Александр Дюма
Twenty Years After
A thunderbolt falling in the midst of these good people, so peacefully assembled there, would not have produced a more appalling effect. It was a horrible thing at that period to be imprisoned by the enmity of the king. Louvieres sprang forward to snatch his sword, which stood against a chair in a corner of the room; but a glance from the worthy Broussel, who in the midst of it all did not lose his presence of mind, checked this foolhardy action of despair. Madame Broussel, separated by the width of the table from her husband, burst into tears, and the young girls clung to their father’s arms.
“Come, sir,” said Comminges, “make haste; you must obey the king.”
“Sir,” said Broussel, “I am in bad health and cannot give myself up a prisoner in this state; I must have time.”
“It is impossible,” said Comminges; “the order is strict and must be put into execution this instant.”
“Impossible!” said Louvieres; “sir, beware of driving us to despair.”
“Impossible!” cried a shrill voice from the end of the room.
Comminges turned and saw Dame Nanette, her eyes flashing with anger and a broom in her hand.
“My good Nanette, be quiet, I beseech you,” said Broussel.
“Me! keep quiet while my master is being arrested! he, the support, the liberator, the father of the people! Ah! well, yes; you have to know me yet. Are you going?” added she to Comminges.
The latter smiled.
“Come, sir,” said he, addressing Broussel, “silence that woman and follow me.”
“Silence me! me! me!” said Nanette. “Ah! yet one wants some one besides you for that, my fine king’s cockatoo! You shall see.” And Dame Nanette sprang to the window, threw it open, and in such a piercing voice that it might have been heard in the square of Notre Dame:
“Help!” she screamed, “my master is being arrested; the Councillor Broussel is being arrested! Help!”
“Sir,” said Comminges, “declare yourself at once; will you obey or do you intend to rebel against the king?”
“I obey, I obey, sir!” cried Broussel, trying to disengage himself from the grasp of his two daughters and by a look restrain his son, who seemed determined to dispute authority.
“In that case,” commanded Comminges, “silence that old woman.”
“Ah! old woman!” screamed Nanette.
And she began to shriek more loudly, clinging to the bars of the window:
“Help! help! for Master Broussel, who is arrested because he has defended the people! Help!”
Comminges seized the servant around the waist and would have dragged her from her post; but at that instant a treble voice, proceeding from a kind of entresol, was heard screeching:
“Murder! fire! assassins! Master Broussel is being killed! Master Broussel is being strangled.”
It was Friquet’s voice; and Dame Nanette, feeling herself supported, recommenced with all her strength to sound her shrilly squawk.
Many curious faces had already appeared at the windows and the people attracted to the end of the street began to run, first men, then groups, and then a crowd of people; hearing cries and seeing a chariot they could not understand it; but Friquet sprang from the entresol on to the top of the carriage.
“They want to arrest Master Broussel!” he cried; “the guards are in the carriage and the officer is upstairs!”
The crowd began to murmur and approached the house. The two guards who had remained in the lane mounted to the aid of Comminges; those who were in the chariot opened the doors and presented arms.
“Don’t you see them?” cried Friquet, “don’t you see? there they are!”
The coachman turning around, gave Friquet a slash with his whip which made him scream with pain.
“Ah! devil’s coachman!” cried Friquet, “you’re meddling too! Wait!”
And regaining his entresol he overwhelmed the coachman with every projectile he could lay hands on.
The tumult now began to increase; the street was not able to contain the spectators who assembled from every direction; the crowd invaded the space which the dreaded pikes of the guards had till then kept clear between them and the carriage. The soldiers, pushed back by these living walls, were in danger of being crushed against the spokes of the wheels and the panels of the carriages. The cries which the police officer repeated twenty times: “In the king’s name,” were powerless against this formidable multitude-seemed, on the contrary, to exasperate it still more; when, at the shout, “In the name of the king,” an officer ran up, and seeing the uniforms ill-treated, he sprang into the scuffle sword in hand, and brought unexpected help to the guards. This gentleman was a young man, scarcely sixteen years of age, now white with anger. He leaped from his charger, placed his back against the shaft of the carriage, making a rampart of his horse, drew his pistols from their holsters and fastened them to his belt, and began to fight with the back sword, like a man accustomed to the handling of his weapon.
During ten minutes he alone kept the crowd at bay; at last Comminges appeared, pushing Broussel before him.
“Let us break the carriage!” cried the people.
“In the king’s name!” cried Comminges.
