The Red Sphinx

by Alexandre Dumas

  In a moment, the yard was full of soldiers, standing with muskets at the ready.

  Latil arranged his men in two rows opposite the door, ordering them to fire on anyone who attempted to flee.

  The count had slowly and quietly approached the window in order to see what was going on inside; but the heat of the room had fogged the glass, preventing a view of the interior.

  One of the window’s four panes had been broken in some brawl and replaced by a sheet of paper affixed to the frame. The Comte de Moret got up on the windowsill, cut a slit in the paper with the point of his dagger, and could finally glimpse the strange scene passing within.

  The smuggler who had warned Guillaume Coutet when they’d passed through before that Spanish bandits were after them was bound and gagged on a table; the bandits whom he had betrayed, gathered en tribunal, had just pronounced judgment. As that judgment could not be appealed, the only question was whether he should be hanged or shot.

  Opinion was almost evenly divided. However, as is well known, the Spaniards are a thrifty people. One made the point that you couldn’t execute a man with fewer than eight or ten musket shots, which would cost them eight or ten charges of lead and powder—while to hang a man, not only did you need only one rope, but afterwards that rope, having been used in a hanging, multiplied its value by two, four, even ten times!

  This sage advice, so economical, carried the day. The bandits chose the rope by acclamation, and the poor devil of a smuggler realized that his fate was sealed. His only recourse was the prayer of the dying: My God, I place my soul within your hands!

  Then, amid the solemn silence that always precedes the terrible act of violent separation of body and soul, came the order: “Pull!”

  But scarcely was this word pronounced when there came from the window the sound of tearing paper, and into the room stretched an arm pointing a pistol. The pistol fired, and the man holding the noose around the neck of the condemned man fell down dead.

  At the same moment, a vigorous kick broke the window latches, and in two more blows it was open, letting in the Comte de Moret, who leaped into the room followed by his men. At the gunshot, like a signal, the front door and the yard door also burst open, so all exits were visibly barred by armed soldiers.

  Within moments, the condemned was untied, and he passed from anguish to the giddy joy of the man who had made the march to the tomb, but leaps from the grave before the earth can cover him.

  “Let no one try to escape,” said the Comte de Moret, with a gesture of supreme authority that was his royal heritage. “Anyone who tries to flee will be killed.”

  Nobody moved.

  “Now,” he said, addressing the smuggler whose life he’d saved, “I’m the traveler you so generously warned, two months ago, of the danger I was in, a warning for which you were just now about to die. It’s only right that the roles be reversed, and this tragedy played out to its end. Point out to me the wretches who pursued us; their trial will be short.”

  The smuggler didn’t wait to be asked twice; he indicated eight Spaniards—the ninth was dead.

  These eight bandits, seeing themselves condemned, and understanding there would be no mercy, exchanged glances—and then with the energy of despair, drew their daggers and fell on the soldiers who guarded the door to the road.

  But they had bitten off too much. As you may recall, Latil was in charge of guarding that door, and stood on the threshold with a gun in each hand. With two shots he killed two men.

  The other six fought briefly with the men of the Comte de Moret and of Latil. For a few seconds there was the clash of steel, cries, oaths, two more gunshots, the thump of two bodies on the floor . . . and it was over.

  Six were dead in their gore, and three others, still alive, were tied hand and foot and in the hands of the soldiers.

  “Someone get that rope that was to be used to hang this honest man,” said the Comte de Moret, “then find two more to hang these villains.”

  The muleteers, who were beginning to understand that they were not under suspicion, and that instead of seeing one man hang they were about to see three, a spectacle three times as entertaining, offered up the ropes on the instant.

  “Latil,” said the Comte de Moret, “I charge you with hanging these three gentlemen. I know you’re efficient—don’t let them linger. As for the rest of this honorable company, leave ten soldiers to keep them under guard. Tomorrow, no sooner than midday, if the prisoners have caused no trouble, they may be set free.”

  “And where will I rejoin you?” asked Latil.

