One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre

by G. P. R. James

"Heaven forbid that I should see them on your hands!" replied Armandi; "though I have heard that they were once worn by a queen--who is since dead. But you spoke of quicker means. Here is this small box of powder, containing a certain salt that, in the twinkling of an eye, extinguishes the fire of the heart, and the light of the mind, and leaves nothing but the ashes behind. We often use it, diluted with other things, for other purposes; but I would not administer one dose of that, to any one of note, for a less sum than ten thousand golden Henrys, though the whole box is scarcely worth a hundred crowns. But so quick is its effect, and so marked the traces that it leaves behind, that the chirurgeon were a fool who did not at once pronounce the cause of death in him who took it."

"Give me yon bonbonnière," said Beatrice, pointing to a painted trifle on one of the tables. "And now," she continued, as the man gave it her, "is that enough for one dose?" and as she spoke, she emptied part of the powder from the box which contained it into the bonbonnière--"Is that enough for one dose?"

"It is enough to kill the King's army!" replied the man. "But what mean you, lady? What do you intend to do?"

"The person for whom I mean this drug," replied Beatrice, "shall receive it from no hands but my own. You shall risk nothing. There is a jewel, worth one half your shop," she added, drawing a ring from her finger, and casting it upon the table; "and the powder is mine."

"But, lady! lady!" cried the perfumer, regarding the diamond with eager and experienced eyes, and yet trembling for the consequences which his fair visitor's strong passions might bring upon himself; "but, lady, if you should be discovered! You are young and inexperienced in such matters. They must be performed with a calm hand, and a steady eye, and an unquivering lip: and if you should be discovered, and put to the torture, you would betray me."

"However I may contemn thee, man," answered Beatrice, "there is no power on earth that could make me betray thee. But rest satisfied; I take the powder from thee, whether thou wilt or not;--but I will make thee easy, and tell thee, that if one grain thereof ever passes any human lip, that lip will be my own. It is well to be prepared for all things--to have ever at hand a ready remedy for all the ills of life--to possess the means of snatching ourselves from the grasp of circumstance: and, in the path which I may be called to tread, the time may well come when I shall wish to change this world for another. I leave to better moralists to decide whether it be right or not, courageous or cowardly, to shake off a life that we are tired of. For my part, I will bear it to the utmost; and, when I can endure it no longer, then will I try another path."

"If such be your purpose, lady," answered the perfumer, with a sweet smile, and a low inclination, "far be it from me to oppose you. Every one, as you say, should be prepared for all things; and I hold that man not half prepared who does not possess the means of limiting the power his enemies have over him to simple death, a fate that all must undergo. Men think far too much of death: it is but cutting off a few short hours from a long race of pain and anxiety: far oftener is it a mercy than a wrong. Men think too much of death!"

"You think little enough of it in others, at least," answered Beatrice, looking upon him with curiosity and hate, not unmingled with that peculiar kind and degree of admiration, which wonder always more or less produces. "Have I not heard that you were busy amongst the busiest on the night of St. Bartholomew?"

"Not I, lady! not I!" exclaimed the perfumer, with a look of disgust and horror at the very name of that fearful massacre. "Not I, indeed! not for the world would I have borne a part, either in that shameful affair, or in the late brutal murder of the great Duke and the Cardinal de Guise."

"Why, how now!" cried Beatrice. "Would you, who hold life so lightly, and take it so carelessly from others; would you affect scruples at slaying those you consider heretics, or at putting away ambitious tyrants?"