He was thus one day cast heedlessly on his bed, when the door of his cell opened, and the jailer desired him to follow. St. Maurice rose and obeyed, and a few minutes brought him to a larger chamber, which he was bade to enter. At the other side of the room there stood a middle-sized man, habited in a plain suit of rusty black velvet, with strongly marked aquiline features, and gray hair and beard. His eye was keen and quick, his forehead broad and high, and there was something peculiar in the firm rooted attitude with which he stood, bending his eyes upon the open door. Even had St. Maurice never seen him before, he could never have doubted that he was a King.
"Come hither, Sir Count," said Henry IV. abruptly; "tell me all you know of this treason of the Duke de Biron. Tell me all, tell me true, and, by my faith, you shall have full pardon."
"Sire," replied St. Maurice, "when my father died in the service of your majesty, and my mother left this world a few days after my birth, I was left a penniless orphan, for all our fortunes had been lost in your royal cause----" Henry knitted his brow--"I was a beggar," continued St. Maurice, "and the Duke de Biron took pity on me--brought me up--led me to the field--protected--provided for me----"
"Hold! hold! Hold!" cried the King. "Say no more! say no more--get you gone--yet stay--I seek not, sir, this unhappy man's death. Justice shall be done, but no more than justice--not severity. If you know anything which can mitigate his offence, speak it boldly, and the King will thank you; anything that may render his crime less black."
"I know little, Sire, of the Marshal's late conduct," replied the Count, "for in truth I have been less in his confidence than formerly; but this I know, and do believe, that he is one of those men to speak, aye, and to write, many base things in a hasty and a passionate mood, that he would be the last on earth to act."
Henry mused for a moment in silence, and then, without any farther observation, ordered St. Maurice back again to his cell.
Another long week passed, and day after day grew more weary and horrible than the last. Each hour, each moment, added to anxiety, uncertainty, and expectation, already beyond endurance. The rising and the setting of the sun, the heavy passing away of the long and tardy minutes, the wide vague infinity through which apprehension and care had leave to roam, overwhelmed his mind, and shook even his corporeal strength. Each noise, each sound, made him start; and the very opening of his cell door brought with it some quick indistinct fear. It is said that those long accustomed to solitary confinement, get inured to the dead, blank vacancy of existence without action, lose hope, and fear, and thought, and care; and exist, but hardly can be said to live. But St. Maurice had not yet had time to let one of the fresh pangs of his situation become lulled by the opiate of custom, and every moment of its endurance was a moment of new agony. He heard no tidings, he received no comfort, no hope from any one. The very joys that he had known, and the love he valued most, became a torture to him; his own heart was a burden, and while the future was all dark and lowering, the past was full of regret, and prolific of apprehension.
At length, one evening, an unusual number of footsteps traversing the court below, called him from the bed on which he usually cast himself in prostrate despondency, and he beheld, from the small window of his cell, a number of people gathered together in the open space, of a quality which showed at once that some great and formal act was about to take place within the walls of the prison. The Chancellor was there, and various judges and officers of the Parliament, and a number of the municipal body of Paris were on the spot, with clerks and serjeants, and the two chief prévôts. A small body of soldiers also guarded the different doors of the court, and on the side next to the garden was raised a scaffold, about five feet above the ground, at the foot of which a strong man in black stood, with two others of an inferior grade, examining the edge of a large heavy sword, which was suddenly put into the sheath on the sound of some voices at the other side of the court.
At that moment the Duke de Biron was brought in through the opposite door, accompanied by several of the officers of the prison. His dark swarthy countenance was not a shade paler than usual, and, with his hat and plume upon his head, he walked boldly forward with an erect and daring carriage; but as his eye first fell upon the scaffold, he paused a single instant, exclaiming, "Ha!" He then strode forward again, as if he had been marching against an enemy, and came to the foot of the ladder which led to the scaffold. There he paused and looked round him with furious and impatient eyes, as if he would fain have vented the wrath that was in his heart upon some of those around him.
"Sir Chancellor! Sir Chancellor!" he cried, "you have condemned a man more innocent than many you have suffered to escape, and that upon the evidence of two perjured villains. You have done injustice, sir, which you could have prevented, and you shall answer it before God.--Yes, sir, before Him to whose presence I summon you before a year pass over." Then turning to the commandant, he added, "Ah, Monsieur de Roissy, Monsieur de Roissy! had your father been alive, he would have aided me to quit this place. Fie! fie! is this a fate for one who has served his country as I have?"