Part 2

"Well, my dear Count," he said, "let us speak of this affair of the reiters. You made me as many excuses but now, for defeating our enemies, as if you had let them defeat you. Such gallant actions are easily pardoned, Logères; and if you but proceed to commit many such faults, Henry of Navarre and Henry of Guise had both need look to their renown. There was a third Henry once," he continued, half closing his eyes, and speaking with a sigh, as he thought of Henry III. and fair promises of his youth; "there was a third Henry once, who might perhaps have borne the meed of fame away from us both: but that light has gone out in the socket, and left nothing but an unsavory smell behind. However, there was no excuse needed, good friend, for cutting to pieces double your own number of German marauders."

"My excuse was not for that," replied the Count, calmly, "but your Highness directed me to go no farther than Montigny, and I went to La Ferté, on account of the wounded men."

"That is easily excused too," said the Duke. "But now give me your own account of the affair. The boy told me the story but imperfectly. How fell you in with the reiters at first?"

Charles of Montsoreau did as the Prince required, giving a full and minute, but modest, account of all that had taken place. But when he spoke of retreating up the river to the spot where the banks were deeper, and the stream more profound, Guise caught him by the hand, exclaiming eagerly, "Did you know that the banks were steeper? Did you see that they would guard your flank?"

"That was my object, my Lord," replied the young Count, somewhat surprised. "I noticed the nature of the ground as we charged them at first."

"Kneel down!" cried the Duke; "kneel down! Would to God that I were a Bayard for thy sake!--In the name of God, St. Michael and St. George, I dub thee knight;" and drawing his sword he struck him on the collar with the blade, adding with a smile, in which melancholy was blended with gaiety, "Perchance this may be the last chivalrous knighthood conferred in France. Indeed, as matters go, I think it will be: but if it should, I can but say that it never was won more nobly."

The young Count rose with sparkling eyes. The memory of the chivalrous ages was not yet obliterated by dust and lichens; the fire of a more enthusiastic epoch was not yet quite extinct; and he felt as if what had passed gave him greater strength to go through what was to come.

The Duke, however, relaxing soon into his former manner, made him a sign to proceed; and Charles of Montsoreau went on to detail the complete defeat and dispersion of the different bodies of reiters. He then began to hesitate again: but Guise was determined to hear all, and said, "But your brother; where did you find your brother? Be frank with me, Logères."

Thus pressed, the young Count went on to say, that he did not again meet with his brother till he found him in the market-place at La Ferté. "My brother," he continued, "having been driven by the party that pursued him beyond the carriage, and judging that I was coming up with a superior force, imagined that Mademoiselle de Clairvaut and her attendants had fallen under my protection: but finding that such was not the case, he mounted his horse again, and proceeded to seek for her during the greater part of the night, while I did the same in another direction."

He was then hurrying on as fast as possible to speak of the following morning, but the Duke interrupted him, demanding, "There was a sharp dispute in the market-place, I think; was there not, Monsieur de Logères? Pray let me hear the particulars."

But Charles of Montsoreau, driven to the point, answered boldly and at once, "It was a dispute between two brothers, my Lord; in regard to which none but God and their own consciences can judge. You will therefore pardon me if I keep that which is private to my private bosom."

Guise gazed at him for a long--a very long time, with eyes full of deep feeling, and then replied, "By Heaven! you are one of the most extraordinary young men I ever met with. I know the whole, Monsieur de Logères; and the words there spoken let me into the secrets of your bosom which I wished to know. I now understand how to deal with you; and while I do my best to secure your happiness, trust to the Duke of Guise to avoid, as far as possible, any thing that is painful to you in the course. But go on; let me hear the rest."

"If you know all, my Lord," said Charles of Montsoreau, a good deal affected by the Duke's kindness, "will you not spare me the telling of that which must be painful to me?"

"I fear I must ask you to go on," replied the Duke. "What you have now to tell me is the most important part of all to me at the present moment, for by it must my conduct be regulated, in regard to the measures for rescuing our poor Marie from the hands of that----." He checked himself suddenly, and then added, "the King, in short. A single word may cause a difference in our view of the matter; and therefore I would fain hear you tell it, if you will do me that favour."

"All that I know, my Lord, I will tell," replied the Count; "but of my own knowledge I have little to tell, for the principal part of my information was derived from the boy with whom you have already spoken. All then that I personally know is, that, having slept long from great fatigue, I was roused by the boy in the morning; that he told me my brother was about to depart; and that, on descending, I found his report true. My brother was already on horseback, and his troop in the act of setting out; but he was accompanied by a gentleman whom I had never seen before, whose name is Colombel, and who, I found afterwards, is an officer in the service of the King."

"Oh yes," said the Duke of Guise; "I have heard him named; a person of no great repute, but some cunning."

