But never more the same two sister pearls

Ran down the silken thread to kiss each other.--Tennyson

Berenger was obliged to crave permission from the King to spend

some hours in riding with Osbert to the first hostel on their way,

to make arrangements for the relay of horses that was to meet them

there, and for the reception of Veronique, Eustacie's maid, who was

to be sent off very early in the morning on a pillion behind

Osbert, taking with her the articles of dress that would be wanted

to change her mistress from the huntress maid of honour to the

English dame.

It was not long after he had been gone that a sound of wheels and

trampling horses was heard in one of the forest drives. Charles,

who was amusing himself with shooting at a mark together with

Sidney and Teligny, handed his weapon to an attendant, and came up

with looks of restless anxiety to his Queen, who was placed in her

chair under the tree, with the Admiral and her ladies round her, as

judges of the prize.

'Here is le brouillon,' he muttered. 'I thought we had been left

in peace too long.'

Elisabeth, who Brantome says was water, while her husband was fire,

tried to murmur some hopeful suggestion; and poor little Eustacie,

clasping her hands, could scarcely refrain from uttering the cry,

'Oh, it is my uncle! Do not let him take me!'

The next minute there appeared four horses greatly heated and

jaded, drawing one of the court coaches; and as it stopped at the

castle gate, two ladies became visible within it--the portly form

of Queen Catherine, and on the back seat the graceful figure of

Diane de Ribaumont.

Charles swore a great oath under his breath. He made a step

forward, but then his glance falling on Eustacie's face, which had

flushed to the rosiest hue of the carnation, he put his finger upon

his lip with a menacing air, and then advanced to greet his mother,

followed by his gentlemen.

'Fear not, my dear child,' said the young Queen, taking Eustacie's

arm as she rose for the same purpose. 'Obey the King, and he will

take care that all goes well.'

The gentle Elisabeth was, however, the least regarded member of the

royal family. Her mother-in-law had not even waited to greet her,

but had hurried the King into his cabinet, with a precipitation

that made the young Queen's tender heart conclude that some

dreadful disaster had occurred, and before Mademoiselle de

Ribaumont had had time to make her reverence, she exclaimed,

breathlessly, 'Oh, is it ill news? Not from Vienna?'

'No, no, Madame; reassure yourself,' replied Diane; 'it is merely

that her Majesty, being on the way to Monceaux with Mesdames,

turned out of her road to make a flying visit to your graces, and

endeavour to persuade you to make her party complete.'

Elisabeth looked as if questioning with herself if this would

possibly be the whole explanation. Monceaux was a castle belonging

to the Queen Dowager at no great distance from Montpipeau, but

there had been no intention of leaving Paris before the wedding,

which was fixed for the seventeenth of August, and the bridegroom

was daily expected. She asked who was the party at Monceaux, and

was told that Madame de Nemours had gone thither the evening

before, with her son, M. de Guise, to make ready; and that Monsieur

was escorting thither his two sisters, Madame de Lorraine and

Madame Marguerite. The Queen-mother had set out before them very

early in the morning.

'You must have made great speed,' said Elisabeth; 'it is scarcely

two o'clock.'

'Truly we did, Madame; two of our horses even died upon the road;

but the Queen was anxious to find the King ere he should set off on

one of his long chases.'

Diane, at every spare moment, kept her eyes interrogatively fixed

on her cousin, and evidently expected that the taciturn Queen, to

whom a long conversation, in any language but Spanish, was always a

grievance, would soon dismiss them both; and Eustacie did not know

whether to be thankful or impatient, as Elisabeth, with tardy,

hesitating, mentally-translated speech, inquired into every

circumstance of the death of the poor horses, and then into all the

court gossip, which she was currently supposed neither to hear nor

understand; and then bethought herself that this good Mademoiselle

de Ribaumont could teach her that embroidery stitch she had so long

wished to learn. Taking her arm, she entered the hall, and

produced her work, so as effectually to prevent any communication

between the cousins; Eustacie, meanwhile her heart clinging to her

friend, felt her eyes filling with tears at the thoughts of how

unkind her morrow's flight would seem without one word of farewell

or of confidence, and was already devising tokens of tenderness to

be left behind for Diane's consolation, when the door of the

cabinet opened, and Catherine sailed down the stairs, with her

peculiar gliding step and sweep of dignity. The King followed her

with a face of irresolution and distress. He was evidently under

her displeasure; but she advanced to the young Queen with much

graciousness, and an air of matronly solicitude.

