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"And what is the favor you ask?"

"A dispensation, monseigneur."

"For what purpose?"

"To shorten my noviciate."

"Ah! I knew it, Du Bouchage. You are worldly-minded even in your
rigorousness, my poor boy. Oh! I know very well what reason you are
going to give me. Yes, you are, indeed, a man of the world; you resemble
those young men who offer themselves as volunteers, and are eagerly
desirous for fire, balls, and blows, but care not for working in the
trenches, or for sweeping out the tents. There is some resource left
yet, Henri; so much the better, so much the better."

"Give me the dispensation I ask; I entreat you on my knees."

"I promise it to you; I will write to Rome for it. It will be a month
before the answer arrives; but, in exchange, promise me one thing."

"Name it."

"That you will not, during this month's postponement, reject any
pleasure or amusement which may be offered to you; and if, in a month
hence, you still entertain the same projects, Henri, I will give you
this dispensation with my own hand. Are you satisfied now, and have you
nothing further to ask me?"

"No. I thank you; but a month is a long time, and the delay will kill
me."

"In the meantime, and in order to change your thoughts, will you object
to breakfast with me? I have some agreeable companions this morning."

And the prelate smiled in a manner which the most worldly disposed
favorites of Henri III. would have envied.

"Brother," said De Bouchage, resisting.

"I will not accept any excuse; you have no one but myself here, since
you have just arrived from Flanders, and your own house cannot be in
order just yet."

With these words the cardinal rose, and drawing aside a _portiere_,
which hung before a large cabinet sumptuously furnished, he said:

"Come, comtesse, let us persuade Monsieur le Comte du Bouchage to stay
with us."

At the very moment, however, when the count drew aside the _portiere_,
Henri had observed, half reclining upon the cushions, the page who had
with the gentleman entered the gate adjoining the banks of the river,
and in this page, before even the prelate had announced her sex, he had
recognized a woman.

An indefinable sensation, like a sudden terror, or an overwhelming
feeling of dread, seized him, and while the worldly cardinal advanced to
take the beautiful page by the hand, Henri du Bouchage darted from the
apartment, and so quickly, too, that when Francois returned with the
lady, smiling with the hope of winning a heart back again to the world,
the room was perfectly empty.

Francois frowned; then, seating himself before a table covered with
papers and letters, he hurriedly wrote a few lines.

"May I trouble you to ring, dear countess," he said, "since you have
your hand near the bell."

And as the page obeyed, a valet-de-chambre in the confidence of the
cardinal appeared.

"Let a courier start on horseback, without a moment's loss of time,"
said Francois, "and take this letter to Monsieur le Grand-amiral a
Chateau-Thierry."




CHAPTER LXXXV.

NEWS FROM AURILLY.


On the following day the king was working at the Louvre with the
superintendent of finances, when an attendant entered to inform his
majesty that Monsieur de Joyeuse, the eldest son of that family, had
just arrived, and was waiting for him in the large audience chamber,
having come from Chateau-Thierry, with a message from Monsieur le Duc
d'Anjou.

The king precipitately left the business which occupied him, and ran to
meet a friend whom he regarded with so much affection.

A large number of officers and courtiers crowded the cabinet; the
queen-mother had arrived that evening, escorted by her maids of honor,
and these light-hearted girls were, like suns, always attended by their
satellites.

The king gave Joyeuse his hand to kiss, and glanced with a satisfied
expression around the assembly.

In the angle of the entrance door, in his usual place, stood Henry du
Bouchage, rigorously discharging his service and the duties which were
imposed on him.

The king thanked him, and saluted him with a friendly recognition, to
which Henri replied by a profound reverence.

This good intelligence which prevailed between them made Joyeuse turn
his head and smilingly look at his brother, without, however, saluting
him in too marked a manner, from the fear of violating etiquette.

"Sire," said Joyeuse, "I am sent to your majesty by Monsieur le Duc
d'Anjou, recently returned from the expedition to Flanders."

"Is my brother well, Monsieur l'Amiral?" inquired the king.

"As well, sire, as the state of his mind will permit; however, I will
not conceal from your majesty that he appears to be suffering greatly."

"He must need something to change the current of his thoughts after his
misfortune," said the king, delighted at the opportunity of proclaiming
the check which his brother had met with, while appearing to pity him.

"I believe he does, sire."

