His eyes met mine; he read my thoughts, and for a second held his breath. A cold shadow fell upon his sallow face, and then for an instant I thought that he would resist. But the stern countenances of La Trape and Boisrosé, who had ridden up to his rein and stood awaiting his answer with their swords drawn, determined him. With a forced and mirthless laugh he took the cloak. "It is new, I hope," he said, as he threw it over his shoulders.
It was not, and I apologized, adding, however, that no one but the King had worn it. On this he settled it about him; and having heard me strictly charge the two guards, who followed with their arquebuses ready, to fire on him if he tried to escape, he turned his horse's head into the path and rode slowly along it, while we, in double file, followed a few paces behind him.
The sun had set, and such light as remained fell cold between the trees. The green of the sward had that pale look it puts on with the last rays, or with the dawning. The crackling of a stick under a horse's hoof, or the ring of a spur against a scabbard, were the only sounds which broke the stillness of the wood as we proceeded. We had gone some way when M. Louis halted, and, turning in his saddle, called to me. "M. de Rosny," he said—the light had so far failed that I could scarcely see his face, "I have a meeting with the Vicomte de Matigny on Saturday about a little matter of a lady's glove. Should anything prevent my appearance——"
"I will see that a proper explanation is given," I answered.
"Or, if M. d'Entragues will permit me," exclaimed the Gascon, who was riding by my side, "I, M. de Boisrosé of St. Palais, will appear in his place and make the Viscount de Caylus swallow the glove."
"Sir," said M. Louis, with politeness, and in a steady tone, "you are a gentleman. I am obliged to you."
He waved his hand to me with a gesture which I long remembered, and, giving his horse the rein, he went forward along the path at a brisk walk. We followed, and I had just remarked that a plant of box was beginning here and there to take the place of the usual undergrowth when a sheet of flame leapt out through the dusk to meet us, and our horses reared wildly. For an instant we were in confusion; then I saw that our leader, M. Louis, had fallen headlong from his saddle, and lay on the sward without word or cry. My men would have sprung forward before the noise of the report had died away, and, having good horses, might possibly have overtaken one of the assassins; but I restrained them. Enough had been done. When La Trape dismounted and raised the fallen man the latter was dead, his breast riddled by a dozen slugs.
Such were the circumstances, now for the first time made public, which attended the discovery of this, the least known, yet one of the most dangerous of the many plots which were directed against the life of my master. The course which I adopted may be blamed by some, but it is enough for me that, after the lapse of years, it is approved by my conscience and by the course of events. For it was ever the misfortune of that great king to treat those with leniency whom no indulgence could win; and I bear with me to this day the bitter assurance that, had the fate which overtook Louis d'Entragues in the wood between Malesherbes and Fontainebleau embraced the whole of that family, the blow which, ten years later, went to the heart of France would not have been struck.
The slight indisposition from which the Queen suffered in the spring of 1602, and which was occasioned by a cold caught during her lying-in, by diverting the King's attention from state matters, had the effect of doubling the burden cast on me. Though the main threads of M. de Biron's conspiracy were in our hands as early as the month of November of the preceding year, and steps had been taken to sound the chief associates by summoning them to court, an interval necessarily followed during which we had all to fear; and this not only from the despair of the guilty, but from the timidity of the innocent, who in a court filled with cabals and rumours of intrigues might see no way to clear themselves. Even the shows and interludes which followed the Dauphin's birth, and made that Christmas remarkable, served only to amuse the idle; they could not disperse the cloud which hung over the Louvre nor divert those who on the one side or the other had aught to fear.