by G. A. Henty
“Precautions of what kind, Monsieur Philip?”
“I have not thought them out,” Philip said; “but, were I the next in rank to the Admiral, I would enjoin that a third of our number should be under arms, night and day, and should at night patrol our quarters; secondly, that a rallying place should be appointed, say at the Admiral’s, to which all should mount and ride, directly an alarm is given.”
“The first part could hardly be managed, here,” the count said gravely. “It would seem that we doubted the royal assurances of good faith, and his promises of protection. We have enemies enough about the king’s ear, and such a proceeding would be surely misrepresented to him. You know how wayward are his moods, and that it would need but a slight thing to excite his irritation, and undo all the good that the Admiral has effected.”
Two or three other Huguenot gentlemen now entered, and a general conversation on the state of affairs took place. Philip was standing a little apart from the others, when Claire came up to him.
“You really believe in danger, Monsieur Philip?”
“Frankly I do, mademoiselle. The population hate us. There have been Huguenot massacres over and over again in Paris. The Guises are doubtless the instigators of this attack on the Admiral. They are the idols of the Paris mob and, if they gave the word, it would at once rise against us. As I told your father, I have no real reason for uneasiness, but nevertheless I am uneasy.”
“Then the danger must be real,” the girl said simply. “Have you any advice to give me?”
“Only this. You have but a week to stay here in Paris. During that time, make excuses so as not to stir abroad in the streets more than you can help; and in the second place I would say, lie down in your clothes at night, so as to be in readiness to rise, instantly.”
“I will do that,” she said. “There is nothing else?”
“Nothing that I can think of. I hope and trust that the emergency will not come; but at any rate, until it does come, we can do no more.”
A few minutes later, Philip and his cousin took their leave. The former went back to his lodgings, the latter to the Louvre. Philip was surprised at not finding Pierre, and sat up later than usual, expecting his return; but it was not till he was rising next morning that the man made his appearance.
“Why, where have you been all night?” Philip asked angrily. “This is not the time for pleasure.”
“I have been outside the walls, master,” Pierre said.
“What in the world did you go there for, Pierre?”
“Well, sir, I was here when Monsieur de Laville brought in the news of the shooting of the Admiral. This seemed, to me, to bear out all that I have said to you. You hurried away without my having time to speak to you, so I took it upon myself to act.”
“In what way, Pierre?”
“I went straight to the stables, sir, and took one of your honour’s chargers and my horse and, riding one and leading the other, passed out through the gate before the orders came about closing. I rode them to a village, six miles away; and put them up at a small inn there, and left them in the landlord’s charge. I did not forget to tell the stable boy that he should have a crown for himself if, on my return, I found the horses in as good condition as I left them.
“Then I walked back to Paris, and found a crowd of people unable to enter, and learned that the gates had been closed by the king’s order. I went off to Saint Denis, and there bought a long rope and an iron hook; and at two in the morning, when I thought that any sentries there might be on the walls would be drowsy, came back again to Paris, threw up my hook, and climbed into one of the bastions near the hut we had marked. There I slept until the morning, and now you see me.
“I have taken out the horses so that, should you be obliged to fly, there would be means of escape. One charger will suffice for your wants here, and to ride away upon if you go out with the Huguenot company, whether peacefully or by force of arms. As for me, I would make my way there on foot, get the horses, and rejoin you.”
“It was a good idea, Pierre, and promptly carried out. But no one here has much thought of danger, and I feel ashamed of myself at being the only one to feel uneasy.”
“The wise man is uneasy while the fool sleeps,” Pierre said. “If the Prince of Conde had been uneasy, the night before Jarnac, he would not have lost his life, and we should not have lost a battle. No harm has been done. If danger does come, we at least are prepared for it.”
“You are quite right, Pierre. However surely he may count upon victory, a good general always lays his plans in case of defeat. At any rate, we have prepared for everything.”
Pierre muttered something to himself.
“What do you say, Pierre?”
“I was only saying, master, that I should feel pretty confident of our getting away, were there only our two selves to think of. What with our disguises, and what with your honour’s strong arm—and what I can do to back you—and what with our being on our guard, it would be hard if we did not make our way safe off. But I foresee that, should there be trouble, it is not of your own safety you will be thinking.”
“Mademoiselle de Valecourt is engaged to the Sieur de Pascal,” Philip said gravely.
“So I heard, from one of the count’s lackeys; but there is many a slip between the cup and the lip, and in such days as these there is many an engagement that never becomes a marriage. I guessed how it would be, that night after you had saved Mademoiselle Claire’s life; and I thought so, still more, when we were staying at Valecourt.”
“Then your thoughts ran too fast, Pierre. Mademoiselle de Valecourt is a great heiress; and the count should, of course, give her in marriage to one of his own rank.”
Pierre shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly.
“Your honour is doubtless right,” he said humbly; “and therefore, seeing that she has her father and Monsieur de Pascal to protect her, we need not trouble more about those articles of attire stowed away on the roof above; but shall be able to concern ourselves solely with our own safety, which puts a much better complexion on the affair.”
