"Ventre de biche!" exclaimed Chicot, "I return to my original idea,--it is not a love affair, but a conspiracy.
"Madame la d.u.c.h.esse de Montpensier is in love with Monsieur Ernanton de Carmainges; let us watch over this love affair of Madame la d.u.c.h.esse."
And Chicot watched until midnight had long pa.s.sed, when Ernanton hastened away, his cloak concealing his face, while Madame la d.u.c.h.esse de Montpensier returned to her litter.
"Now," murmured Chicot, as he descended his own staircase, "what is that chance of death which is to deliver the Duc de Guise from the presumptive heir of the crown? who are those defunct persons who were thought to be dead, but are still living?
"Mordioux! I shall trace them before long."
CHAPTER Lx.x.xIV.
LE CARDINAL DE JOYEUSE.
Youth has its obstinate resolutions, both as regards good and evil in the world, which are by no means inferior to the inflexibility of purpose of maturer years.
When directed toward good purposes, instances of this dogged obstinacy of character produce what are termed the great actions of life, and impress on the man who enters life an impulse which bears him onward, by a natural course, toward a heroism of character of some kind or another.
In this way Bayard and Du Gueselin became great captains, from having been the most ill-tempered and most intractable children that ever existed; in the same way, too, the swineherd, whom nature had made the herdsman of Montalte, and whose genius had converted him into s.e.xte-Quinte, became a great pope, because he had persisted in performing his duties as a swineherd in an indifferent manner.
Again, in the same way were the worst Spartan natures displayed in a heroic sense, after they had commenced life by a persistence in dissimulation and cruelty.
All we have now to sketch is the portrait of a man of an ordinary stamp; and yet, more than one biographer would have found in Henri du Bouchage, at twenty years of age, the materials for a great man.
Henri obstinately persisted in his affection and in his seclusion from the world; as his brother had begged and as the king had required him to do, he remained for some days closeted alone with his one enduring thought; and then, when that thought had become more and more fixed and unchangeable in its nature, he one morning decided to pay a visit to his brother the cardinal, an important personage, who, at the age of twenty-six, had already for two years past been a cardinal, and who, from the archbishopric of Narbonne, had pa.s.sed to the highest degrees of ecclesiastical dignity, a position to which he was indebted as much to his n.o.ble descent as to his powerful intellect.
Francois de Joyeuse, whom we have already introduced with the object of enlightening Henri de Valois respecting the doubt he had entertained with regard to Sylla--Francois de Joyeuse, young and worldly-minded, handsome and witty, was one of the most remarkable men of the period.
Ambitious by nature, but circ.u.mspect by calculation and position, Francois de Joyeuse could a.s.sume as his device, "Nothing is too much,"
and justify his device.
The only one, perhaps, of all those who belonged to the court--and Francois de Joyeuse was attached to the court in a very especial manner--he had been able to create for himself two means of support out of the religious and lay thrones to which he in some measure approximated as a French gentleman, and as a prince of the church; Sixtus protected him against Henri III., Henri III. protected him against Sixtus. He was an Italian at Paris, a Parisian at Rome, magnificent and able everywhere.
The sword alone of Joyeuse, the high admiral, gave the latter more weight in the balance; but it might be noticed from certain smiles of the cardinal, that if those temporal arms failed him, which the hand of his brother, refined and admired as he was, wielded so successfully, he himself knew not only how to use, but also how to abuse, the spiritual weapons which had been intrusted to him by the sovereign head of the Church.
The Cardinal Francois de Joyeuse had very rapidly become a wealthy man, wealthy in the first place from his own patrimony, and then from his different benefices. At that period the Church was richly endowed--very richly endowed even, and when its treasures were exhausted, it knew the sources, which at the present day are exhausted, where and whence to renew them.
Francois de Joyeuse, therefore, lived in the most magnificent manner.
Leaving to his brother all the pageantry and glitter of a military household, he crowded his salons with priests, bishops and archbishops; he gratified his own individual peculiar fancies. On his attaining the dignity of cardinal, as he was a prince of the church, and consequently superior to his brother, he had added to his household pages according to the Italian fashion, and guards according to that which prevailed at the French court. But these guards and pages were used by him as a still greater means of enjoying liberty of action. He frequently ranged his guards and pages round a huge litter, through the curtains of which his secretary pa.s.sed his gloved hand, while he himself on horseback, his sword by his side, rode through the town disguised with a wig, an enormous ruff round his neck, and horseman"s boots, the sound of which delighted him beyond measure.
The cardinal lived, therefore, in the enjoyment of the greatest consideration, for, at certain elevated positions in life, human fortunes are absorbing in their nature, and, as if they were composed of nothing else but of adhesive particles, oblige all other fortunes to attend on and follow them like satellites; and on that account, therefore, the recent and marvelous successes of his brother Anne reflected on him all the brilliancy of those achievements. Moreover, as he had scrupulously followed the precept of concealing his mode of life, and of dispensing and diffusing his mental wealth, he was only known by the better sides of his character, and in his own family was accounted a very great man, a happiness which many sovereigns, laden with glory and crowned with the acclamations of a whole nation, have not enjoyed.
