The Duke's eye fixed sternly upon the countenance of Bellievre, and he muttered between his teeth, "This is the doing, Monsieur de Bellievre, of my excellent good friend, the King of France. Go on, boy; go on! Proceed. What happened next?"
"The lady was most joyous of her deliverance," continued the boy, "and eager to come to your Highness; and we set out the next morning before day-break, and reached Chartres, where the Count bought a litter for her greater convenience. At a short distance from Chartres, however, we were met by the Duke of Epernon and his train wolf-hunting, and the Duke immediately stopped us, and insisted upon the Count going back with him to Epernon. The Count produced the King's passports, but the Duke said that there were doubts of his being authorised by you."
"Did he not show him my own letter?" exclaimed the Duke. "Did he not show him the authority I gave him under my own hand?"
"He did, my Lord; he did," replied the boy; "but the Duke of Epernon said he would show in what respect he held your Highness's letter, and tearing it in several pieces he threw it down under his horse's feet."
Bellievre continued to look down upon the ground with a brow which certainly displayed but little satisfaction. The Duke of Guise, however, though he had been frowning the moment before, now only smiled as the boy related the incident of the letter; the smile was somewhat contemptuous, indeed; but he said merely, "Go on, boy. What happened next?"
"Nay, my Lord," replied the boy, "what happened to them I know not, for seeing that the Duke held them prisoners, and was taking them back to Epernon, I made my escape as fast as I well could, and came hither to tell you into whose hands the young lady and Monsieur de Logères had fallen."
"You did quite right, boy," said the Duke; "and now you may retire. You hear, Monsieur de Bellievre," he continued, "with what kindness, protection, support, and generosity the King treats the friends of the Duke of Guise! First he casts my poor niece's child into the hands of Villequier, something worse than those of the hangman of Paris, and then between them they send her into the midst of the pestilence; then comes Monsieur d'Epernon to confirm all, arrests my friend bearing the King's own passports and safeguard, seizes upon my own relation and ward, and carries them both I know not whither."
"Perhaps your Highness," said Bellievre, "the Duke of Epernon might have motives that we do not know. At all events the King----"
"Fie, Monsieur de Bellievre, fie!" exclaimed the Duke vehemently. "I will tell you what! It is time the Duke of Guise were in Paris, if but to deliver the King from such Dukes of Epernon who abuse his authority, disgrace his name, absorb his favours, ruin the state, overthrow the church, and dare do acts that make men blush for shame. France will no longer suffer him, sir; France will no longer suffer him! If I free not the King from him and such as he is, the people will rise up and commit some foul attempt upon the royal authority. What," he continued, with fierce scorn, "What, though he be Baron of Caumont, Duke of Epernon, raised out of his place to sit near the princes of the blood, Governor of Metz and Normandy, of the Boulonnais, and Aunis, of Touraine, Saintonge, and Angoumois, Colonel-general of Infantry, and Governor of Anjou, a Knight of the order of the Holy Ghost! he shall find this simple steel sword of Henry of Guise sufficiently sharp to cut his parchments into pieces, and send him back a beggar to the class he sprung from."
The Duke spoke so rapidly, that to interrupt him was impossible; and so angrily, that Bellievre, overawed, remained silent for a moment or two after he had done, while the Prince bent his eyes down upon the table, and played with the golden tassels of his sword-knot, as if half ashamed of the vehemence he had displayed.