oh, Gabriel, how can you believe that I could conceive such thoughts of you? You, my own Gabriel, a murderer! you deal a blow from behind at one who could not defend himself! Impossible! It would be worse than a crime; it would be dastardly. Do you imagine that I am trying to keep you? Oh, no, far from it; go whenever you please, and I will open the door for you. I am perfectly calm;mon Dieu, yes!—perfectly calm upon this point at least. If anything worries me, it is no such idea as that, I assure you. Leave me, leave the Louvre, with your mind at rest. I will come again to your house to finish our conversation. Go, my friend, go! You see how anxious I am to keep you!"
As she spoke she had led him into the anteroom, where the page was in attendance. Diane thought of ordering him to stay with Gabriel until he had left the Louvre; but that precaution would have betrayed her suspicion.
However, she could not resist the impulse to call André to her side by a sign, and whisper in his ear,—
"Do you know if the council is at an end?"
"Not yet, Madame," replied André, beneath his breath. "I have not yet seen the councillors leave the hall."
"Adieu, Gabriel," resumed Diane, aloud, with much animation. "Adieu, my friend. You almost force me to send you away, to prove that I have no such object as you allege in keeping you here. Adieu!—but for only a short time."
"For only a short time," said the youth, with a melancholy smile, as he pressed her hand.
He left her: but she stood looking after him until the last door had closed behind him.
Then returning to her room, she fell upon her knees before herprie-Dieu, weeping bitterly, and with palpitating heart.
"Omon Dieu,mon Dieu!" she prayed, "in Jesus' name, watch over him who is perhaps my brother, as well as over him who is perhaps my father! Preserve the two beings whom I love, O my God! Thou alone canst do it now."
In spite of her earnest efforts to prevent it, or rather because of those very efforts, events occurred as Madame de Castro had foreseen and dreaded.
Gabriel had gone from her presence sorrowful and agitated. Diane's fever had communicated itself to him in some measure, and clouded his eyes and confused his thoughts.
He passed mechanically down the stairways and along the familiar corridors of the Louvre, without paying much attention to exterior objects.
Nevertheless, as he was on the point of opening the door of the great gallery, he did remember that on his return from St. Quentin it was there that he had met Mary Stuart, and through the intervention of the young queen-dauphine had succeeded in reaching the king's presence, where the first fraud and humiliation had been practised upon him.
For he had not been deceived and outraged on one occasion only; several times had his enemies trampled upon his hope before its life was finally extinct. After he had first been made their dupe, he would have done well to expect similar treatment, and to have anticipated such exaggerated and cowardly interpretations of the letter of a sacred agreement.
While these irritating reminiscences were coursing through his brain, he opened the door and entered the gallery.
At the other end of the gallery, the corresponding door opened at the same moment.
A man entered.
It was Henri II.,—Henri, the author of, or at least the principal accessory in, the foul and dastardly deception which had forever withered Gabriel's heart and poisoned his life.
The king came forward alone, unarmed and unattended.
The offender and the offended, for the first time since the perpetration of the outrage, found themselves face to face, alone, and scarcely one hundred feet apart,—a distance which could be traversed in twenty seconds with twenty steps.
We have said that Gabriel had stopped short, motionless and rigid as a statue,—like a statue of Vengeance or of Hatred.
The king halted, as he suddenly espied the man whom for nearly a year he had seen only in his dreams.
The two stood thus for a moment without moving, as if mutually fascinated by each other.
In the whirl of sensations and thoughts which filled Gabriel's brain, the poor fellow in his distraction could fix upon no course to adopt, and form no resolution. He waited.
As for Henri, despite his proved courage, the sensation that he experienced was beyond question fear; but at the humiliating thought he held his head erect, banished his first cowardly impulse, and made up his mind what to do.
To call fur help would have been to show fear; to retire as he had come would have been to flee.
He pursued his way toward the door, where Gabriel remained as if nailed to the spot.
Moreover, a superior force, a sort of irresistible and fatal fascination, urged him on toward the pale phantom who seemed to be waiting for him.
The perplexities of his destiny began to unfold themselves around him.
Gabriel experienced a species of blind, instinctive satisfaction as he saw him approach; but still he could not succeed in evolving any distinct thought from the clouds that obscured his intellect. He simply laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword.
When the king was within a few steps of Gabriel, the personal dread which he had previously thrust away seized him anew, and held his heart fast, as it were in a vice.
He said to himself in a vague way that his last hour had come, and that it was just.
