Helmet of Navarre written by Bertha Runkle

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[Illustration: Cover]

THE HELMET OF NAVARRE.

Bertha Runkle.

THE HELMET OF NAVARRE

[Illustration: THE FLORENTINES IN THE HOTEL DE MAYENNE]

[Illustration]

BY BERTHA RUNKLE

THE HELMET OF

NAVARRE

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANDRE CASTAIGNE

THE CENTURY CO.

NEW YORK 1901

TO MY MOTHER

Press where ye see my white plume shine amidst the ranks of war,
And be your oriflamme to-day the Helmet of Navarre.

LORD MACAULAY'S "IVRY."

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I A FLASH OF LIGHTNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
II AT THE AMOUR DE DIEU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
III M. LE DUC IS WELL GUARDED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
IV THE THREE MEN IN THE WINDOW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
V RAPIERS AND A VOW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
VI A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
VII A DIVIDED DUTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
VIII CHARLES-ANDRE-ETIENNE-MARIE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
IX THE HONOUR OF ST. QUENTIN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
X LUCAS AND "LE GAUCHER" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
XI VIGO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
XII THE COMTE DE MAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
XIII MADEMOISELLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
XIV IN THE ORATORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
XV MY LORD MAYENNE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
XVI MAYENNE'S WARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
XVII "I'LL WIN MY LADY!". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
XVIII TO THE BASTILLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
XIX TO THE HOTEL DE LORRAINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
XX "ON GUARD, MONSIEUR" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
XXI A CHANCE ENCOUNTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
XXII THE SIGNET OF THE KING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
XXIII THE CHEVALIER OF THE TOURNELLES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
XXIV THE FLORENTINES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
XXV A DOUBLE MASQUERADE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
XXVI WITHIN THE SPIDER'S WEB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
XXVII THE COUNTERSIGN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
XXVIII ST. DENIS--AND NAVARRE!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
XXIX THE TWO DUKES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
XXX MY YOUNG LORD SETTLES SCORES WITH TWO FOES AT ONCE . . . . 440
XXXI "THE VERY PATTERN OF A KING" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
THE FLORENTINES IN THE HOTEL DE MAYENNE. . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"WITH A CRY MONSIEUR SPRANG TOWARD ME" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
"IN A FLASH HE WAS OUT OF THEIR GRASP, FLYING DOWN THE ALLEY". . . 117
"I DO NOT FORGIVE HIS DESPATCHING ME HIS HORSE-BOY". . . . . . . . 149
MLLE. DE MONTLUC AND FELIX BROUX IN THE ORATORY. . . . . . . . . . 169
"SORRY TO DISTURB MONSIEUR, BUT THE HORSES MUST BE FED". . . . . . 205
"HE WAS DEPOSITED IN THE BIG BLACK COACH". . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
"WE CLIMBED OUT INTO A SILK-MERCER'S SHOP" . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
AT THE "BONNE FEMME" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
"IT DESOLATES ME TO HEAR OF HER EXTREMITY" . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
ON THE WAY TO ST. DENIS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
THE MEETING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

THE HELMET OF NAVARRE

THE HELMET OF NAVARRE.

[Illustration]

I

_A flash of lightning._

At the stair-foot the landlord stopped me. "Here, lad, take a candle.
The stairs are dark, and, since I like your looks, I would not have you
break your neck."

"And give the house a bad name," I said.

"No fear of that; my house has a good name. There is no fairer inn in
all Paris. And your chamber is a good chamber, though you will have
larger, doubtless, when you are Minister of Finance."

This raised a laugh among the tavern idlers, for I had been bragging a
bit of my prospects. I retorted:

"When I am, Maitre Jacques, look out for a rise in your taxes."

The laugh was turned on mine host, and I retired with the honours of
that encounter. And though the stairs were the steepest I ever climbed,
I had the breath and the spirit to whistle all the way up. What mattered
it that already I ached in every bone, that the stair was long and my
bed but a heap of straw in the garret of a mean inn in a poor quarter? I
was in Paris, the city of my dreams!

I am a Broux of St. Quentin. The great world has never heard of the
Broux? No matter; they have existed these hundreds of years, Masters of
the Forest, and faithful servants of the dukes of St. Quentin. The great
world has heard of the St. Quentins? I warrant you! As loudly as it has
of Sully and Villeroi, Tremouille and Biron. That is enough for the
Broux.

