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Books: Book review: 'The Mercy Papers' and 'Downtown Owl'
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Book Review: The Horror, the Horror
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The Mercy Papers A Memoir of Three Weeks By Robin Romm 213 pages. Scribner. $22. The foundational condition of being human is that we're going to die. Almost as basic a truth is that we seem incapable of believing it. The collision of these inconsonant

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The Forty Five Guardsmen written by Alexandre Dumas

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"Innocently, monsieur: for I have always endeavored to keep Monsieur du
Bouchage at a distance."

"That is termed the art of coquetry, madame; and the result proves the
fault."

"No one has the right to accuse me, monsieur; I am guilty of nothing.
Your feelings of irritation are aroused against me; I shall say no
more."

"Oh, oh!" said Joyeuse, gradually working himself into a passion, "you
have been the ruin of my brother, and you fancy you can justify yourself
with this irritating majesty of demeanor. No, no! the steps I have taken
must show you what my intentions are. I am serious, I assure you, and
you see by the trembling of my hands and lips that you will need some
good arguments to move me."

The hospitaliere rose.

"If you come here to insult a woman," she said, with the same calm
self-possession, "insult me, monsieur; if, however, you have come to
induce me to change my opinion, you are wasting your time, and can
withdraw."

"Ah! you are no human creature!" exclaimed Joyeuse, exasperated. "You
are possessed by an evil spirit."

"I have answered already; I will reply no further. Since that is not
sufficient, I shall withdraw." And the hospitaliere advanced toward the
door.

Joyeuse stopped her.

"One moment! I have sought you for too long a period to allow you to
leave me in this manner; and, since I have succeeded in meeting with
you--since your insensibility has confirmed me in the idea which had
already occurred to me, that you are possessed by the foul fiend
himself, sent hither by the enemy of mankind to destroy my brother--I
wish to see that face whereon the bottomless pit has written its
blackest traces; I wish to behold the fire of that fatal gaze which
bewilders men's minds. Avaunt thee, Satan!"

And Joyeuse, making the sign of the cross with one hand, as if he were
exorcising her, with the other tore aside the veil which covered the
face of the hospitaliere; the latter, silent and impassible, free from
anger or ill-feeling, fixed her sweet and gentle gaze upon him who had
so cruelly outraged her, and said: "Oh! Monsieur le Duc, what you have
just done is unworthy a gentleman."

Joyeuse's heart was smitten by her reply.

"Oh! madame," he murmured after a long silence, "you are indeed
beautiful, and truly must Henri have loved you. Surely Heaven can only
have bestowed upon you loveliness such as you possess to cast it like
perfume upon an existence devoted to your own."

"Monsieur, have you not conversed with your brother? or, if you have
done so, he cannot have thought it expedient to make you his confidant;
had not that been the case, he would have told you that I have done what
you say--I have loved; I shall never love again; I have lived and must
die."

Joyeuse had never taken his eyes from Diana's face, and the soft and
gentle expression of her gaze penetrated the inmost recesses of his
being.

Her look had destroyed all the baser material in the admiral's heart:
the pure metal was alone left, and his heart seemed rent asunder, like
a crucible which had been riven by the fusion of metal.

"Yes, yes," he repeated, in a still lower voice, and continuing to fix
upon her a gaze from which the fire of his fierce anger had
disappeared--"yes, yes, Henri must have loved you. Oh! madame, for
pity's sake, on my knees I implore you to love my brother."

Diana remained cold and silent.

"Do not reduce a family to despair, do not sacrifice the future
prospects of our race; be not the cause of the death of one from
despair, of the others from regret."

Diana, still silent, continued to look sorrowfully on the suppliant
bending before her.

"Oh!" exclaimed Joyeuse, madly pressing his hand against his heart,
"have mercy on my brother, have mercy on me!"

He sprung to his feet like a man bereft of his senses, unfastened, or
rather tore open the door of the room where they had been conversing,
and, bewildered and almost beside himself, fled from the house toward
his attendants, who were awaiting him at the corner of the Rue d'Enfer.




CHAPTER XC.

HIS HIGHNESS MONSEIGNEUR LE DUC DE GUISE.


On Sunday the 10th of June, toward eleven o'clock in the day, the whole
court were assembled in the apartment leading to the cabinet in which,
since his meeting with Diana de Meridor, the Duc d'Anjou was dying by
slow but sure degrees. Neither the science of the physicians, nor his
mother's despair, nor the prayers which the king had desired to be
offered up, had been successful in averting the fatal termination.
Miron, on the morning of this same 10th of June, assured the king that
all chance of recovery was hopeless, and that Francois d'Anjou would not
outlive the day. The king pretended to display extreme grief, and
turning toward those who were present, said, "This will fill my enemies
full of hope."

To which remark the queen-mother replied: "Our destiny is in the hands
of Heaven, my son."

Whereupon Chicot, who was standing humbly and reverently near Henri
III., added in a low voice:

"Let us help Heaven when we can, sire."

Nevertheless, the dying man, toward half-past eleven, lost both color
and sight; his mouth, which, up to that moment, had remained open,
became closed; the flow of blood which for several days past had
terrified all who were near him, as the bloody sweat of Charles IX. had
similarly done at an earlier period, had suddenly ceased, and hands and
feet became icy cold. Henri was sitting beside the head of the couch
whereon his brother was extended. Catherine was standing in the recess
in which the bed was placed, holding her dying son's hand in hers.