"We have been informed that the disaster had been most severe."

"Sire--"

"But that, thanks to you, a great portion of the army had been saved;
thanks, Monsieur l'Amiral, thanks. Does poor Monsieur d'Anjou wish to
see us?"

"Most anxiously so, sire."

"In that case we will see him. Are not you of that opinion, madame?"
said Henri, turning toward Catherine, whose heart was wrung with
feelings, the expression of which her face determinedly concealed.

"Sire," she replied, "I should have gone alone to meet my son; but since
your majesty condescends to join with me in this mark of kind
consideration, the journey will be a party of pleasure for me."

"You will accompany us, messieurs," said the king to the courtiers; "we
will set off to-morrow, and I shall sleep at Meaux."

"Shall I at once announce this excellent news to monseigneur, sire?"

"Not so; what! leave me so soon, Monsieur l'Amiral? not so, indeed. I
can well understand that a Joyeuse must be loved and sought after by my
brother, but we have two of the same family, thank Heaven. Du Bouchage,
you will start for Chateau-Thierry, if you please."

"Sire," said Henri, "may I be permitted, after having announced your
majesty's arrival to Monseigneur le Duc d'Anjou, to return to Paris?"

"You may do as you please, Du Bouchage," said the king.

Henri bowed and advanced toward the door. Fortunately Joyeuse was
watching him narrowly.

"Will you allow me to say one word to my brother?" he inquired.

"Do so; but what is it?" said the king in an undertone.

"The fact is, that he wishes to use the utmost speed to execute the
commission, and to return again immediately, which happens to interfere
with my projects, sire, and with those of the cardinal."

"Away with you, then, and rate this love-sick swain most roundly."

Anne hurried after his brother, and overtook him in the antechambers.

"Well!" said Joyeuse; "you are setting off very eagerly, Henri."

"Of course, my brother!"

"Because you wish to return here soon again?"

"That is quite true."

"You do not intend, then, to stay any time at Chateau-Thierry?"

"As little as possible."

"Why so?"

"Where others are amusing themselves is not my place."

"On the contrary, Henri, it is precisely because Monseigneur le Duc
d'Anjou is about to give some fetes that you should remain at
Chateau-Thierry."

"It is impossible."

"Because of your wish for retirement, and of the austere projects you
have in view?"--"Yes."

"You have been to the king to solicit a dispensation?"

"Who told you so?"

"I know it to be the case."

"It is true, then, for I have been to him."

"You will not obtain it."

"Why so, my brother?"

"Because the king has no interest in depriving himself of such a devoted
servant as you are."

"My brother, the cardinal, will therefore do what his majesty will be
disinclined to do."

"And all that for a woman?"

"Anne, I entreat you, do not persist any further."

"Ah! do not fear that I shall begin over again; but, once for all, let
us to the point. You set off for Chateau-Thierry; well, instead of
returning as hurriedly as you seem disposed to do, I wish you to wait
for me in my apartments there; it is a long time since we have lived
together. I particularly wish to be with you again, you understand."

"You are going to Chateau-Thierry to amuse yourself, Anne, and if I were
to remain there I should poison all your pleasures."

"Oh! far from that, I do not care for them; I am of a happy temperament,
and quite fitted to drive away all your fits of melancholy."

"Brother--"

"Permit me, comte," said the admiral, with an imperious air of command,
"I am the representative of our father here, and I enjoin you to wait
for me at Chateau-Thierry. You will find out my apartment, which will be
your own also; it is on the ground floor, looking out on the park."

"If you command me to do so, my brother," said Henri, with a resigned
air.

"Call it by what name you please, comte, desire or command; but await my
arrival."

"I will obey you, my brother."

"And I am persuaded that you will not be angry with me for it," added
Joyeuse, pressing the young man in his arms.

The latter withdrew from the fraternal embrace, somewhat ungraciously,
perhaps, ordered his horses, and immediately set off for
Chateau-Thierry. He hurried thither with the anger of a vexed and
disappointed man; that is to say, he pressed his horses to the top of
their speed.

The same evening, he was slowly ascending, before nightfall, the hill on
which Chateau-Thierry is situated, with the river Marne flowing at its
feet.

At his name, the doors of the chateau flew open before him, but, as far
as an audience was concerned, he was more than an hour before he could
obtain it.

