It is a strange thing that love--or pa.s.sion, if the sudden fancy for Mademoiselle which had seized Count Hannibal be deemed unworthy of the higher name--should so entirely possess the souls of those who harbour it that the greatest events and the most astounding catastrophes, even measures which set their mark for all time on a nation, are to them of importance only so far as they affect the pursuit of the fair one.
As Tavannes, after leaving Mademoiselle, rode through the paved lanes, beneath the gabled houses, and under the shadow of the Gothic spires of his day, he saw a score of sights, moving to pity, or wrath, or wonder.
He saw Paris as a city sacked; a slaughter-house, where for a week a masque had moved to stately music; blood on the nailed doors and the close-set window bars; and at the corners of the ways strewn garments, broken weapons, the livid dead in heaps. But he saw all with eyes which in all and everywhere, among living and dead, sought only Tignonville; Tignonville first, and next a heretic minister, with enough of life in him to do his office.
Probably it was to this that one man hunted through Paris owed his escape that day. He sprang from a narrow pa.s.sage full in Tavannes" view, and, hair on end, his eyes starting from his head, ran blindly--as a hare will run when chased--along the street to meet Count Hannibal"s company. The man"s face was wet with the dews of death, his lungs seemed cracking, his breath hissed from him as he ran. His pursuers were hard on him, and, seeing him headed by Count Hannibal"s party, yelled in triumph, holding him for dead. And dead he would have been within thirty seconds had Tavannes played his part. But his thoughts were elsewhere. Either he took the poor wretch for Tignonville, or for the minister on whom his mind was running; anyway he suffered him to slip under the belly of his horse; then, to make matters worse, he wheeled to follow him in so untimely and clumsy a fashion that his horse blocked the way and stopped the pursuers in their tracks. The quarry slipped into an alley and vanished. The hunters stood and blasphemed, and even for a moment seemed inclined to resent the mistake. But Tavannes smiled; a broader smile lightened the faces of the six iron-clad men behind him; and for some reason the gang of ruffians thought better of it and slunk aside.
There are hard men, who feel scorn of the things which in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of others excite pity. Tavannes" lip curled as he rode on through the streets, looking this way and that, and seeing what a King twenty-two years old had made of his capital. His lip curled most of all when he came, pa.s.sing between the two tennis-courts, to the east gate of the Louvre, and found the entrance locked and guarded, and all communication between city and palace cut off. Such a proof of unkingly panic, in a crisis wrought by the King himself, astonished him less a few minutes later, when, the keys having been brought and the door opened, he entered the courtyard of the fortress.
Within and about the door of the gatehouse some three-score archers and arquebusiers stood to their arms; not in array, but in disorderly groups, from which the babble of voices, of feverish laughter, and strained jests rose without ceasing. The weltering sun, of which the beams just topped the farther side of the quadrangle, fell slantwise on their armour, and heightened their exaggerated and restless movements. To a calm eye they seemed like men acting in a nightmare. Their fitful talk and disjointed gestures, their sweating brows and damp hair, no less than the sullen, brooding silence of one here and there, bespoke the abnormal and the terrible. There were livid faces among them, and twitching cheeks, and some who swallowed much; and some again who bared their crimson arms and bragged insanely of the part they had played. But perhaps the most striking thing was the thirst, the desire, the demand for news, and for fresh excitement. In the s.p.a.ce of time it took him to pa.s.s through them, Count Hannibal heard a dozen rumours of what was pa.s.sing in the city; that Montgomery and the gentlemen who had slept beyond the river had escaped on horseback in their shirts; that Guise had been shot in the pursuit; that he had captured the Vidame de Chartres and all the fugitives; that he had never left the city; that he was even then entering by the Porte de Bucy. Again that Biron had surrendered the a.r.s.enal, that he had threatened to fire on the city, that he was dead, that with the Huguenots who had escaped he was marching on the Louvre, that--
And then Tavannes pa.s.sed out of the blinding sunshine, and out of earshot of their babble, and had plain in his sight across the quadrangle, the new facade, Italian, graceful, of the Renaissance; which rose in smiling contrast with the three dark Gothic sides that now, the central tower removed, frowned unimpeded at one another. But what was this which lay along the foot of the new Italian wall? This, round which some stood, gazing curiously, while others strewed fresh sand about it, or after long downward-looking glanced up to answer the question of a person at a window?
Death; and over death--death in its most cruel aspect--a cloud of buzzing, whirling flies, and the smell, never to be forgotten, of much spilled blood. From a doorway hard by came shrill bursts of hysterical laughter; and with the laughter plumped out, even as Tavannes crossed the court, a young girl, thrust forth it seemed by her fellows, for she turned about and struggled as she came. Once outside she hung back, giggling and protesting, half willing, half unwilling; and meeting Tavannes" eye thrust her way in again with a whirl of her petticoats, and a shriek. But before he had taken four paces she was out again.
