Eteocles and Polynices.
This day of the League terminated brilliantly and tumultuously, as it began. The friends of the king rejoiced, the preachers proposed to canonize Brother Henri, and spoke everywhere of the great deeds of the Valois. The favorites said, “The lion is roused.” The leaguers said, “The fox has discovered the snare.”
The three Lorraine princes, as we have seen, had left Paris, and their principal agent, M. de Monsoreau, was ready to start for Anjou. But as he was leaving the Louvre, Chicot stopped him.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?” said he.
“To his highness.”
“His highness?”
“Yes, I am unquiet about him. We do not live in times when a prince ought to travel without a good escort.”
“Well, if you are unquiet, so am I.”
“About what?”
“About his highness also.”
“Why?”
“Do you not know what they say?”
“That he has gone to Anjou.”
“No; that he is dead.”
“Bah!” said Monsoreau, with a tone of surprise, not unmixed with joy, “you told me he was traveling.”
“Diable! they persuaded me so, but now I have good reason to think that if the poor prince be traveling, it is to another world.”
“What gives you these mournful ideas?”
“He entered the Louvre yesterday, did he not?”
“Certainly; I came in with him.”
“Well! he has never been seen to come out.”
“From the Louvre?”
“No.”
“Where is Aurilly?”
“Disappeared.”
“But his people?”
“Disappeared.”
“You are joking, are you not, M. Chicot?”
“Ask!”
“Whom?”
“The king.”
“I cannot question his majesty.”
“Oh! yes, if you go about it in the right way.”
“Well,” said the count. “I cannot remain in this uncertainty.” And leaving Chicot, he went to the king’s apartment.
“Where is the king?” he asked: “I have to render an account to him of the execution of some orders he gave me.”
“With M. le Duc d’Anjou,” replied the man.
“With the Duke; then he is not dead?”
“I am not so sure of that.”
M. de Monsoreau was thoroughly bewildered; for if M. d’Anjou were in the Louvre, his absence on such a day was unaccountable.
Immediately after the sitting, Quelus, Maugiron, Schomberg, and D’Epernon, in spite of the ennui they experienced there, were so anxious to be disagreeable to the duke that they returned to him. He, on his part, was mortally ennuyé, as well as anxious, which, it must be confessed, the conversation of these gentlemen was not calculated to remove.
“Do you know, Quelus,” said Maugiron, “that it is only now I begin to appreciate our friend Valois; really he is a great politician.”
“Explain yourself,” said Quelus, who was lounging on a chair.
“While he was afraid of the conspiracy, he kept it quiet; now he speaks of it openly, therefore he is no longer afraid of it.”
“Well?”
“If he no longer fears it, he will punish it; you know Valois, he has certainly many good qualities, but clemency is not one of them.”
“Granted.”
“Then if he punishes these conspirators there will be a trial, and we shall have a fine spectacle.”
“Unless, which is possible, on account of the rank of the accused, they arrange it all quietly.”
“That would be my advice, certainly; it is better in family affairs.”
Aurilly glanced at the prince.
“Ma foi,” said Maugiron, “I know one thing; that in the king’s place I would not spare the high heads, which are always the most guilty. I would make an example of one or two — one, at all events.”
“I think it would be well to revive the famous invention of sacks.”
“What was that?”
“A royal fancy in the year 1550; they shut up a man in a sack, in company with three or four cats, and threw them into the water. The minute the cats felt the water they attacked the man, and there passed in the sack things which unluckily could never be seen.”
“Really, Quelus, you are a well of science, and your conversation is most interesting.”
“They could not apply this invention to the chiefs; they have the right to be beheaded; but to the small fry, I mean the favorites, squires, and lute-players.”
“Gentlemen ——” stammered Aurilly.
“Do not reply to them, Aurilly,” said Fran?ois, “it cannot be addressed to me.” As he spoke the king appeared on ............