"This is all that I know," replied the boy; "but it is enough. Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, the Lady whom you were asking about last night, has met with a party of the King's troops which had been sent against the reiters, and has by them been carried to Château Thiery, whence she sent that cavalier whom you saw with your brother, to tell him what had become of her. All those facts I heard the cavalier himself relate: but from the page he brought with him, who was in the room, or at least at the door, when his master and the Marquis were speaking, I gathered, that this Monsieur de Colombel--by the advice of some priest who accompanied Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, I know not whom--has persuaded your brother to join the party of the King, telling him that Henry would certainly hold Mademoiselle de Clairvaut as a hostage for the Duke's good conduct, and would most likely bestow her upon any one he thought fit."
Charles of Montsoreau pressed his hand firmly upon his brow for two or three minutes. He had been learning for some time those dark and painful lessons of human nature which come so bitterly to a noble and a generous heart, when first the world, the contentions of self-interest, and the strife of passion, teaches us how few, how very few, there are who have any thought or motive in all their actions but the mean ungenerous ones of self--those bitter lessons which fix upon mature life the sad, the dark, the horrible companionship of doubt and suspicion.
"Can I," he muttered, speaking to himself, "can I have been mistaken in the Abbé de Boisguerin? Can I have trusted, and believed, and reverenced, where neither trust, nor belief, nor reverence was due?--It cannot be! No, it cannot be!" And after thinking again over all that the page had said, he added aloud, "The King's troops at Château Thiery!--The Duke at Gonesse!--We must lose no time, but get to Montigny as speedily as possible."
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1]: So extraordinary and remarkable was the passion for falconry amongst the women of that day, that Catherine de Medici herself, engaged as she was in all the wiles of policy during her whole life, found time to pursue this sport day after day, and had courage enough to follow it after having not only received several severe falls, but after having once broken her leg and once fractured her skull, by the imprudent habit of galloping at full speed after the birds, with the eyes fixed upon them, and inattentive to every thing else. The moment that the falcons were flown, every thing on earth was forgotten, and the most serious accidents were of daily occurrence.
[Footnote 2]: The Duke of Guise was at this time employing several bodies of troops levied in Lorraine, against the Princes of Sedan.
[Footnote 3]: Those who may be inclined to suppose such language inconsistent with the character of the proud, ambitious politician, which Guise is often represented to have been, need but read any of his letters to Bassonpierre, or any other of his personal friends, to see with what openhearted affection he dealt with them.