II
The while Cambray waits and starves! That was indeed the deathly sting which poisoned Gilles de Crohin's very life during those four dreary months, while Monsieur Duc d'Anjou was ostensibly making preparations for his expedition for the relief of the beleaguered city. Ostensibly in truth, for very soon his fond sister had to realize that, now as always, that fickle brother of hers was playing his favourite game of procrastination and faithlessness. With him, in fact, faithlessness had become an obsession. It seemed as if he could not act or think straight, as if he could not keep his word. Now, while he was supposed to recruit his troops, to consult with his officers, to provide for engines and munitions of war, he actually deputed his long-suffering and still faithful friend, Gilles de Crohin, to do the work for him. His own thoughts had once more turned to a possible marriage—not with Jacqueline de Broyart, to whom he was bound by every conceivable tie of honour and of loyalty—but with Elizabeth of England, whom he coveted because of her wealth, and the power which so brilliant an alliance would place in his hands.
But of these thoughts he did not dare to speak even to the adoring sister, who most certainly would have turned her back on him for ever had she known that he harboured such dishonourable projects. He did not dare to speak of them even to Gilles, for he felt that this would strain his friend's loyalty to breaking point. He entered outwardly into the spirit of the proposed expedition with all the zest which he could muster, but the moment he was no longer under Marguerite de Navarre's own eyes he did not lift another finger in its organization.
'Turenne and la Voute are quite capable of going to the relief of Cambray without me,' he said to Gilles with a yawn and a lazy stretch of his long, loose limbs. 'I have never been counted a good commander, and Parma is always a difficult problem to tackle. Let Turenne go, I say. My brother Henri lauds him as the greatest general of the day, and the rogue hath fought on the Spanish side before now, so he hath all their tricks at his fingers' ends.'
Monsieur was in Paris then, and Marguerite de Navarre, wellnigh distraught, had entreated Gilles to stir him into immediate activity.
'Cambray will fall before that indolent brother of mine gets there, Messire,' she had pleaded, with tears of impotent anger in her eyes.
Gilles had gone. He needed no goad even for so distasteful a task. 'Cambray might fall!' The thought drove him into a fever, from which he could find no solace save in breathless activity. He found Monsieur in his Palace in Paris, surrounded by the usual crowd of effeminate youngsters and idle women, decked out in new-fangled, impossible clothes, the creations of his own fancy, indolent, vicious, incorrigible. Just now, when Gilles had come to speak to him of matters that meant life or death, honour or shame, the future welfare or downfall of a nation, he was lounging in a huge armchair, his feet resting on a pile of cushions. He was wearing one of his favourite satin suits, with slashed doublet all covered with tags and ribbons; he had gold earrings in his ears and was nursing a litter of tiny hairless puppies, whom he was teasing with the elaborate insignia of the Order of the Holy Ghost, wrought in gold and set with diamonds, which he wore on a blue ribband round his neck.
Gilles looked down on him with a contempt that was no longer good-humoured. Cambray was waiting and starving whilst this miserable coxcomb idled away the hours! Two months had gone by and practically nothing had been done. There were no troops, no munitions, no arms; and Cambray was waiting and starving! God alone knew what miseries were being endured by those valiant burghers over there, whom Gilles' own voice had so easily rallied once to a stubborn and heroic defence! God alone knew what his exquisite Jacqueline was being made to suffer! At the thought, his very soul writhed in torment. He could have raised his hands in measureless anger against that effeminate nincompoop, and crushed the last spark of a profligate and useless life out of him. As it was, he had to entreat, to argue, almost to kneel, pleading the cause of Cambray and of his proud Jacqueline—his perfect and unapproachable lily, whom this miserable rag of manhood was casting aside and spurning with a careless wave of the hand.
Ye gods! That he, of all men, should have been assigned such a rôle! That Fate should have destined him to plead for the very honour and safety of the woman whom he worshipped, with a man whom he despised! And yet he argued and he entreated because Madame la Reyne herself vowed that no one could keep her brother in the path of integrity now, except his friend Gilles de Crohin. She had begged him not to leave Monsieur, not for a day, not if possible for an hour!
'He will give us the slip again,' she begged most earnestly; 'and be off to England after his wild-goose chase. Elizabeth will never marry him—never! And we shall remain before the world, uselessly discredited and shamed.'