  “This brave man,” answered the Comte de Moret, indicating the smuggler miraculously saved from the noose, “this brave man will lead you; but march double-time to catch up to us.”

  Then, to the smuggler, “Guide him along the same road you recall from before, my good man; later, at Susa, there will be twenty pistoles for you.

  “Latil, you have ten minutes.”

  Latil bowed.

  “Let’s be on our way, Messieurs,” said the Comte de Moret. “We lost half an hour here, though in a good cause.”

  Ten minutes later, Latil, guided by the smuggler, rejoined them; the task the count had left three quarters done was complete.

  Latil and his guide caught up to Moret at the Giacon Bridge. The smuggler, who hadn’t had time to thank him, threw himself at Moret’s feet and kissed his hands.

  “C’est bien, mon ami,” said the Comte de Moret. “Now, we must be at Susa within the hour.”

  And the troops resumed their march.

  LXIII

  The White Plume

  We know the path the Comte de Moret had to follow: it was the same route he’d taken with Isabelle de Lautrec and the Dame de Coëtman. Strict silence was decreed, and no noise was heard but the sound of snow crunching under the soldiers’ feet.

  As they turned the shoulder of the mountain, the town of Susa came into view, limned by the first light of morning.

  The ramparts, this far up the mountain, were deserted. The road, if the narrow furrow they followed no more than two abreast could be called a road, passed about ten feet above the parapet. From there, one could slip down to the ramparts.

  The demi-lune, which, after the flanks were carried and the redoubts had been taken, still held off the French army, was nearly three miles from the town of Susa; and as no one could imagine an attack from the mountainside, no one was on guard there. However, by the light of dawn the sentinels in the town saw the small troop filing down the side of the mountain and raised the alarm.

  The Comte de Moret heard their cries, saw their reaction, and knew there was no time to lose. Like a true mountaineer, he leaped from rock to rock and was the first to drop onto the ramparts.

  Latil was right by his side.

  At the cries of the sentinels, Piedmontese and Valaisans tumbled out of a guardhouse at the gate and formed into a troop of a hundred men, preparing to buy time for further reinforcements. The Comte de Moret gathered the first twenty men onto the rampart, and with this twenty he rushed the town gate.

  In the gray dawn, the soldiers of Charles-Emmanuel saw a long dark file of men circling down the mountain, enemies who seemed to fall from the sky in numbers they couldn’t tell, so they didn’t put up much of a fight; however, thinking it was critical that the duke and his son be informed, they dispatched a rider to Susa Pass to warn them of what was happening.

  The Comte de Moret saw this man being detached and tried to go after him, cutting his way through the mêlée; the courier was in full gallop, and the count suspected where he was going, but had no way to stop him.

  It was just one more reason to secure the Susa town gate, below the pass into which Louis XIII, after flanking the barricades, had made a partial entry.

  So he rushed the gate with what few men he had, and swarmed over the defenders. The fight was brief; surprised from the direction they least expected it, by a force of unknown size, and believing themselves betrayed, the Piedmontese and Valaisan
s, good soldiers though they were, cried “Alarm!” and ran for it, some through the town and others down the valley.

  The Comte de Moret seized the gate, rallied his troops, and turned four guns to bear on the town. Then, leaving a hundred men to hold the gate and serve the guns, with the four hundred remaining he advanced to attack the fortifications at the pass from behind.

  Cannon thundered from above, smoke wreathing Montabon peak. The two armies were in a death grip.

  Moret doubled his men’s pace; however, while still a mile from the entrenchments, he saw a corps of troops being detached from the Savoyard army and sent toward him. The unit was about equal in number to that of the Comte de Moret; at its head, mounted, was its commanding colonel.

  Latil approached the count. “I recognize the officer leading that troop,” he said. “He’s a gallant soldier named Colonel Belon.”

  “And so?” said the count.

  “I’d like Monseigneur’s permission to take him prisoner.”

  “I’ll allow you to do that—ventre-saint-gris, I could hardly ask for more! But how will you take him?”

