j llEXLiBRiSg 
 
 
ed 
 Grey Robe 
 
 
 %^t A M ^^% 
 
 A NOVELIZATION OF "MARION 
 DELORME," THE GREATEST OF 
 VICTOR HUGO'S DRAMAS, 
 WHICH CHALLENGED THE IN- 
 STANT ATTENTION OF FRANCE 
 
 ""™""*""niriiih-a?nmi 
 
 VICTOR. HUGO 
 
 ansa 
 
 FEN NO <§L COMPANY 
 11 Eecst Sixteenth Street New York 
 
The 
 
 Knigllts of the Cross 
 
 By Henryk Sienkiewicz 
 
 The Beacon, Boston 
 
 It holds the reader spellbound, 
 •whether it rises into airy grace or 
 dips into dread realism. It gives a 
 powerful picture of the times in a 
 strong love story, showing how the 
 growth of Christianity was retarded 
 by the excessively horrible crimes 
 and abuses committed by the 
 Knights of the Cross under the 
 name of the Church . 
 
 The Churchman 
 
 It seems superior even to "Quo 
 Vadis" in strength and realism. 
 
 The Boston Transcript 
 
 Written with all the great novel- 
 ist's accustomed fire and intensity. 
 
 The St. Louis Globe-Democrat 
 
 As an historical romance it prom- 
 ises to rank with the other master- 
 pieces of the author. 
 
 The Boston Journal 
 
 A book that holds your almost 
 breathless attention as in a vise from 
 the very beginning, for in it love 
 and strife, the most thrilling of all 
 worldly subjects, are described mas- 
 terfully. 
 
 The St. Paul Globe 
 
 Thrillingly dramatic, full of 
 strange local color and very faithful 
 to its period, besides having that 
 sense of the mysterious and weird 
 that throbs in the Polish blood and 
 infects aUke their music and litera- 
 ture. 
 
 The Hartford Courant 
 
 Another remarkable book. His 
 descriptions are tremendously effec- 
 tive ; one can almost hear the sound 
 of the carnage ; to the mind's eye 
 the scene of battle is unfolded by a 
 master artist. 
 
 The Philadelphia Item 
 
 " The Knights of the Cross" has 
 in store for it a reputation as great ; 
 as that gained for ' ' Quo Vadis, ' ' the j 
 book that, in its day, took the world i 
 by storm. 
 
 The Mail and Express, N. V. 
 
 No one who reads ' ' The Knightaj 
 of the Cross " will for one moment! 
 regret the time thus spent. 
 
 The Philadelphia Telegraph 
 
 Of enthralling interest. 
 
 It is certain that " The Kniehf 
 of the Cross" wi. 
 much enthusiasm it 
 works by the samt 
 
 Time and the Hot 
 Characters such 
 delineated in Engl - 
 mance for decades 
 
 For those who re; 
 great literature, he 
 ten. 
 
 Saturday Evening 
 
 A thrilling roma 
 
 sorbing, and of bij 
 
 vtjn 
 
RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE 
 
 OR 
 
 RICHELIEU DEFIED 
 
• • • • • • 
 
RED ROBE AND 
 
 GREY ROBE; or 
 
 Richelieu D efi e d 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE 
 
 FRENCH OF 
 
 VICTOR HUGO 
 
 By HENRY L. WILLIAMS 
 
 Translator of his " Les Miserable s," " Ruy Bias" 
 "Notre Dame," "Collided Poems," Etc., Etc. 
 
 R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 
 
 9 and 1 1 East Sixteenth Street, New York 
 
,' « <   r 
 
 i » - . 
 
 Copyright, 1901 
 
 BY 
 
 R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 
 
 Red Robe and Grey Robe 
 
in 
 
 Red Robe and Grey Robe nyiA - ilL 
 
 OR 
 
 RICHELIEU DEFIED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHEN THE BLACK AND THE GREY GOWN 
 COMMUNE, LET RED PETTICOAT BEWARE. 
 
 It was towards the close of August, in the 
 Year of Grace, 1618. 
 
 Albeit stretched on the rack, for the taxes 
 and exactions of petty lords who tormented 
 sunny France, Nature remained insensible to 
 the fret of little man, however dressed, in cloth 
 of gold, in homespun or clerical black, and the 
 landscape was beauteous around and in the 
 bourg of Richelieu. 
 
 The chateau was built in the later days of 
 Francis I., and finished imperfectly, as all 
 things were "finished'' in those days when time 
 little counted, under the late King of beloved 
 fame, the Fourth Henry. It was almost en- 
 tirely hidden in immense white and red-flower- 
 ing horse-chestnuts. The old Castle of Du- 
 plessis-aux-Tours — alas! the towers were long 
 since toppled down into the dust of the cellars! 
 — lay in ruins on one of those twin hills over- 
 topping the vale, and this crumbling pile con- 
 fronted the old great church, on the other hill- 
 side, also fallen in decay. 
 
 The hamlet was pervaded with that deadly 
 stillness of mediaeval humble life; it was two 
 
 7 
 
 491302 
 
8 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 centuries behind the towns, where merchant 
 princes and burghers kept aflame the light of 
 progress; out in the fields were the men and 
 women, and even the children, at work, heap- 
 ing the rocks up in the center of the space, 
 which they threatened in another age to cover 
 and make arid; the stunted horses and oxen 
 toiled with no less stolidity; all that was hale 
 and sturdy had been dragged off to the wars. 
 What wars? Not one of the trudgers and toil- 
 ers could define them; few statesmen kept the 
 run of them, by the way ; "the wars," that suf- 
 ficed them — a hole in the earth somewhere to 
 which were hurried their cattle, grain, straw, 
 and grown-up sons! 
 
 A fine veil of mist rose and wrapped the 
 heights. It filled up the gaps whence had been 
 extracted stones displaced to build the new 
 church — a chapel in the chateau grounds — and 
 a hermitage up yonder on the hillside. A her- 
 mit had established himself there since a gen- 
 eration. 
 
 He had respected the sacred stones, in a 
 measure, but paid no heed to those of the cas- 
 tle, robbing those warriors of the race of Du- 
 plessis, who had escaped sword and arrow and 
 djerrid, with the hope to sleep in peace in their 
 birthplace. 
 
 It was perhaps a lesson on the evanescence 
 of fame, to see this fugitive from society, in his 
 dull black and coarse garb, sitting on a stone, 
 worn into a hollow in semblance of a seat, at 
 his jagged doorway, for his feet were on a stone 
 from a tomb; it showed carved hound and fal- 
 con and fragments of mailed feet, denoting 
 that the tomb violated was a gentle-blooded 
 warrior's. 
 
 The hermit viewed the scene, so habitual to 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 9 
 
 him, with listlessness, never dreaming, per- 
 haps, of the lord of his manor who had shed 
 his blood to be licked up by the burning sands 
 of the Holy Land. He had crushed the viper- 
 death with his iron-shod feet — only to be dust, 
 bestrewing those wildfiowers there. 
 
 In the old man's eyes, vacant as was their 
 stare, floated the regretful glance of the aged 
 — remorse or recall of dead sentiments — be- 
 loved ones gone before, nevermore to return — 
 rarely in reverie. 
 
 In the other vale, the fog thickened and 
 rolled before an intermittent breeze, savoring 
 of forest leaves, which sent detached clouds 
 into the roofless cloisters, where they wavered, 
 like the spectres of priests, amid a colored 
 flicker from still unshivered stained glass and 
 the reflection from ivory and marble, mixed 
 with the fallen sill-stones. 
 
 In the nooks, martens were chirping, or they 
 darted out to chide passing birds, not of their 
 kind, with peevish cries. Above all, soared the 
 hawks, clamoring at the rising gale, of which 
 they saw the potency afar off, almost sublimely 
 ignoring the quarrels of the petty tribes under 
 their circuits. 
 
 "How silent!" mused the lone man, combing 
 his white beard with his thin fingers; "after 
 all, perhaps it is only the misanthrope who 
 seeks solitude!" 
 
 He had solemn reflections as he saw that 
 church and castle alike had come to grief. 
 
 The pain was augmented by his wandering 
 sight perceiving, above on a height and below 
 on the plain, where the rivulet coursed, a wind- 
 mill and a watermill, busy and noisy. 
 
 "The abbot preaches no more — the paladin 
 molders like his lance! but the workers for 
 
10 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 realization of the prayer: 'Give us this day our 
 daily bread!' they go on forever." 
 
 Monksbane dotted with blue the vast sheets 
 of grass, and mountain laurel, with death to 
 the kid in its glossy leaves, lined the goats' 
 paths up the steeps. 
 
 The poor little cottages seemed the more 
 miserable from the ground teeming with ver- 
 dure and agricultural wealth, to justify the 
 name of the manor — the RICH PLACE. 
 
 Suddenly the hermit started up. 
 
 On the higher land, where the main road 
 skirted the woods, yet to be felled and the 
 charcoal transported to the insatiable maw of 
 the county town, he saw something moving 
 amid the kaleidoscopical commingling of col- 
 ors — moss spangled with its tiny flowers, 
 lichens also, blooming in a modest way, the 
 grass exhaling perfume, the myriad marvels of 
 vegetation emitting their last salutation to the 
 sun and to summer, like so many censers. 
 
 "It is he, I think! I was sure my appeal 
 would bring him!" 
 
 Going into the cave, he picked up a pair of 
 German spectacles with which he read his 
 Bible, and donning them at the door, he 
 watched the solitary wayfarer coming towards 
 him with a steady foot, showing that he knew 
 the road even over the quagmire and by the 
 precipice. 
 
 The man who followed the zigzags of the 
 path, made rather by straying cattle than man, 
 was clad in grey and was not discernible at a 
 distance by the naked eye. 
 
 As he came down the slope, he stopped to 
 utter a prayer for both warriors and priests. 
 
 "He is right, they are both of his race — 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 11 
 
 soldier of Christ and soldier of Mars!" said the 
 hermit. 
 
 On ascending the castle hill, the stranger 
 showed that he was wearing a Capuchin's grey 
 frock, girdled by a rope; out of the hooded 
 cape peeped a black chinbeard and gleamed 
 dark eyes, deeply set, though the man was not 
 old and did not seem to be a student. His 
 walk was firm as a soldier's; his feet were 
 white and tender as if he had not long been' 
 accustomed to his footgear, rawhide sandals. 
 
 "This is not the Bishop, in disguise," mut- 
 tered the ascetic with surprise. "He could 
 never send a delegate in his stead when I im- 
 pressed the importance and the private inter- 
 ests involved in the affair!" 
 
 The Capuchin approached so near that the 
 hermit recognized him. 
 
 "Oh, it is the Father Joseph Le-Clerc du 
 Tremblay," said he, like one who had all the 
 talk of the count v at his fingers' ends. "To 
 you Peace, Father Joseph! Is the Bishop ill 
 that he has not come?" 
 
 "Bishop Alphonse of Lucay is in excellent 
 health, brother! but he cannot come. He 
 leaves all to me, if anything is to be done up- 
 on your relation. You can have the more trust 
 as you know me as his schoolmate at college, 
 and his secretary since he entered into the dio- 
 cese of Lucay." 
 
 "You are as welcome as he," returned the 
 hermit, but his disappointment was manifest. 
 "Be seated—" 
 
 "Yes, I traveled on foot." 
 
 "And have some refreshment." 
 
 "His Grace hopes that you have called him, 
 by his representative, for something better 
 than to lay the ghost of some disputed text 
 
12 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 of the Gospels! I was in Paris when he wrote 
 to dispatch me hither." 
 
 "The more reason you should refresh your- 
 self before we talk at length." 
 
 The monk Joseph looked into the hermitage; 
 it was no novelty to him; a large flat stone 
 was set upon two or three others serving as a 
 central support; on the slab two cups of hol- 
 lowed-out pineknots, two platters of stone, 
 arduously churned deeply, two wooden spoons, 
 and on a hearth, from the fire of which the 
 smoke curled up by a natural chimney, a pip- 
 kin breathing of soup flavored with wild mint. 
 
 "Boiled kid," said Simon; "and wheaten 
 cake — " 
 
 "I have eaten on the road," replied Joseph, 
 untempted; "and by your mien, I judge that 
 you have news to impart, making appetite su- 
 perfluous!" 
 
 The old man bowed gravely. 
 
 "It is a matter which you must decide upon, 
 and no other. You know that, though base- 
 born, I am a Richelieu, and so hold the inter- 
 ests of the house to heart?" 
 
 "You have proved it on occasion. You were 
 a brave soldier in Spain and the Dutch 
 Marches; before you cast off the mail for the 
 sackcloth. So this concerns the House?" 
 
 And he looked over the castle ruins towards 
 the chateau, its red tiled roof blotting the 
 green like a lake of blood after a battle. 
 
 "Wait till I receive my evening's supply of 
 milk." 
 
 He pointed to the village, on the circuitous 
 road from which a girl was approaching, car- 
 rying a pot on her shapely, golden head. 
 
 Joseph studied the newcomer, as she grace- 
 fully made her way. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 13 
 
 "I know her — but bow she bus grown! It is 
 the daughter of the weaver Hervieu." 
 
 "Ramire? Yes. A heathen name, which 
 the parish priest hesitated to apply to her with 
 sacred sanction until I assured him that it was 
 good orthodox Spanish." 
 
 "You were all-time her friend," observed the 
 traveler. 
 
 "My reasons are strong; but, hush, she is in 
 earshot." 
 
 The peasant girl, nimbly surmounting the 
 last difficulties of the ascent, encumbered with 
 strewn stones from the ruins, passed the monk 
 in grey without more emotion than she would 
 give a rock; Joseph, besides, had buried his 
 face in his hood and sat statuesquely. 
 
 She nodded to the older man, entered the 
 cave, poured the milk out of the pot into a 
 stone jug which she readily found, all as grace- 
 fully as a Hebe, and asked in a voice sweet as 
 befitted one so remarkably gentle among the 
 dull, coarse, overworked peasants of the day 
 and the region: 
 
 "Is there anvthing vou want for the morning, 
 Father Simon?" 
 
 "Nothing, child! You do not look so down- 
 cast as of late! Are your chicks feathering well 
 for the winter — have you sold the sheep at a 
 good price?" 
 
 "No, I feel better than I did. Good news 
 sends a hint before — like the dawn has its 
 fingers thrust out into the night before it dis- 
 covers its hand full of glory!" 
 
 Joseph stamped his foot. 
 
 This exaltation of speech seemed to irritate 
 him, as well as the refinement in one born a 
 boor and bound to remain such on the manor 
 of her fathers. 
 
14 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Good afternoon, father!" she said, coming 
 out, and, descending airily with the crock 
 under one arm, snatched at a cluster of jet 
 sloes from the thorn without wounding her 
 delicate hand, like a bee gathering honey amid 
 the briars. 
 
 '•What do you think of her?" asked Simon, 
 when the maid appeared on the opposite slope. 
 
 "Wondrously fair! no longer meet for the 
 oaf to whom the lord engaged her, when I was 
 last at Richelieu." 
 
 "Oh, she has a will of her own; and, inde- 
 pendently of the marquis, eluded the offers to 
 be run away with, from several: shipowners' 
 sons of Nantes, rich farmers — I know not all! 
 no coquette, but each day she seems to rise in 
 the column of valuation — " 
 
 "Self-appraisement?" 
 
 "Not her own but the parish's. On market- 
 day, you may see the pick of the young men 
 loiter round the cross at the cross-roads to 
 see her go by, perhaps to offer her a posy or a 
 fine fruit, just as they are practical or poeti- 
 cal!" 
 
 "Our rustics poetical? — save the mark! 
 However, I grant, I have read rhymes and seen 
 their cause — less justifying rhapsodies! She 
 is a morsel fit for a prince of the Blood Royal," 
 added the Capuchin, reflecting on the beauties 
 of the court. 
 
 "She is losing nothing by being born to a 
 bucolic atmosphere. If not a prince as high 
 as you say, some noble of no mean house is 
 a-courting Ramire." 
 
 He spoke with a mixture of pleasure, pride 
 and sorrow which perplexed the keen observer. 
 
 "What nobles are here? All the old ones 
 live retired, suffering from wounds or rheuma- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 15 
 
 tism owed to the religious wars, and their sons 
 are packed off to the capital to be brushed, 
 licked into shape, like Orson, for the court's 
 eyes, at one of those gentleman-finishing acad- 
 emics suggested by Henry IV., or, better, by 
 his Minister Sully." 
 
 "I think this cavalier is of the Academy of 
 Ovid. I saw on a tree-bark — and I could show 
 it you — a passage in Latin, cut by a Milan dag- 
 ger and not a lout's billhook. This lover is a 
 noble, and he is of the country, certes!" 
 
 "I should like to know who dare poach upon 
 Richelieu!'' said the monk with a most unholy 
 flash in his dark eyes. 
 
 "It is not known yet." 
 
 "Even to you, Simon, who glean the secrets 
 of all for leagues around?" returned the other 
 with a slight sneer. "You know when the no- 
 tary has forged a will as you do when the wood- 
 cutter has a poached Muscovy duck for supper! 
 You must know whom the lass loveth!" 
 
 "At least, I suspect he is no stranger to the 
 district." 
 
 "A stranger," and the listener laughed drily. 
 "I did not pass my holidays here, beside his 
 Grace the Bishop, reading under the ancient 
 elms his favorite Tasso, without observing your 
 peasants. Oh, of all the Arcadians who be- 
 grudge anybody but the natives enjoying their 
 vale! A stranger — marry! They would chase 
 out a stranger, with the dogs, and a fiery pe- 
 tard attached to his points!" 
 
 "Truly," resumed the hermit, "this is no 
 stranger. He has, on a stormy night, descended 
 yonder path, along the Devil's Backbone, with 
 a step as unshaken as yours an hour ago! lb' 
 threads all the woodland paths without dis- 
 placing a bramble or a mossy stone! At the 
 
16 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 same time, he fell into a trap I laid for him, 
 only escaping with the loss of the skirt of a 
 mantle. Velvet of Genoa, brocade on brocade, 
 with real gold lace; it is the garment of a high 
 noble, I vow!" 
 
 From a hole in the wall, between two stones, 
 a rude clothespress, he produced the rag in 
 question. 
 
 "Yes, it is rich stuff!" said Joseph. 
 
 "It was a trap made by the blacksmith for 
 the man-wolf supposed to prowl the environs 
 of the hamlet!" proceeded the hermit. "My 
 suspicions were aroused by the vehemence of 
 Ramire, protesting against a snare being set — 
 'For, who knows,' she said, with tears, and 
 wringing hands, 'what innocent might not fall 
 into the cruel jaws?' However, the unknown 
 rover escaped with his cloak torn, no more than 
 if he had run the gauntlet of the cloak-snatch- 
 ers of the town." 
 
 "I never saw such velvet in Paris," replied 
 the Capuchin. "It is rich — probably procured 
 from some of those peddlers who traverse the 
 kingdom and sell cheaply to cover their true 
 avocation of spies." 
 
 "Then, if this wanderer does not come from 
 the court," went on the hermit, "his irregulari- 
 ty of visits would lead to the belief that he is 
 with the army. Stay, now I bethink me, Ra- 
 mire hums an army song — " 
 
 He sang — indecorous though the words were 
 in a cenobite, devoted to peace: 
 
 "The cannon are speaking. 
 The trumpets are sounding; 
 
 The fifes they are squeaking, 
 
 Our hearts they are bounding — 
 'Tis the signal of war!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 17 
 
 "It is the March of the Regiment of Riche- 
 lieu,'' said the monk simply; "that the daugh- 
 ter of a soldier who marched with it should 
 murmur it, 'tis not remarkable." 
 
 "It is only a link in my chain of reasoning." 
 
 "To what end?" 
 
 "I asked my Lord Bishop to travel so far to 
 tell him all. But, hark!" 
 
 "To what?" 
 
 "We are no longer alone." 
 
 "That girl returned?" 
 
 "No, a man in the myrtle thicket yonder." 
 
 "Your eyes are better than mine, if thirty 
 years older! I see* — yes, I do see some one. 
 Odd! it is my own man." 
 
 "Your man?" 
 
 "Yes, you ought to know him; He comes 
 from Liesse; but what is he doing here, when 
 I left him at Champrave, with strict orders not 
 to quit the inn?'' 
 
 "If he is your man, call him!" 
 
 "Hist! Laubardemont!" cried out Joseph. 
 
 The man, caught by surprise, stopped in the 
 mass of foliage. But a repetition of his name 
 forced him to own that he was discovered, and 
 he slowly left the covert, recognized the hermi- 
 tage at the entry to which sat the two ecclesi- 
 astics, and with reluctance came towards them. 
 
 "I know the rogue now," observed the her- 
 mit. "He is the very picture of those queer 
 cagots of the Crumbling Mountain, the Bards- 
 of-the-Mount, as they call themselves, who pre- 
 tend to be descended from the Druids whom 
 Julius the Emperor reduced into impotency so 
 that they received the religion of Christ." 
 
 Laubardemont was a tall, lanky, bony man, 
 with a forbidding aspect on the whole; his 
 eyes were shifting and his complexion at the 
 
18 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 same time yellow with jaundice and flushed 
 with blood; he coveted and he shrank from 
 gratification, if it cost him an act of daring or 
 a pang. 
 
 "What are you doing in Richelieu?" asked 
 his master, for the rules of even the Capuchins 
 allowed a titled member to have his body-ser- 
 vant, if he pleased, outside the monastery 
 walls. 
 
 And Joseph du Tremblay was esteemed high- 
 ly as head of one of the first houses of the 
 county. 
 
 "Bringing bad news — " 
 
 "What bad news would reach you at the se- 
 cluded Golden Fowl?" 
 
 "Bad and sad, master mine!" responded the 
 fellow, slowly, as if to keep the hearers — for 
 the hermit was interested — on tenterhooks. 
 "There came to the Inn, from the South, a 
 varlet who was in flight for his native Picardy. 
 The Ficards are close knaves, but tlie host had 
 a choice wine which would unseal the tongue 
 of a Turkish mute. He and I hobnobbed, for he 
 was thankful that I, who told him I could see 
 he was fleeing for his life, did not denounce 
 him, and he shared with me his story." 
 
 "Let it not be a long one," said the Capuchin 
 severely. "It may have saved him, but it will 
 not save you the strappado!" 
 
 He brandished his rope girdle with a sig- 
 nificant swish in the air. 
 
 "But it concerns us! He was the man to a 
 Breton noble who, having slain his antagonist 
 in a duel, dismissed his valet, so that each 
 might seek safety his own way." 
 
 "To the point, thou trifler with fire! Duels, 
 spite of the interdictions, occur every day, 
 among nobles." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 19 
 
 "The antagonist of this Lieutenant The- 
 mines — " 
 
 "Stop! This sounds true," observed the Ca- 
 puchin. "Themines is the name of that valiant 
 old captain who arrested the Prince of Conde, 
 two years ago, when he was the chief of the 
 great Coalition against the realm." 
 
 "This is one of his sons, master. By the 
 same token, the duel came about by the master, 
 our marquis, joking young Themines on his 
 father having won the marshal's baton for that 
 capture. The marquis, seeing him display a 
 new sword with pride, said that he had better 
 brandish a cudgel! it was more in his family 
 line! So, of course, Themines retorted that he 
 could use either sword or cudgel on the speaker 
 of insolence reflecting on his courageous fath- 
 er! They fought, with swords, and Richelieu 
 fell!" concluded Laubardemont, blinking and 
 wringing his long hands till the knuckles 
 cracked. 
 
 "Our lord?" exclaimed the hermit, rising. 
 
 "I knew there was evil in the air," continued 
 the valet, making the sign of the cross; "as I 
 came from Paris, a humming-bird-moth flut- 
 tered across my path — " 
 
 ''Pish!" ejaculated Joseph scornfully. "This 
 looks as much like an assassination as a com- 
 bat." Turning to his brother in the church, he 
 whispered: "Father Simon, I should not argue 
 against the marquis being sent into the \Yest 
 Country on a mission for the young King. This 
 Breton hotspur was set upon him." 
 
 "Murder or fair play," interposed the valet 
 pertly, who had overheard, "my poor lord is 
 dead all the same!" 
 
 Simon looked up, with grief, if he felt any, 
 
20 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 suppressed, and a light of ambition in his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Bishop Alphonse would be the lord now if 
 he had not renounced all on entering the priest- 
 hood." 
 
 "True," answered the Capuchin, uneasily. 
 "He may rate them ill-advisers who urged that 
 step. Armand is now head of his house." 
 
 The servant stood restlessly on one foot and 
 the other, like a bittern in a marsh. 
 
 "Armand? young for the charge," observed 
 Simon. 
 
 "Eighteen! princes may rule as kings before 
 that age!" 
 
 "He is a princely youth!" 
 
 "Gifted, haughty, but frivolous as Alphonse 
 is "grave! Any bright light attracts the pres- 
 ent-day youth! though they scorch themselves." 
 
 "Verily, I think he is capable of rushing in- 
 to a flame for a prize, though he did burn 
 for it." 
 
 Laubardemont edged off, as though he feared 
 the turn the dialogue was taking. 
 
 "This sequestered father is a by-blow of the 
 Richelieus," mumbled he, "and the other is a 
 leech who clings to them. He made Count Al- 
 phonse surrender all and embrace the Church 
 . — see what he has lost by it! ah, as well put 
 finger betwixt bark and wood as wedge myself 
 betwixt that pair. But the marquis is dead! 
 he will pour no more hot wine down my back 
 or make me devour a red-hot omelet! beshrew 
 him! and may my blessing — read backwards! 
 pursue him whither he has gone, for making 
 me wed that knagging Josseline, for all she 
 was the next spinster on his list of the mar- 
 riageable, when I had to marry or go to the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 21 
 
 wars in our regiment ! I wish now I had gone 
 to the wars!" 
 
 "Armand might have done well at court, as 
 a page," remarked Joseph, "but his ear for 
 music was bad! As a clerk in the Finances, 
 but he is not avaricious! As secretary to some 
 kinsman, as he has an aptitude for scrib- 
 bling—" 
 
 "He wrote verses at an early age," said Si- 
 mon; "but as he had the modesty to inscribe 
 Ovid's and not his own lines on our trees, I 
 cannot criticise him now." 
 
 "He is not remarkable in any trait — " 
 
 "Barely does precocity attain the ripeness of 
 genius!" 
 
 "So he goes to the army," continued the 
 Capuchin coadjutor of the Bishop of Lucay, 
 with vexation. "What waste of young blood! 
 to pass half the year in winter quarters, the 
 other moiety in sieges, with more time before 
 the mouth of the dicing cup than the breach- 
 ing cannon's." 
 
 "But with his brilliant parts, do you not 
 think that, in time, in some predestined field, 
 he will shine?" said the other with animation. 
 
 "With what conviction you speak!" said the 
 grey monk, startled. 
 
 "A Richelieu, may I not dream of the fami- 
 ly's advance? Alphonse's eclipse within the 
 cloisters pained me! I say this, though it may 
 pain you, who counselled it. I hold lonesome 
 watches up here, Joseph, wrapped in the fog 
 which bathes the old ruins of the feudal forta- 
 lice. I stand among the ivy which binds the 
 time-gnawed stones and I follow the owl in its 
 silent circlings. I think of my forefathers, 
 Brother Joseph, who listened to their instincls 
 alone, and pillaged the country folk for the ul- 
 
22 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 timate gain of Paris, its residents and its King. 
 The robber barons have gone their way; the 
 gilded courtier who squanders in the chief city 
 the patrimony and the revenue is going. What 
 will we have in their stead?" 
 
 "The priests, father! Already we own half 
 the property in the realm; in another tweDty 
 years we will possess two-thirds!" 
 
 His eyes shone in his hood's shadows and his 
 hands closed as though he were clutching some- 
 thing delectable. 
 
 "The marquis will not see this — perhaps, 
 not I! but you may, and Armand, for sure, 
 will!" 
 
 "Heaven grant it! But after a monarch so 
 great as the Fourth Henry, stagnation follows, 
 and it is vain fishing in muddy waters." 
 
 "The muddiest water clears, good Brother 
 Joseph! The boy is a varied creature. I have 
 seen him set his heel on a viper and replace a 
 plow-upturned earthworm under the severed 
 clod. He will rise! and not resemble that Ro- 
 man Emperor who amused himself torturing 
 flies. He will rise, when he steps into his own 
 charmed circle, higher than my imaginings — " 
 
 "Mayhappen, higher than mine!" said Jos- 
 eph, as if catching the other's ecstasy, "Simon, 
 you are truly a Richelieu — no common man! 
 So have I beheld this youth, grown man, on the 
 most exalted heights, next the clouds that 
 sweep under the golden floor of heaven! Your 
 judgment is always sound; so affirms the Bish- 
 op, and, as far as I have heard it, so will I 
 maintain. Armand may, therefore, grasp the 
 sceptre, whoever wears the glittering, idle 
 crown!" 
 
 "He will sway it like a king born to it, 
 then!" continued the hermit, enraptured that 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 23 
 
 he had an echo. "But he must be corrected of 
 following his impulses aud inclinations in their 
 simple transports. These young men of good 
 families do good without pride in it, and com- 
 mit evil without remorse." 
 
 "A rinand, now that he is a lord, will listen 
 to his brother, and to me, speaking after his 
 prompting words! he will realize all the hopes 
 of his line." 
 
 "To think," continued the hermit, while Lau- 
 bardemont sat down at a distance and pre- 
 tended to be playing the sentinel while strain- 
 ing his ears to catch a word here and there, 
 "to think that a chance bullet, a pot of boiling 
 pitch in the escalade, a breaking ladder in the 
 assault — what say I? a fisticuff over a disputed 
 turn of a card — any trifle may slay our ensign! 
 veritable ensign of Richelieu! And. nearer 
 home, a peasant's billhook may split that skull 
 which contains the finest brains in all the 
 county!" 
 
 "Why a peasant's billhook?" asked Joseph, 
 perceiving that he had been dexterously 
 brought to a point desired by the subtle old 
 man. 
 
 "May not the charming Ramire have a rustic 
 sweetheart who would waylav her gentlenjan- 
 lover?" 
 
 "Oh, think you that Armand— " 
 
 "Master!" cried Laubardemont, springing up 
 and retreating toward the hermitage. 
 
24 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ANOTHER GOOD SERVANT. 
 
 "Why the alarm?" questioned both the holv 
 men. 
 
 Laubardemont pointed a trembling finger to- 
 wards a grove, in the growing dusk. 
 
 "I spy a shadow — a demon rather than man, 
 stealing through the berry copse as though he 
 were proof to thorn and prickle!" 
 
 "Like yourself, sneaking along! what a 
 mock-solitude you have chosen, Father Simon," 
 sneered the Capuchin. "It may be that maid's 
 peasant swain — Hark ye! go and bring in that 
 lurker! If you do it deftly I may pardon your 
 rudely interrupting our colloquy!" 
 
 "Dead or alive!" said the valet, clapping his 
 hand to his side where a broad knife clanked 
 in a leather sheath, useful to carve or at close 
 quarters. 
 
 "It may as well be her noble lover!" said the 
 hermit, quickly. 
 
 "Take him prisoner with tenderness," added 
 Joseph; muttering: "If it be Armand, he will 
 come only if he is so disposed!" 
 
 While the servant, with great cunning and 
 prudence, plunged into the bushes and by a 
 circuit approached the suspicious spot, the two 
 watching him, the elder observed to the other: 
 
 "As his Grace renounced his rights, all au- 
 thority devolves on Armand — we must be heed- 
 ful how we deal with him. The case is altered 
 from how it stood when I ventured to summon 
 the Lord Bishop." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 25 
 
 "It little matters. Sec, it is not he, brother!" 
 
 The speaker seemed relieved by the discov- 
 ery. 
 
 The man whom the tall Laubardemont 
 dragged at arm's length, reminding one of a 
 cup-and-ball, was short, thickset, jolly, but 
 with that astuteness in which the dullest peas- 
 ant acquired some training, at a period when 
 he was plundered, flayed and scourged by the 
 host of rapacity: tax-farmers and their myrmi- 
 dons, his lord/ other lords, temporal or spirit- 
 ual, the city toll-keeper, the market-officer, the 
 road-minder, all, in a word, above his state. 
 
 He grinned upon being hauled before the 
 two, sitting on rocks like the Druids. 
 
 "It is not my lord, but the question is still 
 burning," said Simon; "it is his man." 
 
 "Jean Laffemas!" exclaimed Joseph du Trem- 
 blay. "Another absconder! Scamp, what are 
 you doing away from your regiment?" 
 
 "At least, you have your written leave?" 
 added the hermit. 
 
 "I— I—" 
 
 "Come, no lies!" said the two examiners in 
 unison. 
 
 Laubardemont had released his hold of his 
 surcoat, which hid a kind of uniform, the royal 
 blue, barred with the colors of Richelieu, and 
 Laffemas stood up to his full height of five feet 
 or less. He crumpled his moleskin cap in one 
 fat hand and pulled at a shaggy shining fore- 
 lock with the other, as a compromise between 
 a military salute and a reverence to his spirit- 
 ual fathers. 
 
 "To tell the truth, I heard that my wife is in 
 a delicate condition — " 
 
 The Capuchin inquiringly glanced at his col- 
 league, who nodded reluctantly. Then the hit- 
 
26 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 ter shook his head and frowned, implying that 
 he did not believe the servant. 
 
 "Some recruits who joined us, from Osier- 
 sur-la-Marle, thej said she rolled on the bed, 
 crying out for her dear Jean Norbert, her hus- 
 band, from whom the cruel war parted her!" 
 and Laffemas, pulling down his round face, af- 
 fected to brush away tears. 
 
 "This is a flimsy excuse — " 
 
 "My wife halloaing for me a flimsy excuse — 
 you have not lately heard or seen my wife, 
 Father Joseph ! she was the Hop-o'-my-Thumb 
 of the village when I was made to marry her, 
 eighteen months ago, at the same time almost 
 as Pierre Laubardemont here present was 
 obliged to take Josseline in wedlock — " 
 
 The other servant made a wry face. 
 
 "It was on the list so — though perhaps we . 
 should have fared no worse had Lau. preceded 
 Laf. on the marquis' roll of the marriage- 
 able—" 
 
 "Be referent — the marquis is no more!" 
 
 "Dear me! the lord, dead? how did — " 
 
 "Your lord is your master, Count, now the 
 Marquis Armand!" 
 
 "Whew!" The fat mouth pursed up to whis- 
 tle in surprise. Then he became portentously 
 grave. 
 
 "So, you bear a message from the new mar- 
 quis? out with it — we know this to be so!" 
 
 "But — I — that is — my lord the lord over all 
 the place, so young and yet enjoys the chateau, 
 the farms, the — " 
 
 "Seize him and search him for a letter!" said 
 Joseph. 
 
 "Never!" said Laffemas. "That is, I will not 
 submit to that lout Laubardemont promenad- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 27 
 
 ing with his bony fingers over me! His blood- 
 less paw always gives the shivers!" 
 
 "(live up the message you bear, or be flog- 
 ged!" 
 
 Joseph brandished his rope. At the sight of 
 the knotted ends, Laffemas sighed. 
 
 "Yon are witness. Father Simon, that I am 
 commanded by one, under Grace, set over me! 
 here goes!" He pulled a folded and sealed pa- 
 per, bound with rosy ribbon, out of a secret 
 flap in his half-boot. 
 
 "You would not have thought of looking 
 there, you oaf!" he jibingly said to his fellow 
 servant. "We learn these arts in the army — 
 which you were too much of a poltroon to 
 join!" Then he whined: "I trust you will bear 
 me out when my lord reprimands me for false- 
 ness in my trust. Yes, I am a false servant: 
 I am not accomplishing my business. Believe 
 me, gentlemen, the count made me swear on 
 the crosshilt of my knife — a foresworn blade, 
 though, for I learnt, in the army, to eat meat 
 on a fast-day with it! I swore to eat this mes- 
 sage before I wrongly delivered it; but it would 
 be a choking mouthful! Laconic love, for- 
 sooth!" 
 
 Before he had finished this apology for his 
 weakness, the grey monk had snatched the 
 packet he held gingerly, and stepped within 
 the hermitage, it being now too dark to read 
 without artificial light. 
 
 Nothing was changed there since his last 
 visit : for he found the bottle in which live 
 sulphur was kept, and with a primitive match 
 ignited a torch of fat pine, stuck up before a 
 cross, carved in the jutting rock. 
 
 He returned, with his head drawn still far- 
 ther back in his cowl. 
 
28 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "You were right," he said to the hermit. "It 
 is he, and, worse than you imagined, he pro- 
 poses to make the engagement with the girl 
 binding before Mother Church!" 
 
 Though base-born and, consequently, it 
 would be thought, delighted at the young Rich- 
 elieu taking the honorable step, the holy as- 
 cetic frowned. 
 
 "It must not be!" exclaimed he, hotly. 
 
 "Never! it was madness before! now that he 
 is the marquis — we should be fools to wink at 
 it!" 
 
 Joseph cogitated, his course of thoughts im- 
 possible to follow in the double darkness of 
 the evening and his hood. 
 
 The two servants looked askant at each oth- 
 er. Simon lowered his grey brows and watched 
 the Capuchin under them. 
 
 "I have it," said the latter. "There is no 
 such place for a young girl to come to her right 
 mind as in a nunnery — " 
 
 The hermit lifted his head and shook it en- 
 ergetically. 
 
 "The Convent of the Austere Sisters at Mont- 
 glavis shall receive her — " 
 
 "Nay," aaid the other eagerly, "not the black, 
 blank, cold cloisters for a child! she must be 
 loving, above her station, to enfold the affec- 
 tions of a youth like that! do not think to im- 
 mure her in such sepulchral walls!" 
 
