CHAPTER XII.

THE DUKE OF ANJOU.

The headquarters of the royal army were at the suburb of Font, now in ruins. The Duke of Anjou, brother of King Charles IX, occupied at Font, in the center of the royal encampment, a house that went by the name of the "Reservoir," since within its yard lay the reservoir into which the waters were gathered that the now destroyed aqueduct conducted into La Rochelle. The Prince's headquarters, although wrecked by the war, were repaired, and made fit for the royal guest, thanks to the industry of his valets, who upholstered and equipped the ruins with a mass of tapestries and furniture which the pack-mules carried in the wake of the army. The Prince's oratory, where, either in sacrilegious derision, or perhaps yielding to a mixture of fanaticism and lewdness, he both performed his orisons and indulged his debaucheries, was tapestried in violet velvet, garlanded with fringes that were gathered up by gold and silver tassels. Daylight never penetrated the voluptuous retreat, which only a vermillion chandelier illumined with its candles of perfumed wax. On one side of the apartment stood a prayer-stool surmounted with an ivory crucifix; on the opposite side was a thickly cushioned lounge. A Turkish carpet covered the floor. A velvet portiere, closed at this moment, communicated with an inside room.

It was about eight in the evening. Cornelia Mirant, captured on the beach of La Rochelle the night before by the Marquis of Montbar, had just been introduced by him into the oratory of the Duke of Anjou. A feverish agitation imparted an unwonted glow to the countenance of the young girl. Her eyes glistened; her beauty was particularly radiant; a certain coquetish touch was noticeable in the arrangement of her hair; her Rochelois clothing, torn to shreds during the previous night's encounter, had been changed for a robe of poppy-red brocade. A broad embroidered scarf supported and concealed her right hand. The wound she received the day before on the neck had been dressed with care by one of the Duke's own surgeons. Monsieur Montbar--a youth barely twenty years of age, but whose delicate features were prematurely blighted by incontinence--had exchanged his war armor for the apparel of the court. His hair was artistically curled. From his ears hung a pair of earrings encrusted with precious stones; jet black frills hung down from his wrists and encased his hands; a short mantle was thrown over his shoulders; tight-fitting hose and a toque garnished with a brooch of rubies completed his dainty outfit. The Marquis had just brought Cornelia into the oratory, and was saying to her: "My pretty saucebox, you are now in the oratory of the Prince of Anjou, brother of our well-beloved King Charles IX."

"One feels as if in a palace of fairies!" answered Cornelia looking around with feigned and childish wonderment. "Oh, what splendid tapestries! What gorgeous ornaments! It seems I must be dreaming, monseigneur! Can it be possible that the Prince, so great a Prince, deigns to cast his eyes upon so poor a girl as I?"

"Come, my pretty lassy, do not cast down your eyes. Be sincere--you shall ever after feel the glory of having been, if but for one day, the mistress of the King of France's brother. But what are you thinking about?"

"Monseigneur, all this that is happening to me seems a dream. No! You are making sport of a poor girl. Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou does not think of me."

"You will see him in a minute, I assure you; he is just now in conference with Fra Herve, his confessor." And turning towards the still closed portiere, he proceeded: "I hear the curtains drawn back, and steps in the neighboring room--it is monseigneur."

Hardly had the Marquis pronounced these last words when the drapery was raised, giving passage to the Duke of Anjou. The Prince was then twenty-eight years of age; overindulgence had weakened his gait, and imparted to his effeminate physiognomy a wily aspect, and a suggestion of cruelty and hypocrisy to his smile; added to this, excessive ornamentation rendered his appearance trivial and even sinister. Monsieur Montbar took a few steps towards the Duke, whispered in his ear and pointed to Cornelia. The girl thrilled with suppressed emotion; her right hand, hidden in the wide folds of her scarf, seemed to twitch convulsively and involuntarily to rise to her bosom. She contemplated the Prince with mixed horror and curiosity. Her eyes glistened, but she quickly lowered them before the libidinous glance of the Prince, who, while speaking with the Marquis, regarded her covetously. He said to his favorite: "You are right, my pet; her beauty gives promise of great delight; leave us alone; I may call you in again."

The Marquis of Montbar withdrew. Left alone with Cornelia, the Duke of Anjou stepped to the lounge, stretched himself out upon it nonchalantly with his head resting on the cushion, pulled a gold comfit-holder from his pocket, took a pastille out of it, masticated it, and after a few minutes of silent revery said to the Rochelois:

"Approach, my pretty girl!"

Cornelia raised her eyes heavenward. Her countenance became inspired. A slight pallor overcast it. Her glistening eyes grew moist. Distress was stamped on her features as she muttered to herself: "Adieu, father! Adieu, Antonicq! The hour of self-sacrifice has sounded for me!"

Surprised at the immobility of Cornelia, whose face he could not see distinctly, the Duke of Anjou sat up and repeated impatiently: "Approach! You seem to be deaf, as well as mute. I told you to approach. By God's death, hurry up! Come and lie down beside me!"

Cornelia, without the Prince's noticing her motions, disengaged her arm from the folds of the scarf, and stepped deliberately towards the lounge on which he had again stretched himself out. Again he motioned her to approach, saying: "Come here, I tell you. I would fear to damn myself forever by contact with such a satanic heretic as you, but for Fra Herve's promise to give me absolution after our amorous encounter."

And rising from his soft lounge, the Prince opened his arms to Cornelia. The girl approached; she bowed down; then, quick as thought she seized the Duke by the hair with her left hand, at the same time drawing out of the folds of her scarf her right hand armed with a short sharp steel dagger with which she struck the Prince several blows in the region of the heart, crying: "Die, butcher of my brothers! Die, cowardly assassin of women and children!"

