Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  On the steps, the King, who, to disguise himself the better, had borrowed one of my cloaks, stumbled and almost fell. This threw him into a fit of laughter; for no sooner was he engaged in an adventure which promised to be dangerous than his spirits invariably rose to such a degree as to make him the most charming companion in peril man ever had. He was still shaking, and pulling me to and fro in one of those boyish frolics which sometimes swayed him, when a sudden outcry inside the house startled us into sobriety, and reminded us all too soon of the business which brought us thither.

  Wondering what it might mean, I was about to rap on the door with my hilt when the King put me aside, and, by a happy instinct, tried the latch. The door yielded to his hands, and, slowly opening, gave us admittance.

  We found ourselves in a gloomy hall, ill-lit, and hung with patched arras. In one corner stood a group of servants. Of these some looked scared and some amused, but all were so much taken up with the movements of a harsh-faced woman, who was pacing the opposite side of the hall, that they did not heed our entrance. A momentary glance at this strange state of things showed me that the woman was Madame Nicholas; but I was still at a loss to guess what she was doing or what was happening in the house.

  I stood a moment, but finding she still took no notice of us, I beckoned to one of the servants, and bade him tell his mistress a gentleman would speak with her. The man went with the message; but she sent him off with a flea in his ear, and screamed at him so violently that for a moment I thought she was mad. Then it appeared that the object of her attention was a door at the side of the hall; for, stopping suddenly in her walk, she went up to it, and struck it passionately with her hands.

  “Come out!” she cried. “Come out, you villain!”

  Restraining the King, I went forward myself, and, saluting her politely, begged a word with her apart, thinking she would recognize me.

  Her answer, however, showed that she did not. “No!” she cried, waving me off, in the utmost excitement. “No; you will not get me away — I know you. You are as bad one as the other.” Then turning again to the door, she continued, “Come out! Do you hear! Come out! I’ll have no more of your intrigues and your Hallots!”

  I pricked up my ears at the name “But, Madame,” I said, “one moment.”

  “Begone!” she retorted, turning on me so wrathfully that I fairly recoiled before her. “I shall stay here till I drop; but I will have him out and expose him. There shall be an end of his precious plots and his Hallots if I have to go to the King!”

  Words so curiously à propos could not but recall to my mind the confusion into which my mention of Du Hallot had thrown the secretary earlier in the day. And since they seemed also to be consistent with the warning conveyed to me, and indeed to explain it, they should have corroborated my worst suspicions. But a sense of something unreal and fantastic, with which I could not grapple, continued to puzzle me in the presence of this angry woman; and it was with no great assurance that I said, “Do I understand then, Madame, that M. du Hallot is in that room?”

  “ARE YOU COMING OUT THERE?” Page 61.

  “M. du Hallot?” she replied, in a tone that was almost a scream. “No; but he would be if he had taken the hint I sent him! He would be! I will have no more secrecy, however, and no more plots. I have suffered enough already, and now Madame shall suffer if she has not forgotten how to blush. Are you coming out there?” she continued, once more applying herself to the door, her face inflamed with passion. “I shall stay! Oh, I shall stay, I assure you. Until morning if necessary!”

  “But, Madame,” I said, beginning to see daylight, and finding words with difficulty — for I already heard in fancy the King’s laughter and could conjure up the endless quips and cranks with which he would pursue me— “your warning did not perhaps reach M. du Hallot!”

  “It reached his coach, at any rate,” the scold retorted. “Another time I will have no half-measures. But as for that,” she continued, turning on me suddenly with her arms akimbo, and the fiercest of airs, “I would like to know what business it is of yours, Monsieur, whether it reached him or not! I know you — you are in league with my husband! You are here to shelter him, and this Madame du Hallot! But — —”

  At that moment, however, the door at last opened; and M. Nicholas, wearing an aspect so meek and crestfallen that I hardly knew him, came out. He was followed by a young woman plainly dressed, and looking almost as much frightened as himself; in whom I had no difficulty in recognizing Felix’s wife.