 "Are those of the tomb preferable?" coldly 
 answered Joseph. 
 
 "Why need she die — why die a living death 
 within a nunnery? she is so young — so tender, 
 and has always been a model to her sisters!" 
 
 "You plead very warmly for her, Simon!" 
 
 "Because — because she is my grandchild! 
 There, you know all." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 29 
 
 "The holy man of the Castle Hill, father of 
 that girl's mother! Miseracordal" 
 
 "It is true! but too long a story for this hour. 
 Her mother was not, as was given out, a babe 
 dropped on the highway by the Bohemians, 
 but a child I had brought out of Spain, by a 
 nurse. She grew up with her foster-mother and 
 loved her son. They were happy till death re- 
 moved them, under my eyes. It was a proof, I 
 took it, that heaven had overlooked — I do not 
 say, pardoned my sin!" 
 
 "Heresy! heaven never overlooks — rarely 
 pardons!" 
 
 "But you are human — you will pardon — par- 
 don her! am I to go on my knees, hardened by 
 those rocks, my only praying-desk — to implore 
 pity for that child? — " 
 
 "Where will she be safer, from him — now a 
 lord, with purse well-filled, thanks to my own 
 stewardship, than in the grave or the con- 
 vent?" 
 
 "I know not!" 
 
 "Nor I! but she must not see him again!" 
 
 -What did he write to her?" 
 
 "The usual flowery talk of the springtide of 
 man. At twenty any woman is beloved, as long 
 as she has blue eves and sunnv hair, where 
 most of the women are dark, or vice versa! 
 The young man is moody and his heart trust- 
 ful. Wait till he comes to his thirtieth year!" 
 Joseph let his hood fall back, and his eyes 
 started out and were lustrous. 
 
 "Yes, the flame is more intense then!" said 
 the hermit. "The flame is one to bask in until 
 he is forty, and the decline begins! I have 
 known the winter of love, and you, Joseph, the 
 summer — oh, for that memorv, be lenient to 
 my poor grandchild!" 
 
30 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 The valets were men of blunt sensibilities, 
 but they shuddered to see the white bearded 
 man clasp his hands in entreaty to the Capu- 
 chin, although the words of the appeal had not 
 reached them. 
 
 "Let her live, then, with an emptied heart, to 
 weep over the past illusion!" said the latter, 
 wavering. "With time, all passes!" 
 
 He pressed his forehead as though to smooth 
 out something rugged in his mind. 
 
 "When love sends no more rays to her soul, 
 her eyes will shed no more tears. They must 
 part — forever!" 
 
 "I have reflected," said Simon, with calm- 
 ness which seemed preternatural after the out- 
 burst of parental affection. "Come into the 
 cell." 
 
 "You, varlets, stand close!" cried Joseph 
 loudly. "If one tries to flee, the other is ab- 
 solved if he slay him!" 
 
 "Both will not flee," said the hermit caustic- 
 ally, "for each was made to wed the woman 
 that the other courted! Did you notice that 
 their grief at the marquis's death was over- 
 done?" 
 
 The couple entered the cave, where the torch 
 was revived by the tenant, who motioned his 
 colleague to be seated. Out of a cranny he 
 took a phial of China ink and reed pens which 
 he used for glosses in his breviary. 
 
 "I do not want to run off, now that I am 
 at home," said Laffemas. "You may put up 
 your cheese-parer, which does not daunt me, 
 for I have seen more terrible in the army! 
 Besides, my lord is the master here, now, do 
 you see! since his brother is no more! Is it 
 true, Pierre ?" 
 
 "True enough for me to bring the news. I 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 31 
 
 intended to have carried it farther, to Bishop 
 Alphonse, but this meddling Capuchin is al- 
 ways dancing between the Kichelieus and the 
 outside world. But are you not counting your 
 chicks too soon? Perhaps the Bishop's vows 
 are not so binding on a nobleman that he may 
 not break them, so as to take the reins from 
 that boy, himself?" 
 
 "Sooner the boy, though a few months under 
 the colors have made a man of him — it does 
 improve one to be in the army! I get along 
 finely with him, though he wants to ride the 
 high horse." 
 
 "1 like him best — but what are the two 
 priests doing in the cave, like wizards calling 
 up the Prince of Darkness?" 
 
 "A pretty simile for holy men, you pagan! 
 But, if I may venture my nose, one is writing 
 as the other dictates. Shrew them! I never 
 see pen and paper but I think men are raising 
 a devil that will not be easily downed!" 
 
 Placing the writing materials before Joseph, 
 seated at a smooth-topped rock which might 
 pass for a table, the hermit said: 
 
 "With that letter of Armand's as a model, 
 you — with your skill in caligraphy, which made 
 the Abbot Ugone remark you at an early age — 
 you can write another missive which that trai- 
 tor shall deliver. It will bid her go to meet 
 her lover at Blois." 
 
 "Why Blois?" 
 
 ''Because Mother Laffemas is there, in a lit- 
 tle house in the environs. She was accused, 
 with a band, you may remember, of poaching, 
 and, between us, she kept the deersmeat till 
 the higgler came to transport it to their secret 
 market. But she is a good soul and will do 
 anything for me, since I saved her neck." 
 
32 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "If you can trust your grand-daughter to 
 her, I can trust my honor," returned the monk. 
 
 He set the letter before him, mused for a 
 space and then wrote at a dash ("as all good 
 forgeries must be executed," he said, with a 
 deep smile) a page of about the same length. 
 From "At the Camp," to "Yours ever fondly, 
 ARMAND," all had no flaw in the critical 
 sight of Simon, comparing the writings. 
 
 "Bind with the same ribbon and seal with 
 the Bishop's seal bearing the family arms," 
 said he. 
 
 As his confederate finished, he went to the 
 doorway and called: 
 
 "Laffemas!" 
 
 The man came up with a lagging step, timor- 
 ous. 
 
 "Your master loves a lass here. He writes 
 to her mere sugary lines which give no intelli- 
 gence. What did he purpose regarding her?" 
 
 "I am not in his confidence — that is — " for 
 he saw by the torchlight that his interrogator 
 frowned ominously. "I guess that he wants 
 her to elope with him! the camp is full of for- 
 lorn damsels — " 
 
 "Enough! that will serve. Jean, you are dy- 
 ing to see your wife?" 
 
 "My poor, dear wife!" He suddenly wrung 
 his hands hypocritically. 
 
 "But you want to see your mother sooner! 
 You are a good son!" 
 
 "My mother? who is in jail for deer-stealing? 
 of course, I should like to see my old mother — 
 but—" 
 
 "Listen. Take this letter to Ramire, in her 
 cottage. When she reads it, conduct her to 
 the inn where the deer-stealers were arrested. 
 The hostess is still at large, but has returned, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 33 
 
 thinking the breeze has blown over. Tell her 
 that Father Simon ensures her impunity if she 
 will obey him now. She will find you two 
 horses for a journey — " 
 
 "What journey, father?" 
 
 "One to be undertaken in the name of your 
 master the Count-Bishop Alphonse, for whom 
 I act and speak." 
 
 "Good Lord, a journey, sir! and me fresh 
 from hard riding, and, by the same mark! sore, 
 sir, deep-seatedly sore — " 
 
 "Interrupt again, and I shall send Laubarde- 
 mont on this errand! and you, to the galleys!" 
 
 That the hermit was of kin to the ruling fam- 
 ily was nobody's secret and the fat man shiv- 
 ered, like jelly on a hot platter. 
 
 He took the letter which Joseph brought out 
 to him, and bowed with the utmost submission, 
 as the recluse said: 
 
 "Place the girl on one horse — mount the oth- 
 er, and ride without haste, so-so, steadily, to 
 Blois. At a cottage in the outskirts, near the 
 hostelry of the Branch of May, lives your 
 mother." 
 
 "Not in jail?" 
 
 "Not in jail, thanks to me, but he who kept 
 her out of it can put you in her vacant cell! 
 Tell her that this is the girl who is to accom- 
 pany her to the East Indies!" 
 
 "But if she will not go—?" 
 
 "She must go! never in the village did any- 
 one resist 3^ou and your mother in combina- 
 tion! She must go! and you with them!" 
 
 "I, father, to the Indies? a pagan country, 
 and I never failed in my religious duties!" 
 
 "You can say your prayers under the sky 
 along the broad Ganges as well as by your rivu- 
 let. This must be. Be within France this time 
 
34 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 three weeks, and you, your mother and the girl 
 will all be behind the bars!" 
 
 Jean shuddered and stammered. 
 
 "But a journey like that — it will cost huge- 
 ly!" 
 
 "Therefore," interposed Joseph, "Laubarde- 
 mont will take you the abundant means in a 
 day or two. Besides, you can sell the horses at 
 the seaport for swelling of your purse." 
 
 Laffemas bowed again, heaving a sigh 
 though, which made the two start angrily. 
 
 "I am thinking of my poor wife — without an 
 adieu!" explained he. 
 
 "Go, hypocrite!" 
 
 Scarcely was he lost in the gloom than Si- 
 mon beckoned Laubardemont within the ray of 
 light from the hermitage. 
 
 "Follow your fellow! he is going to Ramire's 
 cottage. If he leaves it with her, return and 
 tell the tale. If he leaves it alone, follow him 
 until he joins his master — at the camp or else- 
 where." 
 
 "The camp is far, and 'elsewhere' may be 
 still farther," muttered the valet, with his dor- 
 mant insolence re-awakened. 
 
 "Here is a purse of silver. Wait! Make sure 
 that he is going to accost his master. Then 
 cut him down and silence him so that not a 
 syllable enlightens Count Armand upon what 
 passed here." 
 
 "He may strike back; he can play with cud- 
 gel and cabbage-cutter, as I know from being 
 pitted against him in our village sports." 
 
 "The Bishop will salve your weals." 
 
 "But my spiritual weal — he may kill me be- 
 fore I can repent?" 
 
 "The Bishop will secure you a lot in Para- 
 dise." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 3o 
 
 The iiuin made a sour face, but humorously 
 so that the grim mouk called him a heathen 
 uot unkindly, and bade him go! 
 
 Joseph remained on the hill, which point 
 gave him a view of the manor beneath the 
 straggling "lamb-kill" laurels and the odorifer- 
 ous sweet bays. 
 
 In the cell the recluse was letting the torcl; 
 die down without offering to revive it. 
 
 "His grandchild," mused the Capuchin, shuf- 
 fling in the sand with his leather shoe as if 
 obliterating some trace. ''It is not strange; I 
 had remarked her vast superiority to her sta- 
 tion. Look to what unhappiness education 
 brings the peasant!'' 
 
 His grey dress merged with the thickening 
 fog, but he sat impervious to the damp. 
 
 '•It must not be," said he, frowning terribly, 
 "Armand in love is confusion to my design — 
 to my aspiration and what shall be his. I need 
 this promising youth as one to lean upon while 
 I climb the hill. If he is made Prime Minister 
 over France, and France is made foremost in 
 Christendom, in sheer gratitude he must assist 
 me to my goal !" 
 
 Over the plain, towards the chateau, under 
 the oaks and elms, a light suddenly danced 
 out, as if borne by Friar Rush, lint it was a 
 lantern carried by Laubardemont, though he 
 risked to advertise his movements, but he 
 deemed that preferable to stumbling into a 
 ditch and breaking neck or limb. 
 
 On seeing him ascend, Joseph rose and 
 blocked his path, whereupon the lantern-bearer 
 saluted him and said, breathlessly: 
 
 "Please you, he has gone, with the lass." 
 "Good! Hie you into the mansion and satisfy 
 your prodigious appetite — but not a breath 
 
36 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 about the marquis' disaster! Let his corpse 
 announce the dread tidings! You said the 
 body was on the last march?" 
 
 "It might have caught up with me, for the 
 mules to the litter were excellent, and as the 
 commander of the escort is a military man no 
 time would be lost." 
 
 "Go; and lay you down to sleep, too, if you 
 can!" 
 
 Pleased to be quit of the novel duties im- 
 posed upon him this evening, the Capuchin's 
 man left his lantern, on the sign to do so, and 
 trudged off as briskly as he dared without a 
 guide for his feet. 
 
 "As the girl is now on the route to be 
 shipped to the Indies," said Joseph coolly, "I 
 will see that the port-captains are notified of 
 the necessity to expedite her transportation. 
 My friends on the Admiralty Board will oblige 
 me there. This is all less burdensome than to 
 manage Armand. How will he take an action 
 counter to his inclination? how, indeed? There 
 are some trees which will not be bent askew 
 even in their sapling state! As a child, he was 
 difficult to turn as a bull-calf." 
 
 Hooking his lean finger in the lantern's iron 
 ring, he went up to the cave. With his head 
 on his folded arms, seated, and wrapped up 
 in his gown, Simon slumbered — or he might be 
 hiding tears. 
 
 The monk paused, before arousing him, to 
 give a last look at the scene. The mists had 
 risen to this level, so that he could peer under 
 their stratum and see as far as the house 
 ground-floor. From kitchen and refectory the 
 stream of light showed that the domestics were 
 at supper. 
 
 "The next feast will be the funeral one; but 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 37 
 
 the}' will regale just the same. A change of 
 lord — a change of yoke!" 
 
 Pierre Laubardemont's tall figure stood up 
 like a perpendicular bar on his nearing the 
 window glare. 
 
 "Though he is ready to burst with the news, 
 he durst not let it out," continued the Capu- 
 chin, "after my admonition. Indeed, his en- 
 trance makes no difference in the mirthful clat- 
 ter — no lowering of the lights." 
 
 As he turned round, at last, to address his 
 friend, a moving speck in the horse-chestnut 
 vista met his sight. 
 
 "A rider!" exclaimed he. "A courier of the 
 funeral, preceding the corpse? No, this would 
 not be the proper road. This rider diverges 
 into the forest, too! Thus rides a highway- 
 man, not desirous to be seen. I lose sight of 
 him now! Confusion! Hark." 
 
 A horse whinnied; those in the stables an- 
 swered. A dog or two whimpered, interested. 
 
 "The animals knowing him — he is no strang- 
 er here — at least his steed is not. Ha! it is 
 towards the Burnt Wood that the shadow 
 steals — scarcely does his cap overtop the sparse 
 brush! That is a plumed hat, not a servant's 
 cap! metal flashes about his person — it is a 
 soldier under that horseman's cloak. He stops! 
 It is to tie up his horse. He is traversing the 
 woods, in the murk, free as a phantom! odd, 
 in a cavalier, booted and spurred!" 
 
 With wondrous vision, straining it, he noted 
 these facts, and concluding that he might be 
 seen likewise, he put out his lantern light. 
 
 "This cavalier is making for Rar. lire's cot- 
 tage. It cannot be Laffemas, who has let her 
 slip and hunts back to recapture! Nay, nay! 
 it is another and quicker-stepping — taller and 
 
38 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 more slender man! Depend on it, it is that 
 boy! Armand, distrustful of his envoy, or 
 merely eager to confirm the fatal, extravagant 
 promise he advanced." 
 
 He rapidly thrust in his head at the door- 
 way. 
 
 "Alerta, Simon! I must run to Ramire's cot 
 to see that she has certainly departed." 
 
 "Yes," replied the hermit faintly, without 
 other token that he breathed. 
 
 Joseph girded up his frock with the rope, 
 felt that his sandals were firm, and dashed in- 
 to the furze as fearlessly as a Highlander. He 
 remembered if he could not discern the path 
 amid boulder and briar, for he had often wan- 
 dered over all this tract when he was instruct- 
 ing the Bishop of Lueay for his functions and 
 teaching botany to Armand's sister Nicole be- 
 fore she, too, took holy orders. 
 
 He was first to reach the cottage, for he 
 heard the stranger crashing through the under- 
 wood, more impatient to arrive than he had 
 been. 
 
 "I am in time," gasped he; "now, master 
 yourself, Joseph! If this be our hothead one 
 will need superhuman coolness and some in- 
 genious falsehoods." 
 
 On touching the cottage door, he found it 
 ajar. 
 
 "They left in haste," thought he. 
 
 "Miserable hovel!" as he struck his head 
 against the low door-top. "If Simon be a pro- 
 phet in agreeing with the Bishop and me that 
 Armand is destined for the State helmsman, 
 then, what a mean place for the future of 
 France to be decided in!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 39 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A LIE AGAINST LOVE. 
 
 The junior lieutenant of the Richelieu Regi- 
 ment, in Piedmont, Armand Duplessis, was im- 
 patient, overbearing, impetuous, overflowing 
 with ingenious suggestions and novel ideas dis- 
 arranging his superiors' equanimity; good old 
 warriors they, who had burned out their fires 
 under Henry the Fourth, and now asked no 
 fiercer warfare than long sieges and comfort- 
 able winter quarters. 
 
 So he chafed at the rebukes and chilly re- 
 ception of his best conceptions and as his heart 
 became surcharged with first love memories, 
 this youth of twenty oftener sighed for home 
 than for entrance into the town before which 
 the army sat. 
 
 "Homesick!" said one veteran. "Heartsick!" 
 said another, who had bovs of his own in the 
 camp. 
 
 "That lad," said a keener observer, "will not 
 long be a slave to any passion, even the master 
 one. He is born to over-rule, to lord it, to 
 tyrannize!" 
 
 "Camp-fever!" pronounced the surgeons who 
 flew to bleed him. 
 
 He had become so truly a thorn in their side, 
 with his irritating hints and pieces of advice, 
 inherent, gathered from reading, or learnt of 
 his father, the League Captain, that all hailed 
 his asking home-leave for two months, and it 
 was gladly signed and countersigned as if he 
 were their messenger of victory. 
 
40 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "If he lives, and does not get his pate cracked 
 for thrusting his sword into every medley," said 
 a greybeard artillerist, "he will be the crown- 
 ing marplot and stirrer-up of innumerable in- 
 trigues. He wants to make a cannon of steel! 
 as if iron was not good enow for the blun- 
 dering cannoneers of our times! steel for hal- 
 berd-heads and swords — but for great guns! 
 malapert!" 
 
 "Malapert! he should be a wasp at court!" 
 said the chief surgeon. "He besought me not 
 to give hopeless cases stimulants that they may 
 dictate messages home or will their property — 
 but opiates, so that they may pass through an 
 unnatural sleep into the natural one of death! 
 As well be Chinese!" 
 
 So Arniand had ridden off with an ironical 
 "Good cheer!" all alone, as he had despatched 
 his lackev-orderlv some davs in advance, but 
 he heeded not the pillagers who hung about 
 the town and camp and fell upon either side in- 
 differently. 
 
 But the young man, in his cuirass over the 
 buff jerkin, his rapier clanking on his boot, his 
 protruding holsters — which had a bottle of 
 Spanish wine in one and not the companion 
 pistol — his martial mien, inherited, for this 
 trait had skipped Alphonse — the early melan- 
 choly which converted his face into a mask of 
 bronze, and his daring of the solitary — all 
 looked a tough morsel to the sharks of the 
 land, and not once was there raised the cry of 
 "Stand, for your life!" 
 
 It was he whom Joseph saw dimly riding 
 into his family manor, but avoiding his fath- 
 er's home. 
 
 He strode into the woods, as had been seen, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 41 
 
 after attaching his charger to a tree in a beech 
 glade well known to him. 
 
 So light is The sanguine lover's step, that he 
 did not feel as impediments his weighty boots, 
 which the mud of Touraine made still more 
 heavy, or the huge spurs. 
 
 The wood was as dark as silent. In the like 
 darkness was plunged the house, but from the 
 lower part came a subdued hum of gaiety 
 which made Armand sadly smile. 
 
 "All is well under the dear roof!" thought 
 he. "Nobody is at home, I gather from the 
 jollity. The menials would not carry on un- 
 der that press of canvas if Alphonse the Saint- 
 ly or Henri the Blustering were there. The 
 priestly brother will wax fat in time in some 
 pleasantly located monastery where the trout 
 stream runs through the kitchen and the woods 
 are full of fat bucks; and the fiery marquis 
 will break his neck, leaping out of a boudoir 
 — reprobate that he is! though I say it! Am 
 I to succeed them? It looks so fated! What 
 kind of a master do the domestics forecast of 
 me? Laffemas does not like me, and I 
 suspect he is roguish. I, the master! I, a 
 boy — but stop! a boy is hardly a boy on the 
 verge of the great, deep sea, Matrimony, if 
 not yet a man!" 
 
 He stopped, forced to retreat or cut his way 
 through a mass of briar, ivy and vines, where 
 a new thought struck him, for he said, like 
 one who indulged in soliloquy because he 
 rarely found a meet confidant: 
 
 "What will the county families say to this 
 new countess, sprung up like a wild flower in 
 their midst? What priest will dare wed us — 
 certainly not one of their chaplains! I sup- 
 pose the Holy Father would recall my father's 
 
42 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 services on the wrong side and never allow a 
 special mandate!" 
 
 He laughed lightly enough but arousing an 
 owlet, which wailed pitifully at the disturb- 
 ance; this mock echo made him shudder. 
 
 "But Simon would run the risk! What risk 
 to one who lives regardless of the world? He 
 likes the girl — he instructed her so that I am 
 often astonished at her conversation. I will 
 have recourse to him if Alphonse will not fas- 
 ten the tie! She shall be another's — never! by 
 my name!" 
 
 He shivered again; it seemed to him that a 
 bloody sword — his eldest brother's, shot across 
 the path he was clearing. 
 
 "Henri is rigid on such points!" 
 
 He hewed a way to where the woodcutters 
 had made a track with their more powerful 
 bill-hooks. 
 
 "Shame! They have been felling the ma- 
 jestic trees again!" he grumbled, irritated by 
 the thorns which bristled on him. "Henri has 
 wanted more money! What an aroma of dead 
 leaves — what splinters which the faggot- 
 binders disdained! How our poor soldiers 
 freezing in camp would like these chips! Yes, 
 here is a large fire, like a plot in Tophet, where 
 the noble giants' remains were consumed! 
 The blackened stumps flourish their maimed 
 arms like the slaughtered monsters in chival- 
 ric poems! That spendthrift Henri will never 
 be cured by Alphonse's sermons or the sager 
 Father Joseph's monitions. Those splendid 
 oaks have been transmuted by a necromancer- 
 money-lender into gewgaws for a court beauty's 
 bedizenment! If Alphonse had the cutting, 
 we should be little the better, as Father Jo- 
 seph would have taken his share for a refuge 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 43 
 
 or retreat for misanthropes. He hates man 
 and woman! never should I beg him to marry 
 me and Kami re!" 
 
 A great mass of blackness loomed up, shut- 
 ting out the prospect. 
 
 "I suppose my man has delivered my mes- 
 sage, which was calculated to lift that poor 
 girl to rapture. He will be at home, sleeping, 
 forgetting his master, probably braving the 
 camp fevers! But she will not sleep well! 
 Nevertheless, it was an old agreement with 
 Laffemas that he should wait every night when 
 I was due, under that giant hornbeam, for an 
 hour after nine." 
 
 The shadow was that of a wide-reaching tree, 
 monopolising a hundred feet on all sides. 
 
 "That defied the axe! Good!" He whistled 
 three times, as one calls for the gamekeeper 
 to finish the wounded deer. 
 
 "No answer?" 
 
 He sounded a repeater-watch, which would 
 have denoted his degree, had any one heard its 
 tinkle. 
 
 "He forgot the agreement, or stole away 
 frightened in the dark wood. Norbert is no 
 hero. He wanted to go with me, afraid of the 
 brigands. But these sneaking varlets get 
 through where a brave man fails. At more 
 than one place they told me my groom had 
 ridden on." 
 
 Contrary to his age and disposition, misgiv- 
 ings burdened him; but he ascribed The gloom 
 to that in the night and the hush, unbroken in 
 this dense undergrowth by the even breeze 
 The air was thick and slightly sulphurous. It 
 seemed as if the forest fire smouldered and the 
 warm ground exhaled mephitic vapors. 
 
 The way had become more smooth and fa- 
 
44 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 miliar. Though the starlight was intermit- 
 tently veiled by streaming clouds, he pushed 
 on rapidly. No one would believe he had been 
 in the saddle all day. 
 
 He stopped before that humble abode into 
 which Father LeClerc du Tremblay had en- 
 tered. 
 
 "No light — as a token that she was notified 
 of my coming as soon as possible!" he observed 
 in alarm. "No rushlight in the window?" 
 
 A small animal tumbled out of a heap of 
 leaves and scuttled away into the thicket; a 
 pair of wood doves, usually passing the night 
 on the rafters within doors, disturbed in their 
 new perch under the strawy eaves by his ap- 
 proach, cooed reproachfully as though he was 
 author of their banishment, and fluttered with 
 a squeaking sound in circles over his head; 
 then, thinking he was one who had fed them, 
 and bewildered by the dark, settled on his 
 shoulders. He shook them off, impatient, an- 
 gry! 
 
 "Was that her pet rabbit, or a hare? Absit 
 omen! as we said in college — at a hasard!" said 
 he, trying to be sprightly. 
 
 The door was ajar; not remarkable in the 
 woods, for even in the village few precautions 
 were taken. 
 
 "I hear breathing!" he muttered, taking 
 hope; "she is there, but slumbering. Dream- 
 ing of our re-union, to be made firm against the 
 world! All is well, I thank heaven!" 
 
 He strode up to the door, but stopped re- 
 spectfully. 
 
 "Ramire! dearest Ramire! It is I, Armand! 
 Your Armand! Returned more speedily than 
 I hoped. Come out to me!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 45 
 
 No reply; and the breathing which he had 
 certainly heard, was suspended. 
 
 "At this hour she would not be absent! Un- 
 less — good angel that she is, and an intelli- 
 gent one to boot — she sits by the ailing moth- 
 er's side or pining infant's! But I heard — me- 
 thinks I hear breathing! But she could not 
 sleep through the fervent call I made!" 
 
 He hesitated, for with all his ardor, backed 
 by his aristocratic pretensions which overrode 
 vulgar scruples, never had he entered without 
 the dweller's invitation. 
 
 "But I do hear breathing," he said again, to 
 still his objections. "It must be she!" 
 
 The countryside teemed with superstitions. 
 He knew them, but had always laughed at 
 them until now. Peering in at the door, gent- 
 ly opened, he perceived a grey figure, shrouded 
 like the Phantom Monk, embodiment of all the 
 spirits of the dismantled abbey. It stood be- 
 tween the bunk-bed in the wall, and the heavy 
 table, silent, statuesque. 
 
 "It is not Ramire!" murmured he; a cold- 
 ness paralysing his heart, for it seemed to him 
 this ghostly one was praying over the dead. 
 
 He shrank back on the doorstep, clapping 
 his hand to his rapier, not to use its blade as 
 a weapon of physical defence but its handle 
 as a cross to exorcise this apparition. 
 
 "No," said a voice he well knew as his tu- 
 tor's, without the speaker moving, "it is not 
 the peasant maid, although I believe, one whom 
 you love, Armand!" 
 
 "Love!" 
 
 In the ascetic's mouth, the word seemed out 
 of place; almost offensive to the lover. 
 
 "And one who loves you, dear my son, above 
 all persons and, it follows, above all things!" 
 
46 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 ''Father Joseph!" exclaimed the lieutenant, 
 in the tone with which Jacob's persecuted child 
 might have said "my Brother Simeon" or "my 
 Brother Judah." 
 
 This was so far from harmonising with his 
 own accent, and far from reverence, either filial 
 or like a pupil, that the monk resented it, for 
 it was reproachfully that he continued: 
 
 "I reiterate, one who loves you ! Have I not 
 proved that, and, particularly, unto you! If 
 I induced Alphonse to enter the Church, it 
 was to clear the way for you to rise to second 
 place in the family. I kept you from the same 
 in order that you might learn other matters 
 than are talked of in the cloisters. Alphonse 
 is weak. For good motives, he would fritter 
 away his portion of the estate just as Henri 
 squanders it — question of time merely! Rich- 
 elieu would disappear, all the same! You 
 would have had little. Now, there suffices for 
 the goldenround in Fortune's ladder, which so 
 elevates the aspiring climber. Without know- 
 ing what vou may become, vou are readv for it. 
 By your brother's renunciation and the other's 
 death, you have the means, as you have the 
 tuition, to play the great lord worthily." 
 
 "My brother — Henri's death!" He leaned 
 against the doorpost; his plumes, torn by the 
 twigs, and damp with dew brushed off them, 
 flapping the old wood with a lugubrious sound. 
 "A lusty man like Henri die!" 
 
 "Men pass away at any age who are un, 
 wanted here. He who brandished the sword, 
 has perished by it: Henri has been killed in a 
 duel." 
 
 "He that could hold his own with professors 
 of fence!" he spoke incredulously still. "I 
 doubt he was slain fairly!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 47 
 
 "Fairly or foully, he is slain." 
 
 "Is it known by whom? Lot us avenge him [" 
 
 "I am a priest." 
 
 "So is Alphonse, thanks to you! You are 
 right. You assigned mo the power to fortify 
 my natural sentiment. It is I who must 
 avenge!" 
 
 Joseph held up his bony hand, covered with 
 the parchment skin of ascetics and yellow as 
 a life-prisoner's. It seemed to gleam with a 
 serene light of its own engendering in the dark, 
 like his eyes in the hood. 
 
 "Leave that to the Supreme Dealer-out of 
 Justice," he solemnly said. 
 
 Accustomed to the gloom, both could trace 
 the play of features. 
 
 Yet the windows w T ere very small and cov- 
 ered witli scraped horn, while the stars were 
 entirely blotted out. 
 
 "It were better so, perchance," said the young 
 man; "the Power you bring in to intervene, 
 knoweth that I came not here to draw the 
 sword." 
 
 "But to offer the marriage-ring!" 
 
 "How now!" he gasped, breathlessly as 
 though a phantom spoke. 
 
 He had always held Du Tremblay in awe; 
 now he was appalled by him. 
 
 "The blood may well boil in your cheek. 
 You come from the stage of honor to offer wed- 
 lock to a peasant's child ! I am glad that heav- 
 jn directed me — permits me to prevent — " 
 
 "Hold! Prevent me! You are a Du Trem- 
 blay but I, a Duplessis! Prevent, forsooth!" 
 
 "'Dissuade' is a word, then, which should 
 not enflame your choler. I traveled, to learn 
 
 that you m • >sed 
 
 going* on to the le ,yuu from U^t, 
 
48 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 fell design. Folly! folly, at all time, but since 
 you are become the Marquis of Richelieu, it 
 would be a crime to your line, your position, 
 and to the King himself, who upholds the 
 purity of the patricians. A Richelieu wed with 
 a Ramire!" 
 
 "Father, she is worthy of a coronet! Who 
 knows? perhaps a worthier race had issued to 
 rejoice France from Gabrielle d'Estrees than 
 the Medici:"' 
 
 "Of unknown parentage!" 
 
 ''Why may she not, then, spring from a noble 
 stem?" 
 
 "A Bohemian, her mother!" 
 
 "The Bohemians are a distinct race; they 
 possess a king and their own nobility: you 
 yourself taught me that they are probably de- 
 scendants, very unmixed, of the oldest Oriental 
 races. Her mother stood high in the tribe." 
 
 "I grant you what you like about her moth- 
 er; that is hazy: but her father?" 
 
 "You know so much, Father Joseph," said 
 the young man, entering and seating himself 
 on the table edge in bravado, to undo the ef- 
 fects of his first trepidation and to try to show 
 that he no longer held his tutor in apprehen- 
 sion; "who is her father?'" 
 
 '"An old simple soldier." 
 
 "Bravo! In the wars. I learnt that bear- 
 ing a sword handsomely places all on a level." 
 
 "One who committed some crime, driving 
 him into seclusion in his natal village; dying 
 there, he abandoned his child to the vagrant 
 mother. But for a kinsman who snatched the 
 poor child from such hands — rather say. talons 
 — after a toilsome hunt, Ramire would be beg- 
 ging or fortune-telling — running the risk of a 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 49 
 
 whipping in a corrective asylum or at the 
 cart's-tail !" 
 
 Armand struck the board furiously with his 
 fist, at imagination of such a fate being pos- 
 sible to his beloved. 
 
 "You see that her ancestry cannot be en- 
 rolled on the Golden Book of this country," 
 sneered Joseph. 
 
 "It matters not. Mine is, or shall be. I love 
 her, as one worships the brightest star in the 
 incalculable nebula?, that is, the one singled 
 out as brightest. What care I for the clouds, 
 emanations from a bog — this earth — which can- 
 not tarnish such lustre? In a word, Joseph — 
 Father Joseph, for you have been father and 
 brother to me in my isolation, being one whom 
 no one tries to comprehend — I have pledged — " 
 
 "Tut!'' said the Capuchin, apparently unaf- 
 fected by the affectionate appeal, "a promise 
 of that kind, from a nobleman to one afar be- 
 neath him! Its verv magnitude makes it ridic- 
 ulous and annuls it, like the preposterous 
 sums a madman promises out of a moderate 
 estate. Our courts are presided over by sages 
 who do not approve of vows extracted from 
 minors and lovers, the less when the lover is 
 a minor!" 
 
 "Ramire is an angel," cried Armand, kissing 
 a hood which hung on a wooden pin, "and I 
 am the Lord of Richelieu!" 
 
 "An angel! I pray that you may meet her 
 next — among her kind!" 
 
 The sarcasm was spoken so coldly that it 
 diminished its meaning. 
 
 The lieutenant jumped down and clenched 
 his fists. 
 
 "What do you mean? It is clear that she 
 is gone, and that in her stead stand you, of 
 
50 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 all men, who abominate woman! But you 
 would not dare, on the land of my fathers — " 
 
 He divined that the other was smiling, but 
 not with what sense. 
 
 "You would not be so inhuman as to have 
 her put away! In a convent, that wood-dove! 
 You are not a raven to prey on the dove ! You 
 would not treat her so unkindly that she has 
 fallen ill? A sensitive woodland flower, Jo- 
 seph! Is she ill — dying — do not say that Ra- 
 mire — my Ramire, one and only — is no more!" 
 
 The monk leaned across the table its whole 
 length, resting both hands on it; it was the at- 
 titude of one lecturing from an unfolded map 
 under him; he looked into the inquiring eyes 
 and firmly responded: 
 
 "To you, my poor Armand, she is dead! As 
 there was socially, now distance separates you 
 actually!" 
 
 "A matter of leagues! As I crossed the 
 other space, so will I cross this! Banished, 
 poor maid? I will rejoin her. What is a jour- 
 ney, however long, when at the goal is such 
 a prize?" 
 
 Partly to himself the Capuchin observed: 
 
 "There is no cure, unless a master-passion 
 swallows up this one, like Aaron's rod did the 
 magicians'. Armand, listen — " 
 
 The young man had wheeled round toward 
 the door as if to rush out. 
 
 "You are a peer; you may be a duke, for 
 you are equipped for the highest station as I 
 prepared you. You are rich ; for I was reviser 
 over that treacherous steward who plundered 
 your waste-thrift brother, and I made him dis- 
 gorge what he had cunningly stolen. Rich and 
 noble, well-informed, with an inkling of war- 
 fare, too, the course is clear to you. But, as 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 51 
 
 in that race at Borne, the steed must be dis- 
 embarrassed of useless trappings, to win! 
 What more useless than sentiment — love, ador- 
 ation of mere beauty? For wbat a prize — the 
 Premiership over France — the France that may 
 be!" 
 
 "Is there happiness, too?" asked the young 
 man, scoffing. 
 
 "Worship Ambition!" continued the monk, 
 without noticing the interruption. "Be her 
 slave, and she, more bounteous than Fortune 
 herself, and less fickle, will fill your helm with 
 solid treasures. War would only be-laurel it, 
 and perhaps dent it with some cruel blow from 
 which the brain would never recover. While 
 Cupid, as you may have seen in the library that 
 picture by an Italian hand, makes it merely the 
 incense-dish in honor of Venus!" 
 
 The young Richelieu listened in impatience, 
 like a horse-rider to his master's instructions, 
 while fretting to be off. 
 
 "Since Ramire is not dead," said he, "what 
 has befallen her?" 
 
 "Can you bear the truth?" 
 
 "I have borne the shock of meeting you in 
 her place!" was the reply, as though he had 
 met a satyr where a nymph was expected. 
 
 The Capuchin did not flinch at the uncom- 
 plimentary words. 
 
 If he were vindictive he knew that he could 
 give a reprisal with sufficient pain. 
 
 "Could you hear that she were dead?" 
 
 "Dead! You are talking about a child! A 
 lovely creature in faith and devotion! Well, 
 she is more fit for paradise, whence she came 
 straight to regale this hamlet than for a world 
 where the All-merciful's priest tortures! Go 
 on, as long as she be not dead!" 
 
52 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "She was young, but since Satan is allowed 
 to rove this earth, he devours by choice the 
 young and tender. This is a world of deceit 
 wherever his kingdom extends." 
 
 "Do vou couple Raniire and deceit? I break 
 the foul bond!" 
 
 "It is a bond which will compress your heart 
 to bursting, I fear! Ramire is false to you, 
 just in the way you might have anticipated." 
 
 "Joseph, you go too far! If you were not 
 a priest — " 
 
 "In our class," slowly went on the other, 
 without any shrinking at the anger, "when our 
 adored is suspected, suspicion flies to alight 
 on our next friend, our dearest other-self! He 
 knew the flame if we concealed it — he fanned 
 it to enjoy himself when the radiance was at 
 the zenith." 
 