I was brought up to worship the saints and M. le Duc, and I loved and
revered them alike, by faith, for M. le Duc, at court, seemed as far
away from us as the saints in heaven. But the year after King Henry III
was murdered, Monsieur came to live on his estate, to make high and low
love him for himself.

In that bloody time, when the King of Navarre and the two Leagues were
tearing our poor France asunder, M. le Duc found himself between the
devil and the deep sea. He was no friend to the League; for years he had
stood between the king, his master, and the machinations of the Guises.
On the other hand, he was no friend to the Huguenots. "To seat a heretic
on the throne of France were to deny God," he said. Therefore he came
home to St. Quentin, where he abode in quiet for some three years, to
the great wonderment of all the world.

Had he been a cautious man, a man who looked a long way ahead, his
compeers would have understood readily enough that he was waiting to see
how the cat would jump, taking no part in the quarrel lest he should
mix with the losing side. But this theory jibed so ill with Monsieur's
character that not even his worst detractor could accept it. For he was
known to all as a hotspur--a man who acted quickly and seldom counted
the cost. Therefore his present conduct was a riddle, nor could any of
the emissaries from King or League, who came from time to time to enlist
his aid and went away without it, read the answer. The puzzle was too
deep for them. Yet it was only this: to Monsieur, honour was more than a
pretty word. If he could not find his cause honest, he would not draw
his sword, though all the curs in the land called him coward.

Thus he stayed alone in the chateau for a long, irksome three years.
Monsieur was not of a reflective mind, content to stand aside and watch
while other men fought out great issues. It was a weary procession of
days to him. His only son, a lad a few years older than I, shared none
of his father's scruples and refused point-blank to follow him into
exile. He remained in Paris, where they knew how to be gay in spite of
sieges. Therefore I, the Forester's son, whom Monsieur took for a page,
had a chance to come closer to my lord and be more to him than a mere
servant, and I loved him as the dogs did. Aye, and admired him for a
fortitude almost more than human, in that he could hold himself passive
here in farthest Picardie, whilst in Normandie and Ile de France battles
raged and towns fell and captains won glory.

At length, in the opening of the year 1593, M. le Duc began to have a
frequent visitor, a gentleman in no wise remarkable save for that he was
accorded long interviews with Monsieur. After these visits my lord was
always in great spirits, putting on frisky airs, like a stallion when he
is led out of the stable. I looked for something to happen, and it was
no surprise to me when M. le Duc announced one day, quite without
warning, that he was done with St. Quentin and would be off in the
morning for Mantes. I was in the seventh heaven of joy when he added
that he should take me with him. I knew the King of Navarre was at
Mantes--at last we were going to make history! There was no bound to my
golden dreams, no limit to my future.

But my house of cards suffered a rude tumble, and by no hand but my
father's. He came to Monsieur, and, presuming on an old servitor's
privilege, begged him to leave me at home.

"I have lost two sons in Monsieur's service," he said: "Jean, hunting in
this forest, and Blaise, in the fray at Blois. I have never grudged them
to Monsieur. But Felix is all I have left."

Thus it came about that I was left behind, hidden in the hay-loft, when
my duke rode away. I could not watch his going.

Though the days passed drearily, yet they passed. Time does pass, at
length, even when one is young. It was July. The King of Navarre had
moved up to St. Denis, in his siege of Paris, but most folk thought he
would never win the city, the hotbed of the League. Of M. le Duc we
heard no word till, one night, a chance traveller, putting up at the inn
in the village, told a startling tale. The Duke of St. Quentin, though
known to have been at Mantes and strongly suspected of espousing
Navarre's cause, had ridden calmly into Paris and opened his hotel! It
was madness--madness sheer and stark. Thus far his religion had saved
him, yet any day he might fall under the swords of the Leaguers.

My father came, after hearing this tale, to where I was lying on the
grass, the warm summer night, thinking hard thoughts of him for keeping
me at home and spoiling my chances in life. He gave me straightway the
whole of the story. Long before it was over I had sprung to my feet.

"Do you still wish to join M. le Duc?" he said.

"Father!" was all I could gasp.

"Then you shall go," he answered. That was not bad for an old man who
had lost two sons for Monsieur!

I set out in the morning, light of baggage, purse, and heart. I can tell
naught of the journey, for I heeded only that at the end of it lay
Paris. I reached the city one day at sundown, and entered without a
passport at the St. Denis gate, the warders being hardly so strict as
Mayenne supposed. I was dusty, foot-sore, and hungry, in no guise to
present myself before Monsieur; wherefore I went no farther that night
than the inn of the Amour de Dieu, in the Rue des Coupejarrets.