“The first who advances is a dead man!” cried Raoul, for it was in fact he, who, feeling himself pressed and almost crushed by a gigantic citizen, pricked him with the point of his sword and sent him howling back.
Comminges, so to speak, threw Broussel into the carriage and sprang in after him. At this moment a shot was fired and a ball passed through the hat of Comminges and broke the arm of one of the guards. Comminges looked up and saw amidst the smoke the threatening face of Louvieres appearing at the window of the second floor.
“Very well, sir,” said Comminges, “you shall hear of this anon.”
“And you of me, sir,” said Louvieres; “and we shall see then who can speak the loudest.”
Friquet and Nanette continued to shout; the cries, the noise of the shot and the intoxicating smell of powder produced their usual maddening effects.
“Down with the officer! down with him!” was the cry.
“One step nearer,” said Comminges, putting down the sashes, that the interior of the carriage might be well seen, and placing his sword on his prisoner’s breast, “one step nearer, and I kill the prisoner; my orders were to carry him off alive or dead. I will take him dead, that’s all.”
A terrible cry was heard, and the wife and daughters of Broussel held up their hands in supplication to the people; the latter knew that this officer, who was so pale, but who appeared so determined, would keep his word; they continued to threaten, but they began to disperse.
“Drive to the palace,” said Comminges to the coachman, who was by then more dead than alive.
The man whipped his animals, which cleared a way through the crowd; but on arriving on the Quai they were obliged to stop; the carriage was upset, the horses carried off, stifled, mangled by the crowd. Raoul, on foot, for he had not time to mount his horse again, tired, like the guards, of distributing blows with the flat of his sword, had recourse to its point. But this last and dreaded resource served only to exasperate the multitude. From time to time a shot from a musket or the blade of a rapier flashed among the crowd; projectiles continued to hail down from the windows and some shots were heard, the echo of which, though they were probably fired in the air, made all hearts vibrate. Voices, unheard except on days of revolution, were distinguished; faces were seen that only appeared on days of bloodshed. Cries of “Death! death to the guards! to the Seine with the officer!” were heard above all the noise, deafening as it was. Raoul, his hat in ribbons, his face bleeding, felt not only his strength but also his reason going; a red mist covered his sight, and through this mist he saw a hundred threatening arms stretched over him, ready to seize upon him when he fell. The guards were unable to help any one-each one was occupied with his self-preservation. All was over; carriages, horses, guards, and perhaps even the prisoner were about to be torn to shreds, when all at once a voice well known to Raoul was heard, and suddenly a great sword glittered in the air; at the same time the crowd opened, upset, trodden down, and an officer of the musketeers, striking and cutting right and left, rushed up to Raoul and took him in his arms just as he was about to fall.
“God’s blood!” cried the officer, “have they killed him? Woe to them if it be so!”
And he turned around, so stern with anger, strength and threat, that the most excited rebels hustled back on one another, in order to escape, and some of them even rolled into the Seine.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” murmured Raoul.
“Yes, ‘sdeath! in person, and fortunately it seems for you, my young friend. Come on, here, you others,” he continued, rising in his stirrups, raising his sword, and addressing those musketeers who had not been able to follow his rapid onslaught. “Come, sweep away all that for me! Shoulder muskets! Present arms! Aim-”
At this command the mountain of populace thinned so suddenly that D’Artagnan could not repress a burst of Homeric laughter.
“Thank you, D’Artagnan,” said Comminges, showing half of his body through the window of the broken vehicle, “thanks, my young friend; your name-that I may mention it to the queen.”
Raoul was about to reply when D’Artagnan bent down to his ear.
“Hold your tongue,” said he, “and let me answer. Do not lose time, Comminges,” he continued; “get out of the carriage if you can and make another draw up; be quick, or in five minutes the mob will be on us again with swords and muskets and you will be killed. Hold! there’s a carriage coming over yonder.”
Then bending again to Raoul, he whispered: “Above all things do not divulge your name.”
“That’s right. I will go,” said Comminges; “and if they come back, fire!”
“Not at all-not at all,” replied D’Artagnan; “let no one move. On the contrary, one shot at this moment would be paid for dearly to-morrow.”
Comminges took his four guards and as many musketeers and ran to the carriage, from which he made the people inside dismount, and brought them to the vehicle which had upset. But when it was necessary to convey the prisoner from one carriage to the other, the people, catching sight of him whom they called their liberator, uttered every imaginable cry and knotted themselves once more around the vehicle.
