There was a stern command in the eye of the Duke of Guise which had a strong effect upon those it rested on; and the man to whom he now spoke made his exit from the room, stumbling over twenty things in his haste to obey. As soon as he was gone, the Duke turned to his young friend, and continued, "Here is the King's safeguard under his own hand, and the necessary passports for yourself and two attendants. Here is your letter of credit to him in my name, requiring him to give you every sort of information which he may be possessed of regarding the subjects which you will mention to him; and here is a third letter giving you full power to demand at his hands the person of Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, for the purpose of escorting her and placing her under my protection. This, again, is to Mary herself, bidding her follow your counsels and direction in every thing; and these others are to certain citizens of Paris, whose names you will find written thereon. If you will take my advice, you will again take with you the boy Ignati, and one stout man-at-arms, unarmed, however, except in such a manner as the dangers of the road require. You understand, I think, clearly, all that I wish."
"I believe, my Lord, I do," replied the Count. "But how am I to insure safety for Mademoiselle de Clairvaut on the road, without an adequate force?"
"Write to me but one word," replied the Duke of Guise, "as soon as she is delivered into your hands, and I will send you with all speed whatever forces I can spare. But I have one or two things to communicate to you, which it is necessary for you to know, both for your own security and the success of your mission. The principal part of my niece's lands lie in the neighbourhood of Chateauneuf, between Dreux and Mortagne in Normandy. It is not at all unlikely, that, if driven to remove her from your sight, Henry may be tempted to send her thither, well knowing that it is what I have always opposed, and that I preferred rather that she should dwell even in Languedoc than be in that neighbourhood. For this I had a reason; and that reason is the near relationship in which her father stood to the most daring and the most dangerous man in France. One of the first of those whom you will see near the person of the King, the man who governs and rules him to his own infamy and destruction, in whose hands the minions are but tools and Henry an instrument, who, more than any one else, has tended to change a gracious prince, a skilful general, and a brave man, into an effeminate and vicious king, is René de Villequier, Baron of Clairvaut. He was first cousin to Marie de Clairvaut's father, and he is consequently her nearest male relation out of the family of Guise. He has, indeed, sometimes hinted at a right to share in the guardianship of his cousin's daughter. But such things a Guise permits not. However, with this claim upon the disposal of her hand, Henry may, perhaps, hesitate to yield her, unless with the consent of Villequier. With him, then, you may be called upon to deal; but Villequier, I think, knows the hand of a Guise too well to call down a blow from it unnecessarily. However, he is as daring as he is artful, and impunity in crime has rendered him perfectly careless of committing it. He is Governor of Paris, one of the King's ministers, a Knight of the Holy Ghost. Now hear what he has done to merit all this. More than one assassin broken on the wheel has avowed himself the instrument of Villequier, sent to administer poison to those he did not love. Complaisant in every thing to his King, he sought to sacrifice to him the honour of his wife: but she differed from him in her tastes; and, on the eighteenth of last September, in broad daylight, in the midst of an effeminate court, he murdered her with his own hand at her dressing-table. Nor was this all: there was a girl--a young sweet girl--the natural daughter of a noble house, who was holding before the unhappy lady a mirror to arrange her dress when the fatal blow was struck. The fiend's taste for blood was roused. One victim was not enough, and he murdered the wretched girl by the side of her dead mistress. This was done in open day, was never disowned, was known to every one, and was rewarded by the order of the Holy Ghost--an insult to God, to France, and to humanity.[[1]]
However, as with this man you may have to deal, I have to give you two cautions. Never drink wine with him, or eat food at his table; never go into his presence without wearing under your other dress the bosom friend which I have brought you there;" and he took from the leathern skin in which it was wrapped, a shirt of mail, made of rings linked together, so fine that it seemed the lightest stroke would have broken it, and yet so strong, that the best tempered poinard, driven by the most powerful hand, could not have pierced it. "Have also in your bosom," continued the Duke of Guise, "a small pistol; and if the villain attempts to lay his hand upon you, kill him like a dog. This is the only way to deal with René de Villequier."
The young Count smiled: "And is it needful my Lord Duke," he asked, "to take all these precautions in the courtly world of Paris?--Do you yourself take them, my Lord?--I fear not sufficiently."
"Oh! with regard to myself," replied the Duke, it is different. "I am so marked out and noted, they dare not do any thing against me. They would raise up a thousand vengeful hands against them in a moment, and they know that, too well to run such a risk. Neither Henry nor Villequier would hold their lives by an hour's tenure after Guise was dead. But you must take these precautions, my young friend. And now I have nothing more to say, except that, whatever you do to withdraw Marie de Clairvaut from the hands into which she has fallen, I will justify. If any ill befall you, I will avenge you as my brother; and if you deliver her from those whom she hates and abhors, she shall, give you any testimony of her gratitude that she pleases, without a man in France saying you nay."
"Oh, my Lord, it is not for that I go!" exclaimed Charles of Montsoreau, with the blood rushing up again into his cheek. "It is not; surely you believe--"
"Hush! hush!" replied the Duke. "I have fallen into the foolish error of saying too much, my good young friend. But now, fare you well. Make your arrangements as speedily as you can; mount your horse, and onward to Paris, while I apply myself to matters which may well occupy every minute and every thought."
[CHAP. III.]
It was about nine o'clock at night, in the spring of the year 1588, that Charles of Montsoreau, with two companions, his faithful Gondrin and the little page, presented himself at the gate of Paris which opened upon the Soissons road. A surly arquebusier with a steel cap on his head, his gun upon his shoulder, and the rest thereof in his hand, was the first person that he encountered at the bridge over the fosse. Some other soldiers were sitting before the guardhouse; and the wicket-gate of the city itself was open, with an armed head protruded through, talking to a country girl with a basket on her arm, who had just passed out of the gate, none the better probably for her visit to the city.
The arquebusier planted himself immediately in the way of the young cavalier and his followers, and seemed prepared to stop them, though on the young Count applying to him for admission, he replied in a surly tone, "I have nothing to do with it. Ask the lieutenant at the gate."