However, his step did not falter. His feet seemed to carry him along of their own accord, and independently of his own dazed will. It is thus that somnambulists go about.
When he was directly in front of Gabriel, so that he could hear his quick breathing, and might touch him with his hand, he mechanically raised his hand to his velvet cap, and saluted the young count.
Gabriel did not acknowledge the salute. He maintained his marble-like attitude; and his hand, like that of a graven image, never left his sword.
In the king's eyes Gabriel was no longer a subject, but a messenger of God, before whom he must bow; while to Gabriel Henri was no longer a king, but a man, who had slain his father, and to whom he owed nothing but bitter hatred.
However, he allowed him to pass without doing aught, and without a word.
The king, on his part, did not move aside nor turn around nor express any feeling at such lack of respect.
When the door had closed between the two men, and the charm was broken, each of them awoke, as it were, rubbed his eyes, and asked himself,—
"Was it not a dream?"
Gabriel slowly left the Louvre. He did not regret the lost opportunity, nor did he repent that he had allowed it to escape him.
He felt a sort of confused joy.
"My prey is coming to me," he thought; "already he is fluttering around my nets, and getting within reach of my spear."
He slept that night more soundly than he had done for a long while.
The king, however, was not so tranquil. He went on to Diane's apartments, where she was expecting him, and welcomed him with such transports of delight as we can imagine.
But Henri was absorbed and restless. He did not venture to speak of the Comte de Montgommery, although he fancied that Gabriel was doubtless coming from his daughter's apartments when they met. However, he did not choose to touch that chord; therefore, while he had set out to pay Diane this visit in a spirit of effusive affection and confidence, he maintained from beginning to end an air of suspicion and constraint.
He then returned to his own apartments, sad and gloomy. He felt displeased with himself and others, and his sleep that night was very troubled and broken.
It seemed to him that he was becoming involved in a labyrinth from which he should never come out alive.
"However," he said to himself, "I offered myself to that man's sword to-day in a measure; so it is evident that he does not wish to kill me."
The king, in order to distract his thoughts and seek forgetfulness for his troubles, determined to leave Paris for a time. During the days immediately following his encounter with the Comte de Montgommery, he went successively to St. Germain, Chambord, and Madame de Poitiers's Château d'Anet.
Toward the close of the month of June he was at Fontainebleau.
He was constantly moving about, and had the appearance of a man wishing to drown his trouble in motion and noise and excitement.
The approaching fêtes in connection with his daughter Élisabeth's marriage with Philip II. afforded an excuse as well as opportunity for this feverish need of continual action.
At Fontainebleau he desired to entertain the Spanish ambassador with the spectacle of a great hunt in the forest, and it was appointed to take place on the 23d of June.
The day broke hot and threatening, and the weather became very tempestuous.
Nevertheless Henri did not countermand the orders he had given, for the excitement would surely be no less in a storm.
He selected the fleetest and highest-mettled horse in his stables, and followed the hunt with a sort of fury; and it happened at one time that carried away by his own ardor and the temper of his horse, he outstripped all his companions, lost sight of the hunt completely, and missed his way in the forest.
Clouds were piling up in the sky, and ominous rumblings were heard in the distance. The storm was about to break.
Henri, leaning forward upon his foaming steed, whose headlong pace he made no attempt to slacken, but on the contrary, urging him on with voice and spur, rode on and on, more swiftly than the wind, among the trees and rocks; the dizzy gallop seemed to suit his humor, for he laughed loud and long.
For a few moments he had forgotten his troubles.
Suddenly his horse reared in terror; a dazzling flash lighted up the sky, and the sudden apparition of one of those huge white rocks which abound in the forest of Fontainebleau, towering aloft at a corner of the path, had startled him.
A loud peal of thunder increased twofold the fear of the skittish animal. He bounded forward, and the sudden movement broke the rein close to the bit, so that Henri entirely lost control.
Then began a furious, fearful mad race.
The horse, with mane erect, foaming flanks, and rigid legs, shot through the air like an arrow.
The king, clinging to the animal's neck to save himself from falling, his hair on end, and his clothes blowing about in the wind, vainly tried to seize the rein, which would have been of no use in his hands.
Any one seeing the horse and his rider pass thus in the tempest would have infallibly taken them for a vision from the infernal regions, and would have thought only of exorcising the evil spirit with the sign of the cross.
But no one was at hand; not a living soul, not an inhabited dwelling. That last chance of safety which the presence of a fellow-man affords to one in peril was lacking to this anointed horseman.