“Start, start!” said D’Artagnan. “There are ten men to accompany you. I will keep twenty to hold in check the mob; go, and lose not a moment. Ten men for Monsieur de Comminges.”
As the carriage started off the cries were redoubled and more than ten thousand people thronged the Quai and overflowed the Pont Neuf and adjacent streets. A few shots were fired and one musketeer was wounded.
“Forward!” cried D’Artagnan, driven to extremities, biting his moustache; and then he charged with his twenty men and dispersed them in fear. One man alone remained in his place, gun in hand.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “it is thou who wouldst have him assassinated? Wait an instant.” And he pointed his gun at D’Artagnan, who was riding toward him at full speed. D’Artagnan bent down to his horse’s neck, the young man fired, and the ball severed the feathers from the hat. The horse started, brushed against the imprudent man, who thought by his strength alone to stay the tempest, and he fell against the wall. D’Artagnan pulled up his horse, and whilst his musketeers continued to charge, he returned and bent with drawn sword over the man he had knocked down.
“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Raoul, recognizing the young man as having seen him in the Rue Cocatrix, “spare him! it is his son!”
D’Artagnan’s arm dropped to his side. “Ah, you are his son!” he said; “that is a different thing.”
“Sir, I surrender,” said Louvieres, presenting his unloaded musket to the officer.
“Eh, no! do not surrender, egad! On the contrary, be off, and quickly. If I take you, you will be hung!”
The young man did not wait to be told twice, but passing under the horse’s head disappeared at the corner of the Rue Guenegaud.
“I’faith!” said D’Artagnan to Raoul, “you were just in time to stay my hand. He was a dead man; and on my honor, if I had discovered that it was his son, I should have regretted having killed him.”
“Ah! sir!” said Raoul, “allow me, after thanking you for that poor fellow’s life, to thank you on my own account. I too, sir, was almost dead when you arrived.”
“Wait, wait, young man; do not fatigue yourself with speaking. We can talk of it afterward.”
Then seeing that the musketeers had cleared the Quai from the Pont Neuf to the Quai Saint Michael, he raised his sword for them to double their speed. The musketeers trotted up, and at the same time the ten men whom D’Artagnan had given to Comminges appeared.
“Halloo!” cried D’Artagnan; “has something fresh happened?”
“Eh, sir!” replied the sergeant, “their vehicle has broken down a second time; it really must be doomed.”
“They are bad managers,” said D’Artagnan, shrugging his shoulders. “When a carriage is chosen, it ought to be strong. The carriage in which a Broussel is to be arrested ought to be able to bear ten thousand men.”
“What are your commands, lieutenant?”
“Take the detachment and conduct him to his place.”
“But you will be left alone?”
“Certainly. So you suppose I have need of an escort? Go.”
The musketeers set off and D’Artagnan was left alone with Raoul.
“Now,” he said, “are you in pain?”
“Yes; my head is not only swimming but burning.”
“What’s the matter with this head?” said D’Artagnan, raising the battered hat. “Ah! ah! a bruise.”
“Yes, I think I received a flower-pot upon my head.”
“Brutes!” said D’Artagnan. “But were you not on horseback? you have spurs.”
“Yes, but I got down to defend Monsieur de Comminges and my horse was taken away. Here it is, I see.”
At this very moment Friquet passed, mounted on Raoul’s horse, waving his parti-colored cap and crying, “Broussel! Broussel!”
“Halloo! stop, rascal!” cried D’Artagnan. “Bring hither that horse.”
Friquet heard perfectly, but he pretended not to do so and tried to continue his road. D’Artagnan felt inclined for an instant to pursue Master Friquet, but not wishing to leave Raoul alone he contented himself with taking a pistol from the holster and cocking it.
Friquet had a quick eye and a fine ear. He saw D’Artagnan’s movement, heard the sound of the click, and stopped at once.
“Ah! it is you, your honor,” he said, advancing toward D’Artagnan; “and I am truly pleased to meet you.”
D’Artagnan looked attentively at Friquet and recognized the little chorister of the Rue de la Calandre.
“Ah! ‘tis thou, rascal!” said he, “come here: so thou hast changed thy trade; thou art no longer a choir boy nor a tavern boy; thou hast become a horse stealer?”
“Ah, your honor, how can you say so?” exclaimed Friquet. “I was seeking the gentleman to whom this horse belongs-an officer, brave and handsome as a youthful Caesar;” then, pretending to see Raoul for the first time:
“Ah! but if I mistake not,” continued he, “here he is; you won’t forget the boy, sir.”
Raoul put his hand in his pocket.
