Catherine De Medici, Honoré de Balzac [best short novels of all time TXT] 📗

/> "My God!" he said, as he went outside and looked up at the sky, "thou for whose holy religion I struggle, give me the light of thy countenance that I may penetrate the secrets of my mother's heart while I question the Ruggieri."


III. MARIE TOUCHET

The little house of Madame de Belleville, where Charles IX. had deposited his prisoners, was the last but one in the rue de l'Autruche on the side of the rue Saint-Honore. The street gate, flanked by two little brick pavilions, seemed very simple in those days, when gates and their accessories were so elaborately treated. It had two pilasters of stone cut in facets, and the coping represented a reclining woman holding a cornucopia. The gate itself, closed by enormous locks, had a wicket through which to examine those who asked admittance. In each pavilion lived a porter; for the king's extremely capricious pleasure required a porter by day and by night. The house had a little courtyard, paved like those of Venice. At this period, before carriages were invented, ladies went about on horseback, or in litters, so that courtyards could be made magnificent without fear of injury from horses or carriages. This fact is always to be remembered as an explanation of the narrowness of streets, the small size of courtyards, and certain other details of the private dwellings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The house, of one story only above the ground-floor, was capped by a sculptured frieze, above which rose a roof with four sides, the peak being flattened to form a platform. Dormer windows were cut in this roof, with casings and pediments which the chisel of some great artist had covered with arabesques and dentils; each of the three windows on the main floor were equally beautiful in stone embroidery, which the brick of the walls showed off to great advantage. On the ground-floor, a double portico, very delicately decorated, led to the entrance door, which was covered with bosses cut with facets in the Venetian manner,--a style of decoration which was further carried on round the windows placed to right and left of the door.

A garden, carefully laid out in the fashion of the times and filled with choice flowers, occupied a space behind the house equal to that of the courtyard in front. A grape-vine draped its walls. In the centre of a grass plot rose a silver fir-tree. The flower-borders were separated from the grass by meandering paths which led to an arbor of clipped yews at the farther end of the little garden. The walls were covered with a mosaic of variously colored pebbles, coarse in design, it is true, but pleasing to the eye from the harmony of its tints with those of the flower-beds. The house had a carved balcony on the garden side, above the door, and also on the front toward the courtyard, and around the middle windows. On both sides of the house the ornamentation of the principal window, which projected some feet from the wall, rose to the frieze; so that it formed a little pavilion, hung there like a lantern. The casings of the other windows were inlaid on the stone with precious marbles.

In spite of the exquisite taste displayed in the little house, there was an air of melancholy about it. It was darkened by the buildings that surrounded it and by the roofs of the hotel d'Alencon which threw a heavy shadow over both court and garden; moreover, a deep silence reigned there. But this silence, these half-lights, this solitude, soothed a royal soul, which could there surrender itself to a single emotion, as in a cloister where men pray, or in some sheltered home wherein they love.

It is easy now to imagine the interior charm and choiceness of this haven, the sole spot in his kingdom where this dying Valois could pour out his soul, reveal his sufferings, exercise his taste for art, and give himself up to the poesy he loved,--pleasures denied him by the cares of a cruel royalty. Here, alone, were his great soul and his high intrinsic worth appreciated; here he could give himself up, for a few brief months, the last of his life, to the joys of fatherhood,--pleasures into which he flung himself with the frenzy that a sense of his coming and dreadful death impressed on all his actions.

In the afternoon of the day succeeding the night-scene we have just described, Marie Touchet was finishing her toilet in the oratory, which was the boudoir of those days. She was arranging the long curls of her beautiful black hair, blending them with the velvet of a new coif, and gazing intently into her mirror.

"It is nearly four o'clock; that interminable council must surely be over," she thought to herself. "Jacob has returned from the Louvre; he says that everybody he saw was excited about the number of the councillors summoned and the length of the session. What can have happened? Is it some misfortune? Good God! surely _he_ knows how suspense wears out the soul! Perhaps he has gone a-hunting? If he is happy and amused, it is all right. When I see him gay, I forget all I have suffered."

She drew her hands round her slender waist as if to smooth some trifling wrinkle in her gown, turning sideways to see if its folds fell properly, and as she did so, she caught sight of the king on the couch behind her. The carpet had so muffled the sound of his steps that he had slipped in softly without being heard.

"You frightened me!" she said, with a cry of surprise, which was quickly repressed.

"Were you thinking of me?" said the king.

"When do I not think of you?" she answered, sitting down beside him.

