Agnes Sorel: A Novel

by G. P. R. James

All was still and silent in the street, and the little procession walked on at a slow pace for some two hundred yards. The torch-light then seemed to flash upon some object suddenly, which the horse bearing the two squires had not before seen, for the beast started, plunged, and then dashed violently forward down the street, nearly throwing the hindmost horseman to the ground. The duke spurred forward his mule somewhat sharply, but he had not gone a dozen yards when an armed man darted out from behind the dark angle of the neighboring house. Another rushed out almost at the same moment from one of the deep, arched gateways of the time, and a number more were seen hurrying up, with the torch-light flashing upon cuirasses, battle-axes, and maces. Two of the light-bearers cast down their torches and fled; a third was knocked down by the rush of men coming up; and at the same moment a strong, armed hand was laid upon the Duke of Orleans's rein.

The dauntless prince spurred on his mule against the man who held it, without attempting to turn its head; and it would seem that he still doubted that he was the real object of attack, for while the assassin shouted loudly, "Kill him--kill him!" he raised his voice loud above the rest, exclaiming, "How now; I am the Duke of Orleans!"

"'Tis him we want," cried a deep voice close by; and as the duke put his hand to the hilt of his sword, a tremendous blow of an ax fell upon his wrist, cutting through muscle, and sinew, and bone. The next instant he was struck heavily on the head with a mace, and hurled backward from the saddle. But even then there was one found faithful. The young German boy who followed cast himself instantly upon the body of his lord, to shield him from the blows that were falling thick upon him. But it was all in vain. The battle-ax and the mace terminated the poor lad's existence in a moment; his body was dragged from that of the prostrate prince; and a blow with a spiked iron club dashed to pieces the skull of the gay and gallant Louis of Orleans.

Shouts and cries of various kinds had mingled with the fray, but after that last blow fell there came a sudden silence. Three of the torches were extinguished; the bearers were fled. One faint light only flickered on the ground, throwing a red and fitful glare upon the bloody bodies of the dead, and the grim, fierce countenances of the murderers.

In the midst of that silence, a man in a crimson mantle and hood came quickly forward, bearing a lantern in his hand.

The assassins showed no apprehension of his presence, and holding the light to the face of the dead man, he gazed on him for an instant with a stern, hard, unchanged expression, and then said, "It is he!"

Perhaps some convulsive movement crossed the features from which real life had already passed away, for that stern, gloomy man snatched a mace from the hand of one standing near, and struck another heavy blow upon the head of the corpse, saying, "Out with the last spark!"

There were some eight or ten persons immediately round the spot where the prince had fallen; but others were scattered at a little distance up and down the street. Suddenly a voice cried, "Hark!" and the sound of a horse's feet was heard trotting quick.

"Away!" cried the man in the red mantle. "Fire the house, and disperse. You know your roads. Away!"

Then came a distant cry, as if from the gates of the queen's palace, of "Help! help! Murder! murder!" but, the next moment, it was almost drowned in a shout of "Fire! fire!" Dark volumes of smoke began to issue from the windows of the Hôtel Nôtre Dame, and flashes of flame broke forth upon the street, while a torrent of sparks rushed upward into the air. All around the scene of the murder became enveloped in vapor and obscurity, with the red light tinging the thick, heavy wreaths of smoke, and serving just to show figures come and go, still increasing in number, and gathering round the fatal spot in a small, agitated crowd. But the actors in the tragedy had disappeared. Now here, now there, one or another might have been seen crossing the bloody-looking haze of the air, and making for some of the various streets that led away from the place of the slaughter, till at length all were gone, and nothing but horrified spectators of their bloody handiwork remained.