 "I have no confidants," replied Armand, 
 proudly, as an eagle might, with speech, de- 
 clare that he did not soar in flocks. "I have 
 been brought up alone, you know. You were 
 my sole companion till I turned myself loose, 
 disgusted — I say it now — at your preaching for 
 the trampling of every tie which trammeled 
 man in a planned pursuit! At your hatred of 
 mankind — or was it solely womankind? Hen- 
 ri was always friendly as Alphonse was amia- 
 ble — I say that for him, until on my refusing 
 to accompany him on his adventures, a sort 
 of page to carry posies and the lute to a lady- 
 love, he banished me to the camp therefore, 
 but at your instigation, it appears. Was that 
 because I mocked at being a choir-boy to our 
 brother the Bishop ! Between those two stools, 
 you would push me down — whither God 
 knows!" 
 
 "To proceed," said the monk with exasperat- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 53 
 
 ing calm, having patiently listened to this long 
 outburst, "when the sweetheart is a common 
 body and her admirer an exalted one, if she 
 turn false, one at the outset accuses — " 
 
 "For shame! Do not talk of accusing that 
 girl! She could not be misled by the Father 
 of Guile himself! Why pause, when you pinch 
 me like the Cretan athlete iu the oak? Faul- 
 ty am I, but at least, along the River Loire, 
 is there a cavalier superior to Armand?" 
 
 "Who was your go-between?" 
 
 "No one, I tell you." 
 
 "You were on military dutv, Armand; you 
 must have sent her missives, tokens, trophies, 
 perhaps! Appointments were made — " 
 
 "Oh, a servant," contemptuously. "That fel- 
 low Jean Laffemas, the miller's boy — " 
 
 "Traditionally, the miller is a rogue! This 
 time his son is one, surely. A notable sly fox!" 
 
 "I chose him sly and secret to keep my secret 
 close. True! moreover, my Joseph who knows 
 little of love matters, he is a newly-married 
 man — he was partial to a lover!" 
 
 The poor boy stammered, too confused to find 
 sound arguments to bolster up a tottering 
 trust. 
 
 "Married, perforce, remember!" retorted the 
 cold and bitter voice out of that impalpable, 
 scarcely definable form in the gloom, for here 
 as without all was swiftly darkling like the 
 clammy terror enveloping the youth's heart. 
 "You, autocratic brother, who would have made 
 a good adviser at the elbow of the Grand-Duke 
 of Russia, matched badly and without the least 
 consideration for the feelings — admitting they 
 have feelings to be considered — of his peas- 
 ants!"' 
 
 "But Laffemas look up to Ramire! I say, 
 
54 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 look up! A prince might! Pan himself, if he 
 haunted these thickets, would have lowered his 
 wanton gaze and let her pass unf righted !" de- 
 clared Richelieu, recovering some fire if not 
 coolness. "Laffeinas! a promising lad, but he 
 could not appreciate a Eamire, far less charm 
 her! The 'prentice astrologer ogles Diana, but 
 it is sure that she does not bend her ^w to 
 shoot a ray at the clown! She was all loveli- 
 ness and had a lovelier disposition than all the 
 fine dames of the province! I grant you, Jo- 
 seph, my brother, my father, my teacher, that 
 Laffemas might have looked up to her, for 
 zounds! we have taste in our bourg! But 
 purely on peril of his ears, as the sower looks 
 up at the evening star when sowing in the 
 change of the moon! But he, to pay his ad- 
 dresses to her — " 
 
 He banged the doorpost with his fist and 
 uttered an oath, specimen of the camp vocab- 
 ulary, which drowned a gust of the rising wind. 
 
 "I taught you to doubt, and you trusted! 
 You have been fooled up to the hilt, my poor 
 pupil! Simply, she has run off with your man- 
 Jack — it is positive!" 
 
 Armand burst into hollow laughter and 
 sprang to sit upon the table where he swung 
 his feet saucily, like a pert page. 
 
 "Good father, much fasting has driven you 
 mad!" 
 
 Joseph lifted his sleeved arm as if to appeal 
 to heaven, when far-off lightning lit up an ex- 
 panse as by drawing over it a luminous sheet. 
 
 "Eamire, who had delicacy like a princes*, 
 and a Laffemas ! Ha ! Ha !" 
 
 "My son, Laffemas came— you will see wheth- 
 
 <■; I am wf>\\ Informed h itli   -     fPOIB 
 -•it: 1 h:iui\. (.his eyi 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 55 
 
 "Then he has been a sluggard! but certainly 
 I sent a message to her — " 
 
 "It terrified her, as he had been terrified 
 on the way by surprising the contents — " 
 
 "It might terrify him, for a lord's secrets are 
 fearful to keep; but why should it thus affect 
 her?"' 
 
 "F- \ the crisis had come to both. He was 
 your courier, and he added to her, as a final 
 argument, that they must act with prompt- 
 ness; bearing in mind that the marquis' death 
 would make you lord over all the estate — " 
 
 "You overshoot the mark! The news was 
 not known in camp up to my departure, mark! 
 I met no mournful faces on the road," contin- 
 ued he suspiciously. "How was my messenger 
 to know this?" 
 
 "Like ancient slaves, our swains have pecu- 
 liar methods of spreading news. The states- 
 man who discovers them and contracts them to 
 his own profit will be grandissimo among rul- 
 ers. This by the way. Your varlet picked up 
 the news at some roadside inn, perhaps at our 
 River House, wdiere boatmen and servingmen 
 exchange what hints will best further their 
 robbing masters by water and on land. At all 
 events Jean Laffernas came here, peradventure, 
 the only person, except myself and my inform- 
 ant, aware of your loss. Therefore, he could 
 readily assure Ramire as well that you would 
 arrive shortly as that you would be in the posi- 
 tion to force her and him asunder and drive her 
 into any course to consummate your amourette. 
 To begin with, you would separate them, send 
 him back to the frontier where he would be 
 pressed into one of those forlorn hopes, with a 
 soldier attai QBkPQl Bti*" 
 
 rii;ilice iu P 
 
56 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "I am not interested enough in my footboy 
 to propose his murder," returned Armand, dry- 
 ly, but stilled into immobility by the gravity 
 of the conversation's turn. 
 
 Du Tremblay was a noble like himself and 
 seemed to properly value the results of one 
 making a misalliance. 
 
 "She has grown up with this boor. They 
 have shuddered in the evening as the owl's 
 prolonged hoots echoed down the glade and 
 she has shrunk upon his breast. They have 
 listened to the nightingale in the early spring 
 morning, as they collected dew, for your saint- 
 ed mother's toilet — God rest her! Who had 
 not a weakness but wishing to be belle of the 
 county all-a-lifetime! In short," he abruptly 
 said, like an angler who, after playing, gave 
 the line a tautening motion, "Ramire has 
 thought of her heart alone, as rustics will! 
 She chose for companion for life the one who 
 was her childhood's, and as I have told you, 
 they have left Richelieu forever!" 
 
 "My man, with no fear of me! My love, with 
 no affection for me!" groaned the young noble, 
 burying his face in trembling hands. 
 
 "They who plucked the hips and haws to- 
 gether are now seeking grapes on the thorns 
 plenteous in sin and desolation's way! For 
 this turncoat Laffemas is a married man!" 
 
 "Monstrous!" cried Armand, stamping his 
 heavy boot, "unnatural! So fair, so gentle, so 
 sweet a girl that the August sun would not 
 scorch her beauty at this door. A child! For 
 it was scarcely more than yesterday that she 
 stood no higher than my pony's stirrup to of- 
 fer me in the woodland a nosegay of its blooms. 
 Ah! those flowers, like her most fresh and 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 57 
 
 pure, but so soon wilted that I could not long 
 wear them on uiv heart!" 
 
 "All fades,'' said Joseph's deep voice, "all 
 perishes! Look not to things earthly if you 
 seek the Everduring!" 
 
 The calm was over without; the rising breeze 
 bore from the manorhouse a confusion of 
 coarse laughter, rough songs and music, and 
 applause of thumping feet and cries of "Noel!" 
 
 "Laubardemont is telling them some droll 
 town story," thought the priest. 
 
 "Father," said the lieutenant with voice un- 
 steady, "how do you know about this flight, all, 
 like one standing by? Surely, holy man 
 though you are, being by, you would have 
 struck down the hireling stealing the sweets 
 marked down by his master? This is villainy, 
 no doubt, which seeks the covert and seldom 
 has hearers!" 
 
 ''You are right, my son! I came here, ignor- 
 ant of all — death of your brother and death 
 to your hopes! On the village skirts, I met 
 mine own servant, who had ridden with spur 
 and whip to acquaint the house with the news 
 how Henri had met death. I was about to 
 send you and Alphonse a dispatch, call your 
 sister out of her nunnery, summon a family 
 council in your name, when the Castle Hill 
 hermit intercepted me — " 
 
 "Ah, that snail comes forth from his shell 
 to stay the good work?" 
 
 "Simon it was to whom the escaping maid 
 had turned to procure funds for the flight — 
 her own. You know he is the Jew, the banker, 
 the custodian of savings as of secrets for all 
 the rude neighbors. To him, you see, holy man, 
 money is dross! He charges no interest for 
 its keep, and such his high reputation for sane- 
 
58 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 tity that no robber durst penetrate his cell 
 any more than Barabbas would invade the 
 Tabernacle." 
 
 "Yes," muttered Arinand, brooding, "she 
 would have money laid up — there, I daresay — 
 much, for I added to her store, wishful she 
 should not too early lack daintj^ food, the cur- 
 rent song and story books, finer laces of the 
 smuggling-chapman than she can work, trink- 
 ets to which I want her accustomed — in fact, 
 she laid up, as we jested, for a reigning day!" 
 
 "A rainy day, for which you feathered the 
 nest where another will be sheltered from the 
 storm! Poor Armand! With hypocritical 
 pretence that her money was needed to pay 
 out her mother's soul from perdition, she drew 
 it! More hypocritically still, she begged the 
 recluse's blessing on her journey to her moth- 
 er's burying-place, at last discovered, she as- 
 serted. And so, made her reverence!" 
 
 "But with money it was less likely she would 
 travel alone? A girl can scarcely travel afar 
 without guard, without duenna, as they say 
 in Spain?" 
 
 "You have hit it! She was not going with- 
 out attendant. At the inn she was to meet 
 a guide, an old aunt, decrepit, venerated by 
 the gipsies, all of whom would assist the 
 pair — " 
 
 "You see, the other story is fabulous! It is 
 filial affection! She goes with a kinswoman!" 
 cried the young man. "She is innocent! the 
 other supposition was infamous! Unfounded! 
 Scandalous!" 
 
 "A gipsy, under the. Crossed Oars! A pa- 
 gan, at the Boatman's Arms! Come, come, the 
 host is a receiver of stolen goods, the guests 
 are poachers and smugglers; but they would 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 59 
 
 not harbor a heathen! This was her tale! I 
 told vou that she went oil' with your man!" 
 
 "With him! Into Spain! Still, if there—" 
 clinging to the clue for his Ariadne's sake. 
 
 "Oh, the traitress would sav anything to mis- 
 lead!" 
 
 "In Spain, or wherever I find him, I will have 
 this Laffemas beaten out of recognition by the 
 mother who bore him. I will drag him home 
 and then run him out with hounds, on mar- 
 ket-day, from the cross to the parish confines!" 
 
 "Both are beyond hounding," said Joseph 
 curtly, passing around to the door as if to close 
 it as the wind brought the savor of tempest. 
 
 "Patient as the panther," said the discon- 
 solate man, "I pursue!" 
 
 The wind shut the door and the Capuchin 
 stood before it. 
 
 But, as happens when the wind rises, merry- 
 makers raise their voices, and they still heard 
 Laubardemont's song. 
 
 "A merry song, in the mouth of one who 
 brought that mortal news?" said Armand. 
 
 "He has not told it!" 
 
 "Why not? What mysteries! Who is the 
 lord here in the interregnum of Henri and Ar- 
 mand?" said Richelieu haughtily. "He shall 
 have my ox>inion on one who sings thus over 
 the dead lord! But my horse is rested; I 
 must out, upon their road !" 
 
 "Stop!" 
 
 "Father, even you must not stay me!" 
 
 "Your brother's corpse, that bars the road!" 
 
 He opened the door. Armand advanced, but 
 recoiled. 
 
 "Hark! If you have ears for other sound 
 than that siren's voice!" 
 
 A distant churchbell tolled. On the stormy 
 
60 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 wind, fitfully came notes of a strident trumpet 
 and a monotonous drum; the young officer well 
 knew the funeral march of a soldier. 
 
 "My brother!" 
 
 Overhead all was dark now. Like the sil- 
 ver tears on a pall, a few stars, momentarily 
 uncovered, glinted faintly. 
 
 Joseph dropped on his knees, to pray, leav- 
 ing the passage altogether free. But Armand 
 reverently joined him in the prayer, although 
 standing, and inclining forward like a hound 
 in the leash, ready to spring spite of chiding. 
 
 But the wind soughed so woefully in the 
 woods, the ilex and elms waved so dolefully, 
 and the clamor of the women who had added 
 themselves to the procession, to be rewarded 
 (as was the usage) on arriving at the great 
 house, was so touching that the heir bowed his 
 head and bent the knee. 
 
 "Henri is coming home for the last time," 
 whispered the Capuchin in his ear, they be- 
 ing on the level. "Stay, at least, to cast the 
 clod and the sprig of evergreen upon his cof- 
 fin!" 
 
 "On his burial morning, I leave home, for the 
 last time, then!" 
 
 "Wilful that you are!" said the priest, but 
 not without a strange admiration. 
 
 "Revenge, saith the Italians, is a dish sweet- 
 est eaten cold," returned the youth with little 
 of Christian spirit before his instructor in 
 piety. 
 
 "Revenge on a low-born lass and a lackey! 
 That is a meat for equals to sup on. A gipsy 
 and a plowboy! Fie, Armand! The Marquis 
 of Richelieu degrades himself already!" 
 
 Often as now the priest's words were bit- 
 ter without the tone being so. He saluted him, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. Gl 
 
 on taking his title, like one gentleman to an- 
 other, without mockery. 
 
 The other quivered with rage; the chant of 
 the priests seemed to madden him! 
 
 "Before the grass grows on that new grave, 
 I will have them dragged back at the horses' 
 tail ! From'the realm's confines, from over the 
 border, if our name finds an echo at the Court! 
 Lashed all the way to where they were born, 
 and on the land to which they turned traitors! 
 I would I could bury them alive, under the 
 smoking ashes of this cottage, which the fires 
 of heaven should kindle and consume for be- 
 ing my heart's funereal urn! Oh, had my wish 
 been otherwise, how oft would we two have 
 paid a pious pilgrimage-visit hither to view 
 where we first caught a glimpse of Eden! Oh, 
 that deceit should crawl in here, to tempt that 
 maid of peerless mould, of luscious but lying 
 lips! Stand aside! They shall not enjoy their 
 triumph! I forget all, until I shall have 
 washed my hands in their blood!" 
 
 "Hold! Bring them back from where they 
 hide their shame! Preposterous idea! Better 
 they should perish, remote, in lowliness befit- 
 ting their coudition! Whatever the charge 
 trumped up to obtain their return, will they 
 not deny it? Their silence even would find a 
 hundred voices in others, too, of their herd, 
 to bruit that my lord was jealous — of his foot- 
 boy, forsooth! That the new sultan was dou- 
 bly duped! Ha, ha!" laughed the monk, with 
 as little feeling as the brazen head of magi- 
 cians. "What will the Estates of Touraine say 
 to their latest member, so blind that a (hit 
 of a girl and a lout not many weeks promoted 
 from the plowhandle to the varlet's clothes- 
 brush — thev cheated him in fulness! Riche- 
 
62 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 lieu will be a by- word! The laughing-stock — 
 the peg on which to hang a lewd ballad such 
 as my ungodly man is halloaing there in the 
 teeth of the funeral train! You will be con- 
 demned to enter the Church, or remain a bach- 
 elor, and you may not seek the town, for the 
 players along the Seine-side will be enacting 
 farces about 'the Master who w T as Kival to 
 his Squire!' " 
 
 "By the hallowed Death!" swore Armand, 
 like his old troopers. 
 
 "You cannot flee, like they have! Whither 
 would you flee whence you must not return 
 some day for your duties, whereupon, look you ! 
 the first tenant who came to kiss your hand 
 would stop to conceal his well-worn grin on 
 remembering your being gulled!" 
 
 "Oh, holy sir! You might be content with 
 lacerating me, but not pour boiling pitch on 
 the weals!" 
 
 "To heal! Armand, you would be a blighted 
 man, and the house — the house your father 
 lifted so as to be even with the mightiest, 
 would be down in the mire for a century!" 
 
 "True!" said the young man tenderly, for he 
 idolised his father. Then, loftily and severely 
 as never before to his preceptor, "I stay 
 through the obsequies; whereon I shall act on 
 the fruit of inquiries toward an end — one to 
 make me feared, not ridiculed!" 
 
 "To make inquiries looks like doubting me!" 
 said the monk, but with his usual unconcern. 
 
 "After doubting a Eamire, I doubt every- 
 body!" 
 
 He sprang out of the house as if suddenly 
 aware of its containing deadly contagion. 
 
 <.\vrtouk Mm, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 63 
 
 "Whither go you if not to precipitate your- 
 self after the runagades?" 
 
 "To the hermitage, to put a question or two 
 to Father Simon." 
 
 The Capuchin drew a breath in relief. 
 
 "You could not do better; by his office and 
 his practice as comforter, he will afford you 
 peace." 
 
 "Peace, to this heart!" said the lieutenant, 
 beating his breast. "Replace that fledgling, 
 tossed out of the nest by the gale, and expect 
 it to thrive!" 
 
 "After seeing the good man, what follows?" 
 
 "I know not; but Richelieu will stand at 
 his place by his brother's pall, as the prayers 
 are spoken over him." 
 
 "That suffices for a brother noble, but not 
 for a noble brother!" 
 
 "Father, if Raniire be the miserable self- 
 castaway you describe, rejecting and trifling 
 with a love like mine, my titles, my future — 
 for, sir, I felt I had a future when Love drew 
 the curtain and waved its torch on the obscur- 
 ity beyond — if she spurns me in favor of a 
 clown — well, look you! I shall be grossly mis- 
 taken on this life of mortal man. I and the 
 world will fly asunder as the broken handle 
 from the sword; I shall be detached from things 
 as these leaves from the bough and those limbs 
 from the trunk! I held to my prospects as the 
 antique culprit to his rock, but, this time, I 
 shall let it roll back and crush me!" 
 
 "All for a girl! Woman, woman, here be 
 buried two men in a week, for your worth- 
 lessness withal! Poor Henri!" 
 
 "Poor Ramire!" 
 
 "At all events, you will be at the funeral?" 
 
64 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Armand looked round as if seeing the scene 
 for the first time. 
 
 The showers of a storm's front were falling 
 finely. The drops beat on the leaves like tat- 
 too of an immense fairy host. A strange light 
 pervaded all, the grey tone of burnt roses, deli- 
 cate, pleasingly sad, mysterious, not repulsive, 
 suggesting renascence not annihilation. The 
 wailing was under cover now, no doubt in the 
 chapel, and the muffling made it musical and 
 less doleful. Already a pool, fed by some deep 
 channel, was swelling and its surface, chang- 
 ing color with dyes from the earth dissolving, 
 reflected flitting and minute rays as from glow- 
 worms or deadwood. As the Cadet of Riche- 
 lieu gazed, even these were blotted out by the 
 spreading grey. 
 
 The chapel bell sounded as if never to stop; 
 melancholy filled his heart like that of one 
 who had not a support to grasp at. It had 
 been fraught with joy and hope, but so isolated 
 is a lover when he is a wronged one, that he 
 felt entirely alone. 
 
 "See!" said Joseph in a sweet voice, such as 
 a prelate uses to the novice taking the black 
 veil, "nature weeps with us. Do nothing rash- 
 ly. Why breast this deluge? Rather get you 
 in, and there await the hermit. I will send 
 him to you! Pray meanwhile for oblivion, 
 which is a kind of peace, and he will come, 
 haply, to seal it with heaven's!" 
 
 Armand seeined confounded by the blank of 
 nature; submissively, mechanically almost, he 
 let himself be pushed toward the cottage where 
 he abruptly entered as if invisible hands seized 
 him. Imagining in the redoubled gloom that 
 blissful form which the bold accusation had 
 dissipated, he burst into tears. Clasping his 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 65 
 
 hands, he sank upon a stool, with his head 
 bowed, his insupportable grief mastering other 
 emotions. 
 
 "He weeps; but that is no disgrace in a mere 
 boy, fatigued by a long ride! It will save him 
 from frenzy, during which he might have cut 
 a throat!" thought the monk, confidently hur- 
 rying away over the ground slippery with the 
 rain, which he defied in his cowl and gown. 
 "He is saved from worse — he might attempt 
 self-murder! But our task is only begun! He 
 would not listen to me! Has Simon a wilier 
 tongue?" 
 
 The rain poured in torrents as he reached the 
 sanctuary. 
 
6$ RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTEE IV, 
 
 A GOOD HEARER MAKES A FINE SPEAKER. 
 
 In spite of the tempest the good hermit 
 seemed not to be astonished at the re-appear- 
 ance of his brother in the creed. Nor was he 
 filled with surprise on hearing that, after the 
 first outburst, and the wrathful expression of 
 his desire to follow the fugitives, Armand had 
 been calmed by grief, shown in those tears 
 which one of the Latin races has no compunc- 
 tion to shed in another man's presence upon a 
 great emotion mastering him. 
 
 "Were vou cruel to him, brother?" demanded 
 he, somewhat sternly. 
 
 The lover of one's child can never be indif- 
 ferent to father, or grandsire. 
 
 "Who loves well, chastises well," responded 
 the Capuchin, like a Flagellant Friar. 
 
 "I am glad he is calmed — his thirst for re- 
 venge assuaged by tears." 
 
 Joseph replied no more, but watched the 
 other. 
 
 "But what are you holding? It looks like a 
 phial of cordial. Simon, Simon, you are not 
 addicted to stimulants of your distilling, in 
 your lonely watches, are you?" said the Capu- 
 chin with an effort at jesting. 
 
 "It is a medicine, as it is used — a poison, 
 at need." 
 
 "Ah! it is your grandchild, true! Would 
 you take your life because I took awav her 
 love?" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 67 
 
 "No, it is not for me. It is for your pupil." 
 
 "Hand Armand poison?" 
 
 "Did you not leave him willing to die?" 
 
 "I think yen are right. He had, at least, 
 postponed the inclination to hurry in the chase 
 and kill the pair." 
 
 "If he did not do so, without hearing your 
 remonstrances, it is because he knew that he 
 loved her too much! He would spare her — 
 count on that! And, perhaps, at her entreaty, 
 the supposed paramour. Now, he wishes to 
 inflict the deepest wound on her — if she still 
 loves him, you understand? — he wishes to have 
 her haunted all her life with the idea that he 
 slew himself for love of her, believing her un- 
 true." 
 
 "And you would assist him in that silly pur- 
 pose?" 
 
 "I shall do better than that. You want an 
 auditor who will not interrupt you in seek- 
 ing to prevail against the well-prevailing Love. 
 I will go to him — pretend to aid him in his 
 wicked aim, and he will drink — " holding up 
 the phial, in the flambeau light, "thinking it 
 is annihilation of the senses — when it will be 
 barely suspension of them." 
 
 "Only a drug?" said Joseph, relieved. 
 
 "And a rare one, which the monks of Mount 
 Athos never bettered in their alembics. It has 
 the power to plunge the absorber into a sleep 
 so like the ultimate one that the best physi- 
 cians would be in doubt. Perhaps, it was ex- 
 tracted," went on Simon, meditatively, "from 
 that root, by means of the juice of which the 
 fakirs of the Ind dwell bottled up for a long 
 period and ran be revived. Who knows but 
 the Egyptian mummies await the bearer of 
 such a flask to be resuscitated?" 
 
68 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Leave Egypt and the Ind!" said the Capu- 
 chin hastily. "I see your drift. The idea is 
 excellent. If I can but get him to listen pa- 
 tiently." 
 
 "Like a stone!" 
 
 "You are sure that I should not be wasting 
 my eloquence, like your namesake the Stylite, 
 preaching to the monoliths?" 
 
 "Follow me to the cottage and enter when 
 you see him rendered unresisting to your thun- 
 der!" 
 
 Wrapt in their purpose, proof to the deluge 
 into which they had to plunge, the two men 
 retraced the path to the girl's dwelling. 
 
 One of the horn window-panes had been dis- 
 lodged by the wind. They peeped in. 
 
 "Armand is on the spot where I left him; 
 but he has sunk on his knees! So devout, 
 after all — pray he may not be lost to the 
 Church!" said the Capuchin, sincerely. 
 
 "He is rising. This is the nick!" 
 
 A flash of lightning zigzagged across the 
 dun sky as the hermit stepped within the single 
 room and shook off the rain. 
 
 In a second flash Armand saw him, and by 
 the third recognised his visitor. 
 
 "Plague!" said he, with affectation of levity, 
 "has all Richelieu made a rendezvous in the 
 poor flown pigeon's cote? Why do you in- 
 trude on me?" he fiercely added, thinking that 
 the new-comer wore that smile of contumely 
 which Joseph had foreseen would adorn all 
 lips. 
 
 "Do you use that tone to me, and yet know 
 me?" said Simon reproachfully. 
 
 "Yes, I know you, my tutor in woodcraft and 
 the wonders of Nature! Father Simon, who 
 need be Simon Magus to dispel my sorrow! 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 69 
 
 You are famed for wisdom, piety, honesty, 
 charity, all that makes a bishop shunned and 
 a hermit sought in his diocese! Unhappily, I 
 do not want any of those balms! All, all is 
 naught to me, you understand?" 
 
 "Why, A inland? Because you have heard 
 of the death which makes you Richelieu?" 
 
 "I was not thinking of Henri's death — more 
 shame to me, perhaps! The heart has its fam- 
 ily, created after it bounds in love — the death 
 oppressing me is in its family!" 
 
 Simon heaved a sigh and surprised his hearer 
 by saying, with feeling: 
 
 "Poor Eamire!" 
 
 "Do you mock me? Do you imitate the 
 echoes of these walls? That has been the 
 Amen to all my prayers!" 
 
 "I do not mock you !" he removed a tear from 
 his eye with his hand, and added: "I mourn 
 her, too." 
 
 "Ah, she was really, then, so good as to 
 make you deplore her flight?" said the young 
 man, interested for the first time. 
 
 "I deplore any flight of a soul, even toward 
 heaven, for it is one missing from the army 
 which on earth wages eternal war with Satan. 
 But there is more in her departure to pierce 
 my heart, like your own, than you imagine. 
 You said you knew me as your tutor when I 
 came in. Know, now only, that I am her 
 grandfather." 
 
 "I ought to have guessed that! Ramire 
 often told me how limitless was your kindness! 
 You brought her up like a princess' daughter — 
 bless you for that, though she throws away the 
 pearl!" 
 
 "Yes, I must have shown her more than 
 
70 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Christian loving-kindness. She was my only 
 tie to life." 
 
 "Tell me — her father — was he lowly born?" 
 
 "Her father was Blaise — " 
 
 "The old soldier turned wood-cutter — " 
 
 "The reprobate, who led a dissolute life and 
 died of wounds received battling with your 
 father's keepers over a doe killed out of sea- 
 son; her mother — " 
 
 "Yes, yes, her mother?" 
 
 "Was, like him, an arrant law-breaker, gipsy 
 by every deed, and a Spanish one at that, who 
 had redoubled Oriental craft with Moorish 
 subtlety." 
 
 "I see that you leave me no hope. But it 
 is enough that you believe her so wicked!" In 
 a tone of despair which made the other shiver, 
 he uttered: "1 see that you do not blame me 
   — since I have not driven her from this home! 
 On the contrary, I came to offer my hand in 
 holy marriage — " 
 
 Simon pretended surprise too great to let 
 him speak. 
 
 "Yes; you taught her to be my equal; but 
 she, of her birthright, daughter of the vagrants 
 who spurn all bonds, has resumed their vag- 
 rant life. Let me show I have better profited 
 by your tuition!" 
 
 "How, Armand?" said the old man, tenderly, 
 for he could not but regard with weakening 
 eyes the young noble who contemplated such 
 an act as a marriage beneath him. 
 
 "Your Church is Nature's; but you live in 
 sympathy with that which stands heavy on the 
 land in severe majesty — my brother Al- 
 phonse's. Let me cancel the boon of learning 
 which I owe to you by giving up all I inherit 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 71 
 
 to that Church, when I am laid beside mj 
 brother the marquis." 
 
 "That would be long to await — " 
 
 "Not so! I dead, Alphonse is master here." 
 
 "He renouiH ed all." 
 
 Armand smiled sarcastically. 
 
 "I doubt not that the Ecclesiastical Court 
 will find a way to pass the estate on to him, 
 bar that!" 
 
 "Be that as it may, what are you bent upon? 
 Throwing away your life in the wars, rather 
 than on the highway, seeking our poor Ra- 
 mi re?" 
 
 "No. Here! Not so romantically! I beg 
 of you some of that drug for which we gath- 
 ered the plants in the moonlight." 
 
 Simon started ; it was not often that he had 
 known the same thought to attack two persons 
 so opportunely for a trick. 
 
 "That poison?" stammered he. "I, give you 
 poison? How do you know but that I want it 
 for myself, in my desperation?" 
 
 "Because you hope to see the girl again, A 
 grandsire may pardon all she has done and 
 receive her in his arms at the end of her flight 
 in folly; but with a lover — a lover like me, 
 it is different: I cannot forgive the insult in 
 her setting me aside in favor of one who held 
 my stirrup!" 
 
 "I shall never see Ramire on earth again," 
 said the hermit firmly. "In the wailing of the 
 storm I hear a premonition!" 
 
 "Then give me the only physic to our woe." 
 
 "Die, with this estate at 'your feet? With 
 the future so brightly dawning? So young 
 that you may be roiisoled for this loss?" 
 
 "I die, Father Simon, because I believe, spite 
 of all, that Ramire did love me, and may again 
 
72 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 do so. Then she will be punished, on finding 
 a stone, cold and speechless, over my grave, 
 where she expected to meet a cherished re- 
 membrance which would assure her forgive- 
 ness. It is to have done with all, with her 
 particularly, you see, that I beseech you to 
 divert Lethe across my path." 
 
 "Why do you single me out to have a share 
 in your crime — for Christians are not stoics — 
 they forbid self-murder!" 
 
 "Because you had a part in my grief; you 
 brought Ramire and me together, when girl 
 and boy! Perhaps you divined my good and 
 high intentions, and, being her forefather, you 
 fanned the flame! I forgive you, though it has 
 blackened her fame and scorches the heart out 
 of me! The poison, father!" 
 
 The recluse drew out from the folds of his 
 gown the rock-crystal phial which Joseph had 
 remarked, and held it up. 
 
 "Drink," he said slowly, "while I go, alone, 
 in quest of our lost lamb!" 
 
 He watched for the effect of this phrase 
 on the youth, but his hand did not tremble 
 unless with eagerness as he took the object. 
 
 "If you do succeed in finding her, tell her 
 not how you assisted to divorce my soul and 
 body!" 
 
 "Shall I not tell her you died, leaving a 
 last word of forgiveness?" 
 
 "I thank you, and may you be forgiven for 
 culminating your stainless life with this seem- 
 ing crime — but, oh! how happy you make me!" 
 
 Simon blessed him with a gesture. 
 
 "When the soul is divorced from the casket, 
 what happens?" said he, on the threshold. 
 "We have discussed this question, and I have 
 pondered over it, to the booming of the bit- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 73 
 
 tern and until the piping of the quail. You 
 will know, before me! (Strange, that — in so 
 young a man!"' 
 
 "The grave?" said Armand, clasping the 
 phial to his breast. "Perhaps, sheer silence 
 alter this noisy world, where empty talk has 
 the ear, like the court jester." 
 
 "In the silence, you may the better hear 
 voices you heeded not in life!" 
 
 "As long as I am deaf to her voice, I care 
 not." 
 
 He relapsed into silence, frowning like a 
 monarch who wished to be alone. 
 
 "He is bronze — he will not relent," muttered 
 the hermit, quitting the place. 
 
 A grey figure, gleaming with wet, was mak- 
 ing the circuit of the cottage. 
 
 "What a time you have been!" he hissed re- 
 proachfully to Simon. 
 
 "I was wasting the time, for he would not 
 be consoled." 
 
 "What comfort had you for him? Did you 
 propose going to chase after the fleeing couple 
 in company?" 
 
 "Instead of pursuing her, he means to place 
 himself beyond her reach if she returned." 
 
 "Determined to kill himself?" 
 
 "He asked me for the drug which he knew 
 about, since he and I plucked the plants in 
 yonder glades." 
 
 "It is a good omen that the same idea struck 
 vou both!" 
 
 "I hope so. He will drink — he will fall into 
 a stupor, and the rest lies with yourself." 
 
 "We will see if vou are acting fairly by us 
 both." 
 
 At the door, which the hermit had not closed, 
 by a flash of lightning Joseph was spared stum- 
 
74 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 bling over what seemed Kichelieu's lifeless 
 body. 
 
 "Already?'' said he. "The lightning is not 
 fleeter!" 
 
 Something glittered on the rushes over the 
 floor in the next flash, and the Capuchin picked 
 it up. It was the phial, unstoppered, and 
 drained to the last drop. 
 
 He sank on his knees beside him and felt for 
 his heart-beat. 
 
 Alarmed, he turned a pale face towards the 
 hermit, who had returned on his path to peer 
 in at the door. 
 
 "Has he taken an overdose! has it killed 
 him, of a verity? Ha! Mother of Grace, for- 
 fend this! but you hated him, you hated Ar- 
 mand for being nearer the stem than yourself! 
 scion on the stock of which we are proud, you 
 have thus revenged yourself for the removal of 
 your grandchild! you have doubled the sorrow 
 on this already grey head!" 
 
 Simon made a careless gesture. 
 
 "Save your breath, my Brother Joseph," said 
 he, without a token of irritation even, "for 
 your persuasive address on this fettered soul. 
 You are a teacher who has, for a second time, 
 though at later age, had a pupil placed under 
 his care. This time, however, more helpless 
 than in puberty, you have your ward delivered 
 over to you inert, gagged and bound, and you 
 ran proceed with your instruction uninter- 
 rupted by a sound, a look, a protest in dumb- 
 show, even! It is for you to sway him into the 
 course which suits your intent — your policy." 
 
 "He must not be proven guilty of ingratitude 
 to his country, his peers, or his King!" said 
 Du Tremblay gravely, but not without warmth. 
 
 "Yes, he were worthy of a cell in the Bastile, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 75 
 
 where your brother the Chevalier is governor's 
 deputy, if he were to become a rustic squire, 
 wasting his talents and his time on a series of 
 farms, on warrens and preserves, to say noth- 
 ing of a stupid wife and a cooing brood." 
 
 li was difficult for the listener, keen though 
 he was, to determine whether the hermit was 
 gibing or speaking simply, 
 
 He was not a good listener, to tell the truth, 
 for he was studying the young man. 
 
 Armand lay in a trance which defied the 
 closest scrutiny to perceive any signs of re- 
 maining life. 
 
 "He is no more?" said he, in a hoarse whis- 
 per, half-inquiry, half perplexity. "He is al- 
 ready cold, Simon!" 
 
 "In cold blood, in faith, he will hear you out," 
 replied the hermit, lightly, to hide some pain, 
 as he wavered at the doorway. "Do not hurry 
 — there is no need. When you are done in your 
 appealing — your arguments, your pleadings — 
 what you will — just dash water on him. You 
 need not go far to seek that, for the ice-brook 
 is swelling at the door from the gathering tor- 
 rent. See! it is black as ink from surging 
 through the Burnt Wood!" 
 
 Joseph did not turn his head; if he had 
 done so, he might indeed have seen through the 
 slightly-parted door, held agaiust the gust by 
 the recluse, in the bluish glare of lightnings, a 
 black rivulet serpentining through the devas- 
 tated woods, like a reptile of jetty skin. 
 
 "Water, merely water — that will be the anti- 
 dote." 
 
 "Can anyone human arouse him?" queried 
 the Capuchin, wringing his hands and looking 
 up incredulously. 
 
76 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "At will, at will, with the cold water," re- 
 joined the retiring man testily. 
 
 "I must have faith in you since there is no 
 choice. It is on my heart to say that you have 
 done well, Simon, my brother! Well, if the 
 elements in their warfare permit it, go to your 
 cell and pray for my success! one for which, 
 please God! our country will yet praise us! It 
 signifies the elevation, the diffusion, the ag- 
 grandisement of our Mother-Church! of our 
 country! of this race of Richelieu of which you 
 may be proud! and of which without being 
 kin, I, too, from tender ties and long alliance 
 of our families, seek the pre-eminence!" 
 
 In his enthusiasm he had forgotten his dis- 
 tress about the insensible young man, and his 
 tone rose exultantly above the roaring of the 
 storm. 
 
 "You are rapt with joy, brother!" said Si- 
 mon, wiping his face, dashed with water from 
 the blast suddenly wrestling with his arm on 
 the door. 
 
 "It is a foretaste of a great joy to come! 
 Richelieu, the Chief of France!" 
 
 "Alas! your joy is my sorrow, that poor 
 boy's despair, and the everduring unhappiness 
 of my poor Ramire!" 
 
 "Flies on the chariot wheel must be crushed 
 in the dust as it rolls on!" cried the monk im- 
 patiently. 
 
 But Simon had left the cottage, closing the 
 door where the rain had beaten in during their 
 colloquy; but, notwithstanding the tempest 
 was almost at its height, he stood under the 
 dripping eaves to hear the harangue to the 
 benumbed youth. 
 
 Armand had hardly more than taken the 
 draught, which he doubted not was deadly, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 77 
 
 when he felt its insidious drops warm his in- 
 ternals and swiftly course with the blood, and 
 even into the nervous system until his entire 
 frame was embraced. 
 