"My conversation with my brother," continued the Count, "was not the most agreeable. On his side it was all taunts; but the only part of which it is needful to inform your Highness, was, that when I asked tidings of Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, he would afford me no information, except that she was in safe hands. I am grieved, also, to be compelled to say that he told me, if I did not join you before he did, I should be long parted from you."

"We have lost an ally," replied the Duke; "but one which, to say sooth, I do not covet. If he be not treacherous, he is at best unsteady; but I cannot help fearing, Charles of Montsoreau, that your brother himself, apprehending that my regard for you might not suit his purposes, has had some share in suffering Marie to fall into the hands of Henry."

"Oh no, my Lord, oh no!" exclaimed Charles of Montsoreau; "you do him wrong, believe me. My Lord, a few words will explain to you the cause of his conduct. He is possessed with a passion for Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, so strong, so vehement, so intense, as to have a portion of madness in it,--a sufficient portion to make him cast away his former nature altogether, to hate his brother, to abandon his friends, to abjure all the thoughts and feelings of his youth, and to follow her still where-ever she goes, seeking to obtain her by means which the very blindness of his passion prevents him from seeing are those which must insure his losing her."

"This is the passion of a weak and unstable mind," said the Duke. "Love, my young friend, is in itself a grand and ennobling thing, leading us to do great actions for the esteem and approbation of her we love. The love of a bright woman," he added, "the love of a bright woman--I speak it with all due reverence," and he put his hand to his hat, "is the next finest sensation, the next grand mover in human actions, to the love of God. The object is undoubtedly inferior, but the course is the same, namely, the striving to do high and excellent things for the approbation of a being that we love and venerate. Alas that it should be so! but in this world I fear the love of woman is amongst us the strongest mover of the two: the other is so remote, so high, so pure, that our dull senses strain their wings in reaching it. The love of woman appeals to the earthly as well as to the heavenly part of man's nature, and consequently is heard more easily. Perhaps--and Heaven grant it!--that, as some of our fathers held, the one love may lead us on to the other, and the perishable be but a step to the immortal. However," he added, "such love as that which you say possesses your brother, will certainly never lead him on to any thing that is great, or high, or noble. Most certainly it will not lead him to the hand of Marie de Clairvaut as long as Henry of Guise can draw a sword. If he have not betrayed me, he has abandoned me; if he have not shown himself a coward, he has shown himself a weak defender of those intrusted to his charge; and under such circumstances, had he the wealth of either India and the power of Cæsar, he should never wed Marie de Clairvaut." He laid his hand upon the shoulder of Charles of Montsoreau, and he said, "You have heard my words, good friend; those words are irrevocable: and now knowing that your brother can never be really your rival, act as you will. I would fain have your confidence, Charles, but I will not wring it from you. This girl is beautiful and sweet and fascinating; and if I judge right, you love her not less but more nobly than your brother. Tell me, or tell me not as you will, but we all feel pleased with confidence."

"Oh, my Lord," replied Charles of Montsoreau, "how can I deny you my confidence when you load me with such proofs of your goodness? I do love Mademoiselle de Clairvaut as deeply, as intensely, as passionately, as my brother,--more, more a thousand fold than he or any body else, I believe, is capable of loving. I had some opportunities of rendering her services, and on one of those occasions I was betrayed into words and actions which I fancied must have made her acquainted with all my feelings. It was after that I discovered, my Lord, how madly my brother loved her: it was after that I discovered that the pursuit of my love must bring contention and destruction on my father's house. Had I believed that she loved me, nothing should have made me yield her to any one; for I had the prior claim, I had the prior right: but when I had reason to believe that she had not marked, and did not comprehend all the signs of my affection; when I felt that I could quit her without the appearance of trifling with her regard, though not without the continued misery of my own life, my determination was taken in a moment, and I determined to make the sacrifice, be the consequences what they might. Such, my Lord, is the simple truth; such is the only secret of all my actions."

The Duke of Guise bent down his eyes upon the ground with a smile, in the expression of which there was a degree of cynical bitterness. It was somewhat like one of the smiles of the Abbé de Boisguerin; but the Duke's words explained it at once, which the Abbé's never did.

"I fear, my young friend," he said, "that the science of women's hearts is a more difficult one than the science of war. You have learnt the one, it would seem, by intuition; in the other you are yet a novice. However, you shall pursue your own course, bearing with you the remembrance that I swear by my own honour--"

"Oh swear not, my Lord," replied Charles of Montsoreau; "circumstances may change; she may love him; her love may alter him, and lead him back to noble things."

