CHAPTER XXV.
The gates of the Hôtel Barbette--formerly the Hôtel Montaigne--opened instantly to the Duke of Orleans, and he was kept but a moment in the great hall ere the queen gave an order for his admission, although still suffering from illness. He found the beautiful but vindictive Isabella in bed; but that formed no objection in those days to the reception of visitors by a lady of even queenly rank; and, after having embraced his fair sister-in-law, he sat down by her bedside, and the room was soon cleared of the attendants.
"You have received my note, Louis?" she said, laying her hand tenderly upon his; for there is every reason to believe that the Duke of Orleans was the only one toward whom she ever entertained any sincere affection.
"I did, sweet Isabella," answered the duke; "and I came at once to see what was your will."
"How many men brought you with you?" asked the queen. "I hope there is no fool-hardiness, Orleans?"
"Oh, in Paris I have plenty," replied the duke; "hard upon five hundred. The rest I left with Valentine at Beauté, for she is going to Château Thierry to gather all her children together. But if you mean how many I have brought hither to-night, good faith! Isabella, not many--two men on horseback, and half a dozen on foot."
"Imprudent man!" exclaimed the queen. "Do you not know that Burgundy is here?"
"Oh yes," answered the Duke of Orleans. "He supped with me this night, quite in a tranquil way."
"Be not deceived--be not deceived, Louis of Orleans," answered the queen. "Who can feign friendship and mean enmity so well as John of Burgundy? And I tell you that, to my certain knowledge, he is caballing against you even now. Your life is never safe when you are near him unless you be surrounded by your men-at-arms."
"Well, then, we do not play an equal game," replied the duke; "for his life is as safe with me as with his dearest friend."
"Did he know that you were coming hither?" asked the queen, with an anxious look.
"Assuredly," replied the duke; but then he added, with a gay laugh, "He suspected, I fancy, from his questions, that I was going elsewhere first, though I told him I was not."
"Where--where?" demanded the queen.
"To Madame De Giac's," replied the Duke of Orleans, with a look of arch meaning.
"The serpent!" muttered Isabella. "And you have not been?"
"Assuredly not," replied her brother-in-law. "Then he knows you have come here," said Isabella, thoughtfully; "and the way back will be dangerous. You shall not go, Orleans, till you have sent for a better escort."
"Well, kind sister, if it will give you ease, it shall be done," replied the duke. "I will tell one of my men to bring me a party of horse from the hotel."
"Let it be large enough," said the queen, emphatically.
The duke smiled, and left the room in search of his attendants; but neither of his two squires could be found. Heaven knows where they were, or what they were doing; but the queen had a court of very pretty ladies at the Hôtel Barbette, who were not scrupulous of granting their conversation to gay young gentlemen. A young German page, fair-haired and gentle, lolled languidly on a settle in the great hall, but he knew little of Paris, and the Duke of Orleans sent for one of his footmen, and ordered him to take one of the squires' horses, return to the Hôtel d'Orleans, and bring up twenty lances with in an hour. He then went back to the chamber of the queen, and sat conversing with her for about ten minutes, when they were interrupted' by the entrance of one of her ladies, who brought intelligence that a messenger from the Hôtel St Pol had arrived, demanding instant audience of the duke.
"Who is he?" asked Isabella, gazing at the lady, her suspicions evidently all awake. "How did they know at the Hôtel St. Pol that his highness was here?"
"It is Thomas of Courthose, your majesty," replied the lady; "and he says he has been at the Hôtel d'Orleans, whence he was sent hither."
"By your good leave, then, fair sister, we will admit him," said the duke; and in a minute or two after Thomas of Courthose, one of the immediate attendants of the king, was ushered into the room. He was not a man of pleasing aspect: black-haired, down-looked, and with the eyes so close together as to give almost the appearance of a squint; but both the duke and the queen knew him well, and suspicion was lulled to sleep.
Approaching the Duke of Orleans, with a lowly reverence, first to the queen and then to him, the man said, "I have been commanded by his royal majesty to inform your highness that he wishes to see you instantly, on business which touches nearly both you and himself."
"I will obey at once," replied the duke. "Tell my people, as you pass, to get ready. I will be in the court in five minutes."
"Stay, Orleans, stay!" cried the queen, as the man quitted the room. "You had better wait for your escort, dear brother."