 Then he fell as the dead; his sight sealed 
 up so that he did not perceive the vivid light- 
 ning, while he was unconscious that the father 
 was seeking for the throb of his blood and 
 other indications that Simon had not indeed 
 executed a treacherous piece of revenge. 
 
 But all his faculties were not congealed. 
 
 He could hear; and, suddenly, amid the 
 storm at its worst, a voice, either of great pow- 
 er at a distance in space, or very close to his 
 ear, made every word tell of a singular ad- 
 dress. 
 
 "Young man (said the voice of Joseph, 
 though he did not recognize it), you entered on 
 the career of arms, but the clash of battle has 
 not allured you, any more than the vain glory 
 of the camp, from remembrance of the charm- 
 ing girl whom you quitted with the promise 
 never to forget. You returned to her, to wed 
 her, though born far below your station. 
 Neither war nor love suit the superior energy 
 requisite to the statesman. lie who loves his 
 country sincerely must renounce the commerce 
 of the "fair sex and the brutal medley of can- 
 non, chargers and the pike-bearing infantry. 
 Unless he would lose touch of the clue which 
 leads him to the throne, to be King over the 
 King, a prime minister must cherish no affec- 
 tion to divert him or yield to secondary mo- 
 tives. To be alone, a man in our age must be 
 a priest. 
 
 "A priest, you must nourish this project, 
 breathed into you during youth to become the 
 master-impulse of your maturing period, as the 
 
78 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 vessel never loses the x^otter's breath which 
 impregnated it and moulded it although ex- 
 posed to the supernal heat of the furnace. 
 
 "This project is the grand one conceived by 
 King Henry the Fourth and finished in its elab- 
 oration by his Minister, Sully — a military and 
 political dream annulled in his breast by the 
 regicide's knife. It was to debase all Powers 
 that France might stand on them as footstools ; 
 France, our fatherland, was to be the ruling 
 spirit over Europe, supported by both branches 
 of the Christian Church, chastened into united 
 unity. 
 
 "The Church, you hear me? In ancient Gaul 
 the Druid priesthood held the administration 
 of business as the priests should now, for in 
 their body abides the spirit of the future: Civ- 
 ilisation, which kings, courtiers, soldiers, the 
 people — none other understand. But each na- 
 tion should have such spiritual counsellors as 
 grow up with it, its own sons. That is why 
 the statesman of the time coming must, in 
 France, oppose — nay, expel the Jesuits! The 
 disciples of Loyola will never be loyal! Al- 
 ready the populace, and even the rustics, at 
 the cue of their parish priests, chafe at their 
 meddling, and will be ripe to back whoever re- 
 presses and chastises these would-be monopo- 
 lisers. 
 
 "But the Pope often sides with 'the Black 
 Pope?' it may be so, in which case, the most 
 faithful son of the Church may oppose the 
 Pope. 
 
 "That is why the statesman must be a 
 churchman. As for you, your brother Al- 
 phonse, of whom I thought what you must real- 
 ise, and who sorely disappointed me, will resign 
 his Bishopric of Lucay, so that you may step 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 79 
 
 into the stall and rise to be cardinal. The 
 chief Cardinal in France is the Pope for our 
 land, and that will suffice, since he must dwell 
 in Paris, where he may be greater than the 
 Holy Father at Pome, 
 
 "To combat your worst enemy, the Jesuits, 
 you must, in its own manner, keep an army of 
 spies — the Force of Intelligence — retain them 
 by wages, devotion or terror; know all that 
 goes on in the world; and to keep them true, 
 let the meanest ever rely on your word. 
 
 "Thus you will be monarch — but, as the ship 
 carrying a good captain could dispense with a 
 figure-head, yet that is preserved because it 
 bears the brunt in steering into action and it 
 presents the finishing touch to the prow on 
 gala occasions, so guard Royalty! It is the 
 Palladium of the realm. Fortify it! so that 
 when the hour sounds for it to be dismantled 
 and its walls thrown down, the garrison may 
 march out with all honors, still useful to the 
 defence; the munitions as serviceable to the 
 Commonwealth as when set aside for a king 
 and his court. 
 
 "This time, we shall not see. 
 
 "As for the jewels of the Crown, the cour- 
 tiers, some do nothing, some idle away or sin 
 away their leisure, others plot when they are 
 not harassing the tax-payers. A few are in- 
 telligent, and the others must be thrown down 
 to be the living carpet ove:- which they shall 
 ride to exaltation, as those Sheriffs of Mahound 
 who trample under hoof the great plaza-ful of 
 worshippers! 
 
 "The princes and peers who are not fops, in- 
 terested solely in the cock of a beaver hat or 
 curl of a pli me, hunt, and encourage bru- 
 tality of a darker age or misspend their hou I 
 
80 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 in evil merrymaking. They regard the king- 
 dom as a park where they chase the base-born. 
 Curb them — behead the tallest like poppies, 
 whose flaring colors and haughty carriage they 
 assume. Crush them in their cabals, out of 
 which stream the plagues worse than Egypt's. 
 
 "Attend to the financiers. Not those great 
 money-makers, who enrich their country and 
 enhance its credit; their fortune in their life- 
 time parts into channels which promote benevo- 
 lent projects and at their death oft turns to the 
 further advantage of the realm. But press 
 hard upon the peculators and speculators — the 
 'farmers' of the revenues, who should be made 
 to disgorge in favor of the Treasury, all to 
 lighten the burdens upon the rate-and-cess 
 payers. As you must have funds for the wars 
 — verily, to curb nobles, hold the sovereign in 
 a bridle, and squeeze these public cormorants, 
 this means war intestine! equalise taxation by 
 abolishing all exemptions and privileges — al- 
 ways remembering the Church is an exception 
 to all rules! other favoring clauses are founded 
 on no reason and are not to the general good. 
 
 "You will have surplus cash, which should 
 be applied to the Army Fund. The army, 
 this is the power — the shining glaive of Ga- 
 briel! before it, Treason, Satan political, must 
 recoil! Sift out those ancient leaders who en- 
 cumber the paths to glory and by their lamenta- 
 tions dispirit recruits. Make the restless, burn- 
 ing-spirited officers of fortune so many Mar- 
 shals of France, being the small-change of the 
 Lord High Constable, whose office abolish! 
 though a Montmorency holds it! It is a one- 
 man power which must not be a stumbling- 
 block — perhaps a headsman's block, to a prime 
 minister. Nominally, let the King replace him, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 81 
 
 as the Commander-in-chief, but the actual 
 generalissimo must be a number of lieutenants, 
 holding one another in check, like Alexander 
 the Great's. 
 
 "In the same way as you purify the Church 
 of the foreigner, so purge the Army of those 
 outlandish rodomonts, the reiters, lanzknechts, 
 spadassins, bravoes, Switzer mercenaries! Let 
 every soldier feel that he touches elbows with 
 a fellow-countryman, and that his dying words 
 v. ill be understood by his comrade — who may 
 bear them to parents or sweetheart unadulter- 
 ated. Let him feel, as is not the case at pres- 
 ent — you know, who have seen camp life — 
 that wherever the shot struck him, he fell into 
 French arms, with Frenchmen around him, for 
 France!" 
 
 He spoke on, streaming with perspiration, for 
 the cottage had become hot as a furnace from 
 the storm being highly electrical, but he was 
 almost as unconscious of the elemental warring 
 without as Simon, drenched under the eaves, 
 still listening, encharmed. 
 
 "With a homogeneous army," continued the 
 enthusiast, "you may, in a lifetime, join, to 
 France, the Low Countries, a slice of the 
 Rhenish duchies, and then — Catalonia! some 
 partition of Spain, which must be separated 
 from Portugal! When you lay down the pen — 
 the new-time sceptre of the ruler — you will be 
 the Premier Minister who will have left a grand 
 and mighty dominion in France to your suc- 
 cessor!" 
 
 The hermit felt his heart w r arm. Then, doubt 
 seizing him, as he summed up all he could re- 
 member of the astute, persevering tutor of the 
 Bishop Alphonse, he murmured: 
 
 "What does this far-seeing, much-grasping 
 
82 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 projector mean to draw into his own bag, while 
 bolstering up this boy to take the golden apples 
 from the dragon-guarded garden? the Court, 
 and politicians' playground? Would he be con- 
 tent to be the Minister's father-confessor? I 
 doubt that! let me hear more — " 
 
 But while he was straining the ear, mechani- 
 cally shaking off the rain-sheets, for he might 
 as well have stood under a cataract, the clouds 
 were concentrated by a stupendous gathering 
 of all the winds towards one point. In those 
 black masses the potent fluid was also col- 
 lected to an impossibility of the vapor still 
 longer confining it. One sharp collision caused 
 a tremendous explosion. The earth quaked and 
 the trees waved as their roots vibrated. 
 Branches fell, wrenched off as the leaves had 
 previously fallen. A fall of rain overwhelmed 
 the forest, bearing down the foliage, and the 
 lightning descended upon the cottage, from the 
 recent clearing placing it in an opening, like a 
 colossal fireball hurled from a celestial cata- 
 pult. 
 
 As if it were aimed at the huge hornbeam, 
 it struck it in all its broad magnificence, and 
 in a moment it was splinters, and a hole in the 
 sodden ground, where the lately-buried clay, 
 brought to the surface instantaneously, 
 gleamed yellow as gold in the flashing light, 
 alone showed where it had flourished. 
 
 Never again would the dryads listen, there, 
 to the love-talk of Armand and Ramire! Hav- 
 ing heaped up the fragments, the bolt scattered 
 likewise into many portions, and chasing one 
 another like fiery serpents, one or two darted 
 at the cottage, and brought more in their wake. 
 
 The cottage was old ; the timbers were worm- 
 eaten and brittle with rot; the stones, hewn 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 83 
 
 without regard to their grain, were also crumb- 
 ling. The shock had disintegrated them both. 
 Now. all tottered and fell apart, like a paste- 
 board house on the stage. 
 
 Over the heads of the preacher and his 
 motionless auditor, the roof slid to one side 
 from the wind; the walls toppled outwards in 
 four directions, and that to the lee swerving 
 round, the unfortunate eavesdropper was 
 caught between them and crushed in their 
 united mass. 
 
 "My child! Ramire! never again shall I — " 
 
 He died without further w T ord. 
 
 In the midst of the reverberations, Armand 
 rose, staggering, to his feet. The shock had 
 overcome the narcotic, as well as the sudden 
 coldness in the rain, no longer prevented delug- 
 ing the pair by the disappeared roof. 
 
 At the same moment, the priest w 7 as about to 
 lift him up and carry him out of the ring of 
 ruin. 
 
 Armand looked at him, like a pythoness re- 
 covering from her draught, and said, in a voice 
 part-strangled, wholly unearthly, with the air 
 of unconsciousness of the storm: 
 
 "Father Joseph, I have heard you, and I 
 obey your call, more promptly than your pre- 
 vious teachings. Wherefore this obedience — 
 this eagerness and coincidence with your 
 views? because they are ideas which leap to- 
 wards the same goal as the fleetest and most 
 spirited of mine!" 
 
 While another flash irradiated the scene, and 
 the thunder from a former volley resounded, 
 Joseph stared at the speaker as though, like a 
 new Ithuriel, he had touched and transfigured 
 a demon whom he had heretofore considered as 
 an innocent sprite. 
 
84 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "I joy to hear that," faltered he, aghast. 
 Then he muttered: 
 
 "Ambitious beyond my knowledge! what if 
 he aims at my own mark, indeed?" The thun- 
 der crackled about them and the youth seemed 
 to stand with a species of glory about his 
 head, his hair rising and standing out in the 
 wet. 
 
 "Let us hasten from the wood!" cried out the 
 Capuchin. "The wind is whirling fragments 
 of destroyed things about us and may over- 
 whelm us! — as it has — " 
 
 He checked himself. 
 
 "Why do you bid me hasten and yet pause? 
 why do you stare?" 
 
 "At nothing! Come away!" 
 
 Joseph had seen a portion of a white face, 
 the rest crushed out of mortal likeness, in the 
 debris of the cottage. He had guessed that the 
 old hermit had played the spy, to his destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Armand refused the hand which the monk 
 offered, as if desirous to show that he had re- 
 covered his strength with his wits, and as if to 
 show additionally that he was undaunted by 
 the continuing uproar, he strode over the ruins, 
 as one who mounted a battered bastion, and 
 reaching the other side extended his hand to 
 assist the other, with a commanding air. 
 
 The monk, this time, also rejected the offer, 
 in the same way, but pretended to be embar- 
 rassed by his frock amid the shattered beams. 
 
 Side by side they stood near the gap whence 
 the tree had been torn and shivered. 
 
 So lofty was the carriage of the young man 
 that the monk repressed an inclination to em- 
 brace him as his pupil elect. 
 
 Richelieu bounded through the wood, where 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 85 
 
 the path was strewn with broken boughs and 
 heaped with leaves, as well as channeled by 
 the rushing rivulets. Joseph du Tremblay fol- 
 lowed, become meek and submissive, like a dog 
 which had at last found a master in a play- 
 mate. Armand pressed on, in a kind of ecstasy, 
 as if all the scene were novel, as well as ex- 
 hilarating to him. The Young Men of Ephe- 
 sus, awakened to the world, after their stupor, 
 would not have stepped out more buoyantly. 
 
 ''Has he forgotten the girl — forgotten love, 
 upon this third spur added to his own?" 
 thought the monk. 
 
 All was dreary, though Armand was so 
 jocund. The rain had ceased to pour, but the 
 trees dripped and drenched the wanderers. 
 
 A large pool, where all had been dry to Ra- 
 mire's foot some hours before, stopped the 
 pair. 
 
 The young marquis turned round abruptly on 
 his follower. 
 
 "I know now who it was vou must have seen, 
 dead, in the cottage ruins," said he. "It was 
 Simon the hermit." 
 
 "He was listening," exclaimed the monk, as 
 a sort of excuse for his heartlessness in not 
 staying to succor the recluse. 
 
 "He was certainly dead!" responded Ar- 
 mand, gloomy as suddenly as he had become 
 gladsome. "It is well that his is not inevitably 
 the spy's doom," he went on sarcastically, "re- 
 calling the use you recommended the future 
 governor of France to make of espionage!" 
 
 Inside the hood, drawn up and over to keep 
 out the showers from the trees, a sound was 
 heard, probably the monk's laugh. 
 
 He was proud of his pupil, again. 
 
 "To tht 1 chateau," said he in a light tone. "I 
 
86 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 have a cavalier's suit of black in my valise, 
 which will serve for your mourning." 
 
 "Ah! Father Joseph," said the other, taking 
 him by the arm to aid him to cross the pool, 
 "you fear to trust me out of your sight? You 
 are not right! but keep with me! Keep with 
 me all my life, and you will see things to 
 which the events of this night are as pages of a 
 child's chapbook to those in 'Jerusalem De- 
 livered!' " 
 
 "We will deliver France?" cried out Joseph. 
 
 "We will!" 
 
 "Yea," muttered the Capuchin, while he em- 
 braced the young aspirer to the Premiership, 
 and, his cowl falling back in the act, he showed 
 his leathery face, with prominent nose and 
 gleaming, hollow eyes lighted by the sulphur- 
 ous flame from the storm-clouds, "yes, you will 
 deliver France — as Simon delivered you to me 
 — helpless — to Rome!" 
 
 At last, violent storms sweep the skies of 
 all vestige of their furrowing the azure field. 
 But the ground was covered with tokens of 
 the injuries wrought, and many a cottage 
 thatch was being repaired in the early morn- 
 ing. It was lovely, and the tapping of the wood- 
 pecker in the devastated forest was echoed by 
 that of the hammer in the chapel, where the 
 decorators were fastening up the marquis's es- 
 cutcheon, with the hatchments of those fami- 
 lies bereaved by the same fatality. 
 
 The preparations for the funeral were not 
 hurried. In those days of cumbersome ve- 
 hicles and bad roads, time had to be accorded 
 for the distantly situated, perhaps connections 
 exceedingly touchy upon punctilio and ques- 
 tions of rights and standing. 
 
 Besides, there was the feast to be attended 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 87 
 
 to; involving sending to Paris for a major- 
 domo who understood the latest court dishes 
 for the delectation of the squires and their 
 dames, and their surprise. 
 
 Through funeral and feast, Armand de Rich- 
 elieu bore himself with a quiet dignity which, 
 devoid of exuberant grief, testified that he 
 knew how to behave as chief mourner. Bishop 
 Alphonse had arrived, but, under the plea that 
 he needed solitude to compose the sermon over 
 his brother's remains, he closeted himself with 
 his familiar spirit, the monk Joseph, and the 
 young lord stood alone — not requiring a tutor 
 any longer, said all observers. 
 
 It was remarked that, brief though his mili- 
 tary experience had been, it had already given 
 him a carriage so martial that it w T on to him 
 all the ladies- hearts and the outspoken praise 
 of those old relatives, ex-heroes of the Wars 
 of the League. 
 
 But already the rumor was afloat, without 
 any one being able to point to the originator, 
 that, overpowered with sorrow at the loss of 
 his brother, he meant to quit the path to glory 
 and glide down the cloistered way by which 
 his other brothers (for Louis had come, to be 
 "clerk" to the Bishop for the nonce) had 
 eclipsed themselves in the Church. 
 
 "Better stay in the world, if only to revenge 
 his murdered brother!" said more than one 
 greybeard, noted for a quick hand at a sharp 
 rapier in youth. 
 
 "Wait!" said the more sagacious. "I wager 
 that he will not gulp down all the vows in 
 haste! That will enable him to wear and draw 
 the sword on occasion, even like unto that little 
 abbe in Paris who is making a name for him- 
 self, by displaying his fiamberge, as you rare 
 
88 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 old tilters used to style your swords, more of- 
 ten than his psalter." 
 
 "What is his name, and what name is he 
 making?" asked the curious. 
 
 The provincial gentry were as eager for news 
 from the capital at that day as at a later one. 
 
 "What is his devil of a name? — this abbe's? 
 — ah, I have it — he is the shadow of the Bishop 
 of Paris — and he is one Gondi." 
 
 The name found no greeting; the future Co- 
 adjutor of the Archbishop of Paris had not, by 
 years, attained the apex of his notoriety, and 
 none here divined how he would figure in the 
 contests of the Fronde. 
 
 They could have divined the future of Kich- 
 elieu sooner! 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 89 
 
 CIIAPTER V. 
 THE POPULAR RESORT. 
 
 At the present day, whoever wishes to leave 
 Paris, convinced that he has studied it con- 
 scientiously if not thoroughly, must give a pro- 
 longed glance, to say the least, to the Pont 
 Neuf. 
 
 Now, thanks to the extension of the leading 
 city, it is vulgarised. In the early decades of 
 the 17th century, so much to the contrary of 
 this aspect was its position, that it was the 
 rendezvous of fashionable people, not merely 
 in the broad dav, but in the dark hours when 
 the highest noblemen, having exhausted all 
 legitimate pleasures, did not hesitate to ''oper- 
 ate" as cloak-pullers and cutpurses, like the 
 veriest thief. 
 
 In reality, its sides continued the promenade, 
 always gratifying to the lounger, from the Bas- 
 tile, one way, and the Conference Gate, on the 
 other, over the River Seine. 
 
 The same stalls and booths for the sale of 
 goods, as varied and exotic as the vendors, 
 lined the thoroughfare. 
 
 Extraneous, too, were the lookers-on, of 
 whom a goodly number, decidedly strangers 
 and foreigners, were the purchasers of those ar- 
 ticles even then considered Parisian and with- 
 out a like in other cities. These visitors were 
 identifiable as having but temporary dwell- 
 ings by their eating the oublies and simnels, as 
 well as the legs of roast fowl (wrapped in green 
 leaves, we admit) as they strolled on, gaping, 
 
90 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 between mouthful s, with new amazement. 
 
 The parapets of the river edge and the rails 
 of the bridge were hardly to be discerned, so 
 many persons leaned upon them to cast peb- 
 bles into the stream and count the rings on 
 it so made, or to ga"e, by the hour, at the most 
 patient of beings, then, as hereafter, the Paris- 
 ian fisherman. 
 
 The Port lay under their eyes; vessels from 
 as far as the river mouth testified that the 
 Parisians who had accompanied the army to 
 the Siege of La Rochelle had not forgotten, in 
 ten years, their maritime experiences. 
 
 Above, the sky was of dazzling blue; below, 
 the ruddy tanned sails — or the grey ones of 
 coarse canvas, among which some odd private 
 flags and streamers floated, half-covered car- 
 goes in course of discharge, to which, brought 
 from the confines though they were, the hard- 
 ened citizen had ceased to pay the tribute of 
 an exclamation of surprise. 
 
 From these loads, over which capered sea- 
 men, athletic and agile as Gibraltar apes, ex- 
 haled odors of all sorts, from a blessed perfume 
 to a stench of odd African or Asiatic drugs. 
 
 If a thousand causes of irritation assailed 
 the nose of the rural visitor, as many for his 
 hearing rose to fill the dusty air. 
 
 The miscellaneous music from an itinerant 
 show; the bell of the parish town-crier; the 
 beaten sticks of a vendor of summer drink, 
 composed of saloop and molasses, the beverage 
 antedating "coco," as the instruments of his 
 appeal to the public did the xylophone; the 
 bawling of clothes-dealers; the hissing of 
 steam at the open-air cookshops; the laughter 
 of country throats and children's; the innum- 
 erable vocal exuberance of a throng — all this 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 91 
 
 so dazed a young gentleman who had not yet 
 shaken off the clay of the country highways, 
 that— as a relief— he welcomed the sonorous 
 blast of a military trumpet. It was blown to 
 clear the way. 
 
 It was a recognised signal. 
 
 The officers and soldiers of the Royal Watch 
 and of the City Watch, stopping short in chat 
 with friends in the gathering, leaped to the 
 center of the street, where the gutter ran, and 
 began to beat and push back the throng with 
 the hilts and the flats of their swords. They 
 were reinforced by the soldiers idling, who, 
 though off duty, answered to the call, as they 
 had likewise recognized the trumpet blast as 
 announcing an important comer. 
 
 This double cordon of all arms, displayed uni- 
 forms of all colors. Here, the "Lesser Old" 
 Regiments, the Marines, Normandy, Auvergne, 
 etc., appeared beside "the Old" ones, four in 
 number, Navarre, Champagne, Picardy and 
 Piedmont, the latter, perhaps, the most an- 
 cient, if truly derived from the infamous Black 
 Bands. 
 
 "Way for the Household Troops! the Maison 
 du Boi!" cried a thousand persons, overwhelm- 
 ing the appeal of the Watch. 
 
 In a twinkling, so pliable and collapsable is 
 a popular gathering when a passage must be 
 cleared to see a sight, a broad path was traced 
 through the dense concourse. 
 
 Down this alley, formed of human beings, a 
 second trumpet flourish resounded. 
 
 All eyes were turned towards St. Honore 
 Street. 
 
 "What is it, citizen?" inquired the young 
 country gentleman, drawing breath after being 
 
92 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 nearly choked by the cloud of dust raised by 
 the scuffling of feet. 
 
 ''The King's troops — escorting his Majesty, 
 the Queen or one of 'the Royals' — by hasard, 
 we are in the right road for them to return 
 from seeing one of the forts or hunting-boxes!" 
 
 It was a veritable procession. 
 
 First, two sergeants of the Royal Watch, 
 mounted on fair Norman horses, guarding two 
 trumpeters in the royal colors, who blew in 
 unison, and like Stentor replacing his organ 
 with a brazen horn. 
 
 Then, a body of pikemen and one of musket- 
 eers, their horses led by grooms, carrying their 
 extra supply of cartridges — for the^ pikemen 
 being infantry, they were dismounted out of 
 courtesy. 
 
 "It's the Normandy Regiment," said the citi- 
 zen, overflowing with zeal to enlighten the by- 
 standers, a trait of the Parisian — bless him! 
 "That is an officer with the spontoon — that, a 
 sergeant for, see! he carries a halberd! But 
 they have not got a flag flying!" 
 
 The crowd sympathised with the speaker, 
 puzzled too by the partially martial array, and 
 the soldiers wearing a look not at all every- 
 day in a military career. 
 
 "Whatever are they escorting — what guard- 
 ing — in those wagons? look out! it may be 
 ammunition! Powers of heaven! there is a 
 whole train — if a train of gunpowder!" con- 
 tinued the citizen, unable to get away and mak- 
 ing a joke to put a good face on his terror, "we 
 sliall be blown into the ditch which wants fill- 
 ing up, since they are demolishing the old Wall 
 of Charles V. and it does not furnish enough 
 material for the job!" 
 
 The shudder was communicated to the as- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 93 
 
 semblage, but all were compacted, and the way 
 of flight open was only over the rail into the 
 river, so that they stood, quivering like aspens. 
 
 Then the escort, perceiving the terror and 
 guessing the cause, whispered the truth to 
 their quasi-comradea of the Watch, who, shak- 
 ing with merriment, spoke aloud: 
 
 ••Fools! it is the furniture of his Eminence 
 the Cardinal-Minister! he is removing from his 
 old house in Royal Place, since it is too far 
 from the Louvre Palace, and he had need to be 
 always at the hand of his Majesty — for the 
 caballers and intriguers increase like the gnats 
 on the Seine side!" 
 
 The crowd burst into that hearty laughter 
 which always comes at the heels of a subdued 
 panic. 
 
 "Richelieu may w r ell come to live at the Royal 
 Palace," shouted a strong voice in the mass of 
 people worst compressed, "as he is the king 
 over the King!" 
 
 This time, no laughter rose; it w T as too se- 
 rious for a jest, and too true, perhaps, not to 
 be an insult. 
 
 The silence was broken by pretty music of a 
 mounted band. 
 
 It was a sweet diversion, when feelings were 
 in tension, and joyously the populace shouted: 
 
 ''The King's guards! they come — with light 
 horsemen and the gendarmes!" 
 
 The riders surrounded wagons, each drawn 
 by six or eight powerful Mecklenburg horses, 
 covered with canvas and rope-bound so that 
 one could only divine the goods so packed. 
 
 "It's the Cardinal's treasure!" was the cry. 
 
 "His treasure," replied a monk in grey, who 
 stood upon a keg by the stall of a Dutchman, 
 serving salt herring and a penny loaf to all 
 
94 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 comers, in opposition to the flimsy patties of 
 the native cook, "do you not know that the 
 treasure of the Prime Minister is his library? 
 in which he learns to make France great in 
 war, as witness the Siege and Surrender of La 
 Rochelle — in peace, as witness our home pla- 
 cidity — in finance, as witness the disgorgement 
 of the leeches of the Treasury!'' 
 
 "Our friend in grey is right!" retorted the 
 same lusty voice which had made the unap- 
 plauded jest upon the fit residence under the 
 royal roof of the real ruler of the realm. 
 "Well!" with a mock sigh, like that accom- 
 panying the fall of a pavior's rammer, "as long 
 as I do not have to read his poems or hear his 
 tragedies — let his library go!" 
 
 This time a few laughed, and the wit modest- 
 ly withdrew as before. 
 
 Then the trumpets blared and all the train 
 swept on, the dust becoming overpowering un- 
 der the wheels and hoofs. 
 
 The country youth was astounded. 
 
 "So many soldiers to guard a statesman's 
 furniture! how grand the Cardinal must be!" 
 
 At the end of the procession, drawn into the 
 vortex by its hurried departure, the idlers fol- 
 lowed closely. The citizen with whom the 
 young man had exchanged a word or two, was 
 carried away, amid the urchins cheering the 
 Cardinal and the King. 
 
 But he was not without someone to speak to 
 him. 
 
 "Od's my life!" said a voice roughly, "you 
 had far better stand aside than post yourself 
 as a block to be the monument of the Red 
 Eminence, with your absurd panegyrics! 
 'Great?' great noodle, you! stand off and cease 
 to gape at the flies!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 05 
 
 This was lite voice of the twice-interrupter 
 
 of the jollity of the idlers. 
 
 He was a splendid fellow, tall of figure, ro- 
 bustly filled out, and wearing not exactly a 
 uniform so much as a composite attire, which 
 looked as if he had been left for dead on a 
 battlefield, stripped by the camp-followers and, 
 found alive, substantially complimented on his 
 bravery by his comrades of all arms contribut- 
 ing, each corps, towards his fresh equipment. 
 
 One learned in the tailoring for the army, 
 might have laid his finger on the different ar- 
 ticles making up this dazzling suit and said: 
 
 ''This harlequin attire is not of the Swiss or 
 the Italian mercenaries! it is a macedoine: 
 This undercoat is of buff leather after the man- 
 ner of those of Maurevert's Carotins; it is cov- 
 ered, to take off the cutthroat air, with a violet 
 coat with yellow facings, like those of the 
 Norman Regiment which you just saw pass. 
 As for the hat, it is of grey felt, in the English 
 style by the way it is pinned up from the brow ; 
 but the scarlet feathers pretend to claim a reg- 
 ular attachment to the royal household. In 
 short, this is a jay tricked out with the war- 
 haw T k's feathers!" 
 
 Fortunately, perchance, for such a commen- 
 tator, he did not say anything of the like. 
 
 In silence, therefore, after his outburst, the 
 free-lance regarded the young man w T ho, as if 
 he was stupefied by the address, still barred 
 his way. 
 
 He was not in the mode, that w T as clear. His 
 black hat had a narrow rim, and but one black 
 plume; it was in harmony with the unfash- 
 ionable cloth of his doublet and small cloak 
 of the same sombre hue. He wore gilt spurs 
 and had a swordbelt without the weapon. Per- 
 
96 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 haps, though he seemed rather melancholy 
 than sanguine, he feared to venture among the 
 crowd where a hasty word leads to a hasty 
 blow, and a hasty blow to the Chatelet Prison. 
 Even in the remotest province, rumor had car- 
 ried the news that Paris was no longer at the 
 mercy of the common ruffian by day and the 
 noble ribalds by night. 
 
 What particularly curled the lip of the stal- 
 wart man in the picturesque array of military 
 garbs, was the silent goat's beard, which, with 
 a budding moustache, traced a triangle or 
 rather three parts of a cross on the handsome 
 face of the youth. His long hair was not so 
 black but fell in brown curls, to square should- 
 ers. His eyes were clear grey and full of as- 
 surance as they watched this bullying char- 
 acter. 
 
 "Death of my life!" roared the latter, suf- 
 ficiently satisfied, it would appear, with his 
 scrutiny, "it does not please me to turn in and 
 out of this mob like a rustic 'threading the 
 needle,' on the market green! as you say!" 
 
 The youth in black had not breathed a syl- 
 lable. 
 
 "It does not please me, and I shall not twist 
 and turn to please these gawky starers who 
 encumber the good streets! Will you or will 
 you not make way, in the name of the Master- 
 Fiend?" 
 
 The passers-by stopped, collected in a ring, 
 and their rows augmented like deposits of sand 
 on the shore. 
 
 The young man had turned red, certainly, 
 but he made more of himself, rather than 
 shrank, by putting ltis anus akimbo most inso- 
 lently, or in dignity, as you please, and he 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 97 
 
 continued to look the cavalier of heterogeneous 
 costume in the eves. 
 
 "Make room, do you hear? or have you come 
 to town to be treated for hardness of hearing 
 by one of those quacks over there by the thea- 
 ter of Master Gonin the juggler? or for hard- 
 ness of comprehension by some doctor of the 
 Sorbonne? Make room for me, I say!" 
 
 "When you are less impolite — perhaps!" re- 
 plied the young gentleman, in a clear and firm 
 voice. 
 
 "And who are you, pray, to ask a soldier of 
 qualitv and officer — of fortune — to behave po- 
 litely?" 
 
 "I am not a low-born braggadocio, at all 
 events!" 
 
 A murmur of the lookers-on proved that, as 
 ever, the wasp was being favored in his en- 
 counter with the bumble-bee. 
 
 ''What is the title of our high-born gentle- 
 man, then?" sneered the other without taking 
 up the epithet. 
 
 But he fingered his cutlass, a dragoon sword 
 of the Ottoman pattern which might have been 
 worn bv a Sobieski. 
 
 "My name is Didier." 
 
 "Nothing at the tail of it, as even a cur, 
 sometimes, has a tinpot?" 
 
 The other turned crimson and his lip bled 
 from a nip of his fine teeth. 
 
 Some women crossed themselves and said — 
 not "Poor boy!" but "Poor mother!" Men 
 laughed and the officer of fortune roared with 
 mirth. 
 
 "All foundlings are noblemen in Spain," said 
 he, "but you will have to bring something 
 stronger than mere assertion into our courts to 
 prove your pedigree! But, I suppose, you sup- 
 
98 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 pose that your goatee in the Cardinalistic mode 
 will suffice to get you a post in his Eminence's 
 service? No doubt you lifted your hat and vou 
 cheered as his bed, bedding and books went 
 by, escorted! degradation of the army and the 
 body guards, by my faith! by a whole regi- 
 ment, if you summed up the number! a pretty 
 escort to his books and unplayed tragedies! I 
 begrudge him it all — albeit I should allow him 
 the whole garrison of Paris if they took him to 
 the Execution Place on the Strand! this Pa- 
 triarch of the Atheists!" 
 
 The crowd drew back; his repeated insults 
 to the Minister alarmed them, fearing that it 
 was part of a plot to draw out confidence and 
 warrant a wholesale arrest. 
 
 Several, who had accepted pamphlets, prob- 
 ably advertisements of new cookshops but pos- 
 sibly libels against the State Minister, surrep- 
 titiously slipped them from their pockets and 
 dropped them over the parapet or at their feet. 
 
 "Stay, sir!" cried Didier, with a flaming face, 
 clapping his hand to his side for the missing 
 sword, "as long as you annoyed me, I regarded 
 it little, for I am no quarreller, but as you in- 
 sult the representative of the King, and the 
 head of the State government, I — " 
 
 "You! you talk big because you dared not 
 come to town until hearing that duelling is 
 under an embargo! this comes from having a 
 churchman to govern a kingdom! but learn, 
 jackanapes, that the officers of the army crop 
 the ears of all who puff up the fame of this 
 bloated spider who sits in the web and pulls 
 the threads by which he entraps all the good 
 souls of France!" 
 
 The young man looked round on the faces. 
 The good citizen who had stood by him caught 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 99 
 
 his glance, having returned at the scuffle and 
 recognized the rural squire — to his delight — 
 as we all like to see our own acquaintances in 
 a snarl. 
 
 "Here," said Didier, dextrously tossing him 
 a coin, "hire me, of that honest dealer in old 
 iron, a bit of a sword for half an hour, for that 
 silver louis!" 
 
 On the edge of the passage-way, a second- 
 hand metal seller displayed odds and ends, 
 among which figured two or three old blades 
 which perchance had armed the paladins of 
 the Round Table or, less fantastically, the pan- 
 oplied heroes of Pavia. 
 
 "I will get you the blade, my faith!" cried the 
 citizen, "but' allow me to pay for it out-and- 
 out! it will be an honor for me to arm so gentle 
 a cavalier!" 
 
 "Get him a toasting-fork!" sneered the of- 
 ficer of fortune. "Or have you not such a pole 
 as they use in teaching bears to dance! I will 
 lay aside my sabre for it and teach young Dicl- 
 dler here to dance as elegantly as his patron 
 did before the Queen, that day when he ad- 
 mired her — save his impudence! and did not 
 want us to make war with her brother of 
 Spain!" 
 
 "This passes all bounds," said Didier, to 
 whom was handed a rapier. It was somewhat 
 rusty, but it would serve for the lethal stroke 
 in capable hands; and by the way the young 
 stranger handled it, it seemed to have arrived 
 there. 
 
 At the same time, remarkable still more, 
 since it went by several sets of fingers not par- 
 ticularly clean, the silver piece returned. 
 
 "Your money!" said the citizen, beaming 
 with rapture at being a sort of subsidiary hero. 
 
100 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Let them drink it to the victor's health!" 
 said Didier, all the more loftily as it did not 
 look as if he had many more in his black velvet 
 purse, flat as a scapulary. 
 
 The crowd cheered, though — heaven knows! 
 a silver louis of seventeen sous would go but 
 a short way amid such a number. 
 
 The officer of fortune frowned. He had evi- 
 dently entrapped himself and had the air of one 
 abandoned by his supporters, but he was too 
 far committed to retire. 
 
 "So you are armed to support your obsolete 
 trumpeting of the Tyrant in Scarlet! Now, 
 I'm called Malargue, the Anspessade of the 
 Canton-of-Uri Spears! Duelling is my recrea- 
 tion, as warfare my standing dish! On guard, 
 to defend your boor of a Cardinal! as the Court 
 calls him!" 
 
 "Hold!" said the monk in grey, advancing, 
 with the mob making way in less reverence 
 than respect for sharp elbows industriously ap- 
 plied, and his rope girdle, used, as a flagellant 
 might his scourge, to the dilatory boys. 
 
 All turned their attention to him, and mur- 
 mured, thinking that his cloth would compel 
 him to put an end to the dispute just as it was 
 becoming worth witnessing. 
 
 "The weapons are unequal!" said he cavalier- 
 ly, as though he had been all his life on the 
 "field of honor" and not apparently in aisles 
 and cloisters. "That scimetar and a Toledo 
 rapier — fie! Is there not a gentleman within 
 hearing who will lend this officer — of fortune —   
 his blade?" 
 
 "I am not an officer, only a sub-officer," said 
 a sergeant of the City Watch. "I am off duty 
 and I will lend my sword." 
 