The bishop of Chateau-Thierry and the Cardinal de Joyeuse repeated the
prayers for the dying, which were joined in by all who were present,
kneeling, and with their hands clasped reverently together. Toward
mid-day, the dying man opened his eyes; the sun's rays broke through a
cloud and inundated the bed with a flood of light. Francois, who, up to
that moment, had been unable to move a single finger, and whose mind had
been obscured like the sun which had just re-appeared, raised one of his
arms toward heaven with a horror-stricken gesture.

He looked all round the room, heard the murmuring of the prayers, grew
conscious of his illness as well as of his weakness, became aware of his
critical position, perhaps because he already caught a glimpse of that
unseen and terrible future, the abode of certain souls after they have
quitted their earthly prison.

He thereupon uttered a loud and piercing cry, and struck his forehead
with a force which made every one tremble.

Then, knitting his brows, as if one of the mysterious incidents of his
life had just recurred to him, he murmured:

"Bussy! Diana!"

This latter name had been overheard by none but Catherine, so weakened
had the dying man's voice become before pronouncing it.

With the last syllable of that name Francois d'Anjou breathed his last
sigh.

At this very moment, by a singular coincidence, the sun, which had
gilded with its rays the royal arms of France, and the golden
fleurs-de-lis, was again obscured: so that the fleurs-de-lis which had
been so brilliantly illumined but a moment before, became as dark and
gloomy as the azure ground which they had but recently studded with
constellations almost as resplendent as those whereon the eye of the
dreamer rests in his upward gaze toward heaven.

Catherine let her son's hand fall.

Henri III. shuddered, and leaned tremblingly on Chicot's shoulder, who
shuddered too, but from a feeling of awe which every Christian feels in
the presence of the dead.

Miron placed a golden spatula on Francois' lips; after a few seconds, he
looked at it carefully and said:

"Monseigneur is dead."

Whereupon a deep prolonged groan arose from the antechamber, like an
accompaniment to the psalm which the cardinal murmured: "Cedant
iniquitates meae ad vocem deprecationis meae."

"Dead," repeated the king, making the sign of the cross as he sat in his
fauteuil; "my brother, my brother!"

"The sole heir of the throne of France," murmured Catherine, who, having
quitted the bed whereon the corpse was lying, had placed herself beside
the only son who now remained to her.

"Oh!" said Henri, "this throne of France is indeed large for a king
without issue; the crown is indeed large for a single head. No children!
no heirs! Who will succeed me?"

Hardly had he pronounced these words when a loud noise was heard on the
staircase and in the apartments.

Nambu hurriedly entered the death chamber, and announced--"His Highness
Monseigneur le Duc de Guise."

Struck by this reply to the question which he had addressed to himself,
the king turned pale, rose, and looked at his mother. Catherine was
paler than her son. At the announcement of the horrible misfortune
which mere chance had foretold to his race, she grasped the king's hand,
and pressed it, as if to say--

"There lies the danger; but fear nothing, I am near you."

The son and mother, under the influence of the same terror and the same
menace, had comprehended each other.

The duke entered, followed by his officers. He entered, holding his head
loftily erect, although his eyes ranged from the king to the death-bed
of his brother with a glance not free from a certain embarrassment.

Henri III. stood up, and with that supreme majesty of carriage which, on
certain occasions, his singularly poetic nature enabled him to assume,
checked the duke's further progress by a kingly gesture, and pointed to
the royal corpse upon the bed, the covering of which was in disorder
from his brother's dying agonies. The duke bowed his head, and slowly
fell on his knees. All around him, too, bowed their heads and bent their
knees. Henri III., together with his mother, alone remained standing,
and bent a last look, full of pride, upon those around him. Chicot
observed this look, and murmured in a low tone of voice, "Dejiciet
potentes de sede et exaltabit humiles"--"He hath put down the mighty
from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek."




POSTSCRIPT.


A few words with reference to the principal characters in the novel of
the "Forty-five Guardsmen" are necessary to complete the story.

Diana de Monsoreau, having taken the vows at the Convent des
Hospitalieres, survived the Duc d'Anjou only two years. Of Remy, her
faithful companion, we hear no more: he disappeared without leaving a
trace behind him.

History, however, informs us more fully as to the others. The Duc de
Guise, having at last broken into open rebellion against Henri III., was
so far successful, that with the aid of the League he compelled the king
to fly from Paris. A hollow reconciliation was, however, patched up
between them, the Duc de Guise stipulating that he should be appointed
lieutenant-general of the kingdom; but no sooner had the king returned
to the Louvre than he determined on the assassination of the duke. He
sounded Crillon, the leader of the "Forty-five," on the subject, but
this noble soldier refused to have anything to do with it, offering,
however, to challenge him to single combat. De Loignac was less
scrupulous, and we know the result; the Duc de Guise and his brother the
cardinal were both murdered. Ten days after this event, Catherine de
Medicis, the queen-mother, died, regretted by none.

The Parisians, exasperated by the murder of the Duc de Guise, declared
his brother, the Duc de Mayenne, the head of the League, and rose
against the king, who was again obliged to fly. He begged the king of
Navarre for aid, who promptly responded to the call, and they were
shortly before Paris with a united army of Catholics and Huguenots.
Henri III. was, however, pursued by the relentless hate of the clever
and unscrupulous Duchesse de Montpensier. She worked so skillfully on
the fanatical mind of the young Jacobin friar, Jacques Clement, that he
undertook the death of the king. He entered the camp with letters for
Henri, whom he stabbed while reading them. The king died on the 2d
August, 1589, after having declared Henri of Navarre his successor.

Of the subsequent life and adventures of Chicot, unfortunately nothing
authentic is known. TRANSLATOR.