The Duke smiled again. "What I have said," he answered, "is as good as sworn. But have it your own way; I thank you for the confidence you have reposed in me. And now, to show you how I can return it, I have a task to put upon you, an adventure on which to send forth my new made knight. I do not think that Henry either will or dare refuse to give up to me my own relation and ward. The king and I are great friends, God wot! But still I must demand her, and somebody must take a journey to Paris for that purpose. To the capital, doubtless, they have conveyed her; and I trust, my good Logères, that you will not think it below your dignity and merit to seek and bring back a daughter of the House of Guise."

Charles of Montsoreau paused thoughtfully for a moment, ere he replied. All the difficulties and dangers to which he might be exposed, in acting against the views of the King of France, were to him as nothing; but the difficulties and dangers which might arise from his opposition to his own brother, were painful and fearful to him to contemplate. He saw not, however, how he could refuse the task; and it cannot be denied that love for Marie de Clairvaut had its share also in making him accept it. He doubted not for a moment, that if she were in the hands of the King, she was there against her own will; and could he, he asked himself, could he even hesitate to aid in delivering her from a situation of difficulty, danger, and distress? The thought of aiding her, the thought of seeing her again, the thought of hearing the sweet tones of that beloved voice, the thought of once more soothing and supporting her, all had their share; the very contemplation made his heart beat; and lifting his eyes, he found those of the Duke of Guise fixed upon his countenance, reading all the passing emotions, the shadows of which were brought across him by those thoughts. The colour mounted slightly into his cheek as he replied, "My Lord, I will do your bidding to the best of my ability. When shall I march?"

"Oh, you mistake," said the Duke, laughing; "you are not to go at the head of your men, armed _cap-à-pie_, to deliver the damsel from the giant's castle; but in the quality of my envoy to Henry; first of all demanding, quietly and gently, where the Lady is, and then requiring him to deliver her into your hands, for the purpose of escorting her to me, where-ever I may be. You shall have full powers for the latter purpose; but you must keep them concealed till such time as you have discovered, either from the King's own lips--though no sincerity dwells upon them--or by your own private inquiries and investigations, where this poor girl is. Then you may produce to the King your powers from me, and to herself I will give you a letter, requesting her to follow your directions in all things. Now, you must show yourself as great a diplomatist as a soldier, for I can assure you that you will have to deal with as artful and as wily a man as any now living in Europe."

"I will do my best, my Lord; and to enable me to deal with them before all their plans are prepared, I had better set out at break of day to-morrow, with as many men as your Highness thinks fit should accompany me."

The Duke mused for a moment or two; "No," he said, "no; I must not let you go, Logères, without providing for your safety. You have risked your life sufficiently for me and mine already. You go into new scenes, with which you are unacquainted; into dangers, with which you may find it more difficult to cope than any that you have hitherto met with. I cannot then suffer you to depart without such passports and safeguards as may diminish those dangers as far as possible."

"Oh, I fear not, my Lord," replied Charles of Montsoreau, "the King and your Highness are not at war. I have done nothing to offend, and--"

"It cannot be, it cannot be," replied the Duke. "You must go back with me to Soissons. I will send a messenger from this place to demand the necessary passports for you. No great time will be lost, for a common courier can pass where you or I would be stopped. Then," he continued, "as to the men that you should take with you, I should say, the fewer the better. Mark me," he continued, with a smile, "there are secret springs in all things; and I will give you letters to people in Paris, which will put at your disposal five hundred men on the notice of half an hour. Ay, more, should you require them. But use not these letters except in the last necessity, for they might hurry on events which I would rather see advance slowly till they were forced upon me, than do aught to bring them forward myself. No; you shall go back with me to Soissons, guarding me with your band; and I doubt not, our messenger from Paris will not be many hours after us. Now leave me, and to rest, good Logères, and send in the servant, whom you will find half way down the stairs."

The young Count withdrew without another word, and he found that while the conversation between himself and the Duke had been going on, a man had been stationed, both above and below the door of the apartment, as if to insure that nobody approached to listen. Such were the sad precautions necessary in those days.

Early on the following morning the whole party mounted their horses, the wounded men of Logères were left under the care and attendance of the good townsmen of Montigny, and the young Count riding with the party of the Duke of Guise, proceeded on the road to Soissons. No adventure occurred to disturb their progress; and, as so constantly happens in the midst of scenes of danger, pain, and difficulty, almost every one of the whole party endeavoured to compensate for the frequent endurance of peril and pain by filling up the intervals with light laughter and unthinking gaiety. The Duke of Guise himself was not the least cheerful of the party, though occasionally the cloud of thought would settle again upon his brow, and a pause of deep meditation would interrupt the jest or the sally. It was late at night when they arrived at Soissons, and the Duke, after supping with the Cardinal de Bourbon, retired to rest, without conversing with any of his party. It was about eight o'clock on the following morning, and while, by the dull grey light of a cloudy spring day, Charles of Montsoreau was dressing himself, with the aid of one of his servants, that the door opened without any previous announcement, and the Duke of Guise, clad in a dressing-gown of crimson velvet trimmed with miniver, entered the room, bearing in his hand a packet of sealed letters, and one open one. A page followed him with something wrapped up in a skin of leather, which he placed upon one of the stools, and instantly retired.