Not a woodcutter, not a beggar, not a poacher, not even a thief, to save this crowned king!
The pouring rain, and the more and more frequent peals of thunder, ever nearer at hand, drove the maddened steed to an even more headlong and terrific pace.
Henri, with staring eyes, tried in vain to recognize the path along which the fatal race was being run. At last he did succeed in fixing his position at a certain cleared space among the trees, and then he fairly shook with terror, for the path led straight to the summit of a steep rock, whose perpendicular wall overhung a deep chasm, a veritable abyss!
The king did his utmost to stop the horse with his hand and voice, but to no purpose.
To throw himself from the saddle was to break his neck against some tree-trunk or granite bowlder, and it was better not to resort to that desperate measure until the last moment.
In any event Henri felt that he was lost, and full of remorse and dread, was already commending his soul to God.
He did not know at just what part of the path he was, or whether the precipice was close at hand or at some distance; but he must be ready, and he was just about to let himself to the ground, at all hazards.
At this moment, as he cast a last look about him in all directions, he saw a man at the end of the path, mounted like himself, but standing beneath the shelter of an oak.
At that distance he could not recognize the man, whose features and form, in addition, were hidden by a long cloak and a broad-rimmed hat. But it was doubtless some gentleman who had lost his way in the forest, as he himself had done.
At last Henri felt that his safety was assured. The path was narrow, and the stranger had only to move his horse forward a step or two to block the king's passage; or by simply reaching out his hand he might stop him in his headlong course.
Nothing could be easier; and even though there were some risk attending it, the unknown, on recognizing the king, ought not to think twice about incurring the risk to save his master.
In less than one twentieth of the time it has taken to read these words, the three or four hundred paces which separated Henri from his rescuer had been traversed.
Henri, to attract attention, uttered a cry of distress and waved his hand. The stranger saw him, and made a movement; he was doubtless making ready.
But oh, in terror's name! although the maddened horse passed directly before the unknown horseman, he failed to make the slightest attempt to stop him.
Indeed, it seemed as if he fell back somewhat, to avoid any possible contact.
The king uttered a second cry, no longer appealing and imploring, but of rage and despair.
However, he thought that the iron feet of his horse seemed to be now striking on stone, and not on the sod. He had arrived at the fatal precipice.
He whispered the name of God, released his foot from the stirrup, and let himself fall to the ground, at every risk.
The rebound carried him some fifteen paces away; but miraculously, as it appeared, he fell upon a little mound of moss and grass, and sustained no injury. It was full time! Less than twenty feet away was the sheer precipice.
The poor horse, amazed at being thus relieved of his burden, gradually lessened his pace, so that when he reached the edge of the chasm, he had time to measure its width, and instinctively threw himself upon his haunches, with flaming eyes and disordered mane, and foam flying from his distended nostrils.
But if the king had been still upon his back, the shock of his sudden stop would surely have thrown him into the abyss.
Having offered a fervent prayer of thanksgiving to God, who had so evidently protected him, and having soothed and remounted his horse, his first thought was to hasten back and vent his anger upon the wretch who would so basely have left him to die, except for the intervention of God.
The stranger had remained in the same spot, still motionless beneath the folds of his black cloak.
"Wretch!" cried the king, when he had approached within ear-shot. "Did you not see the danger I was in? Did you not recognize me, regicide? And even though it were not your king, ought you not to rescue any man in such peril of his life, when you have only to stretch out your arm to do it, miscreant?"
The stranger did not move, nor did he reply; he simply raised his head slightly, which was shaded from Henri's eyes by his broad felt hat.
The king recoiled as he recognized the pale and dejected features of Gabriel. He said no more, but muttered to himself, lowering his head,—
"The Comte de Montgommery! Then I have nothing more to say."
And without another word, he put spurs to his horse and galloped off into the forest.
"He would not kill me," he said to himself, seized with a death-like tremor; "but it seems that he would let me die."
Gabriel, once more alone, repeated with a gloomy smile,—
"I feel that my prey is coming nearer, and the hour is approaching."
The marriage contracts of Élisabeth and Marguerite de France were to be signed at the Louvre on the 28th of June, and the king returned to Paris on the 25th, more cast down and preoccupied than ever.
Especially since Gabriel's last appearance, his life had become a torment to him. He avoided being left alone, and constantly sought means of banishing temporarily the sombre thought by which he was possessed, so to speak.