  “Nothing could be easier, Monseigneur; when you see the colonel fall beneath his horse, charge his men furiously; they’ll think he’s dead and will scatter. Swoop in and take the flag, while I take the colonel; though you might rather have the colonel and I the flag. The colonel will pay a fine ransom of three or four hundred pistoles—while the flag, for all its glory, is nothing but a flag.”

  “To me the flag, then,” said the Comte de Moret, “and to you the colonel.”

  “Then let’s beat the drums and sound the trumpets!”

  Moret raised his sword, the drums beat, and the trumpets sounded the charge.

  Latil took four men with him, each holding a musket, ready to pass a new weapon to him once he’d fired the first, the second, and even the third.

  As for the enemy, at the sound of the French drums and bugles, the Savoyard troop seemed to quicken its step. Colonel Belon said a few words, the troops replied with “Long live Charles-Emmanuel!”, and they came on at speed.

  Soon the two troops were no more than fifty paces from each other. The Savoyard unit stopped to fire a volley. “This is the moment,” said Latil. “Look out, Monseigneur! Take their fire, shoot back, and then charge the flag.”

  Latil had hardly finished when a hailstorm of balls passed like a hurricane—but mainly above the heads of the French soldiers, who held their ground.

  “Aim low!” cried Latil. And as an example, aiming at the colonel’s horse, he fired just as the officer shook the reins to charge.

  The horse took the ball just below the shoulder; carried forward by its charge, it fell and rolled to within twenty paces of the French ranks.

  “To me the colonel, to you the flag, Monseigneur,” cried Latil, and he leaped, sword held high, upon the colonel.

  The French soldiers had fired and, following Latil’s advice, aimed low, so that nearly all their shots struck home.

  The count took advantage of the chaos to hurl himself into the midst of the Piedmontese.

  In a few bounds, Latil closed with Colonel Belon, who was pinned under his horse and stunned from his fall. Latil put his sword to his throat and said to him, “My prisoner, rescued or not?”

  The colonel slid a hand toward his holster.

  “One move, Colonel Belon,” said Latil, “and you’re dead.”

  “I surrender,” said the colonel, handing his sword to Latil.

  “My prisoner, rescued or not?”

  “Rescued or not.”

  “Then, Colonel, keep your sword—one does not disarm a brave officer like you. We’ll come to terms after the battle; if I’m killed, you are free.”

  With these words he helped the colonel out from under his horse, and having set him on his feet, he sprang into the midst of the Piedmontese ranks.

  It played out the way Latil had predicted. The soldiers of Charles-Emmanuel, seeing the fall of the colonel, and unsure whether he was dead or alive, had lost their nerve. The count had attacked so furiously that the ranks had opened before him, and he’d reached the flag, around which a knot of Savoyards, Valaisans, and Piedmontese put up a brave defense. Latil threw himself into the thickest part of the mêlée, shouting in a voice like thunder, “Moret! Moret to the rescue! Strike for the son of Henri IV!”

  This final onslaught broke the enemy troop. Cutting down the man who carried it, the Comte de Moret seized the Savoyard flag in his left hand. He raised it high and shouted, “Victory for France! Long live King Louis XIII!”

  This cry was repeated by every Frenchman still upright. What followed was a rout: the troops who had been sent to oppose the Comte de Moret, diminished by a third, took to their heels.

  “We mustn’t lose a minute, Monseigneur,” said Latil to the count. “After them, shooting as we go; we don’t have to kill them, but it’s important that our fire be heard in the entrenchments.”

  And indeed, their fire, heard in the demi-lune, spread chaos among the defenders.

  Attacked from the front by Montmorency, Bassompierre, and Créqui, and from behind by the Comte de Moret and Latil, the Duke of Savoy and his son were afraid they’d be surrounded and captured; leaving the Count of Verrue to conduct a desperate defense, they went down to the stables, jumped into the saddle, and flew from the entrenchments.

  They found themselves in the middle of Colonel Belon’s soldiers, who were fleeing pell-mell with the French in pursuit, firing at will.

  These two riders trying to reach the mountainside attracted the attention of Latil, who, thinking they looked important, sprang forward to cut them off; but just as he was about to grab the duke’s horse by the bridle, he was dazed by a flash of light and a sharp pain in his left shoulder.