'My daughter,' she said, 'I have just assured the King that I

cannot leave you in these damp forests. I could not be responsible

for the results of the exposure any longer. It is for him to make

his own arrangements, but I brought my coach empty on purpose to

transport you and your ladies to Monceaux.

The women may follow with the mails. You can be ready as soon as

the horses are harnessed.'

Elisabeth was used to passiveness. She turned one inquiring look

to her husband, but he looked sullen, and, evidently cowed by his

mother, uttered not a word. She could only submit, and Catherine

herself add that there was room for Madame de Sauve and

Mademoiselle de Nid de Merle. Madame la Comtesse should follow!

It was self-evident that propriety would not admit of the only

demoiselle being left behind among the gentlemen. Poor Eustacie,

she looked mutely round as if she hoped to escape! What was the

other unkindness to this? And ever under the eyes of Diane too,

who followed her to their chamber, when she went to prepare, so

that she could not even leave a token for him where he would have

been most certain to find it. Moments were few; but at the very

last, while the queens were being handed in the carriage, she

caught the eye of Philip Sidney. He saw the appealing look, and

came near. She tried to laugh. 'Here is my gage, Monsieur

Sidney,' she said, and held out a rose-coloured knot of ribbon;

then, as he came near enough, she whispered imploringly three of

her few English words--

'Give to HIM.'

'I take the gage as it is meant,' said Sidney, putting a knee to

the ground, and kissing the trembling fingers, ere he handed her

into the carriage. He smiled and waved his hand as he met her

earnest eyes. One bow contained a scrap of paper pricked with

needle-holes. Sidney would not have made out those pricks for the

whole world, even had he been able to do more than hastily secure

the token, before the unhappy King, with a paroxysm of violent

interjections, demanded of him whether the Queen of England, woman

though she were, ever were so beset, and never allowed a moment to

herself; then, without giving time for an answer, he flung away to

his cabinet, and might be heard pacing up and down there in a

tempest of perplexity. He came forth only to order his horse, and

desire M. de Sauve and a few grooms to be ready instantly to ride

with him. His face was full of pitiable perplexity--the smallest

obstacle was met with a savage oath; and he was evidently in all

the misery of a weak yet passionate nature, struggling with

impotent violence against a yoke that evidently mastered it.

He flung a word to his guests that he should return ere night, and

they thus perceived that he did not intend their dismissal.

'Poor youth,' said Coligny, mildly, 'he will be another being when

we have him in our camp with the King of Navarre for his

companion.'

And then the Admiral repaired to his chamber to write one of his

many fond letters to the young wife of his old age; while his son-

in-law and Philip Sidney agreed to ride on, so as to met poor young

Ribaumont, and prepare him for the blow that had befallen him

personally, while they anxiously debated what this sudden descent

of the Queen-mother might portend. Teligny was ready to believe in

any evil intention on her part, but he thought himself certain of

the King's real sentiments, and in truth Charles had never treated

any man with such confidence as this young Huguenot noble, to whom

he had told his opinion of each of his counsellors, and his

complete distrust of all. That pitying affection which clings to

those who cling to it, as well as a true French loyalty of heart,

made Teligny fully believe that however Catherine might struggle to

regain her ascendancy, and whatever apparent relapses might be

caused by Charles's habitual subjection to her, yet the high

aspirations and strong sense of justice inherent in the King were

asserting themselves as his youth was passing into manhood; and

that the much-desired war would enable him to develop all his

higher qualities. Sidney listened, partially agreed, talked of

caution, and mused within himself whether violence might not

sometimes be mistaken for vigour.