  “Why!” Madame Nicholas cried, her face falling. “This is not — who is this? Who—” with increased vehemence— “is this baggage, I would like to know?”

  “My dear,” the secretary protested earnestly, spreading out his hands — fortunately he had eyes only for his wife, and did not see us— “this is one of your ridiculous mistakes! It is, I assure you. This is the wife of a clerk whom I dismissed to-day, and she has been with me begging me to reinstate her husband. That is all. That is all, my dear. You have made this — —”

  I heard no more, for, taking advantage of the obscurity of the hall, and the preoccupation of the couple, I made hurriedly for the door, and passing out into the darkness, found myself at once in the embrace of the King, who, seizing me round the neck, laughed on my shoulder till he cried, continually adjuring me to laugh also, and ejaculating between the paroxysms, “Poor Du Hallot! Poor Du Hallot!” with many things of the same nature, which any one acquainted with court life may supply for himself.

  I confess I did not on my part find it so easy to laugh: partly because I am not of so gay a disposition as that great prince, and partly because I cannot always see the ludicrous side of events in which I myself take part. But on the King at last assuring me that he would not betray the secret even to La Varenne, I took comfort and gradually reconciled myself to an episode which, unlike the more serious events it now becomes my duty to relate, had only one result, and that unimportant; I mean the introduction to my service of the clerk Felix, who, proving worthy of confidence, remained with me after the lamentable death of the King my master, and is to-day one of those to whom I entrust the preparation of these Memoirs.

  IN KINGS’ BYWAYS

  CONTENTS

  PART I

  FLORE

  CRILLON’S STAKE.

  FOR THE CAUSE

  THE KING’S STRATAGEM

  THE HOUSE ON THE WALL

  HUNT, THE OWLER

  THE TWO PAGES

  PART II

  THE DIARY OF A STATESMAN

  PART III

  KING TERROR. A DAUGHTER OF THE GIRONDE

  IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!

  A DAUGHTER OF THE GIRONDE

  PART I

  FLORE

  (1643)

  It was about a month after my marriage — and third clerk to the most noble the Bishop of Beauvais, and even admitted on occasions to write in his presence and prepare his minutes, who should marry if I might not? — it was about a month after my marriage, I say, that the thunderbolt, to which I have referred, fell and shattered my fortunes. I rose one morning — they were firing guns for the victory of Rocroy, I remember, so that it must have been eight weeks or more after the death of the late king, and the glorious rising of the Sun of France — and who as happy as I? A summer morning, Monsieur, and bright, and I had all I wished. The river as it sparkled and rippled against the piers of the Pont Neuf far below, the wet roofs that twinkled under our garret window, were not more brilliant than my lord the Bishop’s fortunes: and as is the squirrel so is the tail. Of a certainty, I was happy that morning. I thought of the little hut under the pine wood at Gabas in Béarn, where I was born, and of my father cobbling by the unglazed window, his nightcap on his bald head, and his face plaistered where the sherd had slipped; and I puffed out my cheeks to think that I had climbed so high. High? How high might not a man climb, who had married the daughter of the Queen’s under-porter, and had sometimes the ear of my lord, the Queen’s minister — my lord
of Beauvais in whom all men saw the coming master of France! my lord whose stately presence beamed on a world still chilled by the dead hand of Richelieu!

  But that morning, that very morning, I was to learn that who climbs may fall. I went below at the usual hour; at the usual hour Monseigneur left, attended, for the Council; presently all the house was in an uproar. My lord had returned, and called for Prosper. I fancied even then that I caught something ominous in the sound of my name as it passed from lip to lip; and nervously I made all haste to the chamber. But fast as I went I did not go fast enough; one thrust me on this side, another on that. The steward cursed me as he handed me on to the head-clerk, who stormed at me; while the secretary waited for me at the door, and, seizing me by the neck, ran me into the room. “In, rascal, in!” he growled in my ear, “and I hope your skin may pay for it!”

  Naturally by this time I was quaking: and Monseigneur’s looks finished me. He stood in the middle of the chamber, his plump handsome face pale and sullen. And as he scowled at me, “Yes!” he said curtly, “that is the fellow. What does he say?”