He paused to see who she was, and his thoughts involuntarily went back to the woman he had left weeping in the upper room. Then he turned about again and stood to count the dead. He identified Piles, identified Pardaillan, identified Soubise--whose corpse the murderers had robbed of the last rag--and Touchet and St. Galais. He made his reckoning with an unmoved face, and with the same face stopped and stared, and moved from one to another; had he not seen the slaughter about "_le pet.i.t homme_" at Jarnac, and the dead of three pitched fields? But when a bystander, smirking obsequiously, pa.s.sed him a jest on Soubise, and with his finger pointed the jest, he had the same hard unmoved face for the gibe as for the dead. And the jester shrank away, abashed and perplexed by his stare and his reticence.
Halfway up the staircase to the great gallery or guard-room above, Count Hannibal found his brother, the Marshal, huddled together in drunken slumber on a seat in a recess. In the gallery to which he pa.s.sed on without awakening him, a crowd of courtiers and ladies, with arquebusiers and captains of the quarters, walked to and fro, talking in whispers; or peeped over shoulders towards the inner end of the hall, where the querulous voice of the King rose now and again above the hum. As Tavannes moved that way, Nancay, in the act of pa.s.sing out, booted and armed for the road, met him and almost jostled him.
"Ah, well met, M. le Comte," he sneered, with as much hostility as he dared betray. "The King has asked for you twice."
"I am going to him. And you? Whither in such a hurry, M. Nancay?"
"To Chatillon."
"On pleasant business?"
"Enough that it is on the King"s!" Nancay replied, with unexpected temper. "I hope that you may find yours as pleasant!" he added with a grin. And he went on.
The gleam of malice in the man"s eye warned Tavannes to pause. He looked round for some one who might be in the secret, saw the Provost of the Merchants, and approached him.
"What"s amiss, M. le Charron?" he asked. "Is not the affair going as it should?"
""Tis about the a.r.s.enal, M. le Comte," the Provost answered busily. "M.
de Biron is harbouring the vermin there. He has lowered the portcullis and pointed his culverins over the gate and will not yield it or listen to reason. The King would bring him to terms, but no one will venture himself inside with the message. Rats in a trap, you know, bite hard, and care little whom they bite."
"I begin to understand."
"Precisely, M. le Comte. His Majesty would have sent M. de Nancay. But he elected to go to Chatillon, to seize the young brood there. The Admiral"s children, you comprehend."
"Whose teeth are not yet grown! He was wise."
"To be sure, M. de Tavannes, to be sure. But the King was annoyed, and on top of that came a priest with complaints, and if I may make so bold as to advise you, you will not--"
But Tavannes fancied that he had caught the gist of the difficulty, and with a nod he moved on; and so he missed the warning which the other had it in his mind to give. A moment and he reached the inner circle, and there halted, disconcerted, nay taken aback. For as soon as he showed his face, the King, who was pacing to and fro like a caged beast, before a table at which three clerks knelt on cushions, espied him, and stood still. With a glare of something like madness in his eyes, Charles raised his hand, and with a shaking finger singled him out.
"So, by G-d, you are there!" he cried, with a volley of blasphemy. And he signed to those about Count Hannibal to stand away from him. "You are there, are you? And you are not afraid to show your face? I tell you, it"s you and such as you bring us into contempt! so that it is said everywhere Guise does all and serves G.o.d, and we follow because we must!
It"s you, and such as you, are stumbling-blocks to our good folk of Paris! Are you traitor, sirrah?" he continued with pa.s.sion, "or are you of our brother Alencon"s opinions, that you traverse our orders to the d.a.m.nation of your soul and our discredit? Are you traitor? Or are you heretic? Or what are you? G.o.d in heaven, will you answer me, man, or shall I send you where you will find your tongue?"
"I know not of what your Majesty accuses me," Count Hannibal answered, with a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders.
"I? "Tis not I," the King retorted. His hair hung damp on his brow, and he dried his hands continually; while his gestures had the ill-measured and eccentric violence of an epileptic. "Here, you! Speak, father, and confound him!"
Then Tavannes discovered on the farther side of the circle the priest whom his brother had ridden down that morning. Father Pezelay"s pale hatchet-face gleamed paler than ordinary; and a great bandage hid one temple and part of his face. But below the bandage the flame of his eyes was not lessened, nor the venom of his tongue. To the King he had come--for no other would deal with his violent opponent; to the King"s presence! and, as he prepared to blast his adversary, now his chance was come, his long lean frame, in its narrow black ca.s.sock, seemed to grow longer, leaner, more baleful, more snake-like. He stood there a fitting representative of the dark fanaticism of Paris, which Charles and his successor--the last of a doomed line--alternately used as tool or feared as master; and to which the most debased and the most immoral of courts paid, in its sober hours, a vile and slavish homage. Even in the midst of the drunken, shameless courtiers--who stood, if they stood for anything, for that other influence of the day, the Renaissance--he was to be reckoned with; and Count Hannibal knew it. He knew that in the eyes not of Charles only, but of nine out of ten who listened to him, a priest was more sacred than a virgin, and a tonsure than all the virtues of spotless innocence.