“What are you about?” asked D’Artagnan.
“To give ten francs to this honest fellow,” replied Raoul, taking a pistole from his pocket.
“Ten kicks on his back!” said D’Artagnan; “be off, you little villain, and forget not that I have your address.”
Friquet, who did not expect to be let off so cheaply, bounded off like a gazelle up the Quai a la Rue Dauphine, and disappeared. Raoul mounted his horse, and both leisurely took their way to the Rue Tiquetonne.
D’Artagnan watched over the youth as if he had been his own son.
They arrived without accident at the Hotel de la Chevrette.
The handsome Madeleine announced to D’Artagnan that Planchet had returned, bringing Mousqueton with him, who had heroically borne the extraction of the ball and was as well as his state would permit.
D’Artagnan desired Planchet to be summoned, but he had disappeared.
“Then bring some wine,” said D’Artagnan. “You are much pleased with yourself,” said he to Raoul when they were alone, “are you not?”
“Well, yes,” replied Raoul. “It seems to me I did my duty. I defended the king.”
“And who told you to defend the king?”
“The Comte de la Fere himself.”
“Yes, the king; but to-day you have not fought for the king, you have fought for Mazarin; which is not quite the same thing.”
“But you yourself?”
“Oh, for me; that is another matter. I obey my captain’s orders. As for you, your captain is the prince, understand that rightly; you have no other. But has one ever seen such a wild fellow,” continued he, “making himself a Mazarinist and helping to arrest Broussel! Breathe not a word of that, or the Comte de la Fere will be furious.”
“You think the count will be angry with me?”
“Think it? I’m certain of it; were it not for that, I should thank you, for you have worked for us. However, I scold you instead of him, and in his place; the storm will blow over more easily, believe me. And moreover, my dear child,” continued D’Artagnan, “I am making use of the privilege conceded to me by your guardian.”
“I do not understand you, sir,” said Raoul.
D’Artagnan rose, and taking a letter from his writing-desk, presented it to Raoul. The face of the latter became serious when he had cast his eyes upon the paper.
“Oh, mon Dieu!” he said, raising his fine eyes to D’Artagnan, moist with tears, “the count has left Paris without seeing me?”
“He left four days ago,” said D’Artagnan.
“But this letter seems to intimate that he is about to incur danger, perhaps death.”
“He-he-incur danger of death! No, be not anxious; he is traveling on business and will return ere long. I hope you have no repugnance to accept me as your guardian in the interim.”
“Oh, no, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Raoul, “you are such a brave gentleman and the Comte de la Fere has so much affection for you!”
“Eh! Egad! love me too; I will not torment you much, but only on condition that you become a Frondist, my young friend, and a hearty Frondist, too.”
“But can I continue to visit Madame de Chevreuse?”
“I should say you could! and the coadjutor and Madame de Longueville; and if the worthy Broussel were there, whom you so stupidly helped arrest, I should tell you to excuse yourself to him at once and kiss him on both cheeks.”
“Well, sir, I will obey you, although I do not understand you.”
“It is unnecessary for you to understand. Hold,” continued D’Artagnan, turning toward the door, which had just opened, “here is Monsieur du Vallon, who comes with his coat torn.”
“Yes, but in exchange,” said Porthos, covered with perspiration and soiled by dust, “in exchange, I have torn many skins. Those wretches wanted to take away my sword! Deuce take ‘em, what a popular commotion!” continued the giant, in his quiet manner; “but I knocked down more than twenty with the hilt of Balizarde. A draught of wine, D’Artagnan.”
“Oh, I’ll answer for you,” said the Gascon, filling Porthos’s glass to the brim; “but when you have drunk, give me your opinion.”
“Upon what?” asked Porthos.
“Look here,” resumed D’Artagnan; “here is Monsieur de Bragelonne, who determined at all risks to aid the arrest of Broussel and whom I had great difficulty to prevent defending Monsieur de Comminges.”
“The devil!” said Porthos; “and his guardian, what would he have said to that?”
“Do you hear?” interrupted D’Artagnan; “become a Frondist, my friend, belong to the Fronde, and remember that I fill the count’s place in everything;” and he jingled his money.
“Will you come?” said he to Porthos.
“Where?” asked Porthos, filling a second glass of wine.
“To present our respects to the cardinal.”
Porthos swallowed the second glass with the same grace with which he had imbibed the first, took his beaver and followed D’Artagnan. As for Raoul, he remained bewildered with what he had seen, having been forbidden by D’Artagnan to leave the room until the tumult was over.