The prince, some told him, was in his apartments; others said he was
asleep; he was practicing music, the valet-de-chambre supposed. No one,
however, among the attendants could give a positive reply.

Henri persisted, in order that he might no longer have to think of his
service on the king, so that he might abandon himself from that moment
to his melancholy thoughts unrestrained.

Won over by his perseverance, it being well known too that he and his
brother were on the most intimate terms with the duke, Henri was ushered
into one of the salons on the first floor, where the prince at last
consented to receive him.

Half an hour passed away, and the shades of evening insensibly closed
in.

The heavy and measured footsteps of the Duc d'Anjou resounded in the
gallery, and Henri, on recognizing them, prepared to discharge his
mission with the accustomed formal ceremonies. But the prince, who
seemed very much pressed, quickly dispensed with these formalities on
the part of his ambassador, by taking him by the hand and embracing him.

"Good-day, comte," he said; "why should they have given you the trouble
to come and see a poor defeated general?"

"The king has sent me, monseigneur, to inform you that he is exceedingly
desirous of seeing your highness, and that in order to enable you to
recover from your fatigue, his majesty will himself come and pay a visit
to Chateau-Thierry, to-morrow at the latest."

"The king will be here to-morrow!" exclaimed Francois, with a gesture of
impatience, but recovering himself immediately afterward.

"To-morrow, to-morrow," he resumed; "why, the truth is, that nothing
will be in readiness, either here or in the town, to receive his
majesty."

Henri bowed, as one whose duty it had been to transmit an order, but
whose province it was not to comment upon it.

"The extreme haste which their majesties have to see your royal
highness has not allowed them to think of the embarrassment they may be
the means of occasioning."

"Well, well," said the prince, hurriedly, "it is for me to make the best
use of the time I have at my disposal. I leave you, therefore, Henri;
thanks for the alacrity you have shown, for you have traveled fast, I
perceive. Go and take some rest."

"Your highness has no other orders to communicate to me?" Henri
inquired, respectfully.

"None. Go and lie down. You shall dine in your own apartment. I hold no
reception this evening; I am suffering and ill at ease; I have lost my
appetite, and cannot sleep, which makes my life a sad, dreary one, and
which, you understand, I do not choose to inflict upon any one else.
By-the-by, you have heard the news?"

"No, monseigneur; what news?"

"Aurilly has been eaten up by the wolves--"

"Aurilly!" exclaimed Henri, with surprise.

"Yes, yes--devoured! It is singular how every one who comes near me dies
a violent death. Good-night, count; may you sleep well!"

And the prince hurried away rapidly.




CHAPTER LXXXVI.

DOUBT.


Henri descended the staircase, and as he passed through the
antechambers, observed many officers of his acquaintance, who ran
forward to meet him, and, with many marks of friendship, offered to show
him the way to his brother's apartments, which were situated at one of
the angles of the chateau. It was the library that the duke had given
Joyeuse to reside in during his residence at Chateau-Thierry.

Two salons, furnished in the style of Francois the First, communicated
with each other, and terminated in the library, the latter apartment
looking out on the gardens.

His bed had been put up in the library. Joyeuse was of an indolent, yet
of a cultivated turn of mind. If he stretched out his arm he laid his
hand on science; if he opened the windows he could enjoy the beauties of
nature. Finer and superior organizations require more satisfying
enjoyments; and the morning breeze, the song of birds, or the perfumes
of flowers, added fresh delight to the triplets of Clement Marot, or to
the odes of Rousard.

Henri determined to leave everything as it was, not because he was
influenced by the poetic sybaritism of his brother, but, on the
contrary, from indifference, and because it mattered little to him
whether he was there or elsewhere.

But as the count, in whatever frame of mind he might be, had been
brought up never to neglect his duty or respect toward the king or the
princes of the royal family of France, he inquired particularly in what
part of the chateau the prince had resided since his return.

By mere accident, in this respect, Henri met with an excellent cicerone
in the person of the young ensign, who, by some act of indiscretion or
another, had, in the little village in Flanders where we represented the
personages in this tale as having halted for a moment, communicated the
count's secret to the prince. This ensign had not quitted the prince's
side since his return, and could inform Henri very accurately on the
subject.