It was to this prelate that the Comte du Bouchage betook himself after his explanation with his brother, and after his conversation with the king of France; but, as we have already observed, he allowed a few days to elapse in token of obedience to the injunction which had been imposed on him by his elder brother, as well as by the king.
Francois resided in a beautiful mansion in that part of Paris called La Cite. The immense courtyard was never quite free from cavaliers and litters; but the prelate, whose garden was immediately contiguous to the bank of the river, allowed his courtyards and his antechambers to become crowded with courtiers; and as he had a mode of egress toward the river-bank, and a boat close thereto, which conveyed him without any disturbance as far and as quietly as he chose, it not unfrequently happened that the courtiers uselessly waited to see the prelate, who availed himself of the pretext of a serious indisposition, or a rigid penance, to postpone his reception for the day. For him it was a realization of Italy in the bosom of the capital of the king of France, it was Venice embraced by the two arms of the Seine.
Francois was proud, but by no means vain; he loved his friends as brothers, and his brothers nearly as much as his friends. Five years older than Du Bouchage, he withheld from him neither good nor evil counsel, neither his purse nor his smile.
But as he wore his cardinal"s costume with wonderful effect, Du Bouchage thought him handsome, n.o.ble, almost formidable, and accordingly respected him more, perhaps, than he did the elder of them both. Henri, with his beautiful cuira.s.s, and the glittering accessories of his military costume, tremblingly confided his love affairs to Anne, while he would not have dared to confess himself to Francois.
However, when he proceeded to the cardinal"s hotel, his resolution was taken, and he accosted, frankly enough, the confessor first, and the friend afterward.
He entered the courtyard, which several gentlemen were at that moment quitting, wearied at having solicited without having obtained the favor of an audience.
He pa.s.sed through the antechambers, salons, and then the more private apartments. He had been told, as others had, that his brother was engaged in conference; but the idea of closing any of the doors before Du Bouchage never occurred to any of the attendants.
Du Bouchage, therefore, pa.s.sed through all the apartments until he reached the garden, a true garden of a Roman prelate, luxurious in its shade, coolness, and perfume, such as, at the present day, may be found at the Villa Pamphile or the Palais Borghese.
Henri paused under a group of trees: at this moment the gate close to the river side rolled on its hinges, and a man shrouded in a large brown cloak pa.s.sed through, followed by a person in a page"s costume. The man, perceiving Henri, who was too absorbed in his reverie to think of him, glided through the trees, avoiding the observation either of Du Bouchage or of any one else.
Henri paid no attention to this mysterious entry; and it was only as he turned round that he saw the man entering the apartments.
After he had waited about ten minutes, and as he was about to enter the house, for the purpose of interrogating one of the attendants with the view of ascertaining at what hour precisely his brother would be visible, a servant, who seemed to be in search of him, observed his approach, and advancing in his direction, begged him to have the goodness to pa.s.s into the library, where the cardinal awaited him.
Henri complied with this invitation, but not very readily, as he conjectured that a fresh contest would result from it; he found his brother the cardinal engaged, with the a.s.sistance of a valet-de-chambre, in trying on a prelate"s costume, a little worldly-looking, perhaps, in its shape and fashion, but elegant and becoming in its style.
"Good-morning, comte," said the cardinal; "what news have you?"
"Excellent news, as far as our family is concerned," said Henri. "Anne, you know, has covered himself with glory in that retreat from Anvers, and is alive."
"Heaven be praised! and are you too, Henri, safe and sound?"
"Yes, my brother."
"You see," said the cardinal, "that Heaven holds us in its keeping."
"I am so full of grat.i.tude to Heaven, my brother, that I have formed the project of dedicating myself to its service. I am come to talk seriously to you upon this project, which is now well matured, and about which I have already spoken to you."
"Do you still keep to that idea, Du Bouchage?" said the cardinal, allowing a slight exclamation to escape him, which was indicative that Joyeuse would have a struggle to encounter.
"I do."
"But it is impossible, Henri," returned the cardinal; "have you not been told so already?"
"I have not listened to what others have said to me, my brother, because a voice stronger than mine, which speaks within me, prevents me from listening to anything which would turn me aside from my purpose."
"You cannot be so ignorant of the things of this world, Henri," said the cardinal, in his most serious tone of voice, "to believe that the voice you allude to was really that of Heaven; on the contrary--I a.s.sert it positively, too--it is altogether a feeling of a worldly nature which addresses you. Heaven has nothing to do in this affair; do not abuse that holy name, therefore, and, above all, do not confound the voice of Heaven with, that of earth."
"I do not confound, my brother; I only mean to say that something irresistible in its nature hurries me toward retreat and solitude."
"So far, so good, Henri; we are now making use of proper expressions.
Well, my dear brother, I will tell you what is to be done. Taking what you say for granted, I am going to render you the happiest of men."
"Thank you, oh! thank you, my brother."
"Listen to me, Henri. You must take money, a couple of attendants, and travel through the whole of Europe, in a manner befitting a son of the house to which we belong. You will see foreign countries; Tartary, Russia, even the Laplanders, those fabulous nations whom the sun never visits; you will become absorbed in your thoughts, until the devouring germ which is at work in you becomes either extinct or satiated; and, after that, you will return to us again."