"Send away your man, Count," said the Duke, seating himself; "resume your dressing-gown, and kindly give me your full attention for half an hour. You will be so good," he continued, turning to the man who was quitting the chamber, "as to take your stand on the first landing-place below this door. You will tell any body whom you see coming up to pass by the other staircase; any one you may see coming down, you will direct to pass by this door quickly."

There was a stern command in the eye of the Duke of Guise which had a strong effect upon those it rested on; and the man to whom he now spoke made his exit from the room, stumbling over twenty things in his haste to obey. As soon as he was gone, the Duke turned to his young friend, and continued, "Here is the King's safeguard under his own hand, and the necessary passports for yourself and two attendants. Here is your letter of credit to him in my name, requiring him to give you every sort of information which he may be possessed of regarding the subjects which you will mention to him; and here is a third letter giving you full power to demand at his hands the person of Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, for the purpose of escorting her and placing her under my protection. This, again, is to Mary herself, bidding her follow your counsels and direction in every thing; and these others are to certain citizens of Paris, whose names you will find written thereon. If you will take my advice, you will again take with you the boy Ignati, and one stout man-at-arms, unarmed, however, except in such a manner as the dangers of the road require. You understand, I think, clearly, all that I wish."

"I believe, my Lord, I do," replied the Count. "But how am I to insure safety for Mademoiselle de Clairvaut on the road, without an adequate force?"

"Write to me but one word," replied the Duke of Guise, "as soon as she is delivered into your hands, and I will send you with all speed whatever forces I can spare. But I have one or two things to communicate to you, which it is necessary for you to know, both for your own security and the success of your mission. The principal part of my niece's lands lie in the neighbourhood of Chateauneuf, between Dreux and Mortagne in Normandy. It is not at all unlikely, that, if driven to remove her from your sight, Henry may be tempted to send her thither, well knowing that it is what I have always opposed, and that I preferred rather that she should dwell even in Languedoc than be in that neighbourhood. For this I had a reason; and that reason is the near relationship in which her father stood to the most daring and the most dangerous man in France. One of the first of those whom you will see near the person of the King, the man who governs and rules him to his own infamy and destruction, in whose hands the minions are but tools and Henry an instrument, who, more than any one else, has tended to change a gracious prince, a skilful general, and a brave man, into an effeminate and vicious king, is René de Villequier, Baron of Clairvaut. He was first cousin to Marie de Clairvaut's father, and he is consequently her nearest male relation out of the family of Guise. He has, indeed, sometimes hinted at a right to share in the guardianship of his cousin's daughter. But such things a Guise permits not. However, with this claim upon the disposal of her hand, Henry may, perhaps, hesitate to yield her, unless with the consent of Villequier. With him, then, you may be called upon to deal; but Villequier, I think, knows the hand of a Guise too well to call down a blow from it unnecessarily. However, he is as daring as he is artful, and impunity in crime has rendered him perfectly careless of committing it. He is Governor of Paris, one of the King's ministers, a Knight of the Holy Ghost. Now hear what he has done to merit all this. More than one assassin broken on the wheel has avowed himself the instrument of Villequier, sent to administer poison to those he did not love. Complaisant in every thing to his King, he sought to sacrifice to him the honour of his wife: but she differed from him in her tastes; and, on the eighteenth of last September, in broad daylight, in the midst of an effeminate court, he murdered her with his own hand at her dressing-table. Nor was this all: there was a girl--a young sweet girl--the natural daughter of a noble house, who was holding before the unhappy lady a mirror to arrange her dress when the fatal blow was struck. The fiend's taste for blood was roused. One victim was not enough, and he murdered the wretched girl by the side of her dead mistress. This was done in open day, was never disowned, was known to every one, and was rewarded by the order of the Holy Ghost--an insult to God, to France, and to humanity.[1] However, as with this man you may have to deal, I have to give you two cautions. Never drink wine with him, or eat food at his table; never go into his presence without wearing under your other dress the bosom friend which I have brought you there;" and he took from the leathern skin in which it was wrapped, a shirt of mail, made of rings linked together, so fine that it seemed the lightest stroke would have broken it, and yet so strong, that the best tempered poinard, driven by the most powerful hand, could not have pierced it. "Have also in your bosom," continued the Duke of Guise, "a small pistol; and if the villain attempts to lay his hand upon you, kill him like a dog. This is the only way to deal with René de Villequier."

[Footnote 1: All these charges were but too true.]