On his arrival at Chateau-Thierry, the prince had at first entered upon
a course of reckless dissipation. At that time he occupied the state
apartments of the chateau, had receptions morning and evening, and was
engaged during the day stag-hunting in the forest; but since the
intelligence of Aurilly's death, which had reached the prince without
its being known from what source, the prince had retired to a pavilion
situated in the middle of the park. This pavilion, which was an almost
inaccessible retreat except to the intimate associates of the prince,
was hidden from view by the dense foliage of the surrounding trees, and
could hardly be perceived above their lofty summits, or through the
thick foliage of the hedges.

It was to this pavilion that the prince had retired during the last few
days. Those who did not know him well said that it was Aurilly's death
which had made him betake himself to this solitude; while those who were
well acquainted with his character pretended that he was carrying out in
this pavilion some base or infamous plot, which some day or another
would be revealed to light.

A circumstance which rendered either of these suppositions much more
probable was, that the prince seemed greatly annoyed whenever a matter
of business or a visit summoned him to the chateau; and so decidedly was
this the case, that no sooner had the visit been received, or the matter
of business been dispatched, than he returned to his solitude, where he
was waited upon only by the two old valets-de-chambre who had been
present at his birth.

"Since this is the case," observed Henri, "the fetes will not be very
gay if the prince continue in this humor."

"Certainly," replied the ensign, "for every one will know how to
sympathize with the prince's grief, whose pride as well as whose
affections had been so smitten."

Henri continued his interrogatories without intending it, and took a
strange interest in doing so. The circumstance of Aurilly's death, whom
he had known at the court, and whom he had again met in Flanders; the
kind of indifference with which the prince had announced the loss he had
met with; the strict seclusion in which it was said the prince had lived
since his death--all this seemed to him, without his being able to
assign a reason for his belief, as part of that mysterious and darkened
web wherein, for some time past, the events of his life had been woven.

"And," inquired he of the ensign, "it is not known, you say, how the
prince became acquainted with the news of the death of Aurilly?"

"No."

"But surely," he insisted, "people must talk about it?"

"Oh! of course," said the ensign; "true or false, you know, people
always will talk."

"Well, then, tell me what it is."

"It is said that the prince was hunting under the willows close beside
the river, and that he had wandered away from the others who were
hunting also, for everything he does is by fits and starts, and he
becomes as excited in the field as at play, or under fire, or under the
influence of grief, when suddenly he was seen returning with a face
scared and as pale as death.

"The courtiers questioned him, thinking that it was nothing more than a
mere incident of the hunting-field.

"He held two rouleaux of gold in his hand.

"'Can you understand this, messieurs?' he said, in a hard dry voice;
'Aurilly is dead; Aurilly has been eaten by the wolves.'

"Every one immediately exclaimed.

"'Nay, indeed,' said the prince; 'may the foul fiend take me if it be
not so; the poor lute-player had always been a far better musician than
a horseman. It seems that his horse ran away with him, and that he fell
into a pit, where he was killed; the next day a couple of travelers who
were passing close to the pit discovered his body half eaten by the
wolves; and a proof that the affair actually did happen, as I have
related it, and that robbers have nothing whatever to do with the whole
matter is, that here are two rouleaux of gold which he had about him,
and which have been faithfully restored.'

"However, as no one had been seen to bring these two rouleaux of gold
back," continued the ensign, "it is supposed that they had been handed
to the prince by the two travelers who, having met and recognized his
highness on the banks of the river, had announced the intelligence of
Aurilly's death."

"It is very strange," murmured Henri.

"And what is more strange still," continued the ensign, "is, that it is
said--can it be true, or is it merely an invention?--it is said, I
repeat, that the prince was seen to open the little gate of the park
close to the chestnut trees, and that something like two shadows passed
through that same gate. The prince then introduced two persons into the
park--probably the two travelers; it is since that occasion that the
prince has retired into his pavilion, and we have only been able to see
him by stealth."

"And has no one seen these two travelers?" asked Henri.

"As I was proceeding to ask the prince the password for the night, for
the sentinels on duty at the chateau, I met a man who did not seem to me
to belong to his highness's household, but I was unable to observe his
face, the man having turned aside as soon as he perceived me, and having
let down the hood of his cloak over his eyes."

"The hood of his cloak, do you say?"

"Yes; the man looked like a Flemish peasant, and reminded me, I hardly
know why, of the person by whom you were accompanied when we met out
yonder."

