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

by G. P. R. James

We must now turn once more to the young Marquis of St. Real; and, although the events which had befallen him since the death of his father may have been gathered by the reader from what has passed in the chapters immediately preceding, it may not be unnecessary to recapitulate here, as briefly as possible, the occurrences which had placed him a prisoner in the midst of Paris.

According to the promise which Henry of Navarre had obtained from the old Marquis of St. Real on his death-bed, that nobleman's son, as soon as possible after the last rites had been paid to his father's memory, had prepared to take the field in behalf of one of the great contending parties which then struggled for mastery in France. He had applied for and obtained, both from King Henry III. on the one part, and from the Duke of Mayenne on behalf of the League, a safe-conduct to visit the camp and the capital, accompanied by twenty retainers. The rest of his forces, it was expressly stipulated, were to remain at the distance of fifteen leagues from the royalist army; and the position of the two kings, as they advanced to lay siege to Paris, had compelled him, in compliance with this stipulation, to deviate from his direct road to Paris, and accompany, for a short way, his cousin, who was advancing to reinforce the troops of Longueville and La Noue. Although strongly pressed by messengers from those two generals to decide at once in favour of the royal cause, and join the partisan force which they commanded, St. Real steadily refused to do so, till, according to the determination he had expressed, and in consideration of which he had obtained a safe-conduct from Mayenne, he should have visited the head-quarters of the king and of the League.

As soon as he had obtained such a position for his forces as enabled him to leave them in perfect security, he set out with his small train, purposing to proceed first to the camp of the two Henrys, as the nearest at the moment, and then to visit Paris. He had scarcely advanced, however, half a day's march on his way, when he was suddenly surrounded by an immensely superior body of reitters and lansquenets, who had been sent forth from Paris for the express purpose of obtaining possession of his person. How Madame do Montpensier had gained such accurate intelligence of all his movements, was a matter of surprise even to her own immediate confidants; but it was very well understood that the orders, in consequence of which this bold stroke was executed, emanated from her; and the leaders of the mercenaries, who captured St. Real, were not only furnished with the exact details of his line of march, but also with a ready answer to the indignant appeal which he instantly made, on his arrest, to the safe-conduct he possessed under the Duke of Mayenne's own hand. That safe-conduct, they replied, had been given him in order to facilitate a peaceful visit to Paris; while he, on the contrary, had not only led his troops into such a position as to enable him to give strong support to the Duke of Longueville, but had even detached a body to aid that nobleman in the battle of Senlis.

It was in vain St. Real explained to his captors, that the troops which had left him were the immediate retainers of his cousin, the Count d'Aubin, over whom he had no authority, and that he himself had positively refused to take part with the Duke of Longueville. His remonstrance was without effect; and, although he well knew his own innocence, he could not but admit that the reasoning against him was specious. In reply to all his explanations, the captain of the lansquenets simply urged that he had no power to release him, and that his justification must be made to the Duke of Mayenne himself. To submit, therefore, was a matter of necessity; and, as he was in every respect well treated, the young Marquis did submit without any very angry feelings, concluding that he might as well reverse the order of his proceedings, and first visit Paris instead of the royal camp.

On his arrival in the capital, he demanded to be carried instantly to the presence of the Duke of Mayenne; but this application was evaded, it being boldly asserted by those who held him in their hands that the Duke was absent from the city. Hitherto his attendants had been permitted to bear him company; and as he had ridden through the crowded streets of the city, he had felt less as a prisoner than as a voluntary visiter of the great metropolis; but when, after having been detained for some time at the house of Albert of Wolfstrom, he was told that he must accompany his captor to the convent of the Dominicans, whither only one servant could be permitted to attend him, he began to suspect that the bonds of his imprisonment were being straitened; and he remonstrated with calm but firm language, reiterating his demand to be brought before the Duke of Mayenne, and expressing his determination to hold the name of that nobleman up to the reprobation of all honourable men, if he suffered any of his adherents to violate the safe-conduct from his hand with impunity.

Wolfstrom, however, who on more than one occasion had shown himself but little tender of his own fair fame, could not be expected to feel much solicitude for that of another; and, although he held the potent Duke in some degree of awe, he had become hardened by the impunity which every sort of falsehood enjoyed in the good easy times of civil war, and doubted not that, in the end, he should find means of extricating himself from the consequences of the present intrigue, as he had done in regard to many which had preceded, namely, by the unlimited command of impudence, shrewdness, and three thousand mercenaries.

He turned a deaf ear, therefore, to the complaints of St Real; and the young Marquis was conducted to the convent of the Jacobins, in the midst of precautions which he did not fail to mark, and from which he augured little good in regard to the intentions of his gaolers.

The distance from the dwelling of the mercenary leader to the convent was but short; and the people of Paris were well accustomed to see parties of soldiers pass through their streets: but the indescribable pleasure of staring, in this instance, as in all others, collected a little crowd round the centre of bustle; and the gates of the Jacobins, as they opened to receive St. Real, were surrounded by between twenty and thirty persons of different conditions. To those who have eaten sufficiently of the tree of good and evil in a great capital to know that they are naked, the presence of a gaping mob to witness the fact of their being dragged along like culprits by a party of rude soldiers, would be a subject of annoyance. St. Real felt injured, but not ashamed or afraid; and fixing his eye upon the most respectable personage of the crowd, he suddenly stopped where he stood, and, ere any one could prevent him, exclaimed, in a loud and distinct voice, "My friend, if the Duke of Mayenne be in Paris, you will serve both him and me by telling him that the Marquis of St. Real is here detained, contrary to the Duke's safe-conduct and his honour."

"You will tell him no such thing, as you value your ears!" shouted Albert of Wolfstrom, fixing his eyes upon the Parisian with a marking glance, which seemed to intimate that he would not be easily forgotten by the wrath of the German leader in case of disobedience. The Parisian drew back, determined from the very first to practise that sort of wisdom which those long resident in great cities, and much habituated to scenes of contention and intrigue, do not fail to acquire; namely, to meddle with nothing that does not personally concern them. There was another person present, however, whose diminutive stature, and the simplicity of garb which he had assumed, combined to conceal him from the notice of either St. Real or the mercenary leader; no other, indeed, than the young Marquis's dwarf page, Bartholo; who, peeping through the open spaces between the other personages that formed the little crowd, saw and heard all that passed without attracting notice himself. Slipping out at once from amongst the rest, he made his way down the street, holding one of his usual muttered consultations with himself.

"Now, shall I tell Mayenne," he said, "that the great baby is caught, and shut up here in the Jacobins, like a young imprudent rat, in a politic rat-trap; or shall I let him lie there for his pains, till that spoilt boy, D'Aubin, has married the other fair-haired baby, and that matter is irrevocable?"