Sir Francis hurried out to learn the truth, and then my mother in her fright cried out:
‘Will no one come and protect us? Oh! where is M. Darpent?’ while Annora called to me to take our cloaks and come up to the roof of the house to see what was going on. She was in high spirits, no doubt laughing within herself to see how every danger made my mother invoke M. Darpent, and finding in a tumult a sure means of meeting him, for she could trust to him to come and offer his protection.
I SAW that she heard his voice on the stairs before he actually made his appearance, telling my mother that he had hastened to assure her that we were in no danger. The rising was due to M. de Boutteville, who, being disappointed in his plan of seizing the Cardinal’s nieces as hostages, had gone galloping up and down Paris with his sword drawn, shouting that the two darlings of the people, M. de Beaufort and the Coadjutor, had been seized. He wildly hoped that the uproar this was sure to excite would frighten the Queen-Regent into releasing the Princes as she had before released Broussel.
But the Coadjutor had come out with torches carried before him, and had discovered the name of the true prisoners, whose arrogance had so deeply offended the populace. He had summoned the Duke of Beaufort—the King of the Markets, as he was called—and he was riding about the streets with a splendid suite, whose gilded trappings glistened in the torchlight.
So deeply had the Prince’s arrogance offended all Paris that the whole city passed from rage into a transport of joy, and the servants came and called us up to the top of the house to see the strange sight of the whole city illuminated. It was wonderful to behold, every street and all the gates marked out by bright lights in the windows, and in the open spaces and crossings of the street bonfires, with dark figures dancing wildly round them in perfect ecstasies of frantic delight; while guns were fired out, and the chorus of songs came up to us; horrid, savage, abusive songs, Sir Francis said they were, when he had plodded his way up to us on the roof, after having again reassured my mother, who had remained below trying to comfort the weeping Cecile.
Sir Francis said he had asked a tradesman with whom he dealt, ordinarily a very reasonable and respectable man, what good they expected from this arrest that it should cause such mad delirium of joy. The man was utterly at a loss to tell him anything but that the enemies of Paris were fallen. And then he began shouting and dancing as frantically as ever.
It was to his wife and me that the English knight told his adventures; Annora and M. Darpent had drawn apart on the opposite side of the paraget. If to Madame d’Aubepine this great stroke of policy meant nothing but that her husband was in prison, to my sister a popular disturbance signified chiefly a chance of meeting Clement Darpent; and Lady Ommaney and I exchanged glances and would not look that way. Nay, we stayed as long as we could bear the cold of that January night to give them a little more time. For, as I cannot too often remind you, my grand-daughters, we treated an English maiden, and especially one who had had so many experiences as my sister, very differently from a simple child fresh from her convent.
Nicolas at last came up with a message from Madame la Baronne to beg that we would come down. We found that the Intendante Corquelebois (erst Gringrimeau) had brought the children in a panic, lest the houses of the partisans of the Princes should be attacked. She had put on a cloak and hood, made them look as like children of the people as she could, and brought them on foot through the streets; and there stood the poor little things, trembling and crying, and very glad to find their mother and cling to her. She had never thought of this danger, and was shocked at herself for deserting them. And it was a vain alarm; for, as M. Darpent assured her, M. d’Aubepine was not conspicuous enough to have become a mark for public hatred.
She was a little affronted by the assurance, but we appeased her, and as the tumult was beginning to die away, M. Darpent took his leave, promising my mother to let her know of any measure taken on the morrow. He offered to protect Madame d’Aubepine and her children back to their own hotel, but we could not let the poor wife go back with her grief, nor the children turn out again on the winter’s night. I was glad to see that she seemed now on perfectly good terms with herdame de compagnie, who showed herself really solicitous for her and her comfort, and did not seem displeased when I took her to my room. I found my poor little sister-in-law on the whole less unhappy than formerly. People do get accustomed to everything, and she had somehow come to believe that it was the proper and fashionable arrangement, and made her husband more distinguished, that he should imitate his Prince by living apart from her, and only occasionally issuing his commands to her. He had not treated her of late with open contempt, and he had once or twice take a little notice of his son, and all this encouraged her in her firm and quiet trust that in process of time, trouble, age, or illness would bring him back to her. Her eyes began to brighten as she wondered whether she could not obtain his liberty by falling at the Queen’s feet with a petition, leading her children in her hands. ‘They were so beautiful. The Queen must grant anything on the sight of her little chevalier!’
And then she had a thousand motherly anecdotes of the children’s sweetness and cleverness to regale me with till she had talked herself tolerably happily to sleep.