Chicot the Jester. Dumas Alexandre

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СКАЧАТЬ be difficult to follow; thus then, at the corner of the Hôtel des Tournelles, opposite the Hôtel St. Pol.”

      “With each a lackey?” asked D’Epernon.

      “No, no, Nogaret, let us be alone, and keep our own secret, and do our own work. I hate him, but he is too much a gentleman for a lackey to touch.”

      “Shall we go out all six together?”

      “All five if you please,” said St. Luc.

      “Ah! it is true, we forgot your wife.”

      They heard the king’s voice calling St. Luc.

      “Gentlemen,” said he, “the king calls me. Good sport, au revoir.”

      And he left them, but instead of going straight to the king, he ran to where Bussy stood with his wife.

      “Ah! monsieur, how hurried you seem,” said Bussy. “Are you going also to join the chase; it would be a proof of your courage, but not of your gallantry.”

      “Monsieur, I was seeking you.”

      “Really.”

      “And I was afraid you were gone. Dear Jeanne, tell your father to try and stop the king, whilst I say a few words tête-à-tête to M. Bussy.” Jeanne went.

      “I wish to say to you, monsieur,” continued St. Luc, “that if you have any rendezvous to-night, you would do well to put it off, for the streets are not safe, and, above all, to avoid the Hôtel des Tournelles, where there is a place where several men could hide. This is what I wished to say; I know you fear nothing, but reflect.”

      At this moment they heard Chicot’s voice crying, “St. Luc, St. Luc, do not hide yourself, I am waiting for you to return to the Louvre.”

      “Here I am, sire,” cried St. Luc, rushing forward. Near Chicot stood the king, to whom one page was giving his ermine mantle, and another a velvet mask lined with satin.

      “Sire,” said St. Luc, “I will have the honor of lighting your majesties to your litters.”

      “No,” said Henri, “Chicot goes one way, and I another. My friends are good-for-nothings, who have run away and left me to return alone to the Louvre. I had counted on them, and you cannot let me go alone. You are a grave married man, and must take me back to the queen. Come, my friend, my litter is large enough for two.”

      Madame de St. Luc, who had heard this, tried to speak, and to tell her father that the king was carrying away her husband, but he, placing his fingers on his month, motioned her to be silent.

      “I am ready, sire,” said he, “to follow you.”

      When the king took leave, the others followed, and Jeanne was left alone. She entered her room, and knelt down before the image of a saint to pray, then sat down to wait for her husband’s return. M. de Brissac sent six men to the Louvre to attend him back. But two hours after one of them returned, saying, that the Louvre was closed and that before closing, the captain of the watch had said, “It is useless to wait longer, no one will leave the Louvre to-night; his majesty is in bed.”

      The marshal carried this news to his daughter.

      CHAPTER II.

      HOW IT IS NOT ALWAYS HE WHO OPENS THE DOOR, WHO ENTERS THE HOUSE

      The Porte St. Antoine was a kind of vault in stone, similar to our present Porte St. Denis, only it was attached by its left side to buildings adjacent to the Bastile. The space at the right, between the gate and the Hôtel des Tournelles, was large and dark, little frequented by day, and quite solitary at night, for all passers-by took the side next to the fortress, so as to be in some degree under the protection of the sentinel. Of course, winter nights were still more feared than summer ones.

      That on which the events which we have recounted, and are about to recount took place, was cold and black. Before the gate on the side of the city, was no house, but only high walls, those of the church of St. Paul, and of the Hôtel des Tournelles. At the end of this wall was the niche of which St. Luc had spoken to Bussy. No lamps lighted this part of Paris at that epoch. In the nights when the moon charged herself with the lighting of the earth, the Bastile rose somber and majestic against the starry blue of the skies, but on dark nights, there seemed only a thickening of the shadows where it stood. On the night in question, a practised eye might have detected in the angle of the wall of the Tournelles several black shades, which moved enough to show that they belonged to poor devils of human bodies, who seemed to find it difficult to preserve their natural warmth as they. stood there. The sentinel from the Bastile; who could not see them on account of the darkness, could not hear them either, for they talked almost in whispers. However, the conversation did not want interest.

      “This Bussy was right,” said one; “it is a night such as we had at Warsaw, when Henri was King of Poland, and if this continues we shall freeze.”

      “Come, Maugiron, you complain like a woman,” replied another: “it is not warm, I confess; but draw your mantle over your eyes, and put your hands in your pockets, and you will not feel it.”

      “Really, Schomberg,” said a third, “it is easy to see you are German. As for me, my lips bleed, and my mustachios are stiff with ice.”

      “It is my hands,” said a fourth; “on my honor, I would not swear I had any.”

      “You should have taken your mamma’s muff, poor Quelus,” said Schomberg.

      “Eh! mon Dieu, have patience,” said a fifth voice; “you will soon be complaining you are hot.”

      “I see some one coming through the Rue St. Paul,” said Quelus.

      “It cannot be him; he named another route.”

      “Might he not have suspected something, and changed it?”

      “You do not know Bussy; where he said he should go, he would go, if he knew that Satan himself were barring his passage.”

      “However, here are two men coming.”

      “Ma foi! yes.”

      “Let us charge,” said Schomberg.

      “One moment,” said D’Epernon; “do not let us kill good bourgeois, or poor women. Hold! they stop.”

      In fact, they had stopped, and looked as if undecided. “Oh, can they have seen us?”

      “We can hardly see ourselves!”

      “See, they turn to the left; they stop before a house they are seeking – they are trying to enter; they will escape us!”

      “But it is not him, for he was going to the Faubourg St. Antoine.”

      “Oh! how do you know he told you right?”

      At this supposition they all rushed out, sword in hand, towards the gentlemen.

      One of the men had just introduced a key into the lock; the door had yielded and was about to open, when the noise of their assailants made them turn.

      “What is this? Can it be against us, Aurilly?” said one.

      “Ah, monseigneur,” said СКАЧАТЬ