Monsoreau went in, and ordered his litter.
What the duke had foreseen happened. At the noise that Monsoreau made, Bussy took the alarm, the light was extinguished, the ladder fixed, and Bussy, to his great regret, was obliged to fly, like Romeo, but without having, like him, seen the sun rise and heard the lark sing. Just as he touched the ground, and Diana had thrown him the ladder, the duke and Aurilly arrived at the corner of the Bastile. They saw a shadow suspended from Diana’s window, but this shadow disappeared almost instantaneously at the corner of the Rue St. Paul.
“Monsieur,” said the valet to Monsoreau, “we shall wake up the household.”
“What do I care?” cried Monsoreau, furiously. “I am master here, I believe, and I have at least the right to do what M. d’Anjou wished to do.”
The litter was got ready, and, drawn by two stout horses, it was soon at the Hôtel d’Anjou.
The duke and Aurilly had so recently come in that their horses were not unsaddled. Monsoreau, who had the entree, appeared on the threshold just as the duke, after having thrown his hat on a chair, was holding out his boots to a valet to pull off. A servant, preceding him by some steps, announced M. de Monsoreau. A thunderbolt breaking his windows, could not have astonished the prince more.
“M. de Monsoreau!” cried he, with an uneasiness he could not hide.
“Myself, monseigneur,” replied he, trying to repress his emotion, but the effort he made over himself was so violent that his legs failed him, and he fell on to a chair which stood near.
“But you will kill yourself, my dear friend,” said the duke; “you are so pale, you look as though you were going to faint.”
“Oh, no; what I have to say to your highness is of too much importance; I may faint afterwards.”