45. The Beggar of St. Eustache
D’Artagnan had calculated that in not going at once to the Palais Royal he would give Comminges time to arrive before him, and consequently to make the cardinal acquainted with the eminent services which he, D’Artagnan, and his friend had rendered to the queen’s party in the morning.
They were indeed admirably received by Mazarin, who paid them numerous compliments, and announced that they were more than half on their way to obtain what they desired, namely, D’Artagnan his captaincy, Porthos his barony.
D’Artagnan would have preferred money in hand to all that fine talk, for he knew well that to Mazarin it was easy to promise and hard to perform. But, though he held the cardinal’s promises as of little worth, he affected to be completely satisfied, for he was unwilling to discourage Porthos.
Whilst the two friends were with the cardinal, the queen sent for him. Mazarin, thinking that it would be the means of increasing the zeal of his two defenders if he procured them personal thanks from the queen, motioned them to follow him. D’Artagnan and Porthos pointed to their dusty and torn dresses, but the cardinal shook his head.
“Those costumes,” he said, “are of more worth than most of those which you will see on the backs of the queen’s courtiers; they are costumes of battle.”
D’Artagnan and Porthos obeyed. The court of Anne of Austria was full of gayety and animation; for, after having gained a victory over the Spaniard, it had just gained another over the people. Broussel had been conducted out of Paris without further resistance, and was at this time in the prison of Saint Germain; while Blancmesnil, who was arrested at the same time, but whose arrest had been made without difficulty or noise, was safe in the Castle of Vincennes.
Comminges was near the queen, who was questioning him upon the details of his expedition, and every one was listening to his account, when D’Artagnan and Porthos were perceived at the door, behind the cardinal.
“Ah, madame,” said Comminges, hastening to D’Artagnan, “here is one who can tell you better than myself, for he was my protector. Without him I should probably at this moment be a dead fish in the nets at Saint Cloud, for it was a question of nothing less than throwing me into the river. Speak, D’Artagnan, speak.”
D’Artagnan had been a hundred times in the same room with the queen since he had become lieutenant of the musketeers, but her majesty had never once spoken to him.
“Well, sir,” at last said Anne of Austria, “you are silent, after rendering such a service?”
“Madame,” replied D’Artagnan, “I have nought to say, save that my life is ever at your majesty’s service, and that I shall only be happy the day I lose it for you.”
“I know that, sir; I have known that,” said the queen, “a long time; therefore I am delighted to be able thus publicly to mark my gratitude and my esteem.”
“Permit me, madame,” said D’Artagnan, “to reserve a portion for my friend; like myself” (he laid an emphasis on these words) “an ancient musketeer of the company of Treville; he has done wonders.”
“His name?” asked the queen.
“In the regiment,” said D’Artagnan, “he is called Porthos” (the queen started), “but his true name is the Chevalier du Vallon.”
“De Bracieux de Pierrefonds,” added Porthos.
“These names are too numerous for me to remember them all, and I will content myself with the first,” said the queen, graciously. Porthos bowed. At this moment the coadjutor was announced; a cry of surprise ran through the royal assemblage. Although the coadjutor had preached that same morning it was well known that he leaned much to the side of the Fronde; and Mazarin, in requesting the archbishop of Paris to make his nephew preach, had evidently had the intention of administering to Monsieur de Retz one of those Italian kicks he so much enjoyed giving.
The fact was, in leaving Notre Dame the coadjutor had learned the event of the day. Although almost engaged to the leaders of the Fronde he had not gone so far but that retreat was possible should the court offer him the advantages for which he was ambitious and to which the coadjutorship was but a stepping-stone. Monsieur de Retz wished to become archbishop in his uncle’s place, and cardinal, like Mazarin; and the popular party could with difficulty accord him favors so entirely royal. He therefore hastened to the palace to congratulate the queen on the battle of Lens, determined beforehand to act with or against the court, as his congratulations were well or ill received.
The coadjutor possessed, perhaps, as much wit as all those put together who were assembled at the court to laugh at him. His speech, therefore, was so well turned, that in spite of the great wish felt by the courtiers to laugh, they could find no point on which to vent their ridicule. He concluded by saying that he placed his feeble influence at her majesty’s command.