Far below my garret window lay the street--a trench between the high
houses. Scarce eight feet off loomed the dark wall of the house
opposite. To me, fresh from the wide woods of St. Quentin, it seemed the
desire of Paris folk to outhuddle in closeness the rabbits in a warren.
So ingenious were they at contriving to waste no inch of open space
that the houses, standing at the base but a scant street's width apart,
ever jutted out farther at each story till they looked to be fairly
toppling together. I could see into the windows up and down the way; see
the people move about within; hear opposite neighbours call to each
other. But across from my aery were no lights and no people, for that
house was shuttered tight from attic to cellar, its dark front as
expressionless as a blind face. I marvelled how it came to stand empty
in that teeming quarter.

Too tired, however, to wonder long, I blew out the candle, and was
asleep before I could shut my eyes.

* * * * *

Crash! Crash! Crash!

I sprang out of bed in a panic, thinking Henry of Navarre was bombarding
Paris. Then, being fully roused, I perceived that the noise was thunder.

From the window I peered into floods of rain. The peals died away.
Suddenly came a terrific lightning-flash, and I cried out in
astonishment. For the shutter opposite was open, and I had a vivid
vision of three men in the window.

Then all was dark again, and the thunder shook the roof.

I stood straining my eyes into the night, waiting for the next flash.
When it came it showed me the window barred as before. Flash followed
flash; I winked the rain from my eyes and peered in vain. The shutter
remained closed as if it had never been opened. Sleep rolled over me in
a great wave as I groped my way back to bed.

II

_At the Amour de Dieu._

When I woke in the morning, the sun was shining broadly into the room,
glinting in the little pools of water on the floor. I stared at them,
sleepy-eyed, till recollection came to me of the thunder-storm and the
open shutter and the three men. I jumped up and ran to the window. The
shutters opposite were closed; the house just as I had seen it first,
save for the long streaks of wet down the wall. The street below was one
vast puddle. At all events, the storm was no dream, as I half believed
the vision to be.

I dressed speedily and went down-stairs. The inn-room was deserted save
for Maitre Jacques, who, with heat, demanded of me whether I took myself
for a prince, that I lay in bed till all decent folk had been hours
about their business, and then expected breakfast. However, he brought
me a meal, and I made no complaint that it was a poor one.

"You have strange neighbours in the house opposite," said I.

He started, and the thin wine he was setting before me splashed over on
the table.

"What neighbours?"

"Why, they who close their shutters when other folks would keep them
open, and open them when others keep them shut," I said airily. "Last
night I saw three men in the window opposite mine."

He laughed.

"Aha, my lad, your head is not used to our Paris wines. That is how you
came to see visions."

"Nonsense," I cried, nettled. "Your wine is too well watered for that,
let me tell you, Maitre Jacques."

"Then you dreamed it," he said huffily. "The proof is that no one has
lived in that house these twenty years."

Now, I had plenty to trouble about without troubling my head over
night-hawks, but I was vexed with him for putting me off. So, with a
fine conceit of my own shrewdness, I said:

"If it was only a dream, how came you to spill the wine?"

He gave me a keen glance, and then, with a look round to see that no one
was by, leaned across the table, up to me.

"You are sharp as a gimlet," said he. "I see I may as well tell you
first as last. Marry, an you will have it, the place is haunted."

"Holy Virgin!" I cried, crossing myself.

"Aye. Twenty years ago, in the great massacre--you know naught of that:
you were not born, I take it, and, besides, are a country boy. But I was
here, and I know. A man dared not stir out of doors that dark day. The
gutters ran blood."

"And that house--what happened in that house?"

"Why, it was the house of a Huguenot gentleman, M. de Bethune," he
answered, bringing out the name hesitatingly in a low voice. "They were
all put to the sword--the whole household. It was Guise's work. The Duc
de Guise sat on his white horse, in this very street here, while it was
going on. Parbleu! that was a day."

"Mon dieu! yes."

"Well, that is an old story now," he resumed in a different tone.
"One-and-twenty years ago, that was. Such things don't happen now. But
the people, they have not forgotten; they will not go near that house.
No one will live there."

"And have others seen as well as I?"

"So they say. But I'll not let it be talked of on my premises. Folk
might get to think them too near the haunted house. 'Tis another matter
with you, though, since you have had the vision."

"There were three men," I said, "young men, in sombre dress--"

"M. de Bethune and his cousins. What further? Did you hear shrieks?"