  “Speak!” the head-clerk cried, seizing me by the ear and twisting it until I fell on my knees. “Imbecile! But it is likely enough he did it on purpose.”

  “Ay, and was bribed!” said the secretary.

  “He should be hung up,” the steward cried, truculently, “before he does further mischief! And if my lord will give the word — —”

  “Silence!” the Bishop said, with a dark glance at me. “What does he plead?”

  The head-clerk twisted my ear until I screamed. “Ingrate!” he cried. “Do you hear his Grace speak to you? Answer him aloud!”

  “My lord,” I cried piteously, “I do not know of what I am accused. And besides, I have done nothing! Nothing!”

  “Nothing!” half a dozen echoed. “Nothing!” the head-clerk added brutally. “Nothing, and you add a cipher to the census of Paris! Nothing, and your lying pen led my lord to state the population to be five millions instead of five hundred thousand! Nothing, and you sent his Grace’s Highness to the Council to be corrected by low clerks and people, and made a laughing-stock for the Cardinal, and — —”

  “Silence!” said the Bishop, fiercely. “Enough! Take him away, and — —”

  “Hang him!” cried the steward.

  “No, fool, but have him to the courtyard, and let the grooms flog him through the gates. And have a care you,” he continued, addressing me, “that I do not see your face again or it will be worse for you!”

  I flung myself down and would have appealed against the sentence, but the Bishop, who had suffered at the Council and whose ears still burned, was pitiless. Before I could utter three words a dozen officious hands plucked me up and thrust me to the door. Outside worse things awaited me. A shower of kicks and cuffs and blows fell upon me; vainly struggling and shrieking, and seeking still to gain his lordship’s ear, I was hustled along the passage to the courtyard, and there dragged amid jeers and laughter to the fountain, and brutally flung in. When I scrambled out, they thrust me back again and again: until, almost dead with cold and rage, I was at last permitted to escape, only to be hunted round the yard with stirrup-leathers that cut like knives, and drew a scream at every stroke. I doubled like a hare; more than once I knocked half a dozen down; but I was fast growing exhausted, when some one more prudent or less cruel than his fellows, opened the gates before me, and I darted into the street.

  I was sobbing with rage and pain, dripping, ragged, and barefoot; for some saving rogue had prudently drawn off my shoes in the scuffle. It was a wonder that I was not fallen upon and chased through the streets. Fortunately in the street opposite my lord’s gates opened the mouth of a little alley. I plunged into it, and in the first dark corner dropped exhausted and lay sobbing and weeping on a heap of refuse. I who had risen so happily a few hours before! I who had climbed so high! I who had a wife new-married in my garret at home!

  I do not know how long I lay there, now cursing the jealousy of the clerks, who would have flayed me to save themselves, and now the cruelty of the grooms who thought it fine sport to whip a scholar. But the first tempest of passion had spent itself, when a woman — not the first whom my plight had attracted, but the others had merely shrugged their shoulders and passed on — paused before me. “What a white skin!” she cried, making great eyes at me; and they had cut my clothes so that I was half bare to her. And then, “You are not a street-prowler. How come you here, my lad, in that guise?”

  I was silent, and pretended to be sullen, being ashamed to meet her gaze.

  She stood a moment staring at me curiously. Then, “Better go home,” she said, shaking her head sedately, “or those who have robbed you may end by worse. I doubt not this is what comes of raking and night-work. Go home, my lad,” she repeated, and went on her way.

  Home! The word raised new thoughts, new hopes, new passions. I scrambled to my feet. I had a home — the Bishop might deprive me of it: but I had also a wife, from whom God only could separate me. I felt a sudden fire run through me at the thought of her, and of all I had suffered since I left her arms: and with new boldness I turned, and sore and aching as I was, I stumbled back to the place of my shame.

  The steward and two or three of his underlings were standing in the gateway, and saw me approach; and began to jeer. The high grey front of Monseigneur’s hotel, three sides of a square, towered up behind them; the steward in the opening sprawled his feet apart and set his hands to his stout sides, and jeered at me. “Ha! ha! Here is the lame leper from the Cour des Miracles!” he cried. “Have a care or he will give you the itch!”

