An Enemy to the King / From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire

by Robert Neilson Stephens

When I sent Blaise to the head of the troops, I told him to set a good pace, for the governor's men had indeed had time sufficient to have gone to Maury, discovered their mistake, and come back, so much shorter is the river road than the forest way. There was a likelihood, therefore, of their reaching the point of junction, on their return, at any minute, and I wished to be past that point and well up the mountain-side before they should do so.

Julie rode very close to me, and as soon as we were out of the gate she began in a low tone to speak of a thing that required no more explanation to me; yet I let her speak on, for the relief of her heart. So, in a few minutes, as we rode with the soldiers in the night, she eased her mind forever of the matter.

"When I received word in Bourges," she said, "that my father was in prison, I thought that I would die of grief and horror. They would not let me see him, told me that his crime of harboring a Huguenot was a grave one, that he had violated the King's edict, and might be charged even with treason. The thought of how he must suffer in a dungeon was more than I could endure. Only M. de la Chatre, they told me, could order his release. La Chatre had left Fleurier to go northward. I started after him, not waiting even to refresh my horses. When we reached the inn at the end of the town, I had become sufficiently calm to listen to Hugo's advice that it would be best to bait the horses before going further. I began to perceive, too, that myself and Jeannotte needed some nourishment in order to be able to go on a journey. Thus it happened that I stopped at the inn where La Chatre himself was. He had not gone immediately north from Fleurier, but had been visiting an estate in the vicinity, and it was on regaining the main road that he had tarried at the inn, without reentering the town. I had never seen him, but the girl at the inn told me who he was.

"When I fell on my knees, and told him how incapable my father was of harm or disloyalty, he at first showed annoyance, and said that my pleading would be useless. My father must be treated as an example, he said. To succor traitors was treason, to shield heretics was heresy, and there was no doubt that the judges would condemn him to death, to furnish others a lesson. He was then going to leave me, but his secretary came forward and said that I had come at an opportune moment, an instrument sent by Heaven. Was I not, he asked the governor, some one who had much to gain or much to lose? Then La Chatre became joyful, and said that there was a way—one only—by which I might free my father. Eagerly I begged to know that way, but with horror I refused it when I learned that it was to—to hunt down a certain Huguenot captain, to make him trust me, and to betray him. For a time I would not hear his persuasions. Then he swore that, if I did not undertake this detestable mission, my father should surely die; and he told me that you were a deserter, a traitor, an enemy to the church and to the King, I had heard your name but once or twice, and I remembered it only as one who had worked with daring and secrecy in the interests of the Huguenots. He described my father tortured and killed, his body hanging at the gates of Fleurier, blown by the wind, and attacked by the birds. Oh, it was terrible! All this could be avoided, my father's liberty regained, by my merely serving the King and the church. He gave his word that, if I betrayed you, my father should be released without even a trial. You can understand, can you not? You were then a stranger to me, and my father the most gentle and kindly of men, the most tender and devoted of fathers."

"I understood already when I stood behind the curtain, sweetheart," said I.

"When you came," she went on, "and asked whither I was bound, I made my first attempt at lying. I wonder that you did not perceive my embarrassment and shame when I said that the governor had threatened to imprison me if I did not leave the province. It was the best pretext I could give for leaving Fleurier while my father remained there in prison, though they would not let me see him. It occurred to me that you must think me a heartless daughter to go so far from him, even if it were, indeed, to save my life."

"I thought only that you were an unhappy child, of whose inexperience and fears the governor had availed himself; and that, after all, was the truth. From the first moment when I knew that you were the daughter of M. de Varion, I was resolved to attempt his rescue; but I kept my intention from you, lest I might fail."

"Oh, to think that all the while I was planning your betrayal, you were intending to save my father! Oh, the deception of which I was guilty! What constant torture, what continual shame I felt! Often I thought I had betrayed myself. Did you not observe my agitation when you first mentioned the name of La Tournoire, and said that you would take me to him. I wonder that you did not hear my heart say, 'That is the man I am to betray!' And how bitter, yet sweet, it was to hear you commiserate my dejection, which was due in part to the shame of the treacherous task I had undertaken. It seemed to me that you ought to guess its cause, yet you attributed it all to other sources. What a weight was on me while we rode towards Clochonne, the knowledge that I was to betray the man whom I then thought your friend,—the friend of the gentleman who protected me and was so solicitous for my happiness! How glad I was when you told me the man was no great friend of yours, that you would sacrifice him for the sake of the woman you loved! After all, I thought you might not loathe me when you should learn that I had betrayed him! Yet, to perform my task in your presence, to make him love me—for I was to do that, if needs be and it could be done—while you were with me, seemed impossible. This was the barrier between us, the fact that I had engaged to betray your friend, and you can understand now why I begged that you would leave me. How could I play the Delilah in your sight? It had been hard enough to question you about La Tournoire's hiding-place. And when I learned that you were La Tournoire himself, whom I had already half betrayed in sending Pierre to La Chatre with an account of your hiding-place; that you whom I already loved—why should I not confess it?—were the man whom I was to pretend to love; that you who already loved me were the man whom I was to betray by making him love me,—oh, what a moment that was, a moment when all hope died and despair overwhelmed me! Had I known from the first that you were he, I might have guarded against loving you—"

"And well it is," said I, interrupting, "that for a jest and a surprise I had kept that knowledge from you! Else you might indeed have—"

"Oh, do not think of it!" And she shuddered. "But you are right. Love alone has saved us. But at first even the knowledge that you were La Tournoire, and that none the less I loved you, did not make me turn back. If my duty to my father had before required that I should sacrifice you, did my duty not still require it? Did it make any change in my duty that I loved you? What right had I, when devoted to a task like mine, to love any one? If I had violated my duty by loving you, ought I not to disregard my love, stifle it, act as if it did not exist? I had to forget that I was a woman who loved, remember only that I was a daughter. My filial duty was no less, my proper choice between my father and another was not altered by my having fallen in love. I must carry my horrible task to the end. What a night of struggle was that at the inn, after I had learned that the appointed victim was you! And now it was necessary that you should not leave me; therefore I spoke no more of the barrier between us. I fortified myself to hide my feelings and maintain my pretence. Surely you noticed the change in me, the forced composure and cheerfulness. How I tried to harden myself!