 He handed the weapon to Anspessade Ma- 
 
OR, RICHELIET' DEFIED. M 
 
 largue with the familiarity existing between 
 officers of fortune — that is, those who foughl 
 their way from the ranks — and the under-of- 
 ficers, for the officers by appointment were of 
 the nobility and shunned the base-born. 
 
 The other brandished it as one used to all 
 arms, and smiled. 
 
 "Are we never going to begin?" said he 
 quickly. "After all, and despite an officer of 
 the Watch assisting materially, the regula- 
 tions forbid duelling — " 
 
 "It is not a duel to defend the rulers of the 
 realm from aspersions," interposed the belli- 
 cose grey monk, his voice sounding hollow in 
 his hood. "Like this soldier, representing the 
 civic armed hand, I speak for the Church Mili- 
 tant! let it go on!" 
 
 The crowd stared with wonderment. This 
 was no ordinarv combat. 
 
 The feeling of its importance spread. The 
 dealers ceased to vociferate praise of their 
 goods; the singers of ballads were hushed and 
 lowered their oriflammes, composed of song- 
 sheets on a cross-stick at the end of a pole; 
 the vendors cf miraculous cure-alls and poma- 
 tums for all purposes, "and others," rested 
 their lungs; the marionettes hung as if in ar- 
 ticulo mortis at the ends of their wires; and 
 not a thirsty or an admiring soul stood with 
 open mouth at the spout of water from a street 
 fountain at the bridge head. 
 
 Above all, the Tuscan bronze horse, not yet 
 surmounted by the Henry IV. statue, was rap- 
 idly covered by sight-seers. 
 
 "Yes, yes, let the combat go on!" was the 
 general cry. 
 
 The majority were for the younger and weak- 
 er man, which i3 a popular weakness; and 
 
-102 RED ROBS AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Didier lost little by espousing the unpopular 
 side, for the Parisians detested Richelieu with 
 almost the acrimony of the Court party. 
 
 "Wait another moment," interrupted a tall 
 man who had leaped down from a play-actor's 
 booth platform on seeing that the throng had 
 eyes and ears solely for the duel in prospect 
 and not for the glorious lines of Mairet and 
 Garnier. He was attired in an Oriental cos- 
 tume, as the Orient was misunderstood at the 
 period, almost as gorgeous as Anspessade Ma- 
 largue's habit, but less lustrous with newness. 
 On his head was one of those round caps, not 
 unlike a turban, worn in the early days of 
 Louis XIII. by old noblemen, but its prepos- 
 terous ostrich feathers, of dubious white and 
 in sad need of curling, drooped over a sharp 
 face and hook nose; his complexion was made 
 Moorish with a smear of Spanish brown. He 
 wore a frayed satin doublet, but a bnrnoosG 
 over it instead of cloak. His loose full breeches 
 were caught up into the tight round-top of 
 postillion's boots, of which the funnel top had 
 been sheared off, to give an Oriental air, no 
 doubt. 
 
 He carried a sword-sash in which was stuck 
 a horse-pistol and a straight sword, for want 
 of a yataghan. 
 
 This motley character, with the assurance of 
 one habituated to speak in public, continued: 
 
 "This combat requires seconds, and, behold! 
 I am willing to figure by the side of the illus- 
 trious Captain Malargue, whom I knew at the 
 Siege of Pampeluna !" 
 
 The keen-eyed saw him exchange a knowing 
 wink with the anspessade. They were surely 
 bottle-companions if not comrades of battle. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. L03 
 
 "I accept the second," said Malargue, prob- 
 ably not grieved at being reinforced. 
 
 Didier looked round. The grey monk cer- 
 tainly befriended him, but one could not ex- 
 pect a Capuchin to be second in a duel, al- 
 though he had encouraged it. 
 
 "Will any one be my second?" inquired he. 
 
 We have 'stated that he had the general sym- 
 pathy, but, after all, duelling was an infraction 
 of the royal and civic police laws, and there 
 was a wide difference between urging on com- 
 batants from over the hedge and stepping into 
 the field to be remembered afterwards as next 
 to the principals in the encounter. So a hush 
 and quiet fell upon the tumultuous spectators. 
 
 "Will you have me, since you welcomed the 
 Capuchin?" said a squeaking voice with sar- 
 casm. 
 
 The citizens made way for an ungainly little 
 man in the black dress of an abbe. The women 
 crossed themselves and whispered: "The Abbe 
 of Notre Dame! hail to M. de Gondi!" 
 
 Gondi had added to his gown, cap and rosary, 
 a sword and its belt, the former holding its own 
 with the Spanish rapier of Didier for length 
 and savage aspect. He alleged that he had so 
 much visiting to do at night in the rough and 
 perilous district in which are situated St. 
 Jacques of the Slaughterhouses, the Cathe- 
 dral, its ill-famed purlieus, and the vale of the 
 Palais Royal, that he was obliged to go armed. 
 In the later times of the Fronde, his sword- 
 bearing was alleged to have been not merely 
 the outcome of a belligerent spirit, which the 
 abbe possessed to overflowing, but proper to a 
 drill-instructor who marshaled insurgents for 
 hostile operations. 
 
 Didier had some sense, though young, for he 
 
104 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 studied the face of the crowd at this offer; 
 since no one laughed, he concluded that he 
 might rely on this sword, though in the hand 
 more accustomed to the holy-water sprinkler, 
 and said cheerily: 
 
 "I accept the abbe!" 
 
 Certainly the priest must have commanded 
 respect, for no one so much as smiled at the 
 somewhat ridiculous confrontation of the prin- 
 cipals and their seconds. 
 
 Didier, youthful, pitted against a veteran 
 warsman; the Matamore, who pretended to 
 have been a real soldier before he went upon 
 the stage, against a little appendage of the 
 Cathedral! 
 
 Meanwhile the lookers-on fell back to have a 
 clear field for the combatants, so that on one 
 side the bridge parapet was a barrier and on 
 the three others the compact gazers. 
 
 They were to witness a pretty clashing of 
 steel, after all. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 105 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 WANTED, A DEMON. 
 
 The Matamore, perhaps full of the tradition- 
 al antagonism of Church and State, notified 
 the other second that, in accordance with a 
 usage going out of date, he was ready to enter- 
 tain him at sword's point while the principals 
 were engaged, and, nothing loth, the bellicose 
 abbe drew his long sword. 
 
 Their collision did not last long as the little 
 man, with infinite dexterity, warded off all 
 thrusts and delivered a lunge which almost 
 spitted the player. He had his "quantum," as 
 his companion, the quacksalver of his show 
 said, while two or three of the players carried 
 him off the scene. 
 
 The priest wiped his rapier negligently and 
 restored it to the sheath, glancing towards his 
 principal. 
 
 Didier found that his Spanish blade was ex- 
 quisitely balanced so that its weight and length 
 did not embarrass him. His wrist was supple 
 and strong and he bore the attacks of his an- 
 tagonist with fortitude while awaiting an op- 
 portunity to disengage and thrust in turn. It 
 was necessary for braggarts to understand the 
 governance of the cold steel, and Malargue, for 
 all his pretensions, was no exception to his 
 crew of bullies of the bowling-alleys and tennis- 
 courts. He continued the assailant, which al- 
 ways commands a tolerable amount of ap- 
 plause. 
 
 But, to his mischance, he was not wielding 
 
106 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 his favorite weapon, handled like a broadsword 
 or cutlass, and going out of fashion; this 
 thrusting and pinking and parrying innumer- 
 able feints, exhausted his no great stock of pa- 
 tience and caution. Besides, the spectators, 
 after the manner of the "gallery" at all con- 
 tests, did not scruple in commenting audibly 
 on his attire and bearing and he was chafed in- 
 to essaying a lunge of some cunning and con- 
 siderable force. 
 
 It was not only met with success, though the 
 edge slashed Didier's doublet and changed the 
 sable to brown with a gush of blood, but the 
 young man, losing touch, darted in under the 
 brawny arm so deadly a reply that it would 
 have perforated the taller man had he not 
 slipped to one side. Angered at the laugh from 
 the crowd, taking it that he had evaded by in- 
 tent and not by accident, he forgot what wea- 
 pon he was using and attempted a swinging 
 blow, with both hands on his sword. This blow, 
 remembered on the duelling-grounds as "the 
 Jarnac Stroke," from having been invented or 
 notoriously employed by a Count of that name, 
 was allowable with a two-handed sword or a 
 cutting blade, but outlawed with the thrust- 
 ing arm. 
 
 "Hamstrung!" cried he, too confident that he 
 had succeeded to hold his outcry in triumph. 
 
 But quicker than he or Didier, a bystander 
 had perceived the foul stroke and, snatching a 
 staff from a countryman, come to sell greens 
 at the neighboring markets, he interposed this 
 stout oaken defence. It was cleft asunder, 
 stout and tough though it was, but the very 
 act had the effect of deadening the force and 
 the young man, receiving the blade flatwise, 
 was simply lamed by the shock. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 107 
 
 Rapidly recovering, for Malargue was still 
 smiling, he dropped his sword as too honorable 
 
 for such an opponent, and, lowering his bead, 
 ran at the man. He thrust his head between 
 his legs, lifted him on his neck and shoulders, 
 after the trick seen in wrestling matches in the 
 country fairs, and, running on, carried him till 
 both reached the parapet. Here, he let it stop 
 him; but, releasing his hold of Malargue, the 
 anspessade w r as precipitated head first and 
 backwards down into the riyer. 
 
 Didier rose and disdained to look behind him 
 as he turned. 
 
 He stalked through the crowd, rushing to the 
 bridge side to see the other's fate, and quietly 
 returned the rapier to the dealer in second- 
 hand iron, with thanks. 
 
 But little did he appreciate the true nobility 
 of the petty Parisian tradesman. With a dig- 
 nity not unbecoming even in that fusty, rusty, 
 snub-nosed fellow, he said, loftily repulsing the 
 rapier : 
 
 "It has been honored by sharing in the vie- 
 tory over a creature of bombast — it is too ex- 
 alted to be intermingled again with these com- 
 mon shreds and scraps of iron! Pray you, young 
 sir, keep it! Or, if you insist on paying — I will 
 accept three silver louis more! P>elieve me, it 
 is a true Spanish blade, forged at Segovia by 
 the Brothers Manoel. Any Spaniard will ap- 
 prove of it, and will tell you that Master Ancil- 
 line Duprat of the Pont Xeuf head-of-the-bridge 
 sold it at less than value!" 
 
 While Didier, moved by this unexpected ad- 
 dress, was concluding the purchase on these 
 terms, the fickle spectators of the double duel 
 entirely forgot this hero of one bout, giving 
 entire attention to the unlucky Malargue. 
 
108 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 The latter had been thrown over at the third 
 abutment. The Seine was embanked at this 
 period, but not as seen in our days. Wood 
 confined the stream instead of the stonework, 
 and mud came up to form a foreshore where 
 it was not dredged away to permit the dis- 
 charge from barges close to the waterside. 
 
 It was into middeep of mud, called "ooze" 
 by the mariners, a playful epithet for the fresh- 
 water sailors of the Seine, that the bully had 
 fallen head-foremost. 
 
 Fortunately, the contact with the mire cooled 
 him and while he floundered head uppermost, 
 his sight and sense returned to him, though 
 the mask of slime over his countenance and 
 erstwhile handsome coat was thick. 
 
 He reflected that he had perhaps been 
 pitched into the water as a direct interposi- 
 tion of his good angel. 
 
 "That monk in grey," said he quickly to him- 
 self, "bears an uncommonly strong resem- 
 blance in what I could perceive of his features 
 and what I heard of his voice to the Grey Eobe! 
 The familiar of the Minister! whew!" 
 
 He spluttered the mud out of his mouth and 
 muttered : 
 
 "Yes; he allowed — nay, approved, furthered 
 the duel! and the springald was some fencing- 
 master's pupil set on to give me a lesson! and 
 only playing the rustic hobbledehoy! If I get 
 out of this nasty pickle, I am well off!" 
 
 But fate was still no friend. The mass of 
 starers, lining the parapet over which he was 
 made to fly, stood five deep. 
 
 "There he is! playing the frog!" 
 
 A roar of laughter hailed this quip, for in the 
 language of the vulgar, "to play the frog" was 
 to drink to excess, which causes a man to jerk 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 109 
 
 his limbs like the batrachian, as well retaining 
 its usual meaning — very applicable to this 
 blunderer on this terra infirma. 
 
 At almost the next instant, a cry, not humor- 
 ous, rose: 
 
 "The Watch! the Watch comes to arrest the 
 duellists!" 
 
 It was the truth. Assured that his protege 
 was safe and the victor, as far as the bully and 
 the matamore were concerned, the Capuchin 
 had drawn his gown round him, shaken his 
 cowl down over his brow, and glided away in 
 the throng. 
 
 The abbe, reflecting on the consequences of 
 his intervention, rapidly approached Didier, 
 beside the high-minded iron-dealer, and whis- 
 pered: 
 
 "Young man, the archers of the City Guard 
 are coming. After all is said and done, there 
 exist edicts against fighting with weapons in 
 the precincts of the Cathedral and the Markets, 
 which have their privileges, heaven be praised! 
 Make away with you! By the way, the Abbe 
 de Gondi of Notre Dame will not be sorry to 
 see you once more! One of your parries was 
 very pretty!" 
 
 "An old gentleman of Blois who taught me 
 the small arms, was a pupil of the Florentine 
 Morazzo." 
 
 "I compliment him on his art! Remember, 
 the abbe is your friend, since he fought for you 
 — and in these times it is good to have friends 
 in any camp! A priest may be of assistance to 
 a gentleman!" 
 
 "Particularly when he handles a sword so 
 handsomely !" 
 
 "Thanks! But, away! the soldiers come!" 
 
 Didier was left alone by his disappearance. 
 
110 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 The multitude were regarding Malargue, 
 deviously staggering in the treacherous fluid 
 toward shore. 
 
 At this juncture, the head of a squad of 
 City Archers appeared from the corner of St. 
 Eustache's. 
 
 "You are lost," said the hardware merchant, 
 frightened. "Here is a fit sheath for your 
 sword. For heaven's sake, shut it up! It will 
 betray you as one of the duellists if kept naked! 
 Take, sheathe, and flee into the Students' 
 Ward!" 
 
 But while Didier still wavered, he saw the 
 Watch stop. It seemed to him that the monk 
 in grey barred their path and conferred with 
 their sergeant. At all events, they faced part- 
 ly round and headed to descend the long in- 
 cline by which the waterside was reached. 
 
 A cry from the crowd informed Malargue of 
 their new direction, if he could not guess. 
 
 ''The Watch! Coming to take you! Fool, 
 do not try to get on the shore! Leave the 
 strand, idiot, and let them lift you out into 
 that boat!" 
 
 The Watch marched down upon the strand, 
 but, on arriving, saw a skiff crossing the river, 
 with a dripping body across the thwarts. 
 
 "He is one of them — and drowned," said 
 the sergeant, rubbing his nose, amid the jeers 
 of the spectators over his head. "He has es- 
 caped!" 
 
 "What of it ! All the less for the cage !" said 
 a philosophical archer. 
 
 "Imbecile! Do you not know who the monk 
 was that bade me neglect all else but arrest 
 the reviler of the great Cardinal-Minister! 
 That tavern-haunter Malargue, so-called An- 
 spessade of the Uri Legion?" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. Ill 
 
 "All monks are alike!" 
 
 "But he was a Capuchin!" 
 
 "Pray, in what does a Capuchin take prece- 
 dence of other friars?" 
 
 "In the first place, comrade, learn that he 
 is not a friar." 
 
 "But I have always heard of friars in orders 
 grey?" 
 
 "The grey friars are the Franciscans — the 
 servants of Saint Francis. Now this one is a 
 Capuchin, the follower of Saint — Saint Cap- 
 iiche!" explained the sergeant, inventing a new- 
 occupant for a niche in the Romish Walhalla, 
 in his quandary. 
 
 "Oh, so this is the Monk Joseph?" 
 
 'it is a monk, comrade, who takes prece- 
 dence of all the religious men, monks, 
 friars, priests, throughout France, and I have 
 seen him bowed to, in Avignon, two summers 
 ago, as if he took precedence in all Christen- 
 dom as well!" 
 
 The archer gaped at his superior whose gar- 
 rulity had never taken this turn into eccles- 
 iastical fields before. At all events he was en- 
 lightened by the speech, as Malargue had been 
 by his own intuition: "His Grey Eminence," 
 was Father Joseph Le-Clerc du Tremblay. 
 
 He whom we have seen secretary to Bishop 
 Alphonse, and secretly steward to the Riche- 
 lieu domain, had become the intimate agent 
 of the Prime Minister of France, the Cardinal- 
 Duke of Richelieu, for the petty bourg had 
 been elevated into the dais for a peer. Only 
 among the people was he a plain Capuchin 
 friar; the court acknowledged that he bore 
 hicrh ecclesiastical rank; but if he were a 
 bishop, where was his see? If higher si ill, 
 what place was open Cop him wbea the hie 
 
112 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 est church prelates assembled? A few, who 
 were not reckoned short-sighted, went farther; 
 thev said that the Grev Robe hid a greater 
 man in the eyes of Rome than the Red one: 
 that Joseph was the prompter and Armand 
 the puppet! That the time would come when 
 the robes would be thrown off, and all would 
 behold Richelieu displaced and Tremblay en- 
 throned. 
 
 Meanwhile, the prudent and the jocular alike 
 hailed Joseph as "his Grey Eminence!" 
 
 The archer was convinced; he muttered: 
 
 "The explanation is fine! But we must 
 march back to the watch-house without a pris- 
 oner all the same!" 
 
 Didier, relieved from immediate alarm, lin- 
 gered by the shrine, with a perpetual lamp, at 
 the corner, listening to the chat of the spec- 
 tators who sauntered home with the news. 
 
 "Malargue had escaped by a boat which 
 picked him up in the teeth of the Watch, who 
 returned to their quarters, silly with vexation. 
 The abbe has gone to Notre Dame, where would 
 be sanctuary if he had spitted on his rapier 
 ten play-actors! The Matamore is wounded 
 and has been taken to the Grand Hospital! 
 Palsanguienc!" roared the citizen, excited by 
 this budget for retailing to his wife, as he 
 passed Didier and winked at him, as an ac- 
 quaintance, "to think of an actor dying in the 
 very House of Heaven!" 
 
 For so hospitals were styled in that day. 
 
 This worthy burgher gone, the young gentle- 
 man from Blois felt wholly lonelv. The crowd 
 which had witnessed his prowess was com- 
 pletely broken up and passed, like the bubbles 
 on the muddy Seine, excited by Malargue's in- 
 voluntary plunge. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 113 
 
 "Such is fame! Fleeting as the bloom on a 
 maiden's cheek!" 
 
 "Impudent fellow!" said a voice pertly at his 
 elbow. "You let my check alone!" 
 
 He looked out of his reverie. 
 
 A girl of seventeen or eighteen, pretty in the 
 Paris popular fashion, that is to say, saucy, 
 piquant, and with diminutive features, like an 
 old woman rejuvenated, was at his side. 
 
 She had emerged from a wine-shop of the 
 Dauphine Place, but she had not been drink- 
 ing. Her lips w r ere fresh with the natural dew. 
 
 Her costume was a patchwork of colors, not 
 unlike Malargue's in variety, as though she 
 had retained a keepsake of wearing apparel , 
 from each of many mistresses in whose service 
 she had not long stayed. White cap; primrose 
 cross-over neckerchief; cherry-red petticoat and 
 a darker red one beneath, with rose stockings 
 and neat russet shoes, this was her attire. She 
 might be the Singing Chambermaid of the illus- 
 trious Mondori's Theatre, of which the band 
 was heard playing a popular air near by. 
 
 "I ask your pardon," said he, bowing as it 
 were to a duchess. "I was speaking to myself. 
 I was not seeing you, or anybody." 
 
 "Have you been here long, without seeing 
 anybody?" 
 
 A visitor from the provinces might natur- 
 ally be pardoned for surprise at this frankness 
 on the briefest acquaintance. Didier did not 
 reason on this head, so winning was the little 
 woman, and thinking that an allusion to his 
 duel was in the speech, he answered lightly: 
 
 "I have been on this spot upwards of an 
 hour, and I was well placed, I assure you, to 
 see everything !" 
 
 "Then tell me if vou saw in the crowd — 
 
114 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 sure, also, to have a front place — a sub-officer 
 of the Swiss Mercenaries, anspessade, they 
 call his rank, by the way — his name is Ma- 
 largue — some call him Captain! He was in a 
 brilliant uniform, more showy than the Guards' 
 at the King's own door! Yellow as gold, red 
 as blood — ■" 
 
 "Hem!" coughed Didier. 
 
 Indeed, he had seen "this Malagrue!" 
 
 The girl laughed at the mispronunciation. 
 
 "Malargue! It is well for you that he did 
 not hear you misconstrue it!" 
 
 "I have no fear of his overhearing me, or 
 seeing me chatting with his — his sister or 
 sweetheart?" 
 
 "I am Louisette, at your orders, my gentle- 
 man — and while M. Malargue is something of 
 my courtier, you understand, he is the em- 
 ploye of my mistress." 
 
 "Well, return to your mistress and suggest 
 that she send to the tailor's for a change of 
 clothes for her employe! Unless," he added, 
 with mock gravity, "he onlv needs a wooden 
 suit." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "That 'Captain' Malargue fell over the 
 bridge!" 
 
 "Fell over the bridge — into the river! For 
 love of me? I confess we had tart words, but 
 not to justify his leaping the Pont Neuf." 
 
 "Well, he did not fall of his own will. And 
 as to the river, he fell into its mud!" 
 
 "His uniform is spoilt, then?" 
 
 "The gloss is perhaps a little off!" 
 
 "And he so detested water!" 
 
 "He was disputing with — with a citizen, 
 about — what was it about? Oh, I remember 
 now: About the color of the Cardinal's beard, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 115 
 
 when his foot slipped, that deuce of a rail 
 gave way — how do 1 know? In short, he was 
 over the bridge, as though shot out of a mor- 
 tar, in a twinkling!" 
 
 "Well, he would not have been fishing and 
 pulled in by a gudgeon — he is more in the habit 
 of pulling gudgeons out!" 
 
 Didier laughed with her. This was a reve- 
 lation. A girl of wit who did not break her 
 heart over a lost — perhaps drowned, gallant, 
 but joined in the laugh at him. Besides, she 
 evidently gauged her boastful devotee cor- 
 rectly. But it would be difficult to recount the 
 matter without seeming to court praise for 
 himself and he shrank from the bare suppo- 
 sition. 
 
 "Do vou not believe he is drowned?" 
 
 "Not" he!" 
 
 "Strange unconcern, in a fond little heart 
 like this!" 
 
 "But he was born to be hanged — " 
 
 "I thought something of the kind, do you 
 know?" 
 
 "Know, Master — " 
 
 '•My name is Didier — " 
 
 "Know then, fair Master Didier, that my mis- 
 tress prophesies that he will meet a violent 
 death — not drowning — " 
 
 "By the rope!" 
 
 "She says that a rope will have a hand in 
 it!" 
 
 "Ah! I believe your mistress is a truthful 
 prophetess!" 
 
 "To be sure, since it is the celebrated Flo- 
 retia !" 
 
 It was remarkable with what pride the girl 
 spoke of the celebrity. No man may be a 
 hero to his valet, but the chambermaid of a 
 
116 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Parisian celebrity swears by her mistress 
 through thick and thin. 
 
 Didier shook his head. 
 
 "Then, you are infallibly from the country?" 
 
 "I did not say the contrary!" 
 
 "But everything, after all, about you, does 
 say so! Your hat, doublet, the way you sling 
 that old-fashioned long sword, your boots! 
 they have spurs, but, on my salvation ! you have 
 walked into town by the barriers!" 
 
 "As for the sword, it is a recent acquisition, 
 to replace one I was robbed of at an inn. I 
 plead guilty to the rusticity of my apparel. 
 You need not be a witch, like your celebrated 
 mistress, to divine I have the scent of the sweet 
 hay and the bee-plant and not of the civet cat, 
 like your city gallants, Ma'm'selle Louisette! 
 And your mistress is — " 
 
 "A fortune-teller, a soothsayer, in the full 
 acceptation of the name! The idol of the 
 mystery-loving cit.'s, the intrigue-loving cour- 
 tiers, of all who wish to know on whom some- 
 one will smile to j morrow: the King, Cardinal, 
 Ministers, the sun itself — for everybody who 
 goes to bed does not wake in the morning!" 
 
 "I daresay we are all mortal !" said the young 
 man with the recklessness of his age. 
 
 "All except my mistress, who talks to every- 
 body as if she were born in the year One!" 
 
 "My life on it, I should like my fortune told 
 — or, even, my past enlightened!" 
 
 "Young sir, you shall have an audience, or 
 never trust in my management. And believe 
 me it is no slight favor, for I have been of- 
 fered ten gold pieces by a patron for me to 
 cheat another out of his turn!" 
 "I do not know that my fortune is worth 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 117 
 
 crossing the palm with gold/' said the other, 
 dubiously. 
 
 "Oh, it shall cost you nothing — but doing me 
 a little kindness!" 
 
 "Who would not be kind to you, Louisette!" 
 
 "Malargue, if he were to come here at this 
 moment !" 
 
 "Don't look timorously for him! He will not 
 appear! What should he appear for?" 
 
 'To do his task." 
 
 "So you said before! Am I to take his duty 
 on me?" 
 
 "You are bright! Yes! Listen — all trades 
 have their secrets! In order to terrify the un- 
 believers who mock at our pare — pare — you 
 are learned — you might help me out! Mock 
 at our pare — " 
 
 "Paregoric — pare — oh, do you mean para- 
 phernalia?" 
 
 "Exactly; for the reception room is fitted up 
 without a thought of expense — real crocodile 
 from Egypt, costly drugs that burn in censers 
 with curious flames, making one ruddy as a 
 poppv and then ghastlv green as a corpse! 
 Ugh!" 
 
 "I think I understand ! Sometimes your or- 
 dinary paraphernalia — " 
 
 "Extraordinary, please !" 
 
 "That was the difficulty with your predeces- 
 sor the Pythoness of Apollo, who used to have 
 smoke surround her, and colored fire! So my 
 tutor informed me, on good authority, I doubt 
 not, that she engaged a burly peasant to carry 
 a redhot trident — that is, a large fork, built 
 after the pattern of that with which this knave, 
 frying sausages, hooks them out for his cus- 
 tomers. He carried it to good purpose, to- 
 wit; pitching out of doors those who would 
 
118 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 not be persuaded of the supernatural power 
 underlying her acts and sayings." 
 
 The girl lost most of this speech, as she was 
 studying the double stream of passers, a little 
 proud of being seen conversing with a hand- 
 some young cavalier, and a little fearful lest 
 the redoubtable Captain Malargue burst upon 
 her view. 
 
 "So you seek one who will personate Pluto 
 and prod the disbeliever?" concluded Didier, 
 merrily. 
 
 "Do you say our device is old?" 
 
 "Ancient as the water that runs and the 
 grass that grows!" 
 
 "Time hallows all things," she caught it up 
 smartly; "so that you will make no difficulty 
 about obliging me, spite of your air of nicety, 
 and language to boot!" 
 
 "Two thousand years has hallowed the trick 
 — I may play the daemon, without doubt; at 
 least with no more compunction than abbes 
 show who take up the sword," said the youth 
 from Blois, recalling his clerical second from 
 three of his fraternity passing, with sidelong 
 glances — which, however, comprised Mademoi- 
 selle Louisette. 
 
 "How good of you!" and she smiled sweetly. 
 "It is understood, then? If any gentleman — 
 who proves no gentleman! refuses to pay for 
 talisman, horoscope, charm, fortune, advice in 
 love or court affairs, et cetera — we call on 
 you — " 
 
 "Be the name Belial, Abdiel — " 
 
 "We say, Beelzebub!" 
 
 "You don't stand upon trifles! That is the 
 chief of the band, otherwise, Satan!" 
 
 "We cab and yon come!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 119 
 
 "After a long and laborious, horrifying in- 
 cantation?" 
 
 "On the contrary, at once! Because — " 
 
 "The ladies ought to be obliged?" 
 
 "Because .Mistress has a louis in readiness 
 at each apparition!" 
 
 "You may flatter yourself: it is not every 
 house in Paris that has a familiar spirit on 
 hire:" 
 
 Louisette looked toward the bridge. 
 
 "See how they hang over the rail! Perhaps 
 they have fished up the true demon!" 
 
 "Don't tremble! It is a fisher, indeed, but 
 he has caught — an old shoe! But let us leave 
 for fear that his next cast may be more profit- 
 able! For an hour I am vour man, prettv Loui- 
 sette!" 
 
 "Ah, you will have the thanks of my mis- 
 tress, with the gold!" 
 
 "The dear old lady!" 
 
 "What! Old!" 
 
 "Certainly old, yellow and wrinkled, as you 
 are young, fair and smooth as a peach!" 
 
 Louisette trotted by the side of Didier, guid- 
 ing him with a nudge of the elbow through 
 the lane of stalls into the New Street of the 
 Lower Fields. The show of goods changed 
 character, from miscellaneous, becoming of the 
 garden stuff variety. It was an efflux from the 
 Main Market. 
 
 "All witches are alike, as I describe them." 
 
 "Well, I admit that in truth my mistress is 
 aged, but not so to the general eye! Now, you 
 invite confidence. Master Didier, unlike these 
 bumptious Parisians who pretend that they 
 already know everything, at which they slur 
 and banter; and they are not discreet and cir- 
 
 cur iq T \v"'' ■:" 
 
120 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "I thank you!" 
 
 "My mistress," proceeded the tiring-woman 
 in a whisper which indicated misgiving and 
 awe, "covers her old, yellow and wrinkled fea- 
 tures with a false face — " 
 
 "A false face?" 
 
 "Oh, but it is a splendid face-similate — " 
 
 "A facsimile, perhaps — " 
 
 "As you please, for, I thank heaven! I make 
 no pretensions to learning! This false face is 
 of Modena make, silk waxed, moulded and col- 
 ored delicately so that it would puzzle a hawk- 
 eyed spy of the Cardinal to say it was a mask." 
 
 "If you do not meddle with learning," com- 
 mented Didier, "you do not seem to refrain 
 from politics. What would a guileless child 
 like our Louisette know of the Cardinal's spies, 
 prithee?" 
 
 "Where is there not a spy? Besides, we 
 have calls made on us, but with the best of 
 intentions, look you! by the head of all those 
 spies — " 
 
 "Their head, eh! Oh, his Grey Eminence?'' 
 cried Didier, in order to show that he was not 
 uninformed on town gossip. 
 
 "His grey fiddlesticks, young sir! What is 
 Father Joseph, dreaded though he be, to his 
 Eminence's Deathsman — " 
 
 "Lord! Have you the Executioner of Paris 
 your guest, too!" 
 
 "Not the actual headsman, understand me! 
 But him they call the Cardinal's Executioner, 
 namely, the Chevalier Laffemas — " 
 
 "Indeed!" said the young countryman, little 
 enlightened. "I should think that his fortune 
 were made, and wanted no telling!" 
 
 "He comes, master, to assure the mistress 
 that as long as she carries on her profession 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 121 
 
 in so lady-like and genteel a fashion, she need 
 fear nothing from the police." 
 
 "Very kind in a man with so grim an office!" 
 
 "He is very kind! in words — deuce of a livre 
 does he ever throw away on me, showing him 
 the door, though!" 
 
 "I suppose ho does not know anything about 
 the lady-like and genteel manner in which your 
 demon puts out the recalcitrant!" said Didier 
 merrily. 
 
 "Of course not, or he w 7 ould not recommend 
 her to his acquaintances as surpassing in lore 
 and insight into the future the famous Sylla- 
 bus of Como — " 
 
 "The Sybil of CurnaB, I suppose? I bow to 
 your mythological lore! Go on, faster! This 
 opens like a drama!" 
 
 "It will end like a tragedy, malapert, if you 
 atttmipt to make love to her instead of to the 
 maid!" 
 
 "You are so dangerous when jealous?" 
 
 "Not I! But she is courted by a high noble- 
 man!" 
 
 "Some count?" 
 
 "Pooh!" 
 
 "Not a marquis?" 
 
 "Pah!" 
 
 "Stop! A Svbil! Nothing under a duke, at 
 least?" 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "Kings keep astrologers — why not a duke 
 court a pythoness?" 
 
 "How do you know it is a duke?" 
 
 "Because his Grace of Sourdis, for example, 
 stands in the direst need of a soothsayer in 
 petticoats! Only such a one can tell him which 
 of many gallants will run away with his daugh- 
 ter before he puts her in the convent!" 
 
122 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "You are not a rustic!" exclaimed Louisette, 
 stepping aside, "to know these things!" 
 
 "Ha, ha!" laughed Didier, forced out of a 
 habitual melancholy by his gay companion; "I 
 heard something of the sort on the road: two 
 workmen at an inn spoke of having fitted up 
 a room rather than a cell at Our Lady of Di- 
 vine Succor, and, being pressed by a scurrilous 
 enemy of the Church, they explained that it 
 was not a nest of luxury for an abbess, but an 
 apartment for a noble boarder. Then, some 
 one said that the Duke of Sourdis' groom had 
 latelv ridden often on the highwav between 
 nunnery and town, and I put the facts to- 
 gether!" 
 
 "You can set up for a wizard, after a few 
 lessons in our house! But, hurry!" 
 
 "No, let me hear the bells!" 
 
 "It is St. Germain's, and Roch, and the whole 
 Jcyriel — drat them! It is two o'clock and my 
 mistress will be devoured with impatience! 
 Her throng of admirers and consulting clients 
 will be at our doors now!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 122. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FACE TO FACE. 
 
 The maid and the enlisted youth turned into 
 a court which was not a thoroughfare ordinar- 
 ily for the all-sufficient reason that it was with- 
 out an outlet. This "Blind-alley of the White- 
 chapel," Blanchapelle, was finally blotted out 
 by its old houses collapsing, in the period of 
 Mercier, who described the house we are to 
 enter, before its last stage of decrepitude. 
 
 After the narrow gorge, it suddenly widened 
 so that carriages, once within, could turn and 
 extricate themselves, but with difficulty. 
 
 It was crowded with vehicles of all kinds, 
 no more or less than gathered beneath the win- 
 dows of the dining-room at Versailles when his 
 Majesty was doing the court the honor to let 
 them see the King eat. This was rare, for 
 Louis XIII. w 7 as eccentric: as his Jester Lange- 
 ly said: 
 
 "My royal master does nothing like common 
 people! He likes to eat alone and have a 
 throng round when he plays solitaire!" 
 
 "Where there was an interstice between large 
 wheels with projecting hubs, litters and chairs 
 were lodged, and in the chinks these grudg- 
 ingly presented, ladies and their serving-men 
 and maids were wedged, fainting, gasping, 
 screaming as the horses plucked at their head- 
 dresses, vociferating, and moaning. All were 
 trying to insinuate their bodies nearer a door- 
 way under a curiously carved oaken porch. 
 
 It was, hereditarily, the abode of a necro* 
 
124 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 mancer, for here dwelt Flamel before he had 
 quarters in Notre Dame outbuildings, and Flo- 
 retia may have found his Inextinguishable 
 Fire still aglow in the furnace where he made 
 potable gold. 
 
 "Never mind the mob!" said Louisette, to 
 whom the tumult was a dailv sight. "I will 
 get you in by another entrance, for we took 
 the adjoining house, or at least the part not 
 used by a Turkey merchant, so as to have a 
 private way in." 
 
 "But these are great folk!" said Didier, as- 
 tounded at the dames of quality elbowed and 
 elbowing women of lesser degree for prece- 
 dence. 
 
 "To be sure!" said the maid proudly. "That 
 dark gentleman is the Duke of Guiche, show- 
 ing the ribbon and order of the Fleece, which 
 he was promised by my mistress! He comes 
 to thank her for the verification of her proph- 
 ecy! That is the Chancellor D'Aligre — Presi- 
 dent of the Council, I warrant — for Madame 
 said that he would rise! But look at the young 
 men — All tbeir chins smooth as the back 
 of my hand! Hist! What do they say? The 
 King has set the example — to remove the chin- 
 tuft, so as to distinguish the Royalists from 
 the Cardinalists! Young sir, you are out of 
 the court fashion! B v t come, come! The 
 doors are opened!" 
 
 She drew him, abashed at such a brilliant 
 gathering in this sordid court, into a doorway 
 next that where the head of the glistening and 
 variegated hydra hurried in. 
 
 To play the demon, and throw noblemen out 
 of doors! He well might retract his pledge to 
 assist the distressed abigail. 
 
 "Oh, they are nearly all ladies," said Loui- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 125 
 
 sette, perceiving his awe. "You will not have 
 to frighten, but to charm!" 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 She closed the door on them, and thev stood 
 in a passage, dimly lighted by what rays could 
 pierce a cobwebbed blown-glass pane over the 
 door. 
 
 "Men want to ask question of Old Harry! 
 Women, only to see something agreeable! So 
 we shall have recourse this time to our Well 
 of Truth." 
 
 "What, have you all the concomitants of 
 fable? The Well of Truth— no less?" 
 
 "My mistress invented the name! It appears 
 that Truth lives in a well, without getting di- 
 luted! I should never have thought that 
 However, our well is a long tube, at one end 
 of which the patron peeps in, and at the oth- 
 er—" 
 
 "Her adorer! Nothing more simple! But 
 how do you always get the chosen one to be 
 on hand thus to meet his idol face to face?" 
 
 "Silly fellow! If it happen so, well and 
 good! If not, not! And my demon becomes 
 an angel for the nonce! My mistress knows 
 all the tittle-tattle and it goes hard but, with 
 a little stock of wigs, mustaches, 'royals' or 
 chin-beards, my demon does not pass during 
 an instant for the beloved one!" 
 