  “Good sir, the swill-tub is open,” cried another, mocking me. “Help yourself!”

  A third spat at me and bade me begone for a pig. The passers — there were always a knot of gazers opposite my lord of Beauvais’ palace in those days, when we had the Queen’s ear and bade fair to succeed Richelieu — stayed to stare.

  “I want my goods,” I said, trembling.

  “Your goods!” the steward answered, swelling out his brawny chest, and smiling at me over it. “Your goods, indeed! Begone, and be thankful you have escaped so well.”

  “Give me my things — from my room,” I said stubbornly; and I tried to enter. “They are my own!”

  He moved sideways so as to block the passage. “Your goods? They are Monseigneur’s,” he said.

  “My wife, then!”

  He winked, the great beast. “Your wife?” he said. “Well, true; she is not Monseigneur’s. But she will do for me.” And with a coarse laugh he winked again at the crowd.

  At that the pent-up rage which I had so long stemmed broke out. He stood a head taller than I, and a foot wider; but with a scream I sprang at his throat, and by the very surprise of the attack and his unwieldiness, I got him down and beat his face with my fists. His fellows, as soon as they recovered from their astonishment, tore me off, showing me no mercy. But by that time I had so marked him that the blood poured down his fat cheeks. He scrambled to his feet, panting and furious, his oaths tripping over one another.

  “To the Châtelet with him!” he cried, spitting out a tooth and staring at me through the mud on his face. “He shall swing for this! He tried to break in. I call you to witness he tried to break in!”

  “Ay, to the Châtelet! To the Châtelet!” cried the crowd, siding with the stronger party. He was my lord of Beauvais’ steward; I was a gutter-snipe and dangerous. A dozen hands held me tightly; yet not so tightly, but that, a coach passing at that moment and driving us all to the wall, I managed by a jerk — I was desperate by this time, and savage as a wild-cat — to snatch myself loose. In a second I was speeding down the Rue Bons Enfants with the hue and cry behind me.

  I have said, I was desperate. In an hour the world was changed for me. In an hour I had broken with every tradition of safe and modest and clerkly life; and from a sleek scribe was become a ragged outlaw flying through the streets. I saw the gallows, I felt the lash sink
like molten lead into the quivering back, still bleeding from the stirrup-leathers: I forgot all but the danger. I lived only in my feet, and with them made superhuman efforts. Fortunately the light was failing, and in the dusk I distanced the pack by a dozen yards. I passed the corner of the Palais Royal so swiftly that the Queen’s Guards, though they ran out at the alarm, were too late to intercept me. Thence I turned instinctively to the left, and with the cry of pursuit in my ears strained towards the old bridge, intending to cross to the Cité, where I knew all the lanes and byways. But the bridge was alarmed, the Châtelet seemed to yawn for me — they were just lighting the brazier in front of the gloomy pile — and doubling back, while the air roared with shouts of warning and cries of “Stop thief! Stop thief!” — I evaded my pursuers, and sped up the narrow Rue Troussevache, with the hue and cry hard on my heels.

  I had no plan now, no aim; only terror added wings to my feet. The end of that street gained I darted blindly down another, and yet another; with straining chest, and legs that began to fail, and always in my ears the yells that rose round me as fresh pursuers joined in the chase. Still I kept ahead, I was even gaining; with night thickening, I might hope to escape, if I could baffle those who from time to time — but in a half-hearted way, not knowing if I were armed — made an attempt to stop me or trip me up.

  Suddenly turning a corner — I had gained a quiet part where blind walls lined an alley — I discovered a man running before me. At the same instant the posse in pursuit quickened their pace in a last effort; I, in answer, put forth my last strength, and in a dozen paces I came up with the man. He turned to me, our eyes met as we ran abreast; desperate myself, I read equal terror in his look, and before I could think what it might mean, he bent himself sideways as he ran, and with a singular movement flung a parcel he carried into my arms. Then wheeling abruptly he plunged into a side-lane on his left.