CHAPTER LI.
THE PAVILION OF FRANCOIS I.
Hawking was a beautiful sport as carried on by kings, when kings werealmost demi-gods, and when the chase was not only a pastime but an art.
Nevertheless we must leave the royal spectacle to enter a part of theforest where the actors in the scene we have just described will soonjoin us.
The Allee des Violettes was a long, leafy arcade and mossy retreat inwhich, among lavender and heather, a startled hare now and then prickedup its ears, and a wandering stag raised its head heavy with horns,opened its nostrils, and listened. To the right of this alley was anopen space far enough from the road to be invisible, but not so far butthat the road could be seen from it.
In the middle of the clearing two men were lying on the grass. Underthem were travellers' cloaks, at their sides long swords, and near eachof them a musketoon (then called a petronel) with the muzzle turned fromthem. In the richness of their costume they resembled the joyouscharacters of the "Decameron;" on closer view, by the threatening aspectof their weapons, they seemed like those forest robbers whom a hundredyears later Salvator Rosa painted from nature in his landscapes. One ofthem was leaning on his hand and on one knee, listening as attentivelyas the hare or deer we mentioned above.
"It seems to me," said this one, "that the hunt was very near us justnow. I heard the cries of the hunters cheering the falcon."
"And now," said the other, who seemed to await events with much morephilosophy than his companion, "now I hear nothing more; they must havegone away. I told you this was a poor place from which to see anything.We cannot be seen, it is true; but we cannot see, either."
"The devil! my dear Annibal," said the first speaker, "we had to put ourhorses somewhere, as well as the mules, which, by the way, are soheavily laden that I do not see how they can follow us. Now I know thatthese old beeches and oaks are perfectly suited to this difficult task.I should venture to say that far from blaming Monsieur de Mouy as youare doing, I recognize in every detail of the enterprise he is directingthe common sense of a true conspirator."
"Good!" said the second gentleman, whom no doubt our reader has alreadyrecognized as Coconnas; "good! that is the word! I expected it! I reliedon you for it! So we are conspiring?"
"We are not conspiring; we are serving the king and the queen."
"Who are conspiring and which amounts to the same for us."
"Coconnas, I have told you," said La Mole, "that I do not in the leastforce you to follow me in this affair. I have undertaken it only becauseof a particular sentiment, which you can neither feel nor share."
"Well, by Heaven! Who said that you were forcing me? In the first place,I know of no one who could compel Coconnas, to do what he did not wishto do; but do you suppose that I would let you go without following you,especially when I see that you are going to the devil?"
"Annibal! Annibal!" said La Mole, "I think that I see her white palfreyin the distance. Oh! it is strange how my heart throbs at the merethought of her coming!"
"Yes, it is strange," said Coconnas, yawning; "my heart does not throbin the least."
"It is not she," said La Mole. "What can have happened? They were to behere at noon, I thought."
"It happens that it is not noon," said Coconnas, "that is all, and,apparently, we still have time to take a nap."
So saying, Coconnas stretched himself on his cloak like a man who isabout to add practice to precept; but as his ear touched the ground heraised his finger and motioned La Mole to be silent.
"What is it?" asked the latter.
"Hush! this time I am sure I hear something."
"That is singular; I have listened, but I hear nothing."
"Nothing?"
"No."
"Well!" said Coconnas, rising and laying his hand on La Mole's arm,"look at that deer."
"Where?"
"Yonder."
Coconnas pointed to the animal.
"Well?"
"Well, you will see."
La Mole watched the deer. With head bent forward as though about tobrowse it listened without stirring. Soon it turned its head, coveredwith magnificent branching horns, in the direction from which no doubtthe sound came. Then suddenly, without apparent cause, it disappearedlike a flash of lightning.
"Oh!" said La Mole, "I believe you are right, for the deer has fled."
"Because of that," said Coconnas, "it must have heard what you have notheard."
In short, a faint, scarcely perceptible sound quivered vaguely throughthe passes; to less practised ears it would have seemed like the breeze;for the two men it was the far-off galloping of horses. In an instant LaMole was on his feet.
"Here they are!" said he; "quick."
Coconnas rose, but more calmly. The energy of the Piedmontese seemed tohave passed into the heart of La Mole, while on the other hand theindolence of the latter seemed to have taken possession of his friend.One acted with enthusiasm; the other with reluctance. Soon a regular andmeasured sound struck the ear of the two friends. The neighing of ahorse made the coursers they had tied ten paces away prick up theirears, as through the alley there passed like a white shadow a woman who,turning towards them, made a strange sign and disappeared.