"Shall the King give with one hand and withdraw with the other?" the priest began, in a voice hoa.r.s.e yet strident, a voice borne high above the crowd on the wings of pa.s.sion. "Shall he spare of the best of the men and the maidens whom G.o.d hath doomed, whom the Church hath devoted, whom the King hath given? Is the King"s hand shortened or his word annulled that a man does as he forbiddeth and leaves undone what he commandeth? Is G.o.d mocked? Woe, woe unto you," he continued, turning swiftly, arms uplifted, towards Tavannes, "who please yourself with the red and white of their maidens and take of the best of the spoil, sparing where the King"s word is "Spare not"! Who strike at Holy Church with the sword! Who--"
"Answer, sirrah!" Charles cried, spurning the floor in his fury. He could not listen long to any man. "Is it so? Is it so? Do you do these things?"
Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders and was about to answer, when a thick, drunken voice rose from the crowd behind him.
"Is it what? Eh! Is it what?" it droned. And a figure with bloodshot eyes, disordered beard, and rich clothes awry, forced its way through the obsequious circle. It was Marshal Tavannes. "Eh, what? You"d beard the King, would you?" he hiccoughed truculently, his eyes on Father Pezelay, his hand on his sword. "Were you a priest ten times--"
"Silence!" Charles cried, almost foaming with rage at this fresh interruption. "It"s not he, fool! "Tis your pestilent brother."
"Who touches my brother touches Tavannes!" the Marshal answered with a menacing gesture. He was sober enough, it appeared, to hear what was said, but not to comprehend its drift; and this caused a t.i.tter, which immediately excited his rage. He turned and seized the nearest laugher by the ear. "Insolent!" he cried. "I will teach you to laugh when the King speaks! Puppy! Who laughs at his Majesty or touches my brother has to do with Tavannes!"
The King, in a rage that almost deprived him of speech, stamped the floor twice.
"Idiot!" he cried. "Imbecile! Let the man go! "Tis not he! "Tis your heretic brother, I tell you! By all the Saints! By the body of--" and he poured forth a flood of oaths. "Will you listen to me and be silent!
Will you--your brother--"
"If he be not your Majesty"s servant, I will kill him with this sword!"
the irrepressible Marshal struck in. "As I have killed ten to-day! Ten!"
And, staggering back, he only saved himself from falling by clutching Chicot about the neck.
"Steady, my pretty Marechale!" the jester cried, chucking him under the chin with one hand, while with some difficulty he supported him with the other--for he, too, was far from sober--
"Pretty Margot, toy with me, Maiden bashful--"
"Silence!" Charles cried, darting forth his long arms in a fury of impatience. "G.o.d, have I killed every man of sense? Are you all gone mad? Silence! Do you hear? Silence! And let me hear what he has to say," with a movement towards Count Hannibal. "And look you, sirrah," he continued with a curse, "see that it be to the purpose!"
"If it be a question of your Majesty"s service," Tavannes answered, "and obedience to your Majesty"s orders, I am deeper in it than he who stands there!" with a sign towards the priest. "I give my word for that. And I will prove it."
"How, sir?" Charles cried. "How, how, how? How will you prove it?"
"By doing for you, sire, what he will not do!" Tavannes answered scornfully. "Let him stand out, and if he will serve his Church as I will serve my King--"
"Blaspheme not!" cried the priest.
"Chatter not!" Tavannes retorted hardily, "but do! Better is he," he continued, "who takes a city than he who slays women! Nay, sire," he went on hurriedly, seeing the King start, "be not angry, but hear me! You would send to Biron, to the a.r.s.enal? You seek a messenger, sire? Then let the good father be the man. Let him take your Majesty"s will to Biron, and let him see the Grand Master face to face, and bring him to reason. Or, if he will not, I will! Let that be the test!"
"Ay, ay!" cried Marshal de Tavannes, "you say well, brother! Let him!"
"And if he will not, I will!" Tavannes repeated. "Let that be the test, sire."
The King wheeled suddenly to Father Pezelay. "You hear, father?" he said. "What say you?"
The priest"s face grew sallow, and more sallow. He knew that the walls of the a.r.s.enal sheltered men whose hands no convention and no order of Biron"s would keep from his throat, were the grim gate and frowning culverins once pa.s.sed; men who had seen their women and children, their wives and sisters immolated at his word, and now asked naught but to stand face to face and eye to eye with him and tear him limb from limb before they died! The challenge, therefore, was one-sided and unfair; but for that very reason it shook him. The astuteness of the man who, taken by surprise, had conceived this snare filled him with dread. He dared not accept, and he scarcely dared to refuse the offer. And meantime the eyes of the courtiers, who grinned in their beards, were on him. At length he spoke, but it was in a voice which had lost its boldness and a.s.surance.