Ere long, the merry cadence of an old English song fell with a

homelike sound upon Sidney's ear, and in another moment they were

in sight of Berenger, trotting joyously along, with a bouquet of

crimson and white heather-blossoms in his hand, and his bright

young face full of exultation in his arrangements. He shouted

gaily as he saw them, calling out, 'I thought I should meet you!

but I wondered not to have heard the King's bugle-horn. Where are

the rest of the hunters?'

'Unfortunately we have had another sort of hunt to-day,' said

Sidney, who had ridden forward to meet him; 'and one that I fear,

will disquiet you greatly.'

'How! Not her uncle?' exclaimed Berenger.

'No, cheer up, my friend, it was not she who was the object of the

chase; it was this unlucky King,' he added, speaking English, 'who

has been run to earth by his mother.'

'Nay, but what is that to me?' said Berenger, with impatient

superiority to the affairs of the nation. 'How does it touch us?'

Sidney related the abstraction of the young Queen and her ladies,

and then handed over the rose-coloured token, which Berenger took

with vehement ardour; then his features quivered as he read the

needle-pricked words-two that he had playfully insisted on her

speaking and spelling after him in his adopted tongue, then not

vulgarized, but the tenderest in the language, 'Sweet heart.' That

was all, but to him they conveyed constancy to him and his,

whatever might betide, and an entreaty not to leave her to her

fate.

'My dearest! never!' he muttered; then turning hastily as he put

the precious token into his bosom, he exclaimed, 'Are their women

yet gone?' and being assured that they were not departed when the

two friends had set out, he pushed his horse on at speed, so as to

be able to send a reply by Veronique. He was barely in time: the

clumsy wagon-like conveyance of the waiting-women stood at the door

of the castle, in course of being packed with the Queen's wardrobe,

amid the janglings of lackeys, and expostulating cries of femmes

de chambre, all in the worst possible humour at being crowded up

with their natural enemies, the household of the Queen-mother.

Veronique, a round-faced Angevin girl--who, like her lady, had not

parted with all her rustic simplicity and honesty, and who had been

necessarily taken into their confidence--was standing apart from

the whirl of confusion, holding the leashes of two or three little

dogs that had been confided to her care, that their keepers might

with more ease throw themselves into the melee. Her face lighted

up as she saw the Baron de Ribaumont arrive.

'Ah, sir, Madame will be so happy that I have seen Monsieur once

more,' she exclaimed under her breath, as he approached her.

'Alas! there is not a moment to write,' he said, looking at the

vehicle, already fast filling, 'but give her these flowers; they

were gathered for her; give her ten thousand thanks for her token.

Tell her to hold firm, and that neither king nor queen, bolt nor

bar, shall keep me from her. Tell her, our watchword is HOPE.'

The sharp eyes of the duenna of the Queen's household, a rigid

Spanish dame, were already searching for stray members of her

flock, and Veronique had to hurry to her place, while Berenger

remained to hatch new plans, each wilder than the last, and torment

himself with guesses whether his project had been discovered.

Indeed, there were moments when he fancied the frustration of his

purpose the special object of Queen Catherine's journey, but he had

the wisdom to keep any such suggestion to himself.

The King came back by supper-time, looking no longer in a state of

indecision, but pale and morose. He spoke to no one as he entered,

and afterwards took his place at the head of the supper-table in

silence, which he did not break till the meal was nearly over.

Then he said abruptly, 'Gentlemen, our party has been broken up,

and I imagine that after our great hunt tomorrow, no one will have

any objection to return to Paris. We shall have merrier sport at

Fontainebleau when this most troublesome of weddings is over.'

There was nothing to be done but to bow acquiescence, and the King

again became grimly silent. After supper he challenged Coligny to

a game of chess, and not a word passed during the protracted

contest, either from the combatants or any other person in the

hall. It was as if the light had suddenly gone out to others

besides the disappointed and anxious Berenger, and a dull shadow

had fallen on the place only yesterday so lively, joyous, and

hopeful.