"The queen!" they exclaimed together.
"What can it mean?" asked Coconnas.
"She made a sign," said La Mole, "which meant 'presently.'"
"She made a sign," said Coconnas, "which meant 'flee!'"
"The signal meant 'wait for me.'"
"The signal meant 'save yourself.'"
"Well," said La Mole, "let each act on his own conviction; you leave andI will remain."
Coconnas shrugged his shoulders and lay down again.
At that moment in the opposite direction from that in which the queenwas going, but in the same alley, there passed at full speed a troop ofhorsemen whom the two friends recognized as ardent, almost rabidProtestants. Their steeds bounded like the locusts of which Job said,'They came and went.'"
"The deuce! the affair is growing serious," said Coconnas, rising. "Letus go to the pavilion of Francois I."
"No," said La Mole; "if we are discovered it will be towards thepavilion that the attention of the King will be at first directed, sincethat is the general meeting-place."
"You may be right, this time," grumbled Coconnas.
Scarcely had Coconnas uttered these words before a horseman passed amongthe trees like a flash of lightning, and leaping ditches, bushes, andall barriers reached the two gentlemen.
He held a pistol in each hand and with his knees alone guided his horsein its furious chase.
"Monsieur de Mouy!" exclaimed Coconnas, uneasy and now more on the alertthan La Mole; "Monsieur de Mouy running away! Every one for himself,then!"
"Quick! quick!" cried the Huguenot; "away! all is lost! I have comearound to tell you so. Away!"
As if he had not stopped to utter these words, he was gone almost beforethey were spoken, and before La Mole and Coconnas realized theirmeaning.
"And the queen?" cried La Mole.
But the young man's voice was lost in the distance; De Mouy was too faraway either to hear or to answer him.
Coconnas had speedily made up his mind. While La Mole stood motionless,gazing after De Mouy, who had disappeared among the trees, he ran to thehorses, led them out, sprang on his own, and, throwing the bridle of theother to La Mole, prepared to gallop off.
"Come! come!" cried he; "I repeat what De Mouy said: Let us be off! DeMouy knows what he is doing. Come, La Mole, quick!"
"One moment," said La Mole; "we came here for something."
"Unless it is to be hanged," replied Coconnas, "I advise you to lose nomore time. I know you are going to parse some rhetoric, paraphrase theword 'flee,' speak of Horace, who hurled his buckler, and Epaminondas,who was brought back on his. But I tell you one thing, when Monsieur deMouy de Saint Phale flees all the world may run too."
"Monsieur de Mouy de Saint Phale," said La Mole, "was not charged toca
rry off Queen Marguerite! Nor does Monsieur de Mouy de Saint Phalelove Queen Marguerite!"
"By Heaven! he is right if this love would make him do such foolishthings as you plan doing. May five hundred thousand devils from helltake away the love which may cost two brave gentlemen their heads! ByHeaven! as King Charles says, we are conspiring, my dear fellow; andwhen plans fail one must run. Mount! mount, La Mole!"
"Mount yourself, my dear fellow, I will not prevent you. I even urge youto do so. Your life is more precious than mine. Defend it, therefore."
"You must say to me: 'Coconnas, let us be hanged together,' and not'Coconnas, save yourself.'"
"Bah! my friend," replied La Mole, "the rope is made for clowns, not forgentlemen like ourselves."
"I am beginning to think," said Coconnas, "that the precaution I took isnot bad."
"What precaution?"
"To have made friends with the hangman."
"You are sinister, my dear Coconnas."
"Well, what are we going to do?" cried the latter, impatiently.
"Set out and find the queen."
"Where?"
"I do not know--seek the king."
"Where?"
"I have not the least idea; but we must find him, and we two byourselves can do what fifty others neither could nor would dare to do."
"You appeal to my pride, Hyacinthe; that is a bad sign."
"Well! come; to horse and away!"
"A good suggestion!"
La Mole turned to seize the pommel of his saddle, but just as he put hisfoot in the stirrup an imperious voice was heard:
"Halt there! surrender!"
At the same moment the figure of a man appeared behind an oak, thenanother, then thirty. They were the light-horse, who, dismounted, hadglided on all fours in and out among the bushes, searching the forest.
"What did I tell you?" murmured Coconnas, in a low tone.
A dull groan was La Mole's only answer.
The light-horse were still thirty paces away from the two friends.
"Well!" continued the Piedmontese, in a loud tone, to the lieutenant ofthe dragoons. "What is it, gentlemen?"
