Here Montluc paused, and closed the volume.
“It is enough that I have read; for thou wilt see the counsel that I design for thee. It is not easy for thee to take it, being a Gascon; but such it is, borrowed from the wisdom of that same ensign. Thou sawest him scamper, for thou wert on that very chase;—now, if thou wouldst save thy head from the affections of the king of Spain, take fear in both thy heels, and run as nimbly as that ensign.”
“Verily, it is not easy, Monsieur de Montluc, seeing that I am conscious of no wrong, but rather of a great service done to my country; and if my own king deliver me not up, wherefore should I fear him of Spain.”
“That is it, my friend! Our king will, not from his own nature, but from that of others, who love not this service to thy country. The Queen-mother will deliver thee up, the Princes of Lorraine will deliver thee up, and the devil will deliver thee up—all having a great affection for the king of Spain—if thou trust not the counsel of thy friends, and wilfully put thy head in one direction where the wisdom of thy heels would show thee quite another. Hast thou forgotten that good proverb of the Italians, which we heard so much read from their lips and honored in their actions,—‘No te fidar, et no serai inganato?’ Above all, mon ami, trust nothing to thy hope, when it builds upon thy service done to kings. It is a hope that has hung a thousand good fellows who might be living to this day. Now, in counselling thee to flight and secrecy, I counsel thee against my own pride and pleasure. It would be a great delight to me to have thee near me, while I read thee all mine history;—the beginning, even to the end thereof;—the thousand sieges, battles and achievements, in which I have shown good example to the young valor of France, and made the Gascon name famous throughout the world.”
The heart of the Chevalier Gourgues was not persuaded. He could not believe that his good deeds for his country’s good and honor, would meet with ill-return and disgrace.
“The king will do me justice.”
“Verily, should he even give thee to him of Spain, or hang thee himself, they will call it by no other name,” answered the other drily.
“But the baseness and the cowardice of flight! This confiding one’s courage and counsel to one’s heels, Montluc!”
“Is wisdom, as thou shouldst know from the story of Achilles. Verily, it requires that the secret meaning of this vulnerableness of the heel on the part of the son of Thetis, is neither more nor less than that he was a monstrous coward—that he would have been the bravest man of the world, but for the weakness that always made him fly from danger. It was in the form of allegory that the satirical poet stigmatised a man in authority. You see nothing in the treatment of Hector by Achilles, but what will confirm this opinion. He will not fight with him himself, but makes his myrmidons do so. What is this, but the case of one of our own plumed and scented nobles, who procures his foe, whom he fears, to be murdered by the Biscayan bully whom he buys?—But, let me read thee a passage from my commentaries bearing very much upon this history.”