"Michel," I said at last, addressing the doyen of my secretaries, who chanced to be a Provençal "have you ever seen a boxwood fire?"
He replied respectfully, but with some show of surprise, that he had done so, but not often; adding that that wood was so valuable to the turner that few people were extravagant enough to use it for fuel. I assented, and felt the more certain that the Jesuit's remark held a meaning. The only other clue I had consisted in the mistake he had made as to the King's residence; and this might have dropped from him in inadvertence. Yet I was inclined to think it intentional; and I construed it as implying that the matter concerned the King personally. Which the more alarmed me.
I passed the day in great perplexity; but towards evening, acting on a sudden thought, I sent La Trape, my valet, a trusty fellow, who had saved my life at Villefranche, to the Three Pigeons, a large inn in the suburbs of Paris, at which travellers from north to south, who do not wish to enter the city, are accustomed to change horses. Acquitting himself of the commission with his usual adroitness, he returned with the news that a traveller of rank had passed through three days before, having sent in advance to order relays there and at Essonnes. La Trape reported that the gentleman had remained in his coach, and that none of the servants of the inn had seen his face. "But he had companions?" I said. My mind had not failed to conceive a certain suspicion.
"Only one, your grace. The rest were servants."
"A man in the yard fancied that he recognized M. de la Varenne."
"Ah!" I said. My agitation was indeed so great that, before giving reins to it, I bade La Trape withdraw. I could scarcely believe that, acquainted as the King was with the plots which the Catholics were daily aiming at his life; and possessing such powerful enemies among the great Protestants as Tremonelle and Bouillon—to say nothing of Mademoiselle d'Entragues' half-brother, the Count of Auvergne, who hated him—I say, I could hardly believe that with full knowledge of these facts his Majesty had been so fool-hardy as to travel without guards to Fontainebleau. And yet I now felt a certainty that this was the case. The presence of La Varenne, the confidant of his intrigues, while it informed me of the cause of the journey, convinced me that his Majesty had given way to the sole weakness of his nature, and was bent on one of those adventures of gallantry which had been more becoming in the Prince of Béarn than in the King of France. Nor was I at a loss to guess the object of his pursuit. It had been lately whispered in the Court that the King had fallen in love with his mistress's younger sister, Susette d'Entragues; whose home at Malesherbes lay but three leagues from Fontainebleau, on the edge of the forest. This fact placed the King's imprudence in a stronger light; for he had scarcely in France a more dangerous enemy than her brother, Auvergne, nor had the immense sums which he had settled on the elder sister satisfied the avarice or conciliated the hostility of her father.
I saw that Father Cotton had known more than I had. But his motive in speaking I found less easy to divine. It might be a wish to baulk this new passion through my interference, while he exposed me to the risk of his Majesty's anger. Or it might be the single desire to avert danger from the King's person. At any rate, constant to my rule of preferring, come what might, my master's interest to his favour, I sent for Maignan, my equerry, and bade him have an equipage ready at dawn.
At that hour, next morning, attended only by La Trape, with a groom, a page, and four Swiss, I started, giving out that I was bound for Sully to inspect that demesne, which had formerly been the property of my family, and of which the refusal had just been offered to me. Under cover of this destination, I was enabled to reach La Ferté Alais unsuspected. There, pretending that the motion of the coach fatigued me, I mounted the led horse, without which I never travelled, and bidding La Trape accompany me, I gave orders to the others to follow at their leisure to Pithiviers, where I proposed to stay the night.
La Ferté Alais, on the borders of the forest, is some five leagues westward of Fontainebleau and as far north of Malesherbes, with which it is connected by a high-road. Having disclosed my intentions to La Trape, I left this road and struck into a woodland path which promised to conduct us in the right direction. But the luxuriance of the undergrowth, and the huge chaos of grey rocks which cumber that part of the forest, made it difficult to keep for any time in a straight line. After being an hour in the saddle we concluded that we had lost our way, and were confirmed in this, on reaching a clearing. In place of the chateau we saw before us a small house, which La Trape presently recognized as an inn, situate about a league and a half on the Fontainebleau side of Malesherbes.