Henri started; the observation seemed to him in some way connected with
the profound and absorbing interest with which the story inspired him;
to him, too, who had seen Diana and her companion confided to Aurilly,
the idea occurred that the two travelers who had announced to the prince
the death of the unfortunate lute-player were acquaintances of his own.

Henri looked attentively at the ensign.

"And when you fancied you recognized this man, what was the idea that
occurred to you, monsieur?" he inquired.

"I will tell you what my impression was," replied the ensign; "however,
I will not pretend to assert anything positively; the prince has not, in
all probability, abandoned all idea with regard to Flanders; he
therefore maintains spies in his employ. The man with the woolen
overcoat is a spy, who, on his way here, may possibly have learned the
accident which had happened to the musician, and may thus have been the
bearer of two pieces of intelligence at the same time."

"That is not improbable," said Henri, thoughtfully; "but what was this
man doing when you saw him?"

"He was walking beside the hedge which borders the parterre--you can see
the hedge from your windows--and was making toward the conservatories."

"You say, then, that the two travelers, for I believe you stated there
were two--"

"Others say that two persons were seen to enter, but I only saw one, the
man in the overcoat."

"In that case, then, you have reason to believe that the man in the
overcoat, as you describe him, is living in the conservatories."

"It is not unlikely."

"And have these conservatories a means of exit?"

"Yes, count, toward the town."

Henri remained silent for some time; his heart was throbbing most
violently, for these details, which were apparently matters of
indifference to him, who seemed throughout the whole of this mystery as
if he were gifted with the power of prevision, were, in reality, full of
the deepest interest for him.

Night had in the meantime closed in, and the two young men were
conversing together without any light in Joyeuse's apartment.

Fatigued by his journey, oppressed by the strange events which had just
been related to him, unable to struggle against the emotions which they
had aroused in his breast, the count had thrown himself on his brother's
bed, and mechanically directed his gaze toward the deep blue heavens
above him, which seemed set as with diamonds.

The young ensign was seated on the ledge of the window, and voluntarily
abandoned himself to that listlessness of thought, to that poetic
reverie of youth, to that absorbing languor of feeling, which the balmy
freshness of evening inspires.

A deep silence reigned throughout the park and the town; the gates were
closed, the lights were kindled by degrees, the dogs in the distance
were barking in their kennels at the servants, on whom devolved the duty
of shutting up the stables in the evening.

Suddenly the ensign rose to his feet, made a sign of attention with his
head, leaned out of the window, and then, calling in a quick, low tone
to the count, who was reclining on the bed, said:

"Come, come!"

"What is the matter?" Henri inquired, arousing himself by a strong
effort from his reverie.

"The man! the man!"

"What man?"

"The man in the overcoat, the spy!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Henri, springing from the bed to the window, and leaning
on the ensign.

"Stay," continued the ensign; "do you see him yonder? He is creeping
along the hedge; wait a moment, he will show himself again. Now look
toward that spot which is illuminated by the moon's rays, there he is;
there he is."

"Yes."

"Do you not think he is a sinister-looking fellow?"

"Sinister is the very word," replied Du Bouchage, in a gloomy voice.

"Do you believe he is a spy?"

"I believe nothing, and yet I believe everything."

"See, he is going from the prince's pavilion to the conservatories."

"The prince's pavilion is in that direction, then?" inquired Du
Bouchage, indicating with his finger the direction from which the
stranger appeared to be proceeding.

"Do you see that light whose rays are trembling through the leaves of
the trees."--"Well?"

"That is the dining-room."

"Ah!" exclaimed Henri, "see, he makes his appearance again."

"Yes, he is no doubt going to the conservatories to join his companion?
Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"The sound of a key turning in the lock."

"It is singular," said Du Bouchage; "there is nothing unusual in all
this, and yet--"

"And yet you are trembling, you were going to say?"

"Yes," said the count; "but what is that?"

The sound of a bell was heard.

"It is the signal for the supper of the prince's household; are you
going to join us at supper, count?"

"No, I thank you, I do not require anything; and, if I should feel
hungry, I will call for what I may need."

"Do not wait for that, monsieur; but come and amuse yourself in our
society."

"Nay, nay, it is impossible."

"Why so?"

"His royal highness almost directed me to have what I should need served
to me in my own apartment; but do not let me delay you."