The lieutenant ordered his men to aim.
Coconnas continued under breath:
"Mount, La Mole, there is still time. Spring into your saddle as I haveseen you do hundreds of times, and let us be off."
Then turning to the light-horse:
"The devil, gentlemen, do not fire; you would kill friends."
Then to La Mole:
"Between the trees they cannot aim well; they will fire and miss us."
"Impossible," said La Mole, "we cannot take Marguerite's horse with usor the two mules. They would compromise us, whereas by my replies I canavert all suspicion. Go, my friend, go!"
"Gentlemen," said Coconnas, drawing his sword and raising it,"gentlemen, we surrender."
The light-horse dropped their muskets.
"But first tell us why we must do so?"
"You must ask that of the King of Navarre."
"What crime have we committed?"
"Monsieur d'Alencon will inform you."
Coconnas and La Mole looked at each other. The name of their enemy atsuch a moment did not greatly reassure them.
Yet neither of them made any resistance. Coconnas was asked to dismount,a manoeuvre which he executed without a word. Then both were placed inthe centre of the light-horse and took the road to the pavilion.
"You always wanted to see the pavilion of Francois I.," said Coconnas toLa Mole, perceiving through the trees the walls of a beautiful Gothicstructure; "now it seems you will."
La Mole made no reply, but merely extended his hand to Coconnas.
By the side of this lovely pavilion, built in the time of Louis XII.,and named after Francois I., because the latter always chose it as ameeting-place when he hunted, was a kind of hut built for prickers,partly hidden behind the muskets, halberds, and shining swords like anant-hill under a whitening harvest.
The prisoners were conducted to this hut.
We will now relate what had happened and so throw some light on thesituation, which looked very dark, especially for the two friends.
The Protestant gentlemen had assembled, as had been agreed on, in thepavilion of Francois I., of which, as we know, De Mouy had the key.
Masters of the forest, or at least so they had believed, they had placedsentinels here and there whom the light-horse, having exchanged theirwhite scarfs for red ones (a precaution due to the ingenious zeal ofMonsieur de Nancey), had surprised and carried away without a blow.
The light-horse had continued their search surrounding the pavilion; butDe Mouy, who, as we know, was waiting for the king at the end of theAllee des Violettes, had perceived the red scarfs stealing along and hadinstantly suspected them. He sprang to one side so as not to be seen,and noticed that the vast circle was narrowing in such a way as to beatthe forest and surround the meeting-place. At the same time, at the endof the principal alley, he had caught a glimpse of the white aigrettesand the shining arquebuses of the King's bodyguard.
Finally he saw the King himself, while in the opposite direction heperceived the King of Navarre.
Then with his hat he had made a sign of the cross, which was the signalagreed on to indicate that all was lost.
At this signal the king had turned back and disappeared. De Mouy at oncedug the two wide rowels of his spurs into the sides of his horse andgalloped away, shouting as he went the words of warning which we havementioned, to La Mole and Coconnas.
Now the King, who had noticed the absence of Henry and Marguerite,arrived, escorted by Monsieur d'Alencon, just as the two men came out ofthe hut to which he had said that all those found, not only in thepavilion but in the forest, were to be conducted.
D'Alencon, full of confidence, galloped close by the King, whose sharppains were augmenting his ill humor. Two or three times he had nearlyfainted and once he had vomited blood.
"Come," said he on arriving, "let us make haste; I want to return to theLouvre. Bring out all these rascals from their hole. This is SaintBlaise's day; he was cousin to Saint Bartholomew."
At these words of the King the entire mass of pikes and muskets began tomove, and one by one the Huguenots were forced out not only from theforest and the pavilion but from the hut.
But the King of Navarre, Marguerite, and De Mouy were not there.
"Well," said the King, "where is Henry? Where is Margot? You promisedthem to me, D'Alencon, and, by Heaven, they will have to be found!"
"Sire, we have not even seen the King and the Queen of Navarre."
"But here they are," said Madame de Nevers.
At that moment, at the end of an alley leading to the river, Henry andMargot came in sight, both as calm as if nothing had happened; both withtheir falcons on their wrists, riding lovingly side by side, so that asthey galloped along their horses, like themselves, seemed to becaressing each other.
It was then that D'Alencon, furious, commanded the forest to besearched, and that La Mole and Coconnas were found within their ivybower. They, too, in brotherly proximity entered the circle formed bythe guards; only, as they were not sovereigns, they could not assume socalm a manner as Henry and Marguerite. La Mole was too pale and Coconnastoo red.