'Yes,' rejoins d'Inchy impatiently. 'Cannot you see? You say the people no longer believe in the coming of His Highness. Our spies and the news they bring no longer carry weight. But if we say that the Duke hath sent a token....'
'I understand,' murmurs the Chief Magistrate, and the others nod in comprehension.
'Madame Jacqueline will not demur,' d'Inchy continues insistently. 'She will accept the assurance from me that one of our spies has come in contact with Monsieur and brought back a fresh token of his promise to her ... a ring, for instance. We have many valuable ones in our city treasury. One of them will serve our purpose.' Then, as the city dignitaries are still silent, somewhat perturbed at all that sophistry—''Tis for the sake of our city, Messires,' d'Inchy urges with a note of pleading in his usually commanding voice. 'A little deception, when so much good may come of it! what is it? Surely you can reconcile it with your consciences!'
To him the matter seems trivial. One deception more or less—hitherto the path had been so easy. He frowns, seeing that this tiresome pack of old men hesitate, when to acquiesce might even now save their city. Anyhow, he is the governor. His word is law. For the nonce he chooses to argue and to persuade, but anon he commands.
The city dignitaries—the old men for the most part, and with impaired health after weeks of privation—have but little real resistance in them. D'Inchy was always a man of arbitrary will and persuasive eloquence. De Balagny is soon won over. He ranges himself on the side of the governor, and helps in the work of demolishing the bulwark of the Magistrate's opposition. The latter yields—reluctantly, perhaps—but still he yields. After all, there is no harm whatever in the deception. No one could possibly suffer in consequence. Madame Jacqueline has always expressed herself ready to marry the Duc d'Anjou—a hero and a doughty knight, if ever there was one!—and in any case it were an inestimable boon to put fresh heart into the starving population.
So gradually the others yield, and Monseigneur is satisfied. He elaborates his plan, his mind full of details to make the result more sure. A public ceremony: Jacqueline once more publicly betrothed to the Duc d'Anjou—dedicated, in fact, like a worshipper to some patron saint. Then the people made to realize that the Duc d'Anjou is already known to them as their hero, their defender and their saviour; that he is not dead, but coming back to them very soon at the head of his armies this time, to save them once for all from the Spaniards, whilst he remains with them to the end of his days as their chosen Sovereign Lord and King.
Monseigneur has worked himself up to a high pitch of enthusiasm, carries the others with him now, until they cast aside all foreboding and gloom and hope springs afresh in their hearts.
VI
Thus we see the third and last picture which Enguerrand de Manuchet shows us of Cambray in her agony. It is a picture that is even more vivid than the others, more alive in the intensity of its pathos. We see inside the citadel on the last day of July, 1581. And of all the episodes connected with the memorable siege of Cambray and with its heroic defence, not one perhaps is more moving than that of this huge concourse of people—men, women and tiny children—assembled here and for such a purpose, under the blue dome of the sky.
The grim walls of the ancient castle around them are hung with worn and tattered flags; they are like the interior of a church, decked out with all the solemnity of a marriage ceremony and all the pathos of a De Profundis.