"I have done with him something already," replied Villequier, "that with all his art he could not prevent nor know. I found this young Marquis of Montsoreau somewhat stubborn to counsel. He loved not the plan of coming and lying concealed at Blois. Though he is politic and artful at seasons himself, yet now he was all passion and fury. Nothing would serve him but he must come to Blois in open day, with a hundred lances at his back. He would fight his brother, it seemed, and cut his throat. He would beard the Guise; and he would compel your Majesty and me to fulfil our promise to the letter. That the girl had escaped he attributed to my connivance; and, by Heavens! I almost feared he would have laid violent hands upon me. In short, Sire, by a little skilful teazing, I found that this same Abbé de Boisguerin, whose credit I had once greatly shaken, had resumed the mastery, and was urging on his former pupil to every sort of rash and violent act, probably with the hope of getting him killed out of his way. I soothed the good youth down, however, and told him I would give him proof of his friend's regard. I hid him where he could hear all that passed, and then entrapped the Abbé into talking of the paper that we had signed for him. I told him that the person for whom your Majesty and I destined this fair Helen, was the young Marquis of Montsoreau. I reminded him that he had obtained that paper with an absolute and direct view to that marriage; at least, that he had told me so; and I asked him immediately to sign his consent to the alliance. Your Majesty may imagine his answers; and the youth's rage was such that most assuredly he would have broken in upon us, if I had not stationed two men to stop him. However, he became afterwards as docile as a lamb, was convinced, by what passed, that we had throughout been dealing sincerely with him, and will be ready at the hour to-morrow. When the good Abbé, perhaps, hears that the whole affair is concluded, that Guise is gone, and your Majesty powerful, he may judge it more wise to be silent and resigned. We can tempt him, first, with some post; we can alarm him, if that will not do, with some peril; and lastly, if we fail in both, then we must find some way of putting an end to the matter altogether."
"That will be easily done," replied the King, his mind reverting to the Duke of Guise. "But come, Villequier, let us go and consult with Laugnac. I told him, before you came, to seek for you and consult with you. We must trust as few as possible in this business, and I must see to the whole myself, for this is a step on which, if we but slip, we fall to inevitable perdition."
[CHAP. XI.]
Was the Duke of Guise unconscious of the dangers that surrounded him? Was he unaware that the power which he assumed, and the power which the States also put upon him, could not but render him obnoxious in the highest degree to the King, who, though weak and indolent, was jealous of that authority which he failed himself to exercise for the benefit of his people? Was the Duke ignorant that the Monarch was as treacherous as feeble, was as remorseless as vicious? Was it unknown to him, that to all the creatures who surrounded the King he was an object of hatred and jealousy; and that there were ready hands and base hearts enough to attempt any thing which the royal authority might warrant?
He was not so ignorant, or so unaware: he had been warned sufficiently, days and weeks before; but even had that not been the case, on that very night he received sufficient intimations of his danger to put him on his guard.
He had presided at the supper-table as Grand Master of the King's household, and he had received his guests with easy courtesy. The meal was over somewhat sooner than usual; and, the business of the State being considerably slackened, in consequence of the approaching festival of Christmas, he sat in his cabinet with Charles of Montsoreau and Marie de Clairvaut only, enjoying an hour of refreshment in calm and tranquil conversation upon subjects, which, however agitating to them, was merely a matter of pleasant interest to him.
Charles of Montsoreau sat by his side making some notes of various little things that the Duke told him, and Marie de Clairvaut was seated on a stool at his feet, while he looked down upon her, from time to time, with the sort of parental tenderness which he had displayed towards her from her infancy.
A pleasing sort of melancholy had come over him,--a sadness without grief, and mingling even occasionally with gaiety. It was that sort of present consciousness of the emptiness of all worldly things, which every man at some moment feels, even the ambitious, the greedy, the zealous, the passionate. Perhaps that which had brought such a mood upon him, was the contrast of all the arrangements for his fair ward's marriage and the deep and intense feelings which that event excited in the bosom of herself and Charles of Montsoreau, with the eager and fiery struggles in which he had been lately taking part, while engaged in the dark fierce strife of ambition, or tossed in the turbid whirlpool of political intrigue. And thus he sat, and thus he talked with them of their future prospects and their coming happiness, sometimes speaking seriously, nay gravely--sometimes jesting lightly, and smiling when he had made Marie cast down her eyes.
As he thus sat there was a tap at the door of his cabinet, and the Duke knowing it to be the page, bade him enter; when the boy Ignati appearing, informed him that the Count de Schomberg was without.
"Bid him come in," replied the Duke, keeping his seat, and making a sign for his companions not to stir. "Welcome, Schomberg," he said; "you see that I am plotting no treason here. What do you think of my two children? Joinville will be jealous of my eldest son. But, jesting apart, I think you know the Count de Logères. My niece, Marie, I know you have had many a time upon your knee in her infancy."