During the whole time he was speaking, the queen appeared to be well pleased with the coadjutor’s harangue; but terminating as it did with such a phrase, the only one which could be caught at by the jokers, Anne turned around and directed a glance toward her favorites, which announced that she delivered up the coadjutor to their tender mercies. Immediately the wits of the court plunged into satire. Nogent-Beautin, the fool of the court, exclaimed that “the queen was very happy to have the succor of religion at such a moment.” This caused a universal burst of laughter. The Count de Villeroy said that “he did not know how any fear could be entertained for a moment, when the court had, to defend itself against the parliament and the citizens of Paris, his holiness the coadjutor, who by a signal could raise an army of curates, church porters and vergers.”
The Marechal de la Meilleraie added that in case the coadjutor should appear on the field of battle it would be a pity that he should not be distinguished in the melee by wearing a red hat, as Henry IV. had been distinguished by his white plume at the battle of Ivry.
During this storm, Gondy, who had it in his power to make it most unpleasant for the jesters, remained calm and stern. The queen at last asked him if he had anything to add to the fine discourse he had just made to her.
“Yes, madame,” replied the coadjutor; “I have to beg you to reflect twice ere you cause a civil war in the kingdom.”
The queen turned her back and the laughing recommenced.
The coadjutor bowed and left the palace, casting upon the cardinal such a glance as is best understood by mortal foes. That glance was so sharp that it penetrated the heart of Mazarin, who, reading in it a declaration of war, seized D’Artagnan by the arm and said:
“If occasion requires, monsieur, you will remember that man who has just gone out, will you not?”
“Yes, my lord,” he replied. Then, turning toward Porthos, “The devil!” said he, “this has a bad look. I dislike these quarrels among men of the church.”
Gondy withdrew, distributing benedictions on his way, and finding a malicious satisfaction in causing the adherents of his foes to prostrate themselves at his feet.
“Oh!” he murmured, as he left the threshold of the palace: “ungrateful court! faithless court! cowardly court! I will teach you how to laugh to-morrow-but in another manner.”
But whilst they were indulging in extravagant joy at the Palais Royal, to increase the hilarity of the queen, Mazarin, a man of sense, and whose fear, moreover, gave him foresight, lost no time in making idle and dangerous jokes; he went out after the coadjutor, settled his account, locked up his gold, and had confidential workmen to contrive hiding places in his walls.
On his return home the coadjutor was informed that a young man had come in after his departure and was waiting for him; he started with delight when, on demanding the name of this young man, he learned that it was Louvieres. He hastened to his cabinet. Broussel’s son was there, still furious, and still bearing bloody marks of his struggle with the king’s officers. The only precaution he had taken in coming to the archbishopric was to leave his arquebuse in the hands of a friend.
The coadjutor went to him and held out his hand. The young man gazed at him as if he would have read the secret of his heart.
“My dear Monsieur Louvieres,” said the coadjutor, “believe me, I am truly concerned for the misfortune which has happened to you.”
“Is that true, and do you speak seriously?” asked Louvieres.
“From the depth of my heart,” said Gondy.
“In that case, my lord, the time for words has passed and the hour for action is at hand; my lord, in three days, if you wish it, my father will be out of prison and in six months you may be cardinal.”
The coadjutor started.
“Oh! let us speak frankly,” continued Louvieres, “and act in a straightforward manner. Thirty thousand crowns in alms is not given, as you have done for the last six months, out of pure Christian charity; that would be too grand. You are ambitious-it is natural; you are a man of genius and you know your worth. As for me, I hate the court and have but one desire at this moment-vengeance. Give us the clergy and the people, of whom you can dispose, and I will bring you the citizens and the parliament; with these four elements Paris is ours in a week; and believe me, monsieur coadjutor, the court will give from fear what it will not give from good-will.”
It was now the coadjutor’s turn to fix his piercing eyes on Louvieres.
“But, Monsieur Louvieres, are you aware that it is simply civil war you are proposing to me?”
“You have been preparing long enough, my lord, for it to be welcome to you now.”
“Never mind,” said the coadjutor; “you must be well aware that this requires reflection.”
“And how many hours of reflection do you ask?”
“Twelve hours, sir; is it too long?”
“It is now noon; at midnight I will be at your house.”
“If I should not be in, wait for me.”
“Good! at midnight, my lord.”
“At midnight, my dear Monsieur Louvieres.”
When once more alone Gondy sent to summon all the curates with whom he had any connection to his house. Two hours later, thirty officiating ministers from the most populous, and consequently the most disturbed parishes of Paris had assembled there. Gondy related to them the insults he had received at the Palais Royal and retailed the jests of Beautin, the Count de Villeroy and Marechal de la Meilleraie. The curates asked him what was to be done.