 "This is all innocent enough." said Didier, 
 breathing more freely. "And amusing!" 
 
 In the hall they heard the church bells chim- 
 ing the quarter. 
 
 A hole had been made in the two walls and 
 they passed into Signora Floret ia's residence 1 . 
 They were on the basement floor, presumably 
 beneath that of the fashionable witch's recep- 
 tion-rooms. 
 
126 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 The two could hear the thunder of feet 
 tramping up the stairway, the ladies wearing 
 pattens, since the court was so muddy from 
 the unexampled number of callers. 
 
 Didier was in a room from which the furni- 
 ture had been removed, if once it had been in- 
 habited. An odor of foreign spices, camphor 
 and musk used to preserve silk and furs, sup- 
 ported Louisette's story of the Turkey mer- 
 chant. On a table was laid out an assortment 
 of specimens of the hairdresser's art, looking 
 like an actor's dressing-table. A lamp, which 
 Louisette lit, illuminated this table and a small 
 cheval-glass with elaborate Florentine gesso- 
 work, but a shade cast the rays away from a 
 pipe which came down into the room and ter- 
 minated six feet from the floor. Its upper 
 end pierced the ceiling. 
 
 "The truthful well," explained the maid. 
 "All you have to do, dear, obliging Master 
 Didier, is to listen. If you hear the phrase: 
 'Look into the Well and vou will behold vour 
 intended mate!' why, thrust your face into that 
 funnel! Smile — yes, you may smile! It be- 
 comes you, for you are given to glum looks, if 
 let alone! But make no other grimace, mind! 
 Take care not to sneeze! We lost a clever 
 demon by his letting himself be overcome by 
 an inhalation of Thieves' Vinegar with which 
 the Dowager Duchess of Montresor inundates 
 herself; and of which some drops fell into the 
 well on her poking her head in the tube! We 
 should have been ruined, that time, but for 
 the old lady saying 'Bless you!' which my mis- 
 tress declared offended the demon, put out the 
 lights and caused her power to be useless for 
 the rest of the day!" 
 
 "My pretty Louisettel Depend on tot chok-< 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 127 
 
 Ing sooner than committing myself as an im- 
 polite demon! A kiss, and adieu:" 
 
 Louisette extricated herself from bis hands 
 with not overmuch fleetness and disappeared 
 up steps at a corner. 
 
 Didier laughed to himself. 
 
 "Paris for adventures!'' muttered he, sitting 
 on the table, for he had been a long while on 
 his legs since breakfast and fought a duel on 
 them, besides. "I have not been thirty hours 
 here before I am surrounded by the grandees 
 of court and city! That is a pretty damsel 
 and she goes straight to the point in her en- 
 gagement of her mistress's peculiar servitors! 
 A demon! save the mark! What would my 
 tutor say — who was a disfrocked priest, I be- 
 lieve! But, if I am to be imprisoned here for 
 an hour, let me see what provisions are made 
 for the captivity. The red nose of Signor Ma- 
 lagrue — beg pardon Malargue — warrants my 
 foresight — that he never endured an hour with- 
 out recreation. My own nose misleads me if 
 I have not proceeded straight to the larder of 
 the Satanic haunt!" 
 
 Indeed, in a niche under the stairs, a hutch 
 had merely to have its slide drawn to reveal 
 a respectable pasty, a rounded earthen-ware 
 vessel of red wine and a loaf of bread, with 
 a hole in the center to be hung on the arm 
 of the eater, so that it should be in reach dur- 
 ing the repast. 
 
 "I flurried the girl by taking the kiss," said 
 Didier, unceremoniously pushing the wigs in 
 a heap at one end of the table under the lamp 
 and placing the comestibles in their stead. 
 "Otherwise, she could not have failed to tell 
 me of this solid consolation for her absence." 
 
 The situation was romantic; the events of 
 
128 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the day had been exciting, but Didier was at an 
 age when appetite could not be stilled by a 
 page of the "Astree," that fashionable romance 
 of the day; he began to eat with a relish which 
 converted the basement into a cave of canni- 
 bals. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of a draught of toler- 
 able wine, he stopped and nearly choked. 
 
 He heard voices above, coming down the pipe 
 as if from a sounding-board. 
 
 ''Oho! 1 ' said he, "this is pre-arranged — it is 
 necessary that the demon should hear all thai 
 the patrons say so as to paint his face accord- 
 ing to the humor of the peerer into the Well." 
 
 Two voices were in dialogue. Feminine; 
 one cracked and whining, like a very old wo- 
 man's, the other — words fail to describe the 
 music with which its well-enunciated syllables 
 fell on Didier's ear, nay, on his soul! 
 
 "It is a seraph!" he murmured. 
 
 The aged voice said, with simulated irrita- 
 tion: 
 
 "Madame, you are trying to deceive me, the 
 sorceress, to whom nothing occult is secret — 
 from whom nothing can be hid! You are not 
 a fine lady, not even a bourgeoise! You are 
 not a woman of twenty, spite of your air which 
 bears up that assertion, but you were born in 
 1601, at Chalons — which sufficiently disproves 
 your attempt to pass as an Englishwoman. 
 Your father was not noble, Dot even a mem- 
 ber of the Black Robe! But just a county- 
 court official, a sort of usher who used to serve 
 the citations of his superiors in riding about 
 the country. I will say this for him: he had 
 a gentle spirit, and, often, instead of carrying 
 out his orders rigorously, misread them. More- 
 over, he would open his purse to the peasants 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 129 
 
 oppressed by the law! He was a good soul, 
 and, Marie! you have no reason to be ashamed 
 of hiui! Now, if I have convinced you that I 
 do not deceive and that I can pierce the mask 
 of deceit, what do you want of me?" 
 
 "I want to know if I am ever to be happy?" 
 
 "She is unhappy, this angel," thought Didier. 
 "Like me!" 
 
 "Happy? All you seek, now, is happiness, 
 eh? Well, you were born under Venus and — 
 and — Minerva — " 
 
 "This magician makes no bones of it!" 
 thought the listener. "Since when was Miner- 
 va one of the planets?" 
 
 "You can be happy, yes." 
 
 "Lucky woman!" thought Didier, interested 
 so that he pushed away the flagon. 
 
 "But you must — " 
 
 He strained all his faculties, but the long 
 speech and any remarks in reply were inaudi- 
 ble; the two had evidently moved out of the 
 focus of the Well-mouth. 
 
 "Heavens! Is she going away? And am I 
 never to know who it is, beyond the trite name 
 'Marie?' " moaned Didier. 
 
 But at the next instant, he heard the witch 
 anew: 
 
 "It is the only way to happiness!" 
 
 "Then, with whom am I to be happy?" 
 
 Didier held his breath at this momentous 
 question. Stranger though he was to the 
 questioner, she could hardly be more inter- 
 ested, if one might judge by the whiteness of 
 his lips and the intensity of the strain while 
 awaiting. 
 
 The fortune-teller of the Cul-de-sac Blancha- 
 pelle paused, as her tribe will do, to give more 
 effect to her reply. 
 
130 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Ask Truth and you will be informed." 
 
 "How can I appeal to Truth?" 
 
 The woman was impatient. 
 
 "This is the Well of Truth!" A wooden rod, 
 probably the soothsayer's inevitable wand, 
 rapped on the summit of the tube at the other 
 end of which fretted Didier, and the voice con- 
 tinued: "Look in; and, if the Fates are pro- 
 pitious, you will see the lifelike presentment 
 of him with whom you are destined to mate 
 and lead a felicitous life!" 
 
 "Oh, the likeness!" with disappointment. 
 
 "The simulacrum! I can do no more!" 
 
 Didier hung back, his modesty drawing him. 
 No doubt the dupe was peering in, for he heard 
 a sigh of vexation. 
 
 "Nothing!" sighed she. 
 
 "Look!" repeated the witch, imperiously. 
 
 Didier seemed a statue, against his will, for 
 curiosity, if no worthier sentiment, moved him 
 to advance his head into the orifice. He tried 
 to stir, but in vain. He was a Tantalus, 
 blinded! 
 
 "I tell you, there is nothing but a blank!" 
 repeated the woman whom the predictress had 
 said, was christened "Marie." 
 
 "Look!" repeated the other, with assurance. 
 
 At the same moment, a brazen bullet, let 
 down on a fine silver wire through a minute 
 aperture in the ceiling, swung with great dex- 
 terity against the half-filled lamp globe and a 
 sound, muffled, it is true, but like a gong, 
 roused Didier from his unaccountable stupor. 
 
 He understood that it was his cue — that the 
 demon, or angel, must appear. 
 
 His dismay vanished as rapidly as it came. 
 He turned his attractive head of the adoles- 
 cent, full of grace, and with the smile which 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 131 
 
 Louisette had counselled, into the funnel of 
 the pipe. 
 
 He caught a glimpse of a most beautiful 
 countenance as his reward — all the more en- 
 trancing as it was devoid of extraneous em- 
 bellishment — the face and no more! 
 
 The black eyes gleamed, the brown ringlets 
 shook and seemed to exhale ambrosia, the lips 
 parted in a delight and amaze, or perhaps in 
 horror at this black business, and then — all 
 vanished! The same deft hand which had 
 sounded the signal on the lamp as a bell, pulled 
 a second wire which crossed the pipe midway 
 with a valve-like disc. To him below as to 
 her above was darkness — an impermeable sep- 
 aration. 
 
 "What a lovely visage!" sighed Didier, pass- 
 ing his hand over his ej'es, as though they were 
 dazzled by a ray of unclouded sun. 
 
 A soft hand pressed his lips and prevented 
 the outcry being as loud as otherwise it must 
 have risen. 
 
 Louisette was by his side. 
 
 "Well done!" said she, "but talk in a whis- 
 per!" 
 
 "Talk! This is no time — I am in no mood to 
 talk!" responded he, testily, shaking off the 
 hand rudely. "Let me go! Show me the way, 
 and pocket that louis, with this other for your 
 pains! Let me out of this den! I must know 
 who that lady is!" 
 
 "Have a care! Our patrons are not to be 
 followed with impunity!" 
 
 "Lead me, or I will break out through the 
 very wall at haphazard!" 
 
 So changed was the quiet youth, that the 
 transformation had as alarming an effect in 
 Louisette as in her lover Malargue. Fright 
 
132 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 ened, she pointed to the door by which they 
 had entered, and gasped: 
 
 "That is the way! But do come back! Oh, 
 oh, what are we to do for a demon!" 
 
 She buried her face in her scrap of an orna- 
 mental apron, and she was sobbing as he 
 bounded from her. 
 
 The court was not so crammed as when he 
 came. Some of the visitors had departed, 
 convinced that they were without a chance 
 that day; the carriages and litters of those 
 who had seats in the ante-room were removed 
 to give the horses a walk round the gardens 
 of the Palais Royal; and most of the idlers, 
 having enumerated the titles of the persons 
 of quality who frequented Signora Floretia's 
 Dordona, had gone their way. 
 
 What was worse, two or three carriages, 
 chairs and litters were departing in different 
 directions, almost at the same minute. 
 
 In spite of the woman having been declared 
 to be plebeian by the soothsayer, Didier enter- 
 tained so exalted an idea of the position which 
 the possessor of so much charm must attain, 
 that he singled out a splendid glass coach, 
 heavy with carvings, richly gilt, lumbering off, 
 at the tails, be-ribboned and tied-up, of two 
 immense Flanders horses. 
 
 Luckily, the pavement was execrable and the 
 work of demolition of the ancient City wall 
 filling the road with stones, progress was slow 
 to so large a vehicle. 
 
 Didier, by means of his ardor and brisk- 
 ness, soon overtook it. It was the more con- 
 spicuous as its gildings were foiled by the 
 sombre pile of the Chatelet Prison, at the end 
 of Ferraille Quay. 
 
 On attaining his fugitive goal, he was more 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 133 
 
 at a loss than ever, for to run up to the win- 
 dow and peep in at the occupants, was to in- 
 cur the suspicion of being a cloak-snatcher or 
 even an assassin, for it might contain a court 
 functionary, after all was considered. 
 
 While speeding, for be hesitated only men- 
 tally, a running footman, to whom the coach- 
 man, annoyed by this persistent pursuer, had 
 communicated his doubts, turned and came be- 
 hind the coach. He was armed with a malacca 
 cane, tipped with a crest, thickly gilded. It 
 was not only of value for leaping gutters and 
 so guarding his magnificent clothes, but as a 
 protection against thieves. 
 
 He was over six feet in height — a giant to 
 the pursuer, on whom he looked with contempt 
 as he stopped him by placing his cane, like 
 a spear in the hands of a gate warder, cross- 
 wise before him. 
 
 "How now?" cried he, "are we to lose our 
 lapdogs and coachwrappers in broad day?" 
 
 "The name of your mistress? and there is 
 five pistoles for you!'' stammered Didier, gasp- 
 ing for breath, and not sorry, physically, for 
 the enforced halt. 
 
 The speaker was soberly garbed, we know, 
 and nothing but his sword proclaimed his pre- 
 tensions to gentility. To tell the truth, this 
 required furbishing, and he was smothered in 
 dust. 
 
 But it was a day of good and of bad luck — 
 like our life, a harlequin's arrangement! The 
 coureur took pity on a fine young man, victim 
 of some hallucination, probably; besides, five 
 pistoles would regale his comrades of the cane 
 and the whip. 
 
 He smiled benignly and answered: 
 
 "My mistress? It is the Chatelaine of Brich- 
 
134 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 anteau. If you were read in heraldry, my stu- 
 dent, you would see that by the silver coun- 
 ters on my canehead." 
 
 "Oh, the chatelaine — not married?" 
 
 "Not — ha, ha! At her third husband! She 
 is, by the latest, Madame de Tiffaunges, and 
 her husband is the Vice-President of the Parlia- 
 ment !" 
 
 "Still, she is fair, about thirty, but looking 
 far younger, and wears her golden brown hair 
 in curls?" 
 
 Through his merriment the footman replied: 
 
 "The pistoles, please! Thank you! In our 
 profession, no pay, no say! That is a Spanish 
 one with a hole bored — but never mind! My 
 mistress will never see sixty again! Her eyes 
 are — one green, one brown, for they are not 
 mates! By the same token there is a ballad 
 which runs the street, entitled: 'Two Odd 
 Eyes!' but, I see, ballads to another occasion! 
 As for hair, faith! She is wearing her black 
 headdress this time — but she comes out in all 
 the shades of brown and black, to suit her cos- 
 tumes!" 
 
 "One question more, for pity!" said Didier. 
 "She has a younger lady with her?" 
 
 "In the coach?" 
 
 "Yes, who went into the fortune-teller's, La 
 Floretia's, while your ladv sat in the coach 
 without?" 
 
 "My friend, men in saner senses than you 
 have been clapped into the Samaritaine Hos- 
 pital! The only companion of my lady, in or 
 out of coaches, is her almoner, the good Abbe 
 Taisant. It was he whom we set down in that 
 confounded Cul-de-sac, where we had scant 
 room to turn, for him to give a purse to a fam- 
 ily in poverty, in the cellar under the cobbler's 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 135 
 
 stall. The cobbler is doing no business since 
 the blind-alley is encumbered with great folk 
 by reason of the devil's own — your fortune-tel- 
 ler! And ho had to press his tenants for rent. 
 Ah, go to a better world, my young friend! 
 This is a sad one for poor folk! Adieu! I and 
 my comrades will drink your health!'' 
 
 Refreshed by his rest, the long-legged foot- 
 man opened his limbs out like those of com- 
 passes, and in an incredibly short time was 
 at the foot of the hill toward St. Sulpice's. 
 
 Didier retraced his steps, crestfallen. No 
 one would have recognised the victor over Ma- 
 largue or even the jaunty youth who had 
 chatted so lightly with Louisette. 
 
 In a few hours he had passed out of the 
 stage of the lyrical youth and now 7 was in the 
 passionate one. He loved the wearer of that 
 countenance seen, detached from all else, in 
 the mouth of the Well of Truth. 
 
 -.Marie!" said he, disconsolately. "The 
 world is dark until I have the brightness of 
 your eyes before me, again!'' 
 
 In the neighborhood of the fortune-teller's, 
 no one could inform him on that special vis- 
 itor. It had been a great day for the witch and 
 to single out one caller was impossible. As 
 for Louisette, he was convinced that he had 
 treated her too cavalierly to have her still 
 friendly. Nevertheless, as it was the only 
 straw, he lingered at the head of the no-thor- 
 oughfare to see her again. 
 
 Alas! at dark she came out, to purchase the 
 supply for supper no doubt, for priestesses of 
 Apollo must eat — and on days of lavish gains, 
 sumptuously, too. But she w T as not alone. 
 Carrying her basket, and having one of her 
 
136 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 hands tucked under his arm, was the trucu- 
 lent Anspessade Malargue. 
 
 Didier recognised him, although his change 
 of dress was not as brilliant as that he had 
 spoiled. 
 
 It was clear that he had invented a tale to 
 do away with the bad impression left by his 
 failure to keep his tryst, and that LoUisette, 
 not wanting to be questioned closely on the 
 owner of the head seen at the bottom of the 
 Well of Truth by the mysterious "Marie," was 
 eager to substitute a feast instead of the pasty 
 and wine attacked by her demon of an hour. 
 
 To be sure, there was the resource of asking 
 the soothsayer, pointblank, the quality of her 
 visitor; but the young gentleman from Blois 
 had learnt a good deal from his brief sojourn 
 in Paris. He wisely reined himself in from 
 conferring rudely with a woman who evidently 
 was a reservoir of the secrets of the capital 
 and who could find, without her witchcraft, 
 one of those sheets of paper, garnished with 
 the royal seal and signature, and countersigned 
 "Richelieu," vulgarly called "lett?-es de cachet" 
 or in plain words, "blank warrants of arrest." 
 Such a document would suffice to make Didier, 
 who had exhausted his funds, and was wonder- 
 ing where he should pass the night, acquainted 
 with the accommodation of the Chatelet, whose 
 gloomy shadow had made him shudder while 
 he was questioning the running footman. 
 
 "Home!" said he, abruptly. "If it is heav- 
 en's will, we shall meet again! I am not the 
 man to starve in his Majesty's prison! Better 
 die under his flag, charging the foe!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 137 
 
 CHArTER VIII. 
 
 FUGITIVES. 
 
 The days were shortening and the shadows 
 lengthening, as a man who had ridden on post- 
 horses from Paris in high haste, alighted at 
 Chambord, and spite of the fading daylight, 
 and instead of taking the refreshment offered 
 by the landlord of the posthonse, walked brisk- 
 ly into the Woods. 
 
 " "That gentleman will be stripped of his fine 
 feathers,*' said the host sulkily, at being balked 
 of legitimate prey. "What the mischief does 
 a court gallant, fresh as from his dressing- 
 chamber, want with woodmen's paths amid the 
 briars and thorns?" 
 
 He looked curiously after the stranger until 
 the latter was lost to view under the noble 
 trees. 
 
 He was right to criticise this odd proceed- 
 ing. 
 
 The traveller was clad in the extreme of the 
 mode, under a horseman's cloak, donned hur- 
 riedly for the posting. He was a man under 
 twenty-five, who wore the luxurioushabiliments 
 with the ease of custom. His doublet was of Ge- 
 noa brocade-on-brocade,that is, a super- weaving 
 of gold thread over velvet, worthy of a queen's 
 drawing-room. An over-body-coat of maroon 
 velvet guarded the superb garment, but was 
 open in the front and slashed on the full 
 sleeves to show the stuff, as well as lace wrists 
 and a collar upon which the nuns of Belgium 
 
138 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 must have toiled for months. His ample 
 breeches were buttoned with gold studs, each 
 a miracle of chiselling, and the sides were 
 fringed with gold; they dropped by their own 
 weight into funnel boots of scented morocco, 
 stamped with gold in Old Spanish devices. 
 His spurs were of the same precious metal and 
 from the hand of some noted smith. His large 
 felt hat was trimmed with lace and adorned 
 with four or five costly plumes, two sticking 
 upright in defiance of the evening breeze and 
 the others artfully curled and dropping around 
 over the supple rim. 
 
 His eyes and his features, powdered and rud- 
 dy with cosmetic, notwithstanding his dusty 
 ride, betrayed vanity, frivolity and fickleness; 
 but, on the other hand, his sword, with a finely 
 cut-steel hilt, hung at the Cordovan leather 
 baldric with that inimitable availability for in- 
 stant use which would have caused a footpad 
 — probably, haunting the forest — to think 
 twice before attacking this gay butterfly. 
 
 If he would be surprised at seeing him here, 
 so would the associates of this magnificent 
 beau — the Marquis of Saverny, "the dainty Na- 
 zaire," whom the chroniclers cite as a per- 
 fect fop. 
 
 Although it was hard walking in riding 
 boots in a woodland path, where the unearthed 
 roots jutted out, and stones were washed up 
 by the October showers, he made very good 
 way and emerged into the open, with a sigh 
 of relief, where he saw the River Loire gleam 
 und( r a growing mist and the spires and tow- 
 ers of Blois rise from its bank. 
 
 He let down the tops of his boots, which had 
 defended him from the brambles, and brush- 
 ing off the dust with an improvised wisp of 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 139 
 
 hazel twigs, prepared to enter the town by 
 the bridge. 
 
 But, for once, he showed more prudence 
 than might be expected in a coxcomb. To 
 save the expense of a tollhouse at each end of 
 the bridge, the ingenious city officials had Es- 
 tablished a central house where the bridge 
 guards and tin turnpike collector could harbor 
 themselves in wet weather. 
 
 The marquis no sooner reached this small 
 and smoky hole than he showed to the soldiers 
 and the collector a very bright specimen of 
 the coinage of the realm, and said in a win- 
 some voice, which few creditors had ever re- 
 sisted — and it is known how obdurate they are! 
 
 "My friends, here is the wherewithal to quaff 
 a stoop of wine at my expense. I am the Chev- 
 alier of Avannes, whose valet was thrown from 
 his horse on the river road and so I am forced 
 to enter the city and my lodgings alone. Al- 
 low me to shake the dust off my clothes before 
 I cross the bridge-sill!'' 
 
 "Enter, my cavalier!" said the collector. "I 
 may trust your lordship not to dip into my 
 till — ha, ha! more particularly as the usher of 
 the Court of Accounts has just called, as is his 
 wont, at dusk, to transport all the takings 
 to the Hall of the States of Blois." 
 
 Saverny stepped within the box with alac- 
 rity. 
 
 At almost the same moment, a man on horse- 
 back rode over the bridge. He was dressed 
 in black under a brown cloak, which had a 
 sanguinary hue in the dying sunlight, reflected 
 from the rolling river. 
 
 From habit he darted a searching glance at 
 the soldiers and the collector to whom he flung 
 a coin for his passage. He could not see the 
 
140 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 marquis, who had shrunk into the darkest cor- 
 ner, muttering: 
 
 "My good star has saved me! It is Laffe- 
 mas! It is the Cardinal's inquisitor! Al- 
 ready they are after me for that pestilent little 
 lampoon ! Oh to be an author — only once, and 
 then to be chased like a hare for the lines!" 
 
 But recovering from his alarm, and reason- 
 ing that an excellent way to baffle a pursuer is 
 to follow him, keeping him in sight, turning 
 as he turns and stopping when he stops so 
 that a marked interval separates the twain, 
 Saverny, having adjusted his dress to be less 
 out of keeping with the requirements of a 
 town, sallied forth, bowed to by the soldiers. 
 They were the more respectful as he had folded 
 up his cloak and hung it over his left arm, and 
 his strikingly bright apparel was visible in the 
 twilight. 
 
 It was not difficult to chase the man in black 
 whom he called Laffemas. 
 
 This man left his horse at the Crowned Pig 
 Inn, in Cross Street, and took the devious way 
 into Old Street with an easy tread. 
 
 It was not astonishing that the marquis, as 
 a courtier, should so readily recognise Norbert 
 Laffemas, almost as well known, for an agent 
 of Cardinal Kichelieu, as Father Joseph him- 
 self. 
 
 The two latter had carried police-craft to a 
 high stage of excellence, above that where 
 Mouchi, Francis I.'s Inquisitor-general had left 
 it. 
 
 To lead this band of spies, emissaries and 
 secret messengers the Minister had chosen, to 
 some surprise, a humble clerk in the Court of 
 Requests, Laffemas, reputed son of a valet of 
 the preceding King. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 141 
 
 This man, though said to be a born Parisian, 
 had the sunburnt tint and awkward ways of a 
 peasant from the south, llis nose was long, 
 yel hooked and pointed; his eyes were bright 
 but cunningly avoided having their glance 
 caught, and wandered, in conversation, like an 
 erratic meteor. He usually wore the black 
 garb of clerks and ecclesiastics. 
 
 He was cleanshaven, as if he had heard of 
 the royal advice as to removal of the "goatee" 
 or chin-tuft which Louis had favored until he 
 noticed that it grew more flourishingly on the 
 chin of his Minister than on his own. So the 
 "royale" had become "cardinale," and was 
 thenceforth prohibited. 
 
 Laffemas was no sooner appointed Master of 
 the Court of Requests than the terrible babble 
 of the court stated the "true" grounds for his 
 promotion. "He is a kinsman of the Cardi- 
 nal; his nephew or Bishop Alphonse's; why not 
 his unclaimed son?" But in vain did they 
 seek for a point of resemblance in the suppo- 
 sitious father and son; Laffemas remained vul- 
 gar, not at all showing a trait of identity with 
 the son of Captain Francois Duplessis, re- 
 nowned in the Wars of the League. 
 
 If, at times, Richelieu showered favors on 
 this dubious connection, at others he treated 
 him roughly and as if despising him. 
 
 But, on the whole, Laffemas had more smiles 
 than rebuffs and, since a mystery at court is 
 like a mystery elsewhere, that is, enjoying some 
 attention, Laffemas profited, and had made 
 himself dreaded. 
 
 To be dreaded at court is more valuable than 
 to be loved, since poor human nature's love is 
 more ephemeral than its hate or spite. 
 
142 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 In the meantime, the marquis stalked the po- 
 lice chief as he might a buck. 
 
 But, severally, Laffeinas passed the mayor's, 
 the chief of the local Parliament's residence, 
 the guardhouses, the watch-houses, the little- 
 castle or prison. 
 
 "I am sure he is not going to arrest me, even 
 granting that he followed me down here, so 
 close at my heels. I am no Koland, but even 
 a Laffemas would not dare single-handed to 
 try to arrest me. How do I know but, like 
 many another rogue — for he is rogue, a Du- 
 plessis or a Laffemas! he is running with the 
 hare and holding with the hounds — I mean, he 
 comes to Blois under pretext of inviting me to 
 appear before Presiding Judge d'Argenson at 
 the Chamber of Justice in the Arsenal for my 
 petty verses on the royal barber-ism! But 
 really to make a call on some lady-friend! 
 But, Laffemas, in love!" added the noble, 
 thoughtfully. "That would be news for my 
 circle, if ever I dare enter within the city 
 bounds again!" 
 
 As he was sighing, he saw his object stop, 
 lie had barely time to throw himself into a deep 
 doorway. 
 
 Laffemas buried himself in the like. 
 
 "He is expected! It is a meeting!" muttered 
 the marquis. "I am on the track of a cabal! 
 Who would deny that I may catch Master Laf- 
 femas tripping, so that he will make requests 
 to me for pardon, lest I ruin him with his mus- 
 ter?" 
 
 Eager to check his pursuer, as he believed 
 him, the noble forgot his dignity and ap- 
 proached the doorway with a cautious step not 
 to be bettered by a professed thief. 
 
 Night came fast. He stood beside the pro- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 143 
 
 jetting porch, hewn out of thick oak, black 
 with raindrip and dust, bis gay at lire dimmed 
 by the gloom iu tbe street, where tbe houses, 
 built with each story overhanging, made noon 
 often as dark as eve, and eve was always as 
 midnight. 
 
 A lamp swung to a rope across tbe street, 
 it is true, but as tbe Almanack of Strasburg, 
 on which the lamplighter relied, promised 
 bright moonlight, the worthy Prometheus of 
 Blois had taken his supper and was going to 
 rest without a twinge of conscience. 
 
 "I was right," muttered Saverny. "It was 
 an appointment. He has knocked in a pecu- 
 liar way and the door is opened. A woman — 
 ha! 'tis the Old Woman of convention, tbe 
 duenna, who identities him — she will lead him 
 indoors and I shall lose my man!'' 
 
 As he rattled his spurs in his stamp of bad- 
 ly concealed vexation, he still heard the two 
 voices — an old woman's squeaking and hoarse 
 by turns, and Laffemas', jovial but relapsing 
 into a sharp grating tone which revealed insin- 
 cerity and temper easily exasperated. 
 
 Saverny lost not a sentence of their dialogue. 
 
 "I cannot let you in," said the woman; "and 
 yet, God wot! I did long to sit at the board 
 with you and see you dipping your nose in the 
 wine from my own little vintage on Coigncux 
 Hill! But my mistress has returned and she 
 is going to stay in, I am sin j." 
 
 "Well, and have you discovered, dear moth- 
 er!" said Laffemas, wheedlingly, "who your 
 mistress really is? Your account of her un- 
 common good looks — " 
 
 "Beauty, son!" 
 
 "Mother — and son!" echoed Saverny, glueing 
 his ear to the other side of the plank. "Haw 
 
144 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 I penetrated the secret of bis origin? Woe to 
 thee, Master Lafi'emas, if you have the war- 
 rant for my arrest in your pouch! I will make 
 you swallow it and ram it home with this dis- 
 covery! This hag never mated with so proud 
 a being as our Minister, or I will die on the 
 gibbet for my mistake!" 
 
 "Her stock of jewels, in the secret drawer of 
 her chest, her skill in music, her witty words 
 — who is she, mother?" 
 
 "My dear boy, I have obeyed your instruc- 
 tions and, whenever she went out, which was 
 seldom enough for a proper ferreting in her 
 room — I examined everything, ripped up se- 
 cret pockets, pried cunningly devised draw- 
 ers — " 
 
 "Be quick!" 
 
 "Oh, we have no passers here; it is a turna- 
 gain lane and all citizens go up Old Street. 
 Well, I found out all about her. Her name 
 is Marie Chalons, only in part. She is Marion 
 Delorme — " 
 
 "The court beauty, who has disappeared 
 from all eyes for the last three weeks? Who 
 was thought to be in London, or Madrid, fur- 
 thering the plots of the Queen or of the King's 
 brother, Prince Gaston? Mother, you are a 
 dotard!" 
 
 "This lovely woman is Marion Delorme," re- 
 peated the old woman deliberately. "No soon- 
 er had I the clue than I went out and bought 
 some chapbooks of the pedlar at the perma- 
 nent fair on the North Quay. Well, there was 
 her portrait in two or three — not works of art 
 as in the Bishop's palace where I was char- 
 woman, you know — but sufficient to hang a 
 pian upon!" 
 
 'Marion, here?" said Laffemas in a wonder 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 145 
 
 as great as thai the other listener was thrilled 
 
 by. "But. certainly, she had to be somewhere!" 
 
 "What are yob muttering?" croaked the hag, 
 ill-humoredly; "do you doubt me? what I have 
 seen? It is true, I had but a glimpse of the 
 creature, iu Paris, when I was playing the 
 fortune-teller, for your ends, I suspect, if also 
 a trifle to my purse-filling! She came with a 
 veil, but I did see her! not a face to be for- 
 got! I tell you again, pictures in the penny- 
 books to the contrary, if you gainsay them! 
 this is Marion Delorme!" 
 
 "I do not doubt you, mother," w 7 heedlingly 
 said the Cardinal's Executioner. Then, in a 
 lower tone, so that Saverny with difficulty 
 overheard, "I warrant ye that she is here, in 
 the shadow, all to carry out a plot! it may 
 make us! She has never committed herself 
 for King or Cardinal, but I suspect she is not 
 for us! If this be Marion, she could not keep 
 out of the whiff of the court winds! Does she 
 have callers — many? of what nature!" 
 
 "Only one." 
 
 "Ah! that is judicious! man or woman?" 
 
 "A voung man — " 
 
 "Noble, or merely a messenger?" 
 
 "He carries himself nobly enough; but is 
 grave bevond his years, taciturn — I cannot 
 draw a word but the salute of the day from 
 him'." 
 
 "Is he ever in livery — what are the colors, the 
 badge?" 
 
 "Oh, he is his own master! he wears sombre 
 attire—" 
 
 "More precautious:" 
 
 "But carries a sword as one born to wear it !" 
 
 "Of course, if the project is great, the inter- 
 mediary would be a gentleman at the least/' 
 
146 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 commented Laffemas. "Do you see much of 
 him — what is he like, close to?" 
 
 "At first, I let him in; then, mistress sent 
 me to bed, and undid the door for him with her 
 own hand. But, lately, she has become sus- 
 picious of me — poor old, decrepit woman that 
 I am! and she facilitates his scaling her bal- 
 cony." 
 
 Laffemas and Saverny looked up. They could 
 see that a heavy iron-work window-guard pro- 
 jected under a window, after the manner of 
 Spanish ones, and a Borneo w 7 ould have little 
 difficulty, if his Juliet lowered the end of a 
 scarf, in climbing up into the room overhead. 
 
 "Are you sure it is a man?" said Laffemas, 
 lowering his eyes. "These intriguantes! the 
 Duchess de Chevreuse, for example, has 
 cheated her own hall-porter in masculine dis- 
 guise!" 
 
 "It is a man," replied the woman. 
 
 "But, after all, may it not be a lover? a 
 beauty like Marion is capable of falling into 
 downright love, one of these days, after having 
 shocked the Seine into running red with her 
 fickleness!" 
 
 "Lover? hoity-toity! what a singular lover! 
 I have listened; and upon my faith! he seems 
 to preach to her!" 
 
 "A Huguenot? or can it be the English 
 agent, Montague?" muttered the agent of Rich- 
 elieu, reflecting. 
 
 "And when they sing together — " 
 
 "They sing together?" exclaimed the other; 
 "come, this is not like conspiracv, unless it be 
 a blind!" 
 
 "They whine psalms, I believe, rather than 
 what I knew as love songs in my days!" 
 
 "We will see what time he sings in the cage!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 1 IT 
 
 said the man whom she styled "son," empha- 
 sising the words and chuckling. 
 
 "Arrest her, and her visitor?" 
 
 "Oh, arrest Marion? thai is another matter! 
 but I can take a midnight escalader of a peace- 
 ful balcony! Then we shall know who he is, 
 and secure any papers he may bear to her or 
 from her. Marion has a literary turn! I 
 should not wonder — remember this! but she 
 wrote the quip about the King ordering all his 
 Household to remove their chinbeards, because 
 the Cardinal — great and generous patron! — has 
 a finer one!" 
 
 "What quip?" 
 
 "Oh, verses with which half the town rings, 
 and the other half laughs over! They begin: 
 'The tidings surely you have heard, how woe's 
 befallen chin and beard — '" 
 
 "My satire!" murmured Saverny, thrilling 
 with an author's joy. 
 
 "What time does he call?" 
 
 "Midnight! without fear of the marauders!" 
 said the old woman, crossing herself. 
 
 "And stays—" 
 
 "How do I know how long? I cannot keep 
 such hours. I tell the truth — I wanted to over- 
 hear and acquaint you with what they said, 
 but they speak low, and I fell asleep on the 
 landing! Then, I gave it up, still to confess to 
 you, my boy! and I go to my regular sleep." 
 
 "Poor mother! unless you have made a great 
 slip! But it matters not! I will get a patrol 
 of the archers and, at twelve, we will capture 
 our Cid as he clambers into Donna Mariana's 
 chamber window!" 
 
 "But I shall lose a liberal mistress!" 
 
 "I will make up for all that. Know, mother 
 dear, that I am promoted: I am Master of the 
 
148 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Requests Court, and I aim still higher. Why 
 should I not, with a sire like to mine?" 
 
 The old woman coughed. She has been hold- 
 ing the door ajar during this dialogue and the 
 night air began to affect her. 
 
 "As you please, Jean — " 
 
 "Jean! hang me with your 'Jeans!' bear in 
 mind, that I am Norbert! a Jean, at court — 
 save the mark!" 
 
 "Jean or Norbert, bear you in mind that I 
 have always my own little cottage on the hill, 
 which I bought with the money I brought back 
 from Calcutta. And, faith! I am tired of wait- 
 ing on the fine lady, who pretends to be recon- 
 ciled to this quiet town, but yet wants all the 
 luxuries of a palace! As for the young gentle- 
 man, what is his value to me? since I see him 
 no more, farewell to any fee for opening the 
 door and letting him out! Ah, it was a mean 
 man who invented windows so large that folks 
 can use them and evade the portress! Take 
 him, my dear Chief 'Clap-the-shoulder!' " 
 
 "I will do it, at midnight, grandam!" 
 
 Saverny heard him kiss the old woman on the 
 forehead filially, and he laughed to himself. 
 
 "It's his dam! an old fox! I don't need to 
 see her to identify her in the day! he is the 
 copy of her or I am badly misled by the simi- 
 larity of their unpleasant voices." 
 
 He crouched down, drew his cloak over his 
 gay clothes, and waited for Laffemas to be off. 
 
 The latter let the door close behind him. 
 and, muffling himself in his cloak, for the dews 
 were falling, he stepped to the sill of the porch. 
 