“The whole matter is ridiculous, Pierre,” Philip said angrily, “and I am a fool to have listened to you. There, go and see about breakfast, or I shall lose my patience with you, altogether.”
There were several consultations, during the day, between the leading Huguenots. There was no apparent ground for suspicion that the attack upon the Admiral had been a part of any general plot, and it was believed that it was but the outcome of the animosity of the Guises, and the queen mother, against a man who had long withstood them, who was now higher than themselves in the king’s confidence, and who had persuaded him to undertake an enterprise that would range France on the side of the Protestant powers. The balance of evidence is all in favour of the truth of this supposition, and to the effect that it was only upon the failure of their scheme, against the Admiral, that the conspirators determined upon a general massacre of the Huguenots.
They worked upon the weak king’s mind, until they persuaded him that Coligny was at the head of a plot against himself; and that nothing short of his death, and those of his followers, could procure peace and quiet for France. At last, in a sudden access of fury, Charles not only ranged himself on their side, but astonished Catharine, Anjou, and their companions by going even farther than they had done, and declaring that every Huguenot should be killed. This sudden change, and his subsequent conduct during the few months that remained to him of life, seem to point to the fact that this fresh access of trouble shattered his weak brain, and that he was not fairly responsible for the events that followed—the guilt of which rests wholly upon Catharine de Medici, Henry of Anjou, and the leaders of the party of the Guises.
Philip spent a considerable portion of the day at the Louvre with Henry of Navarre, Francois de Laville, and a few of the young king’s closest followers. There was no shadow of disquiet in the minds of any of them. The doctors reported that the Admiral’s state was favourable; and
although all would have been glad to be on their way south, they regarded the detention of a few days as a matter of little importance. Listening to their talk about the court entertainments and pleasures, Philip quite shook off his uneasiness, and was angry with himself for having listened to Pierre’s prognostications of evil.
“All these Huguenot lords know France and the Parisians better than I do,” he said to himself. “No thought of danger occurs to them. It is not even thought necessary that a few of them should take up their abode at the Admiral’s. They have every faith in the king’s protestations and pledges for their safety.”
Philip dined at the Louvre, and it was ten o’clock before he returned to his lodging. He was in excellent spirits, and saluted Pierre with the laughing inquiry:
“Well, bird of ill omen, what fresh plottings have you discovered?”
“You do not believe me, master, when I tell you,” Pierre said gravely.
“Oh, then, there is something new?” Philip said, seating himself on a couch. “Let me hear all about it, Pierre, and I will try not to laugh.”
“Will you descend with me to the door, Monsieur Philip?”
“Assuredly I will, if it will please you; though what you are going to show me there, I cannot imagine.”
Pierre led the way downstairs and out through the door.
“Do you see that, sir?”
“Yes, I see that, Pierre.”
“What do you take it to be, sir?”
“Well, it is not too dark to see what it is, Pierre. It is a small white cross that some urchin has chalked on the door.”
“Will you please to walk a little farther, sir? There is a cross on this door. There is none here, neither on the next. Here you see another, and then a door without one. Now, sir, does not that strike you as curious?”
“Well, I don’t know, Pierre. A boy might very well chalk some doors, as he went along, and leave others untouched.”
“Yes, sir. But there is one very remarkable thing. I have gone on through several streets, and it has always been the same—so far as I can discover by questioning the concierges—at every house in which Huguenots are lodging, there is a white cross on the door. In the houses that are not so marked, there are no Huguenots.”
“That is strange, certainly, Pierre,” Philip said, struck alike by the fact and by the earnestness with which Pierre expressed it. “Are you quite sure of what you say?”
“I am quite sure, sir. I returned here at nine o’clock, and saw this mark on our door. I did not pay much heed to it, but went upstairs. Then, as I thought it over, I said to myself, ‘Is this a freak of some passerby, or is it some sort of signal?’ Then I thought I would see whether our house alone was marked, or whether there were crosses on other doors. I went to the houses of several gentlemen of our party, and on each of their doors was a white cross. Then I looked farther, and found that other houses were unmarked. At some of these I knocked and asked for one or other of your friends. In each case I heard that I was mistaken, for that no Huguenots were lodging there.”
“It is evident, sir, that this is not a thing of chance, but that these crosses are placed there by design.”
Philip went down the street, and satisfied himself that Pierre had spoken correctly; and then returned to his lodgings, pausing, however, before the house of the Count de Valecourt, and erasing the cross upon it. He entered his own door without touching the mark; but Pierre, who followed him in, rubbed the sleeve of his doublet across it, unnoticed by his master, and then followed him upstairs.
Philip seated himself thoughtfully.
“I like not these marks, Pierre. There may be nothing of importance in them. Some fanatic may have taken the trouble to place these crosses upon our doors, cursing us as he did so. But at the same time, I cannot deny that they may have been placed there for some set purpose, of which I am ignorant. Hitherto there has been nothing, whatever, to give any foundation to your fancies; but here is at least something tangible, whatever it may mean. What is your own idea?”