But he had not mentioned that second encounter to a single soul; he was at once anxious and afraid to unbosom himself on the subject to some devoted and faithful heart; for he himself no longer knew what to think or what course to adopt, and the fearful thought which haunted him had thrown his mind into utter confusion.
Finally he determined to open his heart to Diane de Castro.
Diane had surely seen Gabriel again, he said to himself; there was no question that the young count had just left her when he encountered him the first time, so that Diane might possibly know his plans. In that case, she could and she ought either to set her father's mind at rest or to warn him; and Henri, despite the bitter doubts with which he was ceaselessly assailed, did not believe his beloved daughter capable of treachery toward him, or of conniving at it.
A mysterious instinct seemed to whisper to him that Diane was no less anxious than he. In fact, Diane de Castro, although she knew nothing of the two strange meetings which had taken place between the king and Gabriel, was equally ignorant as to what had become of the latter during the last few days. André, whom she had despatched several times to the house in the Rue des Jardins St. Paul to learn something of Gabriel's movements, had brought her no information. He had disappeared from Paris again. We have seen him haunting the king at Fontainebleau.
In the afternoon of June 26 Diane was sitting pensively in her apartments, quite alone, when one of her women came hurriedly in to announce the king.
Henri's face wore its ordinary grave expression. After the first greetings, he plunged at once into the matter in hand, as if to throw off his troublesome anxiety at the first opportunity.
"Dear Diane," said he, gazing intently into his daughter's eyes, "it is a long time since we have spoken together of Monsieur d'Exmès, who has now taken the title of Comte de Montgommery. It is a long time also since you have seen him, is it not? Tell me."
Diane at Gabriel's name turned pale and shuddered.
"Sire," she replied, "I have seen Monsieur d'Exmès once only since my return from Calais."
"Where did you see him, Diane?" asked the king.
"At the Louvre, Sire, in this very room."
"About a fortnight ago, was it not?"
"I should think it was about that time, Sire," replied Madame de Castro.
"I suspected as much," returned the king.
He paused a moment, as if to rearrange his ideas.
Diane observed him attentively and fearfully, trying to divine the purpose of his unexpected question.
But Henri's serious expression seemed impenetrable.
"Excuse me, Sire," she said, mustering all her courage. "May I venture to ask your Majesty why, after your long silence as to him who saved me from disgrace at Calais, you have done me the honor to pay me this visit to-day, and at this hour, expressly, I should judge, to interrogate me about him?"
"Do you wish to know, Diane?" asked the king.
"Sire, I am so bold," she replied.
"Very well, then, you shall know all," said Henri; "and I pray that my confidence may invite and induce yours. You have often told me that you loved me, my child."
"I have said it, and I say it again, Sire," cried Diane: "I love you as my sovereign, my benefactor, and my father."
"Therefore I may reveal everything to my loyal and loving daughter," said the king; "so listen, Diane."
"I listen with all my soul, Sire."
Henri then described his two encounters with Gabriel,—the first in the gallery of the Louvre, and the other in the forest of Fontainebleau. He told Diane of the strange demeanor, as of mute rebellion, which the young man had adopted, and how on the first occasion he had declined to raise his hand to salute his king, and the second time had declined to raise his hand to save his life.
Diane at this recital could not conceal her grief and her alarm. The conflict which she so dreaded between Gabriel and the king had already manifested itself on two occasions, and might soon appear again in a still more dangerous and terrible form.
Henri, affecting not to notice his daughter's emotion, ended with these words:—
"These are serious offences, are they not, Diane? They almost amount tolèse-majesté! And yet I have concealed these insults from everybody, and dissembled my indignation, because this young man has really suffered at my hands in the past, notwithstanding the glorious service he has rendered my kingdom, which ought doubtless to have been rewarded much more generously." Fixing a piercing glance upon Diane, the king continued,—
"I do not know, Diane, nor do I wish to know, whether you have been made acquainted with the wrong I have done Monsieur d'Exmès; I only wish you to feel that my silence has been due to my appreciation of that wrong and my regret for it. But is it not imprudent for me to maintain silence? Do not these outrages give warning of others more flagrant still? Ought I not to have an eye to Monsieur d'Exmès? Upon these points I have come, Diane, to ask for your friendly advice."
"I am grateful for your confidence in me, Sire," replied Diane, sorrowfully, being thus forced to choose between the duty which she owed respectively to the two men who were dearest to her on earth.