"There was naught further," I said, shuddering. "I saw them for the
space of a lightning-flash, plain as I see you. The next minute the
shutters were closed again."

"'Tis a marvel," he answered gravely. "But I know what has disturbed
them in their graves, the heretics! It is that they have lost their
leader."

I stared at him blankly, and he added:

"Their Henry of Navarre."

"But he is not lost. There has been no battle."

"Lost to them," said Maitre Jacques, "when he turns Catholic."

"Oh!" I cried.

"Oh!" he mocked. "You come from the country; you don't know these
things."

"But the King of Navarre is too stiff-necked a heretic!"

"Bah! Time bends the stiffest neck. Tell me this: for what do the
learned doctors sit in council at Mantes?"

"Oh," said I, bewildered, "you tell me news, Maitre Jacques."

"If Henry of Navarre be not a Catholic before the month is out, spit me
on my own jack," he answered, eying me rather keenly as he added:

"It should be welcome news to you."

Welcome was it; it made plain the reason Monsieur's change of base. Yet
it was my duty to be discreet.

"I am glad to hear of any heretic coming to the faith," I said.

"Pshaw!" he cried. "To the devil with pretences! 'Tis an open secret
that your patron has gone over to Navarre."

"I know naught of it."

"Well, pardieu! my Lord Mayenne does, then. If when he came to Paris M.
de St. Quentin counted that the League would not know his parleyings, he
was a fool."

"His parleyings?" I echoed feebly.

"Aye, the boy in the street knows he has been with Navarre. For, mark
you, all France has been wondering these many months where St. Quentin
was coming out. His movements do not go unnoted like a yokel's. But, i'
faith, he is not dull; he understands that well enough. Nay, 'tis my
belief he came into the city in pure effrontery to show them how much he
dared. He is a bold blade, your duke. And, mon dieu! it had its effect.
For the Leaguers have been so agape with astonishment ever since that
they have not raised a finger against him."

"Yet you do not think him safe?"

"Safe, say you? Safe! Pardieu! if you walked into a cage of lions, and
they did not in the first instant eat you, would you therefore feel
safe? He was stark mad to come to Paris. There is no man the League
hates more, now they know they have lost him, and no man they can afford
so ill to spare to King Henry. A great Catholic noble, he would be meat
and drink to the Bearnais. He was mad to come here."

"And yet nothing has happened to him."

"Verily, fortune favours the brave. No, nothing has happened--yet. But I
tell you true, Felix, I had rather be the poor innkeeper of the Amour de
Dieu than stand in M. de St. Quentin's shoes."

"I was talking with the men here last night," I said. "There was not one
but had a good word for Monsieur."

"Aye, so they have. They like his pluck. And if the League kills him it
is quite on the cards that the people will rise up and make the town
lively. But that will not profit M. de St. Quentin if he is dead."

I would not be dampened, though, by an old croaker.

"Nay, maitre, if the people are with him, the League will not dare--"

"There you fool yourself, my springald. If there is one thing which the
nobles of the League neither know nor care about it is what the people
think. They sit wrangling over their French League and their Spanish
League, their kings and their princesses, and what this lord does and
that lord threatens, and they give no heed at all to us--us, the people.
But they will find out their mistake. Some day they will be taught that
the nobles are not all of France. There will come a reckoning when more
blood will flow in Paris than ever flowed on St. Bartholomew's day. They
think we are chained down, do they? Pardieu! there will come a day!"

I scarcely knew the man; his face was flushed, his eyes sparkling as if
they saw more than the common room and mean street. But as I stared the
glow faded, and he said in a lower tone:

"At least, it will happen unless Henry of Navarre comes to save us from
it. He is a good fellow, this Navarre."

"They say he can never enter Paris."

"They say lies. Let him but leave his heresies behind him and he can
enter Paris to-morrow."

"Mayenne does not think so."

"No; but Mayenne knows little of what goes on. He does not keep an inn
in the Rue Coupejarrets."

He stated the fact so gravely that I had to laugh.

"Laugh if you like; but I tell you, Felix Broux, my lord's
council-chamber is not the only place where they make kings. We do it,
too, we of the Rue Coupejarrets."

"Well," said I, "I leave you, then, to make kings. I must be off to my
duke. What's the scot, maitre?"

He dropped the politician, and was all innkeeper in a second.

"A crown!" I cried in indignation. "Do you think I am made of crowns?
Remember, I am not yet Minister of Finance."

"No, but soon will be," he grinned. "Besides, what I ask is little
enough, God knows. Do you think food is cheap in a siege?"