“My own idea is, sir, that they intend to arrest all the Admiral’s followers; and that the king, while speaking us fair, is really guided by Catharine, and has consented to her plans for the capture of all the Huguenot lords who have come into this trap.”
“I cannot believe that such an act of black treachery can be contemplated, Pierre. All Europe would cry out against the king who, inviting numbers of his nobles to the marriage of his sister, seized that occasion for imprisoning them.”
“It may not be done by him, sir. It may be the work of the Guises’ agents among the mob of Paris; and that they intend to massacre us, as they did at Rouen and a score of other places, and as they have done here in Paris more than once.”
“That is as hard to believe as the other, Pierre. My own supposition is by far the most probable, that it is the work of some fanatic; but at any rate, we will be on the watch tonight. It is too late to do anything else and, were I to go round to our friends, they would mock at me for paying any attention to such a trifle as a chalk mark on a door.
“I own that I think it serious, because I have come, in spite of my reason, to believe somewhat in your forebodings; but no one else seems to entertain any such fears.”
Opening the casement, Philip seated himself there.
“Do you lie down, Pierre. At two o’clock I will call you, and you shall take my place.”
Pierre went out, but before lying down he again went quietly downstairs and, with a wet cloth, entirely erased the mark from the door; and then, placing his sword and his pistols ready at hand, lay down on his pallet. At one o’clock Philip aroused him.
“There is something unusual going on, Pierre. I can see a light in the sky, as of many torches; and can hear a confused sound, as of the murmur of men. I will sally out and see what it is.”
Placing his pistols in his belt and taking his sword, he wrapped himself in his cloak and, followed by Pierre, also armed, went down into the street. As he went along he overtook two men. As he passed under a lamp, one of them exclaimed:
“Is that you, Monsieur Fletcher?”
He turned. It was the Sieur de Pascal.
“It is I, Monsieur de Pascal. I was going out to learn the meaning of those lights over there.”
“That is just what I am doing, myself. As the night is hot, I could not sleep; so I threw open my window, and saw those lights, which were, as it appeared to me, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Admiral’s house; and I thought it was as well to see what they meant.”
As they went along, they came upon men with lighted torches; and saw that, in several of the streets, groups of men with torches were silently standing.
“What is taking place?” the Sieur de Pascal asked one of the men.
“There is going to be a night masque, and a mock combat at the Louvre,” the man said.
“It is strange. I heard nothing about it at the Louvre,” Philip said, as they proceeded on their way. “I was with the King of Navarre up to ten o’clock and, had anything been known of it by him or the gentlemen with him, I should have been sure to have heard of it.”
They were joined by two or three other Huguenot gentlemen, roused by the unusual light and talking in the street; and they proceeded together to the Louvre. Large numbers of torches were burning in front of the palace, and a body of soldiers was drawn up there.
“The man was right,” the Sieur de Pascal said. “There is evidently some diversion going on here.”
As they approached they saw a movement in front, and then three or four men ran towards them.
“Why, De Vignes,” De Pascal exclaimed, as the first ran up, “what is the matter?”
“That I do not know,” De Vignes said. “I was roused half an hour ago by the lights and noise, and came down with De la Riviere, Maurepas, Castellon, and De Vigors, who lodges with me, to see what it was about. As we approached the soldiers, they began to jeer at us in a most insolent manner. Naturally we replied, and threate
ned to report them to their officers; when the insolent varlets drew and ran at us. Maurepas has, as you see, been wounded by a halbert; and as we five could not give battle to that crowd of soldiers, we ran for it. I shall lay the matter before La Rochefoucauld, and request him to make a complaint to the king. What can we do now, gentlemen?”
“I see not that we can do anything,” De Pascal said. “We have heard that these torchlight gatherings are part of a plan for a sham attack on a castle, or something of that sort, for the amusement of the king. Doubtless the soldiers are gathered for that purpose. We cannot arouse La Rochefoucauld, at this hour of the night, that is certain; so I see nothing to do but to go home, and wait till morning.”
“You do not think,” Philip said, “that there is any possibility of a general attack upon us being intended?”
“What! An attack got up at the Louvre, under the very eyes of the king, who is our firm friend? You are dreaming, Monsieur Fletcher.”
“I have one suspicious fact to go upon,” Philip said quietly, and then related the discovery of the crosses upon the doors.
The others, however, were absolutely incredulous that any treachery could be intended and, after talking for a short time, longer, they returned to their lodgings.
“What is to be done now, Pierre?”
“I should say we had better search farther, sir. If there is any harm intended, the mob of Paris will be stirring. Let us go down towards the Hotel de Ville; that is always the centre of mischief. If all is quiet there, it may be that this story is correct, and that it is really only a court diversion. But that does not explain why the streets should be lighted up near the Admiral’s.”
“It does not, Pierre.”
After they had passed another group of men with torches, Pierre said:
“Did you notice, sir, that each of those men had a piece of white stuff bound round his arm, and that it was the same with those we passed before? If there is any mischief intended, we should be more likely to learn what it is if we were to put on the same badge.”