 "I have found Marion," muttered he, "for 
 whom all Paris was looking! It is a fresh cabal 
 and all the more decisive as they have induced 
 Marion, a pattern of neutrality, to join them! 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 149 
 
 Who is this go-between in dark clothes? 
 Chalais' ghost? Baradas! or the King's jester, 
 Langely, who delights in changing his parti- 
 colored suit for dun or sable, and poking his 
 sharp nose into all conspiracies? Well, we 
 shall know in four or five hours! I will arrest 
 this gallant! I can easily excuse myself, if I 
 blunder, to say nothing of Papa Richelieu be- 
 ing ever-lenient to this unlegitimatised child! 
 I will declare that he wrote 'The tidings surely 
 you have heard!' " 
 
 "The villain!" muttered Saverny, trembling 
 with rage; "another will be punished for my 
 lines! he will go down to posterity as the au- 
 thor! and no one will know that the Savernys 
 had a genius in the family! 1 ' 
 
 In his excitement he moved and his sword- 
 hilt rapped against the stone where he cow- 
 ered. 
 
 Laffemas, who had taken a few steps upon 
 the street, stopped, half-slipping on the round 
 stones. But if he saw the form shrouded in the 
 cloak, he perhaps recalled what his mother had 
 said about no citizens using this lane-without- 
 a-head, and, afraid it was a robber, he set his 
 face towards Old Street and rapidly retired. 
 
 The marquis came out of his ambush. 
 
 "What a find!" said he. "Marion, here! 
 buried in Blois to keep appointments with a 
 lover, or to play the boy who poises on the 
 seesaw between the one who goes up and the 
 other who goes down! who is the gallant? 
 Cerest is in Venice! Pons does not know where 
 she is, or he would not dangle round her house 
 in the Place Royale; as for that hotblood, Nes- 
 mond, who is the springald to climb balconies, 
 by reason of his Andalusian si rain, he is 
 enamored of La Neveu! Death of my life! T. 
 
150 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 am as eager as our friend Laffemas to know 
 who so allures the reigning Circe as to cause 
 her to quit us incontinently and dwell in ob- 
 scurity!" 
 
 Mechanically, he was following again in the 
 footsteps of the cardinalistic Inquisitor, when 
 a sudden thought struck him, so lightning-like 
 that he was transfixed to the spot. 
 
 "What an imbecile this terror of the lam- 
 pooners has made me!" he ejaculated. "Why 
 should I wander in this town for a refuge, 
 when my old friend Marion does not expect 
 her cavalier until midnight? I am supplied 
 with the arranged-for rapping which summons 
 her lovely handmaid to the door and I doubt 
 not that Marion will be delighted to welcome a 
 brother in exile! Besides, I bear the latest 
 news, such as would hardly reach Blois the 
 Benighted under a month. Here goes! at the 
 worst, I can only be thrust out of the window! 
 and a window into which a man can step from 
 the street cannot much disable one who leaps 
 from it!" 
 
 He entered the porch, outside which he had 
 played the eavesdropper, and knocked in the 
 same manner as Laffemas had done. 
 
 As he conjectured, the unfaithful guardian 
 of the house believed that the late visitor had 
 returned to correct his instructions or for some 
 purpose which she judged to be important. 
 She opened the door with an alacrity which 
 electrified her aged nerves, and as she carried 
 a lamp this time, Saverny saw who confronted 
 him. 
 
 It was a little old woman with the same sad- 
 dle-colored tint of Laffemas, his long, hooked 
 and pointed nose, the same piercing eyes which 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 151 
 
 flitted from being fastened by another's glance 
 — in short, the likeness was manifest. 
 
 "Good evening, Mother Laffemas!" cried Sa- 
 verny, stepping within and planting one funnel 
 boot so far ahead that it was impossible to 
 close the door, which she instantly showed a 
 desire to do on seeing it was a stranger. 
 
 "Mother What? my name is Rose!" she 
 snappishly replied. 
 
 "Rose, be it, sweet one! I am of the court, 
 courtly, you understand and I used the name 
 uttered merely as a passport to j-our good 
 graces. I am a dear friend of our dear boy 
 Jean Norbert Laffemas, newly appointed Mas- 
 ter of the Court of Requests, and, like him, I 
 am a rabid Cardinalist! I see, like my master, 
 nor black nor white, but red — Cardinal Red, 
 you understand!" 
 
 This impassioned address did not seem to 
 unbend the wrinkled visage, and he changed 
 his key. 
 
   
 
 "1 am a friend, also, of the lady upstairs, and, 
 as a proof, I tender you to ten x>istoles, which 
 see! to usher me into her presence." 
 
 Dame Rose, as she preferred to be called, 
 looked hard into the speakers blue eyes, and 
 on his blonde face, but the first were so insipid 
 and the second so spiritless that she considered 
 that this was a harmless guest. His knowledge 
 of her relation to her previous caller still 
 rankled in her, for she sulkily said: 
 
 "I suppose you may go up, the pistoles being 
 honest money of which mistress need not hear 
 a word — " 
 
 Sa veiny passed the coin over to her crisped 
 hand, which dosed on the instant with avidity, 
 showing that she was vulnerable to greed. 
 Then, with the other hand, lifting up the light z 
 
152 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 she indicated that he might ascend the dingy- 
 stairs uncoiling before them at the end of a 
 murky corridor. 
 
 The marquis bowed ironically and took the 
 direction. 
 
 On the landing, spite of his recklessness, he 
 paused. But through a keyhole streamed not 
 only a pencil of light but a streak of rich per- 
 fume. 
 
 "Marion, to a certainty!" he exclaimed, and, 
 emboldened, he rapped on the heavy door. 
 " Tis her Essence of Gulistan, forsooth!" 
 
 He had, this time by accident, hit upon 
 another signal prearranged, for a quick, light 
 step was immediately heard upon the rough 
 wooden floor, with intermittent subdued scuf- 
 fling where a mat or rug was in the path; a 
 hand seized the handle impatiently, and the 
 door opened. 
 
 The marquis, as he had done at the street 
 door, stepped in to the aperture. 
 
 The inmate recoiled. 
 
 "Marion! it is our fairest of Marions!" ejacu- 
 lated the noble, clapping his hands in joy. 
 
 "The marquis! Saverny! Nazaire!" 
 
 This outcry of surprise came from the cherry 
 lips most admired in all Paris, the Rendezvous 
 of the Lovely, and, consequently, Marion De- 
 lorme, whose other features were as adorable, 
 might consider herself as an European cyno- 
 sure. 
 
 Saverny, although a regular frequenter of 
 her reception-room, could not refrain from the 
 compliment of gazing on her, almost spell- 
 bound, as compensation for the dearth of not 
 haying seen her recently. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 153 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A NEBULOUS LOVER. 
 
 Marion was born in 1001, as Dame Eose, 
 otherwise the fortune-teller of the Blancha- 
 pelle Blind-alley, had divined, not a little, prob- 
 ably, upon the information supplied by her 
 precious relative, Latfemas. But it was kept 
 as a great secret. 
 
 But she was one of those women blessed with 
 perennial youth. Like Ninon, or the Fair Ga- 
 brielle, she could defy time. In what was 
 called a neglige, but which house-dress was the 
 result of much art, deeply studied, she looked 
 no less near twenty here than at the Cave of 
 Apollo in the Cul-de-sac Blanchapelle. 
 
 Brightness and clearness of eye, black but 
 looking dark blue; freshness of complexion, 
 although it owed something to the cares of the 
 toilet, no doubt; sprightliness of attitudes and 
 suppleness of carriage, vivacity unspeakable, 
 the delight of the wits and poets, for it was 
 the age of Colletet, Boisrobert, Chapelain and 
 others more brilliant in drawing-rooms than 
 on paper; above all, winsomeness; Marion was 
 a favorite of the Cyprian Goddess, without de- 
 nial. 
 
 She retreated to an easy chair and leant one 
 faultless arm upon it, as she stared at the in- 
 truder, muttering, by way of silent retort to 
 his outspoken admiration: 
 
 "Inopportune blockhead! who would have 
 dreamt this noodle would discover me?" 
 
154 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Why, how cow? Are we not still friends, 
 fair Marion?" said the fop, advancing closely 
 and opening his arms as if she ought to bound 
 into them with gladness. 
 
 "Let us be friends, as ever, but at a dis- 
 tance," replied she, biting her lip till it assumed 
 a deep carnation. 
 
 "Do we not embrace at this jovous meet- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Not on my part!" 
 
 She sat in the chair like a queen, and took up 
 a piece of embroidery with the golden bodkin 
 to work on it, as if she had already dismissed 
 him. 
 
 "A poor little wee tiny kiss!" persisted the 
 worshiper. 
 
 "My lord!" cried Marion, in so angry a voice 
 that, not having heard the like before, he 
 stopped, rivetted to the floor. 
 
 "What cruel caprice has seized you?" stam- 
 mered he. 
 
 Afraid that the reception would incline him 
 to quit, he threw down his mantle on a settee 
 by the door, like a viking casting off the rope 
 of his galley; and looked beseechingly at the 
 indignant beauty. 
 
 As the look utterly failed to moderate the 
 wrathful aspect, he sighed so heavily that his 
 lace collar fluttered, and said in a piteous 
 voice: 
 
 "I think you ought to tell your humble wor- 
 shiper what we are to think of your abrupt 
 flitting out of town?" 
 
 She tossed her head and took up a stitch she 
 had dropped with a vicious prod of the bodkin. 
 
 "How am I to explain to our set that, after 
 seeking you in the Place Royale. I find you, 
 accidentally, at Blois?" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 155 
 
 "Oh, it is accidental, is it?'' said she, breath 
 ing more easily. 
 
 "Partly so! I might as well seek you here as 
 elsewhere. Hidden! bless us and save us all 
 from Creditors — still, you had only to say the 
 word, if you were annoyed, to have us make up 
 a purse! Or set our footmen on to thrash the 
 duns! But what have you done with yourself, 
 these months, in this dreary hole?" 
 
 "On the contrary, Blois is blithe and merry, 
 enough for me!" 
 
 "But what have you been doing? no park, 
 no drives, no society, for Prince Gaston is in 
 town, and nobody is at Chambord, for I passed 
 through the forest and there was not so much 
 as a poacher!" 
 
 "My lord, I have been doing what I like to 
 do, and I like to do what I please. I am a free 
 woman !" 
 
 "You, yea! but how about us, poor souls, 
 who have not a soul to call our own — since you 
 enslaved us! Look at your adorers — " 
 
 "I came here not to see them!" with a con- 
 temptuous curl of the lip. 
 
 "Morally, look at them! I will show you the 
 panorama as the witch of the Blanchapelle 
 Lane does on a screen of smoke — " 
 
 Marion started at the mention, and honored 
 the importunate speaker with a look, not kind- 
 ly, but he was gratified by the notice. 
 
 "There is Prince Gaston, to begin with!" said 
 he in a less daunted tone. "He has quarrelled 
 with all his favorites and is in an abominable 
 humor! Abbe Gondi, forgetting his vows, goes 
 down into the squares and serves as second to 
 anv chance-comers who wrangle over the wine- 
 cup and fight out their dispute on the muddy 
 pavement! Pressigny has let his wig get out of 
 
156 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 curl and shaved off his moustaches before the 
 King set that new fashion! The two Caus- 
 sades — " 
 
 "Are they afflicted, too?" 
 
 "Both! what would they be our two Dro- 
 mios for, if not to be downcast alike at your 
 inexplicable absence? When I return, with 
 the news of your whereabouts, do not be sur- 
 prised at a deputation from the families of all 
 of those mourning and inconsolable swains to 
 implore you to come back and make those fel- 
 lows gay and endurable again!" 
 
 Marion smiled slightly. 
 
 "How does Beau villain bear it?" 
 
 "Oh, he is courting every pretty face — but he 
 alwavs detested vou!" 
 
 "Dolt! he is the only one who really cared 
 for me! Is the old President of the Town Par- 
 liament — what is his name? — still sighing?" 
 
 "Leloup? He has been superseded; he 
 moaned and sighed on the bench! he wrote 
 'Marion' for his signature on acts! ha, ha! He 
 tendered his resignation, I believe, that he 
 might organise an expedition in search of you, 
 as more daring voyagers do for the Golden In- 
 dies! Meanwhile, he consoles himself by going 
 to see your portrait, daily, that Philippe of 
 Champagne has in his studio." 
 
 "He has been making love to my portrait in- 
 stead of to me, these two years," said Marion, 
 mirthfully. 
 
 It was clear that she bore Saverny malice no 
 longer for having disturbed her in her retire- 
 ment. 
 
 "All considered, she has a good heart," 
 thought the marquis. 
 
 "He had better burn you in effigy!" said he, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 157 
 
 "for you are Unkindness itself to flee from so 
 many good friends and lovers!" 
 
 She lowered her eves, half-closed them, and 
 it was in a serious tone that she replied, nod- 
 ding agreement: 
 
 "It is precisely the possession of so many 
 friends that caused my flight. Do I have a 
 moment to myself, with all your calls? can I 
 
 « 7 * 
 
 entertain a grave thought while your spark- 
 ling conversation coruscates around me? I re- 
 gret that your brilliant parts in the end have 
 filled me with regret! So I hasten into — se- 
 clusion — " 
 
 "Hem'/' said Saverny, looking round. "I 
 should prefer a convent !" 
 
 The room was vast and, consequently, cheer- 
 less. The furniture had been handsome in a 
 preceding reign, no doubt, but now was fusty 
 and not without a suspicion of moths. The 
 curtains over the single large window were 
 badly mended and through the rips glinted the 
 vague starlight. 
 
 "Yes, I ought to be in a convent! there I 
 might expiate the faults of my career!" 
 
 "Faults!" 1 protested the marquis, sitting on 
 a chair and stretching his legs with all the rap- 
 ture of a man who had walked through the 
 woods, while being unused to walks except in 
 parks and promenades. 
 
 "Where do vou lav vour finger on faults, in 
 vour conduct, whatever thev may say who do 
 not know vour life, like vou and I do? You 
 keep an open house in Paris, where gentlemen 
 can meet who are debarred from other ground! 
 If I, for example, call on Madame de Combalet, 
 the cry arises, because she is Cardinal Riche- 
 lieu's niece, forsooth! that I am selling my soul 
 to his Scarlet Eminence! If I look in at La 
 
158 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Weveu's, it is worse than calling on the Niece! 
 for they swear that I have gone over to Prince 
 Gaston, body and boots! I ask pardon, by the 
 way, for appearing in riding boots here, but 
 needs must when Old Nick drives!'' 
 
 The lady was not listening to his apology. 
 
 "You are right," said she, "I were better in 
 a convent!" 
 
 "I wager that you would go into no convent 
 unless the Abbe Gondi were the visiting priest! 
 Out on you, to try to deceive me! I am sure 
 that a love affair is at the bottom of this 
 vanishment!" 
 
 Marion blushed. 
 
 "Never since there was a church were such 
 resplendent eyes hidden under the black veil! 
 Impossible! Black eyes and black veil! an oc- 
 cultation out of the calendar! On the other 
 hand, to fall in love, in the county town! To 
 conclude so line a romance with such a prosaic 
 epilogue! fie!" 
 
 "Nothing of the kind!" objected she, faintly, 
 
 "Will vou lay a wager on it?" 
 
 She crossed the room to the door, without 
 answering, and opening it a little she raised 
 her voice to call: 
 
 "Rose, how goes the time?" 
 
 The old woman was heard snarling: 
 
 "Those lazy gentlefolks! can they not wait 
 for the great clock of the castle to tell them the 
 hour?" 
 
 The marquis pulled an egg-shaped timepiece 
 out of a pocket but mournfully said: 
 
 "I forgot to wind up my watch! I have been 
 so distracted — by your disappearance, on my 
 word !" 
 
 "It will soon be twelve, midnight!" replied 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 159 
 
 the old woman, as if she were consulting the 
 stars. 
 
 Marion looked alarmed. 
 
 Saverny rose, and whistled a hunting-tune. 
 
 "That is courteous; but between us. frank- 
 ness! you might as well say that my company 
 is not wanted." 
 
 "I shall be frank! You see that I am living 
 most retired. I receive nobody in Blois, and 
 
 a. 
 
 everybody is ignorant of my dwelling." 
 
 "I credit that!" 
 
 "Besides," continued she, as if recalling a 
 previous idea, "I dread your going home at a 
 late hour; for, in this lonesome ward, the 
 street-robber may be lurking! More than once. 
 I have been awakened bv shouts, clash of arms, 
 appeals for mercy and brutal oaths!" She 
 shuddered. 
 
 "I do not care. Set it down that I shall be 
 robbed," said Saverny coolly. 
 
 "Ah, but sometimes a dead body is found — 
 the victim too strenuously resisted!" 
 
 "As I should! well, then, I should be mur- 
 dered. Why should I care to live, banished 
 from vou, Marion the Inimitable!" 
 
 "But— " 
 
 "You are divine, and I obey you! but, before 
 I say farewell, I should like to know who is 
 the favored swain who shuts us all out in the 
 chilly blast!" 
 
 "Nonsense!" 
 
 "But I will keep your answer secret! You 
 believe us courtiers featherbrains, slander-lov- 
 ing, loose-tongued, compromising and all that! 
 but though we are always chattering, we never 
 let out the main points! If you will not con- 
 fide in me. Harpocrates' son Unit I am! Why?" 
 he sat down again, as if to make a night of it. 
 
160 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "The obstinate fellow!" muttered Marion. 
 "He will not go, or worse, he will hang round 
 the door and so pick a quarrel with — with who- 
 ever comes; and, then! oh," she added aloud, 
 as if she had only been thinking of the form of 
 her reply: 
 
 "My dear Nazaire, it is not of the slightest 
 consequence: I do love somebody, and I am 
 expecting him every minute!" 
 
 "That's the way to speak with me!" cried 
 Saverny, rising, agog with excitement and at 
 being the confidant of the celebrity. "Can I 
 escort you? you see how obliging I am! Where 
 are you to meet?" 
 
 "At midnight, go out?" 
 
 "Pooh, at Blois!" said the noble with serene 
 scorn. 
 
 "He comes to see me here." 
 
 "And soon, did you intimate?" 
 
 "On the stroke!" 
 
 She went up to the double folding window 
 and opened both portions. The night was 
 calm; the wind had subsided. The starlight 
 fell pleasantly upon the Castle's high turrets, 
 flashed from the enamel on the great clock; 
 traced the ornamentation on the high portals 
 under which paced the dignitaries of the Local 
 Parliament, and showed the steep streets, de- 
 serted, leading down to the town bridge and 
 the mills along the riverside. All was peaceful 
 and the mist was warm as in late summer. 
 
 "I think I hear him coming! No; but he can- 
 not be long!" 
 
 Saverny sighed portentously. "Spite of the 
 night-hawks?" 
 
 "He would not let a legion of robbers detain 
 him 
 
 i» 
 
 "An eagle?" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 1G1 
 
 "Are you satisfied?" 
 
 "Not altogether!" said be, balancing himself 
 on one foot, and holding the other from taking 
 the step. 
 
 She clasped her hands and, with them joined, 
 pushed him towards the door. 
 
 "Do go, that is a good fellow!" she appealed. 
 
 "What, you send me packing and 1 am not 
 to know the happy mortal who displaces me?" 
 
 "What will that teach you! lie is known to 
 me under the name of Didier, as he knows me 
 as plain Marie." 
 
 The other burst out in laughter. 
 
 "If this be true," said he, "Segrais or Racan 
 should have located Arcadia here, and made 
 Blois one great lamb-fold! What does the wolf 
 do? bribe the dragon, Rose, or climb in at that 
 conveniently opened window?" 
 
 "He may not like to face the lovely Rose — 
 he may enter by the window, luckily, as you go 
 out by the proper way! go quickly!*' 
 
 She stamped her foot, whether he observed 
 her vexation or not. 
 
 At the gesture of impatience, Saverny ceased 
 to laugh. Nobody could speak more seriously 
 than he, in the inquiry: 
 
 "Friend Marion, do you know if he be a good 
 gentleman?" 
 
 "I know nothing of his family-tree!" 
 
 "Well, I am no spoil-sport! you need not call 
 Rose to me. Oh, talking of roses," said he, 
 turning at the door, where she had seen him ar- 
 rive with gratification, "I was forgetting!" 
 
 He took a book out of his pocket and forced 
 Marion to accept it. 
 
 " 'The Garland of Love,' " she read, stamped 
 in gold on the side. 
 
 "Exactly. It is the talk of the town— that, 
 
162 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 and the success of a tragedy called 'the Cid,' 
 a Spanish piece which traverses traditions of 
 the stage as its hero did the Moor!" 
 
 Mechanically fumbling with the leaves, a 
 slip of paper fell out. 
 
 "You are forgetting — an order on the Treas- 
 urer, or a book-marker — " said she lightly as he 
 stooped to pick it up. 
 
 "Gad's my life!" exclaimed he. "It is my 
 death-warrant!" 
 
 Instantly she snatched it from his trembling 
 fingers, which seemed taking up an asp. 
 
 "Give it me!" 
 
 "It is only a piece of rhyme!" said she, vexed. 
 
 "Ah, but what rhyme! Lord o' Mercy!" 
 
 "Comic! oh," and mirthfully she read, while 
 Saverny turned red and pale in turns and 
 still shifted his weight from one to the other 
 foot: 
 
 " 'The tidings surely you have heard 
 How woe's befallen chin and beard? 
 Who would have thought 
 They could have brought 
 
 A long goatee on guileless chin 
 Up as a scarlet, Cardinal sin? 
 
 "'Alack! you'll never more adorn! 
 You must from me be ruthless torn, 
 In Louis' name! 
 (Thirteenth of fame! 
 
 The number sinister who'd scorn?) 
 All of us must be cleanly shorn!' 
 
 What is the meaning of this doggerel?" said 
 she, holding the broadside off at armslength, 
 but so that he could not regain it. 
 "Let me have it! they are pursuing the au- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 1(J3 
 
 thor! The King is again enraged with the 
 Cardinal and he set the example by shaving 
 his pages, t<» do away with the chintuft, which 
 he himself wore, but which had become the 
 distinguishing emblem of the Richelieu party." 
 
 "Well, is that all? it is funny, and the rhyme 
 is passable. Who wrote it? Bautru or Seri- 
 say?" 
 
 "I — T. Marion, out of my own head! which 
 is likely to suffer for it!" 
 
 "Why are you so frightened! a paltry pas- 
 quin like that!" 
 
 "Oh, but the lawyers read so unlike us! 
 D'Argenson, lately appointed head judge of a 
 chamber of justice, says that allusion to the 
 Thirteenth being unluckv is direct libel on the 
 King!" 
 
 "How silly!" 
 
 "And then the little jest about the Cardinal 
 sin — that sets his Eminence on edge to shut 
 me up in Rueil Castle!" 
 
 The ancient stronghold of Rueil (Bioilus), 
 was becoming a splendid abode, through the 
 taste of Architect Lemercier and the artist 
 Youet, but though its magnificence should 
 make it superior to any roval habitation exist- 
 ing, lugubrious stories circulated, particularly 
 after the trial of the Marshal Marillac. In pop- 
 ular belief, which manv courtiers shared or af- 
 fected to share, the sumptuous pleasure-house 
 of the Prime Minister — his Hampton Court as 
 far as he was a Wolsey — hid traps, sliding pan- 
 els, dreadful dungeons, under its Flemish ta- 
 pestries, and among the statues glided a mys- 
 terious executioner, the active hand of Judge 
 Laffemas, or of his colleague Laubardemont. 
 The latter boasted that, in all cases of crime, 
 a culprit could be discovered. 
 
164 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 The marquis was one of the courtiers who be- 
 lieved what was sinister amid the gaiety, for he 
 shuddered as he mentioned the name. 
 
 "Impaled on either prong of the fork! my 
 poor Saverny! but there go the chimes! it is 
 midnight! Be off!" said she with a change of 
 tone. "If you hesitate, I will call the watch 
 and give you up as the author of this atrocious 
 libel on his Majesty and his Eminence!" 
 
 "You would not do that, Marion!" said Sa- 
 verny frantically. 
 
 "I would! Begone! Rose!" she called as she 
 followed him out on the landing. "Show out 
 this gentleman!" 
 
 Saverny stumbled down the creaking stairs, 
 muttering: 
 
 "Marion has fallen in love with a boor! she 
 is declining in manners! to threaten a gentle- 
 man with the police! Alas! if Laffemas should 
 have collected his squad of alguazils! I hear 
 steps without!" 
 
 The great clock was striking and the church 
 bells followed its bells at a respectful interval 
 as Saverny stood once again in the lane. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 165 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE TIMELY INTERRUPTION. 
 
 Marion hastily ran into her room and closed 
 the door, securing it with an inner bolt. She 
 was trembling lest Didier should arrive, as she 
 had truthfully told her unexpected visitor. 
 
 She went to the window, as soon as she had 
 recovered from her mingled feelings. 
 
 "I trust they will not meet!" she said. 
 
 Either Saverny had been shown out with the 
 utmost expedition or Dame Rose had prudently 
 retained him indoors until the coast should be 
 clear; for the looker-out saw no one in the ob- 
 scure court. In the mouth, where the street 
 passed, there flitted a shadow or two. But she 
 did not recognise the forms, and supposed them 
 the watch, belated citizens or even Saverny, 
 foolish enough to linger, in spite of her warn- 
 ing that so gaudily a bedizened prey would at- 
 tract the night-birds. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the boom of the bells had 
 ceased to vibrate on the stilly air, and she re- 
 turned to sit down, with a growing ill humor. 
 
 "Late, for once! but so soon in our acquaint- 
 ance!" muttered she. 
 
 Sinking into abstraction, she recalled the 
 events of their meeting and their overpowering 
 affection. 
 
 Not sure that the handsome countenance 
 shown her in the Well of Truth at the fortune- 
 teller's was reality or a painting to dupe the 
 patrons of Signora Floretia. Marion returned 
 home haunted by the bright eyes, enrapt as 
 though they beheld a saint; the severe lips 
 
166 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 which, however, smiled up to her; and the ex- 
 pression of ecstatic surprise. 
 
 "It was a real face," she reasoned. 
 
 From that moment, a new idea took posses- 
 sion of her waking thoughts as it did of her 
 dreams. 
 
 One early day, she said to herself: "This is 
 what men speak of as Love, and at which I, 
 pretending to be his priestess, mocked in my 
 secret heart and laughed at aloud! I am justly 
 punished. This passion has become my new 
 blood, displacing what ran in my veins before, 
 nay, scorching it up and expelling the wretched 
 ashes! Ashes, like that of my other passions, 
 affections, inclinations, caprices, which this 
 flame seizes upon as fuel, and consumes wher- 
 ever I had concealed them ! Oh, may its flame 
 grow incessantly and purify my poor soul! Yes, 
 I love! a love without bounds, and almost with- 
 out hope! but it will outlive me — outlive my 
 happiness, if I may speak of happiness, which 
 cannot be apart from this love!" 
 
 She was rich and she knew how to command 
 spies. But all her means, as all her envoys, 
 were without fruit. 
 
 It is true the seekers of the Truth at the 
 bottom of Signora Floretia's well found Louis- 
 ette at the other end one dav; and thev were 
 keen enough to guess that Malargue, seen in 
 her company, had something to do with the 
 underworkings of the magical establishment. 
 
 But Malargue, however captivating he might 
 be to a tiring-maid, did not answer the descrip- 
 tion of the person, judging by the head alone, 
 with which Mademoiselle Delonne had fur- 
 nished her agents. 
 
 On the other hand, Didier, similarly infatu- 
 ated from that glimpse, had been as unlucky. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 1G? 
 
 On reflection, summing up what little he had 
 heard, he went to Chalons. But the name of 
 Marie is so common that he had his hands full 
 of information on that head. But none were 
 daughters of bailiffs, and he had to conclude 
 that Floretia had made a mistake. But she had 
 spoken the truth. Gabriel Delorme was an as- 
 sistant of a local court, but, on the flight of his 
 only child to Paris to make her fortune, the 
 worthy man, blessing heaven that he had no 
 wife to share the disgrace, changed his name 
 and went to work at a distance. 
 
 An incident, which might have serious re- 
 sults for her, having so far maintained neutral- 
 ity amid the jars of the court parties, gave her 
 an excuse to "suffer an eclipse." So said the 
 author of that "Garland of Love," rhapsodies 
 inscribed in her honor, of which Saverny had 
 given her what we should term in our days a 
 "presentation copy." 
 
 It was intimated to her by the familiar for 
 the time being of Prince Gaston — who changed 
 his bosom friends as often as his suits — that he 
 would be obliged to the reigning beauty if she 
 would afford his Highness a room where he 
 could hold meetings, perfectly private, with his 
 friends. For friends, read "conspirators." 
 
 Gaston was perpetually conspiring, but as a 
 King's next brother is expected to be a plotter, 
 that surprised nobody. But his reputation was 
 a miserable one, for eluding the consequences 
 of his failures by "turning King's evidence," so 
 to say, and sacrificing his confederates, to pre- 
 serve his liberty. 
 
 Marion owed her long reign as the court 
 beauty to her having no adviser — no confidant 
 — so she had herself solely to consult. The 
 outcome of her debate with Mademoiselle De- 
 
168 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 lorme was that a little clandestine elopement 
 with herself, and residence with that amiable 
 creature in a town very quiet but not too re- 
 mote, would save her from fine if not imprison- 
 ment. The fame of her collection of jewels, 
 she was well aware, must have whetted the ap- 
 petite of the wives of legal functionaries and 
 she feared that her caskets would look bare if, 
 on any pretext, they were seized with her other 
 effects. 
 
 No doubt they would be sealed officially, but 
 she had heard that diamonds and pearls, by 
 some mysterious influence known to the serv- 
 ants of Themis, ooze through the court wax. 
 
 Hence, without a word to anyone, she sent 
 her valuables to a safe place of hiding — pawned 
 them with a Jew of the Palais Koval, to be 
 
 */ 7 
 
 plain — paid her servants a quarter ahead which 
 freed her of them, alleged that the court phy- 
 sician had recommended her the waters of 
 Loches, and started in a coach ostensibly for 
 that watering-place. 
 
 But at the barrier, she rid herself of her maid 
 on some fair pretence, left the coach at the 
 first inn, sending it to her coach-maker's to be 
 "repaired," which signified laying up until 
 called for, and posted circuitously until she 
 believed she was no longer to be traced, and 
 lodged at Blois. 
 
 She found here, at the hint of a Sister of 
 the Ursulines, to whom, without revealing her- 
 self, she spoke of ultimate renunciation of the 
 world and retirement into a nunnery, an old 
 house, formerly a rich merchant's home and 
 warerooms, at a nominal rent, to keep the 
 rats out of the still habitable portion. The 
 nun also recommended Dame Rose, an old pen- 
 sioner who occupied a small holding in the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 169 
 
 suburbs, but was not averse to earning an hon- 
 est penny to provide her with luxuries in win- 
 ter. The bishop's housekeeper also gave a 
 recommendation to this pearl of housekeepers, 
 and Marion, totally unaware of this link of 
 communication with Laffemas, her child or 
 grandchild as the case may prove, accepted the 
 attendant as she had the refuge, as a windfall. 
 
 As she had been more enwrapped in trying 
 to conceal her incognito, when visiting the 
 necromancer of the Blanchapelle Lane, than 
 in studying her features, she failed to recog- 
 nise, now that she had doffed the famous mask 
 of which Louisette had launched into praise, 
 what Parisian nine days' wonder she had at 
 her elbow. 
 
 It is needless to say that the cunning old 
 hag uttered not a syllable to show that they 
 had met before; to know 7 and not to reveal is 
 power, if one waits long enough to utilise it. 
 
 Siuce Floretia had not been informed of the 
 change of demons in her cellar, she could not 
 recognise in Didier, the young man w 7 ho had 
 given Marion the greatest emotion she ever ex- 
 perienced. 
 
 On this side, therefore, the fugitive had be- 
 lieved herself more than merely safe — she con- 
 sidered her fortune reviving. Truth to say, 
 the glamour of love blinded her to all but the 
 only companion of her solitude. 
 
 ''How is it that this nudel — this pancake of 
 a fop. as Graf von Eisenstein calls him," mused 
 she, "this Saverny has discovered me?" 
 
 She believed that Rose had betrayed her, 
 without knowing her identity with the fair 
 fugitive from Paris. Saverny, a profligate, 
 had heard of the good-looking ward of 
 the old dame, and had bribed her to let him 
 
170 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 have a peep at her. His surprise was not act- 
 ing, and it was probable that he had no an- 
 ticipation of meeting his former acquaintance. 
 
 "At all events, after this next interview with 
 Didier," she meditated, "I must change my 
 lodgings and dismiss this hag! She has a 
 treacherous look! Besides, Saverny and his 
 kind are great geese — they are gregarious. I 
 should have them all alight on my porch-roof." 
 
 Didier had returned empty-handed to Blois. 
 
 He had been found by the sexton of St. 
 Marc's Church, on the steps, one morning. For 
 precaution, not a scrap of linen was on the 
 babe. The man was going to transfer the piti- 
 able creature to the box of the Bons-Enfants, 
 when a woman of the lower class, passing to 
 market, had compassion and swathed the nude 
 being in the flannel with which she had in- 
 tended to wrap a sitting of eggs. 
 
 This woman nursed Didier, brought him up, 
 and when she died, which was in his arms, 
 proved that she regarded him as her son by 
 leaving him her all. It was a goodly sum of 
 money and the deed to some property at the 
 North Gate. Required for defensive purposes 
 during a panic, a threatened invasion of the 
 Spaniards to avenge some slight to Anna of 
 Austria, this piece of land was bought at a 
 good price. Didier found himself master of a 
 thousand livres a year, as he invested it, on 
 which he existed. 
 
 His life was bitter and miserable from his 
 loneliness. He traveled through France, feel- 
 ing too proud to enlist as a soldier, and unable 
 from the absence of proofs of birth to buy a 
 commission in the army. 
 
 A youth so unfortunate was inevitably a 
 misanthrope. He hated the men above him, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 171 
 
 whose un worthiness he perceived; he despised 
 those below them, and below himself, seeing 
 also their baseness. 
 
 "In France, as constituted, there are eagles, 
 hawks and owls. The owls are on the Bench: 
 the eagles subjugate the hawks and make them 
 fetch the prey." 
 
 To his clouded mind, human nature was a 
 tarnished mirror, reflecting merely pride, mis- 
 ery and travail. It seemed to him that what- 
 ever he came into contact with tore him, and 
 the wound smarted; the world was bad enough, 
 but man was worse! 
 
 He returned to Blois, not from any prefer- 
 ence, but because he had fancied he should like 
 to be buried near the grave of the only person 
 who had been a true friend to him. 
 
 He had gone away a youth; now he was a 
 young man, but appeared aged. He was living 
 there, impoverished, for a gentleman; gloomy 
 and isolated, when came the thought of seeing 
 Paris for the last time and perchance termin- 
 ating his existence after a round of its pleas- 
 ures, during which he should squander all his 
 year's income. 
 
 It was then he was led into the house of the 
 Blanchapelle Alley Enchantress, and saw Mar- 
 ion Delorme, who had called in disguise. She 
 was too well known and too rarely beautiful 
 for any one but a rustic like Didier not to 
 recognise her, however. 
 
 He returned to Blois again, afraid that he 
 had fallen in love and must continue to live, 
 though more wretched than before; then he 
 had sought for her at Chalons Despairing, 
 he was in his supposedly natal town for what 
 he believed the last time; he went to deposit 
 flowers on the grave of his foster-mother, in 
 
172 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the old burial-ground on the height back of 
 the town. 
 
 Fate had not forgotten him. It urged Mar- 
 ion, tired in a few days of her retirement, to 
 make a tour of Blois; she had seen all that she 
 dared look at, for in public she might be rec- 
 ognised. The cemetery was one of the ortho- 
 dox sights; she repaired there, a resort of the 
 very light-minded or the gravest, which she 
 had heretofore shunned. 
 
 But love had filled her with melancholy and 
 a desire to be utterly alone. 
 
 Love is a shallow, reckless boy, who likes 
 to point his darts at the Skeleton, and since 
 he is immortal, mock at cypress and yew. 
 
 At the turning of a walk, under a clump of 
 weeping willows, she and Didier met as he 
 rose from his devotions at a humble mound. 
 
 Her eyes were so tender and her speech of 
 sympathy so sweet, that he ventured to speak 
 to her at length — to tell his story by the rest- 
 ing-place of the only creature who had thrown 
 a smile upon his tearful life. 
 
 Marion thought the chance a strange one, for 
 her wildest flight had never pictured their 
 next meeting to be in a churchyard. 
 
 She could not, on this ground, treat this 
 passion, betrayed by the naive young man, as 
 in the vein of the hundred love-addresses week- 
 ly offered her. His agitation w r as genuine; she 
 marvelled to see a vigorous, energetic young 
 man wavering and irresolute; and as they saun- 
 tered down by the Loire, amid the beating of 
 the clothes on the stones by the washerwo- 
 man's paddles and the click-clack of the grist 
 mills, she listened without shrinking to his 
 offer of his heart and his life. 
 
 "Is there anything for which you yearn, that 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 173 
 
 I can hell) you toward?" said be with a sin- 
 cerity almost appalling to one who reckoned a 
 Saverny earnest and a Prince Gaston steady. 
 "Is there a man or an object in your way, to 
 be removed? Have you fixed your wish on 
 something for which a man must die? I would 
 die for it, without a murmur, and believe my 
 blood was well paid for by one of your smiles!" 
 
 All his straightforward speech was antago- 
 nistic to the set phrases of love-making raging 
 in the city; the stereotyped words, "star," "bra- 
 zier of affection," "fires of the heart," and the 
 like, taken from the romances of chivalry. It 
 was novel, but she loved him the more for the 
 newness; Marion was a woman who adored 
 singularity. 
 
 But she was unable so soon to answer to 
 him with the same gravity. 
 