She took off his cap and cloak, passing her hands through his hair as though she combed it with her fingers. Charles let her do as she pleased, but made no answer. Surprised at this, Marie knelt down to study the pale face of her royal master, and then saw the signs of a dreadful weariness and a more consummate melancholy than any she had yet consoled. She repressed her tears and kept silence, that she might not irritate by mistaken words the sorrow which, as yet, she did not understand. In this she did as tender women do under like circumstances. She kissed that forehead, seamed with untimely wrinkles, and those livid cheeks, trying to convey to the worn-out soul the freshness of hers,--pouring her spirit into the sweet caresses which met with no response. Presently she raised her head to the level of the king's, clasping him softly in her arms; then she lay still, her face hidden on that suffering breast, watching for the opportune moment to question his dejected mind.

"My Charlot," she said at last, "will you not tell your poor, distressed Marie the troubles that cloud that precious brow, and whiten those beautiful red lips?"

"Except Charlemagne," he said in a hollow voice, "all the kings of France named Charles have ended miserably."

"Pooh!" she said, "look at Charles VIII."

"That poor prince!" exclaimed the king. "In the flower of his age he struck his head against a low door at the chateau of Amboise, which he was having decorated, and died in horrible agony. It was his death which gave the crown to our family."

"Charles VII. reconquered his kingdom."

"Darling, he died" (the king lowered his voice) "of hunger; for he feared being poisoned by the dauphin, who had already caused the death of his beautiful Agnes. The father feared his son; to-day the son dreads his mother!"

"Why drag up the past?" she said hastily, remembering the dreadful life of Charles VI.

"Ah! sweetest, kings have no need to go to sorcerers to discover their coming fate; they need only turn to history. I am at this moment endeavoring to escape the fate of Charles the Simple, who was robbed of his crown, and died in prison after seven years' captivity."

"Charles V. conquered the English," she cried triumphantly.

"No, not he, but du Guesclin. He himself, poisoned by Charles de Navarre, dragged out a wretched existence."

"Well, Charles IV., then?"

"He married three times to obtain an heir, in spite of the masculine beauty of the children of Philippe le Bel. The first house of Valois ended with him, and the second is about to end in the same way. The queen has given me only a daughter, and I shall die without leaving her pregnant; for a long minority would be the greatest curse I could bequeath to the kingdom. Besides, if I had a son, would he live? The name of Charles is fatal; Charlemagne exhausted the luck of it. If I left a son I would tremble at the thought that he would be Charles X."

"Who is it that wants to seize your crown?"

"My brother d'Alencon conspires against it. Enemies are all about me."

"Monsieur," said Marie, with a charming little pout, "do tell me something gayer."

"Ah! my little jewel, my treasure, don't call me 'monsieur,' even in jest; you remind me of my mother, who stabs me incessantly with that title, by which she seems to snatch away my crown. She says 'my son' to the Duc d'Anjou--I mean the king of Poland."

"Sire," exclaimed Marie, clasping her hands as though she were praying, "there is a kingdom where you are worshipped. Your Majesty fills it with his glory, his power; and there the word 'monsieur,' means 'my beloved lord.'"

She unclasped her hands, and with a pretty gesture pointed to her heart. The words were so _musiques_ (to use a word of the times which depicted the melodies of love) that Charles IX. caught her round the waist with the nervous force that characterized him, and seated her on his knee, rubbing his forehead gently against the pretty curls so coquettishly arranged. Marie thought the moment favorable; she ventured a few kisses, which Charles allowed rather than accepted, then she said softly:--

"If my servants were not mistaken you were out all night in the streets, as in the days when you played the pranks of a younger son."

"Yes," replied the king, still lost in his own thoughts.

"Did you fight the watchman and frighten some of the burghers? Who are the men you brought here and locked up? They must be very criminal, as you won't allow any communication with them. No girl was ever locked in as carefully, and they have not had a mouthful to eat since they came. The Germans whom Solern left to guard them won't let any one go near the room. Is it a joke you are playing; or is it something serious?"

"Yes, you are right," said the king, coming out of his reverie, "last night I did scour the roofs with Tavannes and the Gondis. I wanted to try my old follies with the old companions; but my legs were not what they once were; I did not dare leap the streets; though we did jump two alleys from one roof to the next. At the second, however, Tavannes and I, holding on to a chimney, agreed that we couldn't do it again. If either of us had been alone we couldn't have done it then."

"I'll wager that you sprang first." The king smiled. "I know why you risk your life in that way."

"And why, you little witch?"

"You are tired of life."

"Ah, sorceress! But I am being hunted down by sorcery," said the king, resuming his anxious look.

"My sorcery is