The sun was now declining, and it would soon be dusk. Malletort urged on the Regent to lose no time in preparing for his enterprise.
“And the opera?” observed the latter, suddenly recollecting his appointment with Madame de Parabére at that entertainment.
“Must be given up for to-night,” answered Malletort. “There is no time for your Highness to show yourself in public, and return here for a change of dress. Moreover, your disguise cannot be properly accomplished in a hurry, and to be late by five minutes would render all our plans useless. You have promised to trust everything to me, and if your Highness will be guided by my directions, I can insure you an undoubted success. Give me your attention, I entreat, monsieur, whilst once more I recapitulate my plan.”
“You dismiss, now, on the instant, all your valets, except Robecque, on whom we can depend. With his assistance and mine, you disguise yourself as an officer of Musketeers—Grey, of course, since that company furnishes the guard of to-night. Your Highness can thus pass through their posts, without remark, on giving the countersign supplied this morning by yourself. An escort will be provided from the barracks, at the last moment, by Marshal de Villeroy’s orders, without consulting the officer of the guard. This arrangement is indispensable in case of accidents. Every contingency has been anticipated, yet swords might be drawn, and though your Highness loves the clash of steel, the most valuable life in France must not be risked even for such a prize. Ah! you may trust us men of peace to take precautions; and, in our profession, when we act with the strong hand, we think we cannot make the hand too strong.
“Nevertheless, I anticipate no difficulties whatever. Your Highness, as a gallant Musketeer, will enter the garden of the Hesperides without opposition. There is no dragon that I know of, though people sometimes pay your humble servant the compliment of believing him to hold that post; and once within, it wants but a bold hand to pluck the fruit from the bough. Win it then, my Prince, and wear it happily. Nay, forget not hereafter, that many a man less favoured would have bartered life willingly but to lie prostrate under the tree and look his last on the tempting beauty of the golden apple he might never hope to reach.”
There was something unusual in the Abbé’s tone, and the Duke, glancing in his face, thought he had turned very pale; but in another moment he was smiling pleasantly at his own awkwardness, while he assisted the Regent into the uniform, and fitted on the accoutrements of a Musketeer.
It took some little time, and cost many remonstrances from Robecque, who was not gifted with a military eye, to complete the transformation. Nevertheless, by dint of persuasion and perseverance, the moustaches were at length blacked and twisted, the belts adjusted, the boots wrinkled, and the hat cocked with that mixture of ease, fierceness, good-humour and assumption, which was indispensable to a proper conception of the character—a true rendering of the part.
It was somewhat against the grain to resign for a while the attitudes and gestures of Henri Quatre, but even such a sacrifice was little regretted when the Duke scanned himself from top to toe in a long mirror, with a smile of undisguised satisfaction at the result of his toilet.
“’Tis the garrison type to the life!” said he, exultingly. “Guard-room, parade, and bivouac combined. Abbé! Abbé! what a flower of Musketeers she spoiled when blind Fortune made me Regent of France!”