The duke only laughed at her fears, however, representing that his duty to the king called for his immediate obedience, and adding, "I shall go safer by that road than any other. They know that I came hither late, and will conclude that I shall return by the same way. If Burgundy intends to play me any scurvy trick--arrest, imprison, or otherwise maltreat me--he will post his horsemen in that direction, and by going round I shall avoid them. Nay, nay, Isabella, example of disobedience to my king shall never be set by Louis of Orleans."
The queen saw him depart with a sigh, but the duke descended to the court without fear, and spoke gayly to his attendants, whom he found assembled.
"We do not know what to do, sir," said one of the squires, stepping forward. "Leonard has taken away one of the horses, and now there is but one beast to two squires."
"Let his master mount him, and the other jump up behind," said the duke, laughing. "Did you never see two men upon one horse?"
In the mean while his own mule was brought forward, and, setting his foot in the stirrup, the duke seated himself somewhat slowly. Then, looking up to the sky, he said, "The moon is down, and it has become marvelous dark. If you have torches, light them."
About two minutes were spent in lighting the torches, and then the gates of the Hôtel Barbette were thrown open. The two squires on one horse went first, and the duke on his mule came after, the German page following close, with his hand resting on the embossed crupper, while two men, with torches lighted, walked on either side. The porter at the gates looked after them for a moment as they took their way down the Street of the Old Temple, and then drew to the heavy leaves, and barred the gates for the night.
All was still and silent in the street, and the little procession walked on at a slow pace for some two hundred yards. The torch-light then seemed to flash upon some object suddenly, which the horse bearing the two squires had not before seen, for the beast started, plunged, and then dashed violently forward down the street, nearly throwing the hindmost horseman to the ground. The duke spurred forward his mule somewhat sharply, but he had not gone a dozen yards when an armed man darted out from behind the dark angle of the neighboring house. Another rushed out almost at the same moment from one of the deep, arched gateways of the time, and a number more were seen hurrying up, with the torch-light flashing upon cuirasses, battle-axes, and maces. Two of the light-bearers cast down their torches and fled; a third was knocked down by the rush of men coming up; and at the same moment a strong, armed hand was laid upon the Duke of Orleans's rein.
The dauntless prince spurred on his mule against the man who held it, without attempting to turn its head; and it would seem that he still doubted that he was the real object of attack, for while the assassin shouted loudly, "Kill him--kill him!" he raised his voice loud above the rest, exclaiming, "How now; I am the Duke of Orleans!"
"'Tis him we want," cried a deep voice close by; and as the duke put his hand to the hilt of his sword, a tremendous blow of an ax fell upon his wrist, cutting through muscle, and sinew, and bone. The next instant he was struck heavily on the head with a mace, and hurled backward from the saddle. But even then there was one found faithful. The young German boy who followed cast himself instantly upon the body of his lord, to shield him from the blows that were falling thick upon him. But it was all in vain. The battle-ax and the mace terminated the poor lad's existence in a moment; his body was dragged from that of the prostrate prince; and a blow with a spiked iron club dashed to pieces the skull of the gay and gallant Louis of Orleans.
Shouts and cries of various kinds had mingled with the fray, but after that last blow fell there came a sudden silence. Three of the torches were extinguished; the bearers were fled. One faint light only flickered on the ground, throwing a red and fitful glare upon the bloody bodies of the dead, and the grim, fierce countenances of the murderers.
In the midst of that silence, a man in a crimson mantle and hood came quickly forward, bearing a lantern in his hand.
The assassins showed no apprehension of his presence, and holding the light to the face of the dead man, he gazed on him for an instant with a stern, hard, unchanged expression, and then said, "It is he!"
Perhaps some convulsive movement crossed the features from which real life had already passed away, for that stern, gloomy man snatched a mace from the hand of one standing near, and struck another heavy blow upon the head of the corpse, saying, "Out with the last spark!"
There were some eight or ten persons immediately round the spot where the prince had fallen; but others were scattered at a little distance up and down the street. Suddenly a voice cried, "Hark!" and the sound of a horse's feet was heard trotting quick.
"Away!" cried the man in the red mantle. "Fire the house, and disperse. You know your roads. Away!"
