Each trifling incident comes back to me now as vividly as if it happened yesterday. We went to the Louvre, waited while our chief transacted his business, and started on the journey home. Presently we met Charles, who greeted the Admiral affectionately, and the two walked together in the direction of the tennis-court. Des Pruneaux and De Guerchy joined the king's attendants; Felix and I followed a few paces in the rear.
At the court Charles and the Duke of Guise made up a match against our patron's son-in-law, Teligny, and a gentleman whose name I did not know. The Admiral stood watching the game for some time, but between ten and eleven o'clock he bade the king adieu and once more started for home. He walked between Des Pruneaux and De Guerchy, talking cheerfully about the game, and praising the skill of the king, for Charles was certainly an accomplished player, superior in my opinion even to Guise.
"Yes," exclaimed Felix, to whom I passed some such remark, and who had not altogether thrown off his bitterness of the previous day, "if he were as good a ruler as tennis-player France might have some chance of happiness."
"Well, he is making good progress even in that!" I replied cheerfully.
I have said that the hôtel was in the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, at the corner of the Rue de Bethisy, and we were passing along the Rue des Fossés de St. Germain, when a man approached the Admiral with what looked like a petition. We quickened our pace, but the citizen was an inoffensive person, and the Admiral, taking the paper, began to read, walking on slowly the while.
He turned the corner in front of us, and was hidden for an instant from our view, when we heard a loud report.
"Treachery!" cried my comrade, drawing his sword, and with a rush we sped round the corner. My heart leaped into my mouth as I realized what had happened. There was our noble chief, the truest, bravest, most chivalrous man in France, supported in De Guerchy's arms.
Des Pruneaux, who was stanching the blood with a handkerchief, pointed to the latticed windows of the Hôtel de Retz on our right, and, understanding it was from there the assassin had fired, we ran across, my comrade's cries of "For the Admiral!" bringing out a number of Huguenot gentlemen who lodged in the neighbourhood.
"This way!" I cried excitedly, "the assassin is in this house!" and the next minute, having burst open the doors, we were swarming into the building. Save for a deaf old woman and a horse-boy the place was empty, and a howl of rage rose from the searchers.
Nothing could be got from the old woman, but Felix, clutching the boy by the throat, demanded sternly "Where is the assassin? Speak, or I will kill you!"