Berenger, chained by the etiquette of the royal presence, sat like

a statue, his back against the wall, his arms crossed on his

breast, his eyes fixed, chewing the cud of the memories of his

dream of bliss, or striving to frame the future to his will, and to

decide what was the next reasonable step he could take, or whether

his irrepressible longing to ride straight off to Monceaux, claim

his wife, and take her on horseback behind him, were a mere

impracticable vision.

The King, having been checkmated twice out of three times by the

Admiral, too honest a man not truly to accept his declaration of

not wanting courtly play, pushed away the board, and was attended

by them all to his COUCHER, which was usually made in public; and

the Queen being absent, the gentlemen were required to stand around

him till he was ready to fall asleep. He did not seem disposed to

talk, but begged Sidney to fetch his lute, and sing to him some

English airs that had taken his fancy much when sung by Sidney and

Berenger together.

Berenger felt as if they would choke him in his present turbid

state of resentful uncertainty; but even as the unhappy young King

spoke, it was with a heavy, restless groan, as he added, 'If you

know any lullaby that will give rest to a wretch tormented beyond

bearing, let us have it.'

'Alas, Sire!' said the Admiral, seeing that no perilous ears

remained in the room; 'there are better and more soothing words

than any mundane melody.'

'Peste! My good father,' said the King, petulantly, 'has not old

Phlipote, my nurse, rocked me to the sound of your Marot's Psalms,

and crooned her texts over me? I tell you I do not want to think.

I want what will drive thought away--to dull---'

'Alas! what dulls slays,' said the Admiral.

'Let it. Nothing can be worse than the present,' said the wretched

Charles; then, as if wishing to break away from Coligny, he threw

himself round towards Berenger, and said, 'Here; stoop down,

Ribaumont; a word with you. Your matters have gone up the

mountains, as the Italians say, with mine. But never fear. Keep

silence, and you shall have the bird in your hand, only you must be

patient. Hold! I will make you and Monsieur Sidney gentlemen of my

bed-chamber, which will give you the entree of the Louvre; and if

you cannot get her out of it without an eclat, then you must be a

much duller fellow than half my court. Only that it is not their

own wives that they abstract.

With this Berenger must needs content himself; and the certainty of

the poor King's good-will did enable him to do his part with Sidney

in the songs that endeavoured to soothe the torments of the evil

spirit which had on that day effected a fresh lodgment in that

weak, unwilling heart.

It was not till the memoirs of the secret actors in this tragedy

were brought to light that the key to these doings was discovered.

M. de Sauve, Charles's secretary, had disclosed his proceedings to

his wife; she, flattered by the attentions of the Duke of Anjou,

betrayed them to him; and the Queen-mother, terrified at the change

of policy, and the loss of the power she had enjoyed for so many

years, had hurried to the spot.

Her influence over her son resembled the fascination of a snake:

once within her reach he was unable to resist her; and when in

their tete-a-tete she reproached him with ill-faith towards her,

prophesied the overthrow of the Church, the desertion of his

allies, the ruin of his throne, and finally announced her intention

of hiding her head in her own hereditary estates in Auvergne,

begging, as a last favour, that he would give his brother time to

quit France instead of involving him in his own ruin, the poor

young man's whole soul was in commotion. His mother knew her

strength, left the poison to work, and withdrew in displeasure to

Monceaux, sure that, as in effect happened, he would not be long in

following her, imploring her not to abandon him, and making an

unconditional surrender of himself, his conscience, and his friends

into her hands. Duplicity was so entirely the element of the

court, that, even while thus yielding himself, it was as one

checked, but continuing the game; he still continued his connection

with the Huguenots, hoping to succeed in his aims by some future

counter-intrigue; and his real hatred of the court policy, and the

genuine desire to make common cause with them, served his mother's

purpose completely, since his cajolery thus became sincere. Her

purpose was, probably, not yet formed. It was power that she

loved, and hoped to secure by the intrigues she had played off all

her life; but she herself was in the hands of an infinitely more

bloodthirsty and zealous faction, who could easily accomplish their

ends by working on the womanly terrors of an unscrupulous mind.




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