Then came a distant cry, as if from the gates of the queen's palace, of "Help! help! Murder! murder!" but, the next moment, it was almost drowned in a shout of "Fire! fire!" Dark volumes of smoke began to issue from the windows of the Hôtel Nôtre Dame, and flashes of flame broke forth upon the street, while a torrent of sparks rushed upward into the air. All around the scene of the murder became enveloped in vapor and obscurity, with the red light tinging the thick, heavy wreaths of smoke, and serving just to show figures come and go, still increasing in number, and gathering round the fatal spot in a small, agitated crowd. But the actors in the tragedy had disappeared. Now here, now there, one or another might have been seen crossing the bloody-looking haze of the air, and making for some of the various streets that led away from the place of the slaughter, till at length all were gone, and nothing but horrified spectators of their bloody handiwork remained.
Few, if any, remained to look at the burning house, and none attempted to extinguish the flames; for the cry had already gone abroad that the Duke of Orleans was murdered, and the multitude hurried forward to the place where he lay. Those who did stop for an instant before the Hôtel Nôtre Dame, remarked a quantity of lighted straw borne out from the doors and windows by the rush of the fire, and some of them heard the quick sound of hoofs at a little distance, as if a small party of horse had galloped away from the back of the building.
Few thought it needful, however, to inquire for or pursue the murderers. A sort of stupor seemed to have seized all but one of those who arrived the first. He was a poor mechanic; and, seeing an armed man, with a mace in his hand, glide across the street, he followed him with a quick step, traced him through several streets, paused in fear when the other paused, turned when he turned, and dogged him till he entered the gates of the Hôtel d'Artois, the residence of the Duke of Burgundy.
In the mean while, the body of the unhappy prince, and that of the poor page who had sacrificed his life for him, were carried into a church hard by. The news spread like lightning through the whole town; neighbor told it to neighbor; many were roused from their sleep to hear the tidings, and agitation and tumult spread through Paris. Every sort of vague alarm, every sort of wild rumor was received and encouraged.
The Queen Isabella of Bavaria, horrified and apprehensive, caused herself to be placed in a litter, and carried to the Hôtel St. Pol. A number of loyal noblemen, believing the king's own life in danger, armed themselves and their followers, and turned the court of the palace into a fortress. But the followers of the deceased duke remained for some hours almost stupefied with terror, and only recovered themselves to give way to rage and indignation, which produced many a disastrous consequence in after days. In the mean time, the church of the White Friars was not deserted. The brethren themselves gathered around the dead bodies, and, with tapers lighted, and the solemn organ playing, chanted all night the services of the dead. High nobles and princes, too, flocked into the church with heavy hearts and agitated minds. The Duke of Bourbon and the venerable Duke of Berri were the first. Then came the King of Navarre, then the Duke of Burgundy, and then the King of Sicily, who had arrived in Paris only on the preceding morning.
All were profuse of lamentations, and of execrations against the murderers; but none more so than the Duke of Burgundy, who declared that "never, in the city of Paris, had been perpetrated so horrible and sad a murder."[[2]] He could even weep, too; but while the words were on his lips, and the tears were in his eyes, some one pulled him by the cloak, and turning round his head, he saw one of his most familiar servants. Nothing was said; but there was a look in the man's eyes which demanded attention, and, after a moment or two, the duke retired with him into the chapel of St. William.
"They have taken one of those suspected of conniving at the murder," whispered the man.
"Which? Who--who is he?" asked the duke, eagerly.
"No one your highness knows," replied the man, gazing in the duke's face, though the chapel was very dark. "He is a young gentleman, said to be the duke's secretary, Monsieur Charost de Brecy."
The duke stamped with his foot upon the ground, saying, with an oath, "That may ruin all. See that he be freed as soon as possible, before he is examined."
"It can not be done, I fear," rejoined the man, in the same low tone. "He is in the hands of William de Tignonville, the prévôt. But can not the murder be cast on him, sir? They say he and the duke were heard disputing loud this night; and that, on the way to the Hôtel Barbette, he suddenly turned and rode away from his royal master."
"Folly and nonsense!" said the duke, impatiently; and then he fell into a fit of thought, adding, in a musing tone, "This must be provided for. But not so--not so. Well, we will see. Leave him where he is. He must be taught silence, if he would have safety."