  A Spanish officer in the service of the Duke of Savoy, seeing his master about to be taken, had jumped in and, swinging his long sword, gashed the shoulder of our swashbuckler.

  Latil let out a cry, less of pain than of anger at seeing his prey escape. Sword in hand, he threw himself on the Spaniard.

  Though Latil’s sword was six inches shorter than that of his adversary, they’d barely met before Latil, a master of arms, knew himself master of his enemy. Twice wounded, the Spaniard fell within ten seconds, shouting “Save the duke!”

  At these words, Latil leaped over the wounded man and resumed his pursuit of the two riders, but thanks to their hardy mountain horses they were already far enough down the road to be out of range.

  Latil returned, furious at having missed such glorious prey; but at least he still had the Spanish officer who, unable to defend himself, surrendered “rescued or not.”

  Meanwhile, the demi-lune was in turmoil. The Duc de Montmorency, first onto the ramparts, held his position, dispatching with blows of an ax all who tried to approach him, and opening a space for those who followed him. Piedmontese, Valaisans, and Savoyards fled like a torrent out the postern gates toward the road down to Susa. But there they ran into the Comte de Moret, amid gunfire and cries of “Long live King Louis XIII!” Unaware of his true strength, they didn’t even try to fight, they just ran, flowing around each group of French like water around rocks.

  The Comte de Moret entered the demi-lune on the opposite side from Montmorency. They met in the middle, recognized each other, and embraced. Then, arm in arm, they marched victorious to the breach, one waving the French flag he’d first placed on the demilune’s ramparts, the other the Savoyard flag he’d won. Saluting Louis XIII and lowering the two standards before him, together they cried “Vive le Roi!”

  It was the same cry before which, three years later, both of them would fall.

  The cardinal called out, “No one is to enter the redoubt before the king.”

  Just as these words were uttered, Latil slipped in through a postern.

  Sentinels were placed at all entrances, and Montmorency and Moret went themselves to open the Gélasse gate for the king and the cardinal.

 
The two rode in, musketoon at the knee to signify that they entered as conquerors—and that the conquered, taken by storm, could expect only what was granted at the victors’ good pleasure.

  The king addressed the Duc de Montmorency first. “I know, Monsieur le Duc,” he said, “that which is the object of your ambition. When the campaign ends, you shall be entitled to exchange your sword for one chased with golden fleur de lys, which will elevate you above all the Marshals of France.”

  Montmorency bowed. The Sword of the Constable was his sole ambition in the world, and this was the king’s formal promise that he would have it.

  “Sire,” said the Comte de Moret, presenting the king with the flag won from Colonel Belon’s regiment, “allow me the honor of placing at Your Majesty’s feet this standard I have taken.”

  “I accept it,” said Louis XIII; “and, in exchange, I hope you will be pleased to wear this white plume in your hat, in memory of the brother who gave it to you, and of our father who bore three of them at Ivry.”

  The Comte de Moret wanted to kiss the king’s hand, but Louis XIII took him in his arms and embraced him warmly.

  Then the king removed from his hat, the same one he’d received from the Duc de Montmorency, one of its three white plumes. He presented it, along with the diamond clip that held it on, to the Comte de Moret.

  And that same day, around five in the evening, King Louis XIII made his entry into Susa, after having received from its authorities, on a silver platter, the keys to the town.

  LXIV

  What l’Angely Thought of the

  Compliments of the Duke of Savoy

  King Louis XIII was delirious with joy. It was the second time in less than a year that he’d made a triumphal entrance into a town conquered by force of arms, thereby deserving the title of “the Victorious.”

  All that the cardinal had promised had been achieved, from first to last, the last promise being that on March seventh the king would sleep in Susa—and there he slept. But the cardinal, who knew secrets hidden to others, and who saw further than the king, was less at ease than this master. He knew—as did Louis XIII, though the triumph of the day had made him forget—that the fighting had nearly exhausted the army’s ammunition.