"Then I pray Navarre may come soon and end it."

"Amen to that," said old Jacques, quite gravely. "If he comes a Catholic
it cannot be too soon."

I counted out my pennies with a last grumble.

"They ought to call this the Rue Coupebourses."

He laughed; he could afford to, with my silver jingling in his pouch. He
embraced me tenderly at parting, and hoped to see me again at his inn. I
smiled to myself; I had not come to Paris--I--to stay in the Rue
Coupejarrets!

III

_M. le Duc is well guarded._

I stepped out briskly from the inn, pausing now and again to inquire my
way to the Hotel St. Quentin, which stood, I knew, in the Quartier
Marais, where all the grand folk lived. Once I had found the broad,
straight Rue St. Denis, all I need do was to follow it over the hill
down to the river-bank; my eyes were free, therefore, to stare at all
the strange sights of the great city--markets and shops and churches and
prisons. But most of all did I gape at the crowds in the streets. I had
scarce realized there were so many people in the world as passed me that
summer morning in the Town of Paris. Bewilderingly busy and gay the
place appeared to my country eyes, though in truth at that time Paris
was at its very worst, the spirit being well-nigh crushed out of it by
the sieges and the iron rule of the Sixteen.

I knew little enough of politics, and yet I was not so dull as not to
see that great events must happen soon. A crisis had come. I looked at
the people I passed who were going about their business so tranquilly.
Every one of them must be either Mayenne's man, or Navarre's. Before a
week was out these peaceable citizens might be using pikes for tools and
exchanging bullets for good mornings. Whatever happened, here was I in
Paris in the thick of it! My feet fairly danced under me; I could not
reach the hotel soon enough. Half was I glad of Monsieur's danger, for
it gave me chance to show what stuff I was made of. Live for him, die
for him--whatever fate could offer I was ready for.

The hotel, when at length I arrived before it, was no disappointment.
Here one did not wait till midday to see the sun; the street was of
decent width, and the houses held themselves back with reserve, like the
proud gentlemen who inhabited them. Nor did one here regret his
possession of a nose, as he was forced to do in the Rue Coupejarrets.

Of all the mansions in the place, the Hotel St. Quentin was, in my
opinion, the most imposing; carved and ornamented and stately, with
gardens at the side. But there was about it none of that stir and
liveliness one expects to see about the houses of the great. No visitors
passed in or out, and the big iron gates were shut, as if none were
looked for. Of a truth, the persons who visited Monsieur these days
preferred to slip in by the postern after nightfall, as if there had
never been a time when they were proud to be seen in his hall.

Beyond the grilles a sentry, in the green and scarlet of Monsieur's
men-at-arms, stood on guard, and I called out to him boldly.

He turned at once; then looked as if the sight of me scarce repaid him.

"I wish to enter, if you please," I said. "I am come to see M. le Duc."

"You?" he ejaculated, his eye wandering over my attire, which, none of
the newest, showed signs of my journey.

"Yes, I," I answered in some resentment. "I am one of his men."

He looked me up and down with a grin.

"Oh, one of his men! Well, my man, you must know M. le Duc is not
receiving to-day."

"I am Felix Broux," I told him.

"You may be Felix anybody for all it avails; you cannot see Monsieur."

"Then I will see Vigo." Vigo was Monsieur's Master of Horse, the
staunchest man in France. This sentry was nobody, just a common fellow
picked up since Monsieur left St. Quentin, but Vigo had been at his side
these twenty years.

"Vigo, say you! Vigo does not see street boys."

"I am no street boy," I cried angrily. "I know Vigo well. You shall
smart for flouting me, when I have Monsieur's ear."

"Aye, when you have! Be off with you, rascal. I have no time to bother
with you."

"Imbecile!" I sputtered. But he had turned his back on me and resumed
his pacing up and down the court.

"Oh, very well for you, monsieur," I cried out loudly, hoping he could
hear me. "But you will laugh t'other side of your mouth by and by. I'll
pay you off."

It was maddening to be halted like this at the door of my goal; it made
a fool of me. But while I debated whether to set up an outcry that
would bring forward some officer with more sense than the surly sentry,
or whether to seek some other entrance, I became aware of a sudden
bustle in the courtyard, a narrow slice of which I could see through the
gateway. A page dashed across; then a pair of flunkeys passed. There was
some noise of voices and, finally, of hoofs and wheels. Half a dozen
men-at-arms ran to the gates and swung them open, taking their stand on
each side. Clearly, M. le Duc was about to drive out.

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