"It is a very natural confidence, Diane," the king returned. "Well?" he added, observing that his daughter seemed to be at a loss.
"Well, Sire," replied Diane, with an effort, "I think that your Majesty is right, and that for you to take some notice of Monsieur d'Exmès's movements will perhaps be the wisest course you can adopt."
"Do you think, then, Diane, that my life is in danger from him?" asked Henri.
"Oh, I did not say that, Sire!" cried Diane, warmly. "But Monsieur d'Exmès seems to have been wounded to the quick, and there may be danger perhaps—"
Poor Diane stopped abruptly, quivering with the torture she was undergoing, the perspiration standing on her forehead in great beads. This species of denunciation, which her moral sense had almost torn from her, was very repugnant to her noble heart.
But Henri put a wholly different construction upon her very evident distress.
"I understand you, Diane," said he, rising and pacing heavily to and fro. "Yes, I foresaw it clearly. You see I must be suspicious of this young man; but to live with this Damocles's sword forever hanging over my head is impossible. The obligations of kings are not the same as those by which other gentlemen are governed. I propose to take effective measures to protect myself against Monsieur d'Exmès."
He walked toward the door as if to leave the room, but Diane threw herself in his path.
What, Gabriel to be accused and perhaps imprisoned! And it was she, Diane, who had betrayed him! She could not abide the thought. After all, Gabriel's words had not been so full of menace.
"Sire, one moment, pray!" she cried. "You are mistaken; I swear that you are mistaken! I have not said a word to imply that your doubly sacred head is in danger. Nothing in Monsieur d'Exmès's confidences could ever make me suspect him capable of crime. Otherwise, great God! would I not have told you everything?"
"Very true," said Henri, stopping once more; "but what did you mean to say, then, Diane?"
"I meant to say simply that I thought it would be well for your Majesty to avoid as far as possible these vexatious encounters where an offended subject is enabled to show his forgetfulness of the respect due to his king. But a regicide's failure to show respect is a very different matter. Sire, would it be worthy of you to try to remedy one unjust act by another equally iniquitous?"
"No, surely not; I had no such intention," said the king; "and I have proved it by keeping these occurrences to myself. Since you have dissipated my suspicions, Diane; since you will answer for my bodily safety to your own conscience and before God; and since in your opinion I may be perfectly tranquil—"
"Tranquil!" Diane interrupted with a shudder. "Ah, I didn't go so far as that, Sire. With what a terrible load of responsibility you overwhelm me! On the contrary, your Majesty ought to be careful and on your guard—"
"No," said the king, "I cannot live in a condition of never-ending dread and apprehension. For two weeks I have entirely ceased to enjoy life. This state of affairs must come to an end. One of two things must happen: either trusting in your word, Diane, I shall go tranquilly on with my life, thinking of the welfare of my realm, and not of my enemy,—in short, without troubling myself further about Vicomte d'Exmès; or I shall see that this man who bears me ill-will is put where he can no longer injure me, by giving information of his outrages; and since I occupy too proud and lofty a position to defend myself, I shall leave that task to those whose duty it is to safeguard my person."
"And who are they, Sire?" asked Diane.
"Why, Monsieur de Montmorency, first of all, as constable and commander-in-chief of the army."
"Monsieur de Montmorency!" echoed Diane, with an accent of horror.
That detested name at once recalled to her mind all the misfortunes of Gabriel's father, his long and harsh captivity, and his death. If Gabriel in turn should fall into the constable's hands, a like fate was in store for him, and his destruction was certain.
In her imagination Diane saw him whom she had loved so dearly immured in a dungeon without light or air, and dying there in one night, or, more fearful still, lingering on for twenty years, and dying at the last cursing God and man, but more than all Diane the traitress, who with her equivocal and hesitating words had basely betrayed him.
There was no proof that Gabriel wished to slay the king, or would be able to do it, while there was no room for doubt that the bitter enmity of Monsieur de Montmorency would have no mercy on Gabriel.
Diane went over all this in her mind in a few seconds, and when the king finally propounded the direct question to her,—
"Well, Diane, what advice do you give me? Since you are better able than I to form an opinion as to the perils which beset my path, your word shall be my law. Ought I to think no more about Monsieur d'Exmès, or ought I, on the other hand, to busy myself with him exclusively?"