The Duke of Anjou wore under his jacket a coat of mail of steel so close meshed and well tempered that Cornelia's dagger broke under the blows that she dealt, while the frightened Prince called out for help, gasping: "Murder! She assassinates me! Murder!"

At the Prince's cries and the noise of the struggle between them the Marquis of Montbar, together with several domestics of the royal household, hurried into the oratory, from the contiguous room where they always stood in waiting; they flung themselves upon Cornelia and seized her by the wrists, while the Prince, freed from the grasp of the brave maid, ran livid and demented to his prayer-stool, where he threw himself down upon his knees, and, with lips white with terror, shivering in every part of his body, and with his teeth clattering in his head, he stammered: "Almighty God, thanks be to Thee! Thou hast protected Thy unworthy servitor!" And bending low, till his forehead touched the ground, the terrified libertine smote his chest exclaiming: "_Mea culpa! mea culpa! mea maxima culpa!_"[84]

While the Duke of Anjou was thus giving thanks to his God for having escaped the dagger of the young Protestant girl, she, held firmly by the seigneurs and retainers who heaped upon her insults and threats of death, stood erect with proud front, defied them with steady eyes, and preserved a disdainful silence. Holding himself responsible for the conduct of the Huguenot girl, whom he had taken to his master's bed, the Marquis of Montbar drew his sword and was about to run her through, when the Prince, rising from his prayer-stool cried out: "Do not kill her, my pet! Oh, no, she must not die so soon!"

The favorite re-sheathed his sword. The Duke of Anjou, now pale with rage, staggered to his lounge and sat down. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, cast a look of implacable hatred upon Cornelia, and after regarding her in silence for a moment, said: "Well, my pretty lass--so you meant to assassinate me!"

"Yes--because you are the worthy son of Catherine De Medici, the worthy brother of Charles IX; because you suborned an assassin to poison Coligny!"

The Duke of Anjou remained unmoved, and remarked with a cruel smile: "You are a resolute girl, resolute in word and deed. I came near learning as much at my cost! What is your name?"

"Cornelia Mirant."

"What! You are the daughter of the mariner who last night almost threw into utter ruins our Bayhead redoubt? You are the daughter of the devilish Huguenot who has just revictualed La Rochelle?"

The Cordelier Fra Herve had just raised the portiere and was about to step into the oratory, when he heard the young girl declare her name to be Cornelia Mirant. The monk immediately stopped. Half-hidden by the tapestry, he remained on the threshold of the room and listened to the rest of the dialogue between the Huguenot girl and the Prince.

"You must be a girl of honorable habits. How came you to yield so readily to the propositions of the Marquis?"

"In the hope of being able to strike you dead with the dagger that I found in the tent of your officer," boldly answered Cornelia.

"A new Judith, you seem to see in me a modern Holofernes! Everything about you breathes courage, honor, chastity. By God! I am becoming interested in you. You have wished my death--well, I wish that you live. So brave a girl should not die."

"What, monseigneur! Shall this wretch escape punishment!" cried the Marquis of Montbar, while Cornelia thought to herself with a shudder: "I dread the clemency of the son of Catherine De Medici more than I do his ire."

"Yes, my pet," answered the Duke of Anjou to his minion; "to-day I am in a merciful mood. I shall practice the evangelical morality of Jesus our Savior; I shall return good for evil! I wish well to this haughty republican girl, worthy of the days of Sparta and Rome! I wish the brave girl so well that--here is my sentence: Pinion the virgin's arms firmly; have her watched carefully in order that she may not do away with herself; and then throw her to the common soldiers of the camp. By God's death! The gay fellows will have a dainty repast! Take away from my sight the immaculate virgin, who will not be a virgin much longer!"

"Oh! Mercy! Mercy! Death sooner! The most horrible death! Mercy!" stammered Cornelia, aroused from her stupor; and dropping upon her knees at the feet of the Duke of Anjou, she raised to him her hands in supplication, and implored in heartrending accents: "Martyrdom! For mercy's sake, martyrdom!"

The Prince turned to his favorites: "Let the pretty heretic be taken to the garrison on the spot--on the spot, my pets. We shall follow and witness the sport of our soldiers."

Already was Cornelia being dragged away when Fra Herve suddenly interposed. The courtiers bowed low before the confessor of the Duke of Anjou.

"My son," said the Cordelier, stepping straight towards the Prince, "revoke the order you have given. The heretic should not be thrown to the soldiers."

"Father," broke in the Duke of Anjou with exasperation, "are you aware the girl tried to assassinate me?"

"I know it all--both the attempted crime and its failure. You shall revoke your order."

"God's blood! Reverend Father, seeing you know it all, I declare, notwithstanding my profound respect for you, that I insist upon my revenge. My orders shall be executed."

"My son, you are but a child," answered Fra Herve in a tone of disdainful superiority; and leaning towards the Prince the monk whispered in his ear, while Cornelia, now recognizing Fra Herve, shuddered from head to foot.

"I dreaded the clemency of the Prince--the monk's mercy terrifies me. Oh, Lord God, my only hope lies in You!"

"As God lives, my reverend Father, you are right! I am but a child!" cried the Duke of Anjou, beaming with infernal joy after listening to the confidential remarks whispered to him by the monk. He then again addressed his favorites: "Take the heretic girl to the reverend Father's cell. But, good Father, keep a watchful eye upon her. Her life is now as precious to you as to me."

Cornelia was led away upon the steps of the fratricidal monk.