“Ha! my lady-love,” replied he, moistening with a gentle tear the fire of his eyes, “would you render my death impossible by attaching too great a value to my life?”
“Come,” cried she, overcome by this intense love, “I do not know what the end of all this will be, but come—afterwards we will go and perish together at the postern.”
The same flame leaped in their hearts, the same harmony had struck for both, they embraced each other with a rapture in the delicious excess of that mad fever which you know well I hope; they fell into a profound forgetfulness of the dangers of Savoisy, of themselves, of the constable, of death, of life, of everything.
Meanwhile the watchman at the porch had gone to inform the constable of the arrival of the gallant, and to tell him how the infatuated gentleman had taken no notice of the winks which, during Mass and on the road, the countess had given him in order to prevent his destruction. They met their master arriving in great haste at the postern, because on their side the archers of the quay had whistled to him afar off, saying to him—
“The Sire de Savoisy has passed in.”
And indeed Savoisy had come at the appointed hour, and like all the lovers, thinking only of his lady, he had not seen the count’s spies and had slipped in at the postern. This collision of lovers was the cause of the constable’s cutting short the words of those who came from the Rue St. Antoine, saying to them with a gesture of authority, that they did not think wise to disregard—
“I know that the animal is taken.”
Thereupon all rushed with a great noise through this said postern, crying, “Death to him! death to him!” and men-at-arms, archers, the constable, and the captains, all rushed full tilt upon Charles Savoisy, the king’s nephew, who they attacked under the countess’s window, where by a strange chance, the groans of the poor young man were dolorously exhaled, mingled with the yells of the soldiers, at the same time as passionate sighs and cries were given forth by the two lovers, who hastened up in great fear.
“Ah!” said the countess, turning pale from terror, “Savoisy is dying for me!”
“But I will live for you,” replied Boys-Bourredon, “and shall esteem it a joy to pay the same price for my happiness as he has done.”