She replied in an agony of terror at his last words, "I have no other counsel to offer your Majesty than that of your own conscience. If any other than a man whom you had offended, Sire, had failed to show proper respect to you, or had basely abandoned you when in danger of your life, you would not, I fancy, have come to ask my advice as to the fit punishment to be meted out to the culprit. Therefore some very weighty motive must have constrained your Majesty to adopt a policy of silence which seems to imply forgiveness. Now I confess that I can see no reason why you should not continue to act as you have begun; for it seems to me that if Monsieur d'Exmès had been capable of meditating a crime against you, he could hardly have expected two fairer opportunities than those which were offered him in a lonely gallery in the Louvre, and in the forest of Fontainebleau on the edge of a precipice—"
"You need say no more, Diane," said Henri; "and I will not ask you another question. You have banished a serious anxiety from my heart, and I thank you sincerely for it, my dear child. Let us say no more about this. Now I shall be able to devote my thoughts freely to our approaching marriage festivities. I desire that they shall be magnificent, and that you shall be as magnificent as they. Diane, do you hear?"
"I beg your Majesty to excuse me," said Diane; "but I was just about to ask leave to absent myself from these festivities. I should much prefer, if I must confess it, to remain here by myself."
"What!" exclaimed the king; "but do you know, Diane, that this will be truly a royal display? There will be games and tournaments, all on the most splendid scale, and I myself shall be one of those who hold the lists against all comers. What pressing affairs can you have to keep you away from such superb spectacles, my darling daughter?"
"Sire," replied Diane, in a tone of the utmost gravity, "I have to pray."
A few minutes later the king quitted Madame de Castro, with his heart relieved of part of its anguish.
But alas! he left poor Diane with so much the more anguish at her heart.
The king, thenceforth almost free from the anxiety which had weighed upon him, urged on most energetically the preparations for the magnificent fêtes which he proposed to provide for his fair city of Paris, on the occasion of the happy marriages of his daughter Élisabeth with Philip II., and his sister Marguerite with the Duke of Savoy.
Very happy marriages, in sooth, and which surely deserved to be celebrated with such rejoicing and splendor. The author of Don Carlos has told us so well that we need not repeat it, what was the result of the first. We shall see to what the preliminaries of the other led.
The contract of marriage between Philibert Emmanuel and Marguerite de France was to be signed on the 28th of June.
Henri caused the announcement to be made that on that and the two following days there would be lists open at the Tournelles for tilting and other knightly sports.
And upon the pretext of paying a higher compliment to the bride and groom, but really to gratify his own intense passion for sport of that nature, the king declared that he would himself be among the challengers.
But on the morning of the 28th the queen, Catherine de Médicis, who at that time scarcely ever showed herself in public, sent an urgent request to the king for an interview with him.
Henri, we need not say, acquiesced at once in his wife's desire.
Catherine thereupon entered his apartment in much emotion.
"Ah, dear Sire," she exclaimed as soon as she saw him, "in Jesus' name, I implore you not to leave the Louvre until the end of this month of June."
"Why so, Madame, pray?" asked Henri, amazed at this unexpected request.
"Sire, because you are threatened by great peril during these last few days."
"Who has told you that?" demanded the king.
"Your star, Sire, which appeared last night in an observation made by myself and my Italian astrologer, with most threatening indications of danger,—of mortal danger!"
We must know that Catherine de Médicis about this time began to devote herself to those magical and astrological practices which very rarely deceived her in the whole course of her life, if we may trust the memoirs of the time.
But Henri was a confirmed scoffer in this matter of reading the stars, and he smilingly replied to the queen,—
"Well, Madame, if my star portends danger, it may come to me here as well as elsewhere."
"No, Sire," Catherine replied; "it is beneath the vault of heaven and in the open air that peril awaits you."
"Really!—a tempest perhaps?" said Henri.
"Sire, do not joke about such things!" retorted the queen. "The stars are the written word of God."
"Well, then, we must agree," said Henri, "that the divine handwriting is generally very obscure and confused."
"How so, Sire?"
"The erasures seem to me to make the text unintelligible, so that each one may decipher it almost to suit himself. You have read, Madame, in the celestial conjuring book, as you say, that my life is threatened if I quit the Louvre?"
"Yes, Sire."
"Very well. Now, Forcatel only last month saw something very different there. You think highly of Forcatel, Madame, I believe?"
"Yes," said the queen; "he is a learned man, who has already learned to read in the book where we are just beginning to spell."
"Know, then, Madame," rejoined the king, "that Forcatel read for me in these stars of yours this beautiful verse, which has no other fault except that it is utterly unintelligible:—"