 He rebuked her for her frivolity and for 
 playing with a word of such vast and weighty 
 signification as "Love." He explained to her 
 that the love he meant, was that which be- 
 comes the additional essence in the life's blood, 
 the third flow of corpuscles, purifying both the 
 red and the white, and giving a new growth to 
 the soul. 
 
 He told her how that glimpse of her, through 
 the magician's trap, had impregnated him with 
 ardent love. His clouded life was immediately 
 gilded as if a new sunlight burst out beside 
 the normal one. All changed to him and the 
 misanthrope could love all mankind — if she 
 were also of them. He doubted that, for she 
 appeared an unknown being of a heavenly spe- 
 cies. His rebellious heart had long chafed 
 against his life, but now the burden became a 
 buoy — he felt lifted up so that one day he 
 might attain her level. 
 
174 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Alone, wandering, oppressed, he had strug- 
 gled and suffered with all sentiments — but one, 
 and that one, like the magician's serpentine- 
 rod, swallowed them all — it was Love. 
 
 She pitied him, as he poured out his sad 
 revelation. 
 
 What diverse careers! She, born a peasant, 
 had become a queen, more than the Queen reg- 
 nant, over Parisian society! This man must 
 have come of noble, perhaps exalted origin, to 
 judge by the altitude of his feelings, and he 
 was compelled to vegetate in a third-rate and 
 decaying city. The bar sinister, in his inabil- 
 ity to indicate his parents, prevented him rising 
 in the Church, the Army or the Law. 
 
 When she acknowledged that she shared his 
 great passion, he drew away, awed. He was 
 afraid that he was deceived — that she deceived 
 herself in thinking that she could love him to 
 the same degree. She asserted that her love 
 was greater — for she knew, and dared not avow 
 — how great was her sacrifice if she gave up 
 all for him — fortune for comparative poverty; 
 fame, of a kind, for obscurity; the most bril- 
 liant and liveliest society for the paucity of a 
 country town. 
 
 They met every day, usually in the outskirts, 
 where still trees had been spared, and there 
 were those openings in narrow groves which 
 the simple folk call "lovers' walks." 
 
 Each day their love grew. Their affection 
 might have dowered a world where love was 
 unknown. It was supreme joy — delight in the 
 extreme which he felt when he knelt at her 
 feet, and they saw the sun go down on another 
 day which was all ecstasy. 
 
 But, although he could not doubt his happi- 
 ness, he doubted her love. Often he had pro- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 175 
 
 posed the proof of its extent, marriage, and 
 always she had deferred a decision. He at- 
 tributed it to his position, an orphan's, with- 
 out parontai;" revealed, without money and 
 without a palpable future. 
 
 It was, therefore, unheard-of audacity — 
 strange importunity, for him to look up to one 
 he held to be an angel of light in the prime 
 of virtue and beauty. It seemed to him that, 
 when she was at her window, the passers-by 
 ought to go down on their knees to her as to 
 a Madonna in the shrine at the corner. 
 
 Often had he asked himself, on returning 
 home from seeing her: "Who am I, crawler 
 among the worms, to disturb this silvery sheet 
 of water, and cull the lily! Why should my 
 vulgar breath tarnish the azure of so serene a 
 spirit?" Her innocence sanctified her in his 
 ignorant eyes, for he had believed her tale 
 that she was in Paris for the first time, and 
 for a day only, when he saw her. She candidly 
 confided in his loyalty and he doubted that he 
 had the right to accept her love; the act would 
 mingle his gloom — his night-like life with her 
 noonday brightness. 
 
 Marion had said that she was alone; without 
 brothers, parents or relatives to interfere with 
 her movements. She had allowed him to be 
 her supporter, so to say — why not legalise this 
 acquaintance? 
 
 While she deplored her being unworthy of 
 him, lowly though he was, he attributed her 
 shrinking from a definite answer to his own 
 sorrows, impatiently-borne wrongs, and aban- 
 doned state. 
 
 On the night when Saverny, escaping from 
 the consequences of his first essay in verse, 
 broke in upon the solitude of the self-exiled 
 
176 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 beautv, Didier had determined to come to an 
 end with the distressing situation. 
 
 He dressed himself for a journey — it was 
 over the stream which poets still styled Lethe, 
 or the Styx. In black from head to foot, he 
 was a tolerably forbidding figure in the old 
 streets at the hour when midnight would 
 strike. If any robbers were abroad, they re- 
 frained from challenging the right to be afoot 
 of one who might be a spectre from among the 
 old knights who couched lances with Dugues- 
 clin and tried to set Henry of Transtamara on 
 the throne of Pedro the Cruel. 
 
 If Old Street had rarely a passenger at his 
 hour for the trysts, the lane up which was Mar- 
 ion's house yet more seldom had its shadows 
 among which glided this lover, like a shade 
 himself, protected by the god of lovers and 
 that aroma of poverty which shields its hap- 
 less tribe from the footpad and highwayman. 
 
 What was his amaze, therefore, to hear two 
 voices in that room where none but Marion's 
 and his had shaped the monotonous dialogues 
 of the enamored! 
 
 His pale cheek reddened and he gripped his 
 sword, that good old blade with which he had 
 vanquished Malargue, and which had been 
 fitted to an ebony handle by a local sword- 
 smith, from its suiting his hand. He paused 
 as if petrified at the foot of the dank wall, 
 under the balcony which formed his stairway 
 to paradise. 
 
 But already the two voices, if there were two, 
 were hushed, and one only arose. 
 
 To beguile her impatience, Marion had taken 
 up the book of verses in her praise, that "Gar- 
 land'" which Saverny had left, as a wasp leaves 
 its sting, perhaps with the hope that it would 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 177 
 
 rekindle a desire to rule the gayer part of the 
 capital. 
 
 Marion spoke prose as few women of her 
 lime could do; she read poetry so that it be- 
 came music! 
 
 Didier, without catching the sense of the 
 words, at this distance, was enthralled by the 
 bare melody. On its ceasing, for Marion laid 
 down the book to sigh, like a queen in exile 
 recalling her coronation-day, he seized the iron 
 lattice- work, and with the agility of a chamois- 
 hunter, climbed up to the open casement, at 
 which he leaped in. 
 
 Marion rose. She was alone. 
 
 "I entered abruptly," stammered he, regret- 
 ting his haste; "but I thought — was there not 
 another with you?" 
 
 Had he heard Saverny? Was he beginning 
 to play the spy upon her? 
 
 She replied, a little as if offended: 
 
 "If you heard another voice, it was the 
 housekeeper's — " 
 
 "Dame Rose?" said Didier, doubtingly. 
 
 "Who but Dame Rose? Her voice is like an 
 old man's, is it not? But never mind how you 
 came — like a shot from a cannon," and she 
 forced a laugh. "Pray, be seated — " 
 
 lie laid his sword and short cloak on a chair 
 indicated for him, and drew a stool to her feet, 
 where he sat. 
 
 For several minutes he contemplated her, 
 without scarcely drawing breath: it was the 
 idolatrv of an Oriental. 
 
 "I have come to ask you, for the last time, 
 if still you hesitate to give me that reply on 
 my future — would I could say. our futu: — 
 and why do you hesitate? Let us be wed!" 
 
 She hid her face in her hands; hands which 
 
178 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 were wont to be so covered with jewels that, 
 in their nakedness of late, they seemed light 
 to her. 
 
 "I wished you to think all this over: how we 
 are both cast-offs from society, our country, the 
 world! Let us be the world to ourselves! Let 
 us go somewhere to make a home, under any 
 sky — for where you are that will be heaven, 
 not only above me but all around! Choose 
 a spot! There we will dwell, letting the blind, 
 dull world rest ignorant of true happiness, 
 one that kings might envy!" 
 
 "Ah, this would be heaven!" murmured she. 
 
 "Realise it! The way to it is through the 
 church!" 
 
 He had risen and opened his arms, counting 
 on her acquiescence, but the unhappy woman 
 shuddered and drew away. 
 
 "I cannot marry! Never!" faltered she. 
 
 Escaping his advancing arms, she fell back, 
 fainting, in her chair. 
 
 Didier instantly passed from warmth to cold- 
 ness. 
 
 "I grant," said he, "that the offer is far from 
 generous on my part! But this is enough! 
 Never more will I speak on the subject! Let 
 us say farewell!" 
 
 "Cursed be the day when I won his affec- 
 tion!" she murmured, and burst into tears. 
 
 He turned round from dashing himself out 
 of the window, careless how Mother Earth re- 
 ceived him; at her outburst, he turned. 
 
 "You are tearing my heart, Didier," gasped 
 she, making an effort which was a triumph to 
 her self-command, to speak in a firm voice, "but 
 I will make it clear to you — " 
 
 "Madam," said he with the same icy tone, 
 "after this decision, I will read nothing but 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 179 
 
 my book of prayers. Were you reading in your 
 breviary when 1 arrived?" 
 
 She continued to sob, breaking down on the 
 verge of some monstrous falsehood which 
 might bridge over this breach. 
 
 The book had fallen on the floor, and he trod 
 upon it. He took it up. 
 
 "Ha! the 'Garland of Love!' 'Dedicated to 
 Marion Delorme!' " he repeated, the first time 
 without understanding, so far were the pres- 
 ent circumstances removed from what he 
 learnt in Paris in his short stay. "The beauty 
 of the court — the idol of the town!" said he 
 bitterly, like one who, loving one woman, 
 wishes all to be of her likeness. "Out on the 
 vile disgrace to her sex!" he cried, hurling the 
 volume out of the window, "what manner of 
 man is this that prostitutes his pen to praise 
 that most impure of creatures?" 
 
 Marion started up at the sentence; her cheeks 
 suddenly glowed so that the tears dried upon 
 them before they had half coursed down. She 
 could not have been more flaming red had the 
 executioner applied the burning fleur-de-lis to 
 brand her. 
 
 Her eyes flashed like carbuncles, but sud- 
 denly she laid her hand on her heart, checked 
 her rage as it almost foamed over, and drooped 
 in all her figure, trembling like an aspen. 
 
 So does the caged panther change its mood 
 when, about to leap at an intruder upon its 
 captivity, it recognises it is the trainer. 
 
 "How come you — you, of all women, to have 
 such books in your possession? What brought 
 it here — " 
 
 "Pure chance, believe me!" said Marion. 
 
 "Would you like to know who Marion De- 
 lorme is?" continued Didier, with that sombre 
 
180 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 fire not long generated in France, and, then, 
 making that Huguenot party which carried 
 Henry of Navarre to the throne in the teeth 
 of the dominant factions. "You have a chaste 
 eye" — she lowered hers to the floor. "You 
 have a gentle forehead — " 
 
 How it tingled now! 
 
 "Marion Delorme is a woman of faultless 
 frame and deformed heart! A Circe who 
 makes beasts of men; she has a den in Paris 
 to which all comers are welcome; and in these 
 days of mixed politics, when every man is hos- 
 tile to his brother, she keeps her footing by 
 betraying all her guests to the power that is 
 in the ascendancv. To-dav, Marion is for the 
 Cardinal, as yesterday she was for the King! 
 To-morrow she will uphold Prince Gaston, who, 
 it is said, would send his crowned brother into 
 a monastery that he should steal the sceptre! 
 And the next day, Marion would harbor the 
 conspirators plotting to overthrow this king of 
 a day! A Phryne who ensnares men in a 
 Daedalus, where the lieutenant-criminal can 
 lay his hand on them, for she gives him the 
 clue that she may dwell in impunity! Her pre- 
 tended loves are a shame to them on whom 
 they alight and a horror to the community !" 
 
 Marion clasped her hands over her head as 
 though she expected a thunderbolt, or as if 
 these words had the same effect. 
 
 Didier looked round suspiciously, when, in 
 the usually tranquil court uprose a clash of 
 swords, a tramp of feet, and outcries: 
 
 "Help! thieves! help! murder!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 181 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THE RE-EXCOUNTER. 
 
 The censor turned, astonished at this uproar 
 in the quietude of the most quiet of cities. 
 
 The calls for help continued, only they be- 
 came the more heart-rending; a man had been 
 wounded who uttered such appeals, between 
 the first series and the present, and feared 
 that he would be overpowered. 
 
 Didier snatched up his sword from the chair 
 and ran to the window. He had thrown one 
 leg over the iron balustrade when Marion has- 
 tened to him and laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 Both looked down, and saw in the darkness, 
 for the lamp was still unlighted at the head 
 of the court, a furious whirlwind, so to say, 
 spinning men round a central one, the only 
 light on the scene being that from countless 
 sparks, struck out by swordblades in rapid con- 
 tact. 
 
 "It's a single man whom a score are murder- 
 ing," said Didier, getting his other foot over the 
 rail and preparing to leap down. But Marion 
 caught him by the cloak and drawing it tight 
 around his neck, he had to wait until released 
 or he disentangled himself. He was stran- 
 gling, so energetic was her hold. 
 
 "Didier, if vou love me, do not leave me! 
 They will kill you! Stay, oh, stay!" 
 
 "They shall not slay that poor, brave fel- 
 low first!'' replied Didier. snapping the clasp 
 
182 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 of his mantle, which left it in her hands, and 
 he dropped to the muddy, rounded stones. 
 
 The assailed man had reached the doorway, 
 where he placed his back against the protrud- 
 ing pillar and kept his sword in play, like 
 one who esteemed his purse and his blood as 
 precious. 
 
 It was Saverny, and these were footpads. 
 
 When the marquis was consigned to the 
 hands of Dame Rose, it was in good time to 
 prevent him and the lady of the house being 
 interrupted in their colloquy by Didier. The 
 latter had, in truth, heard their parting words 
 without distinguishing them or the voices. 
 
 The old woman was so cunning as not to let 
 him out until Didier, after hesitating, had 
 mounted into the room. Then, remembering 
 the nobleman's present and hoping it would 
 not be the last, she enjoined him to get away 
 quietly and to avoid the dishonest gentry who 
 laughed at the Captain of the Ward and 
 Watch. 
 
 "They are noted," she whispered. "They are 
 legitimate descendants of the Scorchers and 
 Flayers whose deeds were a countryside tale 
 when I was a girl — they will not be content 
 with your pretty feathers, but leave you no 
 hide to be buried in!" 
 
 Saverny was too curious to learn who had 
 supplanted the bevy of Marion's admirers, to 
 be obedient to this counsel. Ill fell him to 
 linger in the court, trying, by mounting a horse- 
 block on the other side, to peer within the 
 apartment. The casement remained open, but 
 just as he was expecting to catch a sight of 
 Didier's countenance, so far turned from him 
 and to Marion, the mouth of the lane was 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 183 
 
 blocked up. Escape was now out of the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 He looked down from his perch and per- 
 ceived dimly — but a glance sufficed to distin- 
 guish the nefarious haunters of Old Blois — 
 half-a-dozen fellows, whose apparel was tat- 
 tered and whose visages reeked of the wine- 
 shop and bagnio. 
 
 Not yet descrying him, although he was 
 prominently placed, for he was out of the ray 
 from the lamp in the room overhead, the party 
 stopped in the lane mouth, as we have said. 
 
 They were commanded by two men, who mar- 
 shalled their corps so as to cut off the issue. 
 
 "We are too late again, Malargue," said the 
 lieutenant, vexedly. "You would stop at the 
 Brazen Lion to have another stoup and there 
 he is, housed, out of our reach!" 
 
 "Diego, you are wrong! He has not yet gone 
 up over the balcony — there he is, getting down 
 from that stone!" 
 
 All eyes turned to the luckless marquis, 
 who descended from his compromising emi- 
 nence too late to escape, 
 
 "Nay, it is not he," replied the man called 
 Diego, and in whom we may recognise the 
 Matamore of the ambulatory dramatic corps, 
 with whom Didier's second had exchanged 
 swordstrokes to his disadvantage, for he 
 limped from the wound. 
 
 "Assuredly not! You are correct! The man 
 we pursued has always been dressed in sable 
 like a mute mourner at a funeral and this 
 popinjay is tricked out as for a wedding! So 
 much the better! He will be more worth the 
 stripping! Draw, and upon him! We may 
 catch the other, too!" 
 
 Thus it was that Saverny found himself the 
 
184 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 centre of a storming-party which drove him, 
 after inflicting at least one wound of import- 
 ance, back to the doorway from which he had 
 so recently emerged and which threatened to 
 become a gateway to the Shades. 
 
 But, at this juncture, as though the sky 
 had emitted a moonman, Didier fell into the 
 midst of the bristling blades; converted the 
 semi-circle into a rectangle by knocking three 
 or four of them back, in their holder's para- 
 lysed hands, and stationed himself beside the 
 marquis. 
 
 The latter took advantage of the respite to 
 draw a breath at comparative ease and to stuff 
 his lace collar into his principal wound, on 
 the sword-arm shoulder. 
 
 "Stop! back, you poltroons!" said Didier. 
 Then, to the attacked one, he added: "Let us 
 hold firmly and they will be glad to retire! Let 
 us upon them! Away, scum!" 
 
 But the robbers stood their ground, and two 
 or three who were keeping the entrance, has- 
 tened to their companions' aid. 
 
 The combat looked terribly unfair to Marion, 
 who overcame her fear in her anxiety about 
 her lover. She rushed to the balcony, leaning 
 over and still farther holding out the lamp. It 
 threw a flickering radiance over the field. 
 
 On the instant, a double outcry of recogni- 
 tion broke from the two leaders of the ruffians 
 and the intervener on behalf of the libeller of 
 the royal barber. 
 
 "Captain Malargue, and his Thespian sec- 
 ond!" exclaimed Didier. 
 
 "The young Cardinalist of the Pont Neuf!" 
 cried the two associates. "Well, you have not 
 your black abbe and your Grey Robe here to 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 185 
 
 succor vou! This time, von and your fop shall 
 die!" 
 
 The action was redoubled in violence, for the 
 villains feared that the watch might be at- 
 tracted, and they would be captured to a man 
 in this court, without an outlet save the one 
 on the main street. 
 
 Three thrust against the marquis, already 
 fatigued and weakened a little by loss of blood; 
 four or five, including the captains, upon his 
 defender, while the others, while keeping a 
 lookout for the chance enemv in Old Street, 
 struck in at opportunities. 
 
 Marion could bear no more; from her over- 
 head position, the play of the swords looked 
 more evilly ominous than perhaps they were to 
 the fate of her beloved; suddenly, seeing his 
 breast about to become the sheath of Malar- 
 gue's blade, she uttered a piercing scream, 
 which Dame Rose echoed by sympathy from 
 the wicket in the door, w r here she inspected the 
 affray. At the same moment, she half threw, 
 half let drop the lamp from her trembling hand. 
 
 It was a heavy bronze vessel which might 
 contain a pint of oil. This new kind of burn- 
 ing-shell alighted on the head of the Mata- 
 mort, felling him, spreading the oil, which 
 ignited, over all his ragged person, and caused 
 a panic in the assailants. 
 
 Malargue was carried away by the rush, per- 
 haps without having made too much resist- 
 ance, for this second meeting with Didier's 
 rapier had left a bad impression upon him 
 again. 
 
 In his haste, he tripped on the dragging rope 
 of the street lantern at the alloy mouth, and 
 his precipitation being irresistible, he was 
 hurled head foremost against the iron grate 
 
186 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 of the cellar window nearest. The iron was 
 rusty and loose; this shock disengaged it from 
 its pins and sockets and he disappeared, like 
 Harlequin, through a hole in The wall. 
 
 The rest of his miscreants continued their 
 flight. 
 
 Didier surveyed the scene coolly and re- 
 marked to the noble, who could now bandage 
 his cut in leisure: 
 
 "You are well out of the nick, sir! You may 
 go your way, for those rogues will not stop 
 running this side of the bridge!" 
 
 He had not noticed the downfall of Malar- 
 gue, who, on his part, from prudence or other 
 cause, did not make the slightest sound in his 
 retreat. 
 
 Saverny looked up at this deliverer, who 
 was coolly returning into the room from which 
 he had so providentially descended, as if to 
 risk life for a stranger were an everyday oc- 
 currence and required no testimony of grati- 
 tude. 
 
 "Hold, my friend," said he, "I cannot in de- 
 cency go away without shaking the hand that 
 so handsomely freed me of those incubi! And 
 I must formally thank you, if you do not ob- 
 ject!" 
 
 "Saverny! It is the inevitable Saverny," 
 muttered Marion, without daring to look over 
 the balcony, which, however, she might have 
 done, in the dark. 
 
 Didier leaned over the rail, with ill humor, 
 and replied: 
 
 "Make haste, sir, and get you home! I can 
 dispense with your thanks! We are quits!" 
 
 "But, in the sacred name of gratitude, I 
 am determined to thank you, and in full, set 
 terms!" retorted the young nobleman, proceed- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 187 
 
 ing to scale the wall. "A pretty graduate with 
 all the honors would I be of the Henry the 
 Fourth College of Gentlemen-at-arms to fore- 
 go such an opening for exhibition of my train- 
 ing in the language of courtesy!" Whereupon, 
 remembering that his arm was sorely cut, he 
 continued to scale the balcony with remarkable 
 grace and quickness. 
 
 Marion had run to the door, where Dame 
 Rose, trembling, held out to her another lamp. 
 
 She seized it. 
 
 "Get to bed," said she in a peremptory tone 
 never heard by any servant of hers before. 
 
 And she closed the door in the woman's face. 
 
 When she turned, Saverny was also in the 
 room, with his sword still out of the sheath. 
 
 "Zounds!" said he, flippant as ever, in spite 
 of his hurts. "You are overstepping the rules 
 of good behavior, friend, to save my life and 
 leave me at the door! What odd tyranny! I 
 mean, to leave me at the window! It appears, 
 at Blois, that entrance to a house is as often 
 effected by the one as the other — after mid- 
 night! And then, I have to thank the lady who 
 flung a lamp into the enemy's ranks, as Thais 
 of old tossed torches! My compli " 
 
 "Sir, begone!" 
 
 "No; never shall it be said of a noble of my 
 house that I was boldly saved by a good gen- 
 tleman without an interchange of titles. 
 Your name and rank, sir?" 
 
 "Didier," answered the other, with growing 
 coldness. 
 
 "The rest?" persisted Saverny. 
 
 "Didier, and no more! Come, come, they 
 were slaying you and I brought you deliver- 
 ance. There is no more to that! Be off !" 
 
 But the fatuous nobleman was always on 
 
188 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the alert, as becomes his petty world, for 
 trifles; he felt that he was on the threshold 
 of learning what held Paris to the grindstone: 
 the secret of Marion's eclipse. He did not for 
 a moment believe but that "Didier" was a 
 false name to cover one of high degree, for 
 the bearer's loftiness warranted that assump- 
 tion. 
 
 So he planted himself as though he purposed 
 taking root on the Smyrna rug, almost cen- 
 trally laid down, and said: 
 
 "Corbleu! As Prince Gaston swears! These 
 are princely airs, forsooth! You little care 
 whether I was done to a vile death by those 
 rapscallions, six of them and more, arrayed 
 to slay me under your windows! Six long 
 swords, and six more broad ones, against my 
 little larding-pin !" 
 
 Marion had been able up to this point to 
 avoid his eye, settled on Didier, in whom he 
 was trying to identify a courtier. On perceiv- 
 ing her, at last, and at the same time, making 
 no doubt that he might almost buy his peace 
 with the authorities by this true account of 
 the beauty's disappearance, he proceeded: 
 
 "But I understand why your mind is so ab- 
 sent. I have deranged a pleasant interview, 
 and I beg your pardon." 
 
 Didier was, indeed, inattentive. He was 
 perplexed by this burr sticking to him, like 
 a Chinese who, being rescued from death, is 
 authorised to regard his benefactor as a new 
 parent who must support him for his life. 
 
 Saverny profited by this abstraction to whis- 
 >er to Marion: 
 
 "So this is the happy man?" 
 
 "You will be my ruin!" she hissed in the same 
 tone, with a blasting glance which ought to 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 189 
 
 have withered the butterfly. "I am in love — 
 with him — for the first time!" 
 
 This last avowal would have melted a heart 
 of stone. Bat, then, Saverny had little heart, 
 and that of wax. 
 
 Didier started. It seemed to him that this 
 intruder regarded Marion with very bold eyes. 
 And, springing between them, he dashed the 
 lamp from the woman's hand just as Saverny 
 was going to take it as an excuse for his ap- 
 proaching her. 
 
 They were plunged in darkness, now, except- 
 ing the starlight flowing in by the open win^t 
 dows. 
 
 "You have put out the light!" exclaimed the 
 marquis. 
 
 "Because," responded the man in black, "it 
 is not seemly that the neighborhood, which 
 you aroused by decoying that gang into the 
 quiet court, should see us depart." 
 
 "l T s? Depart?" 
 
 "Certainly! I must escort you out of street 
 dangers! I am not the man to do things half- 
 measuredly! If you please," added he, in a 
 tone of command, "we will go, bv the win- 
 dow:" 
 
 Saverny felt that it was less an invitation 
 than a menace to throw him out if he pro- 
 tracted his stay. He bowed, though not seen 
 in the twilight; he bowed again more lowly to 
 Marion, and said, aloud: 
 
 "Pare-the-well, lady fair!" 
 
 "Come!" said Didier, brusquely. 
 
 "Still your abrupt manner," said the fop; 
 "but I owe my life to vou, and vou mav count 
 upon my zeal, ardor, and fraternal affection. 
 whenever you need such. I am the Marquis of 
 
190 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Saverny and my townhouse is the Nesle Man- 
 sion, Paris." 
 
 "Verv well," said the other carelessly. He 
 shuddered with fury at this coxcomb having 
 had even a glance at Marion. 
 
 Then, gliding in between them, he separated 
 Saverny from the lady and almost shoved him 
 up to the window, where he forced him — that 
 is the word — to climb down, not even offering 
 him a hand, though he must have seen he was 
 crippled. 
 
 Marion watched them from the window, two 
 shadows vaguely defined as they left the court 
 for the main street. She was roused from her 
 meditation by a noise and a flare of light where 
 they were last seen. An alarm bell tolled, a 
 shot or two were fired. 
 
 The Knight of the Watch had at last col- 
 lected his platoon and was marching to the 
 alley, where, according to a frightened citi- 
 zen, an army of the rabble, usually camped in 
 the old mills without the walls, was carrying 
 sack and sword and havoc into the houses of 
 the Old Street, by the passage. 
 
 But when his forces arrived, Marion's win- 
 dow was closed hermetically. Her neighbors, 
 roused once more, answered questions very tes- 
 tily. The captain of the archers would have 
 returned altogether empty handed to the Castle 
 but for one of the soldiers perceiving the burst- 
 ed grating in the adjoining dwelling. A little 
 deeper searching discovered Malargue, in the 
 cellar. 
 
 At first they took him to be drunk, having 
 lapped the winecask which brought his descent 
 1<> a sudden stop. But he was bathed in wine, 
 not sodden with it. His neck was broken. The 
 rope of the street lamp had tripped him, and, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 191 
 
 after all — as veraciously as most oracles pro- 
 phesy — that of the Blanchapelle Cul-de-sac had 
 foretold his doom to a certainty: he had lost 
 his life, thanks to a rope! 
 
 When the noise was over, at the withdrawal 
 of the watch with their single corpse as trophy, 
 Marion let Kose undress her, without comment- 
 ing on the events of the night, however eager 
 the old woman was to engage in conversation. 
 
 "These Savernys are rich and splendid," she 
 thought as she sank on the pillow, but not to 
 repose, "but this other, poor and nameless — 
 I love him!" 
 
192 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WHEN THEY SAY KING, THEY MEAN CAR- 
 DINAL. 
 
 A goodly number of gentlemen from Paris, 
 by the way of Chambord, where the Duke of 
 Orleans had given them permission to "run 
 the bucks," were assembled around tables set 
 before the Horn of St. Hubert Inn, at the end 
 of the Bridge Street. 
 
 It was a favorite inn, as well of the residents 
 who did not share in the reigning monarch's 
 liking for the Chace, as the others. 
 
 One look at the kitchen, a view of which 
 could be had from the street, clear through 
 the refectory, sufficed to explain this predilec- 
 tion. 
 
 This part of the town, sloping down to the 
 Loire, was picturesque, but the kitchen was 
 Garagantuesque. 
 
 It was a real kitchen of the times of Fran- 
 cis I., when men were giants and had ogres' 
 appetites. 
 
 It was in an immense hall, larger than the 
 eating-room itself. One stone wall was occu- 
 pied by "the kitchen battery," that is, all the 
 copper utensils, shining like barbers' basins; 
 the wall opposite gleamed with those pieces of 
 crockerv which delight in the pictures of Os- 
 tade and the Teniers. The fireplace faced the 
 windows which let in light— here was no mys- 
 tery to be concealed — on the contrary! 
 
 The chimney-place was a vast cavern, but 
 filled with a splendid fire. In its time it had 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 193 
 
 stained to ebony the outstanding rafters, from 
 which hung all sorts of rejoicing edibles: sau- 
 sages, hams, spiced and salted tongues, herbs 
 for stuffing, and crocks of lard. 
 
 In the gaps, hooks supported baskets and 
 wicker-worked bottles which hinted of sauces, 
 rare cordials, choice wines which had become 
 syrups in an age. The dressers and cupboards 
 were clean and brilliant with daily care, and 
 bore a hundred plates and dishes in course of 
 preparation which would have delighted a dys- 
 peptic. Under the mantelpiece, shone and 
 sparkled the tire furniture, such as the pokers, 
 tongs, spare spits, roasting-jack,- enormous 
 kettle for soup when a party had the large 
 table. The flaming brands sent their rays all 
 over the room, capacious though it was, deep- 
 ening the shadows between the beams, casting 
 a roseate glow on the blue delf and making the 
 regiment of copper pans glitter like a brassy 
 wall. 
 
 Homer or Rabelais would have exclaimed: 
 
 "This kitchen is a system of which the fire 
 is the sun!" 
 
 It was a world, where bustled to and fro a 
 republic of men and women, to say nothing of 
 animals. The cooks, the turn-spits, the vege- 
 table maids, the scullions, the pan-scourers, the 
 dish-washers, the pastry-cook and his helps, 
 the confectioner — threading their way, like the 
 ball in Tivoli, among the hissing and bubbling 
 pans, the spluttering frying-pans, the long row 
 of joints, fowls and fish on the silvered rod, 
 revolving with solemn gravity before the bra- 
 zier, and weeping dolefully but grandly into 
 the series of pans which caught the delectable 
 juice. 
 
 Foremost of all was the landlord of the 
 
194 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Horn — a veritable Horn of Plenty! lie was — 
 as it should be — Cook, Vinter and Host; he 
 superintended the whole. 
 
 "Mens agitat molem!" 
 
 On account of the accession of company the 
 usual riot had grown into a tempest; the serv- 
 ants and cooks shouted and bawled; the wo- 
 men wrangled; the turnspit dogs barked and 
 howled as the hot grease drops flew upon their 
 sleek hides; the roasting-jacks groaned as they 
 specially cooked the venison for the hunters; 
 the water-butt in the corner ran musically; 
 the flagons and glasses jingled; the bottles 
 rattled and the mincing-knife worked, like a 
 distant anticipation of the guillotine on the 
 Place de la Concorde! 
 
 But the tumult at the door was as animated. 
 
 The residents criticised the fashions of the 
 sportmen, and they joked at the Bloisians be- 
 ing a hundred years behind the mode, although 
 only forty leagues from the capital. 
 
 The courtiers, ravished at the excitement 
 they produced, for each minute brought more 
 customers to the Horn, spread themselves like 
 peacocks, speaking loudly, and assuming ex- 
 travagant attitudes, especially when women 
 passed the row of tables. 
 
 But, alas; what the men from Paris used 
 in the way of language was almost Hebrew! 
 What did the good souls of Blois know of the 
 reasons why orange and blue should be the 
 colors of the day? What mattered that Ast 
 should be made a duke, at last? What cared 
 these placid gentry about thirty Huguenots 
 having been hanged, somewhere, with their 
 London-printed Bibles round their necks? 
 And the names were unknown to them of the 
 gallants who had run away from a wife or 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 195 
 
 with one — from a duel or to one; who feasted, 
 loved, fought as if the next year would be that 
 when, according to a worthy Carthusian, the 
 world would come to an end. 
 
 "Excuse me," said the Captaiu of the Watch, 
 presuming od his military capacity to accost 
 one of the chatterers, "but, Captain Gasse, as 
 I hear you cited, may I inquire what is the 
 news from the army? — I have a son before 
 Figuiere." 
 
 The captain, who was sore at his costume 
 being ridiculed by friends, who had poked fun 
 at his buttons and shoulder-knots as being 
 "out," looked hard at the speaker, but reflect- 
 ing that he was sent to Blois to report to the 
 garrison commander and this might be a com- 
 rade, answered civilly enough, but not very sat- 
 isfactorily, in a careless voice: 
 
 "Why, sir, I believe we have surprised 
 Figuiere, or that Figuiere has surprised us! 
 Wait a minute — yes, they have taken it from 
 us!" 
 
 "What does the King say to that?" ques- 
 tioned a bystander, stopping in the act of curl- 
 ing his mustache to look at the effect by a 
 small mirror set in the comb. 
 
 "My dear Brichanteau, the Cardinal does not 
 like it the least bit." 
 
 "Here is Bouchavannes!" cried several voices 
 as a gentleman, followed by a groom, stopped 
 on seeing familiar faces, and dismounted. 
 
 "What is the news of the court — the health 
 of their Majesties?" 
 
 Bouchavannes shook off the dust, sat on a 
 table to allow a servant of the hostelry to pull 
 off his riding boots, and replied: 
 
 "The Cardinal has a touch of the gout, 
 caught at the Siege of La Kochelle and not 
 
196 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 curable by its salts, ha, ha! and he goes about 
 in a litter!" 
 
 "So you came off first best in that affair 
 with Arquien?" asked a gentleman who in- 
 sisted on the cavalier sharing an immense 
 flagon of wine with him. 
 
 "It was not I who fought with Arquien, but 
 my cousin, Caussade, he was mixed up with 
 the quarrel of the Brissacs with the Soubises." 
 
 "What about?" cried the chorus. 
 
 Bouchavannes wiped his lips with a scented 
 lace handkerchief and replied: 
 
 "An absurd race between a hound and a 
 horse! A mere nothing. My cousin was 
 killed, for the fun of duelling, which is re- 
 vived." 
 
 "Revived? I thought the Cardinal had sup- 
 pressed it!" 
 
 "The Cardinal!" repeated Gasse, "I see that 
 we all must sav 'Cardinal!' " 
 
 "It is the mode!" 
 
 A tall man, clad in black velvet, fringed 
 with silver, and, on close inspection, his but- 
 tons of the same metal were seen to be moulded 
 into fool's-heads, though they looked like the 
 royal fleur-de-lis, spoke out at this: 
 
 "The Cardinal prohibited duelling in the 
 King's name; now, he will prohibit under his!" 
 
 The gallants looked at one another; and they 
 whispered: 
 
 "That is Langely, the King's jester. What 
 is he doing here? He was not with us, at the 
 hunt!" 
 
 "I suspect," said Brichanteau, "that he is 
 here on the wild-goose chase!" 
 
 "What wild-goose chase?" nsked his neigh- 
 bor. 
 
 "Why, where have you been buried, Roche- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 197 
 
 baron, not to have heard of the disappearance 
 of Marion Delorme, the fairest of the fair!" 
 
 "Yes," said the chorus, "she has left Paris! 
 And, remarkable, none of consequence has left 
 it at the same time!" 
 
 "She has been all things — now she has 
 turned politician!" 
 
 "She is not such a fool!" said Langely in his 
 grave voice 
 
 "Why do they not offer a reward for her?" 
 said Bouchavannes. 
 
 "Or set a company of scouts ahorse to dis- 
 cover her?" said Gasse. "I would founder my 
 barb to run her to earth!" 
 
 "I should win the reward, boys!" interrupted 
 a fresh voice, and a young man bounded into 
 the midst of the revellers, and struck the atti- 
 tude of a male dancer after a pirouette. 
 
 "Saverny! the marquis! We thought you 
 were in prison!" 
 
 "I, for what?" 
 
 "That libel about the royal shaving!" 
 
 "I have certain word," replied Saverny 
 coolly, "that it was composed by a secretary 
 whom I discharged! I, capable of witty lines, 
 lines that have good rhythm, and which rhyme! 
 You do not know me to accuse me of that vile 
 work !" 
 
 "True!" said Rochebaron, shaking his head. 
 "I did not for a moment believe that Saverny 
 wrote a line, of it! It was so good!" 
 
 In the midst of the laugh at the remem- 
 brance, Gasse broke in: 
 
 ''But the marquis says that he has the key 
 to the miracle, the prodigy which threw a 
 damper over Paris! He ran away with Mar- 
 ion!" 
 
 "No, no," protested the coxcomb, "I was only 
 
198 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 seeking her. The fortune-teller of Blancha- 
 pelle Lane informed me that she had fled alone! 
 and gave me the clue to her whereabouts! 
 Gentlemen, Marion is here!" 
 
 A roar of incredulous laughter shook the 
 tables. 
 
 The leader of society at Blois, the antipodes 
 of Paris, where they had but to look around 
 to see that all was old, dingy, rusty and 
 cramped. 
 
 The towers of St. Nicholas had an awkward 
 and provincial air compared with Notre 
 Dame's. 
 
 "I tell you that she is here, for I have seen 
 her." 
 
 ''Hidden here? Then she has some grand 
 amour!" 
 
 "I do not know how great Don Cupido is," 
 went on the marquis, enchanted at being the 
 center of all ears and eyes, "but she has a 
 bold and brave gallant. The thieves took me 
 by the collar, one night, in these noisome 
 streets, up there, a dozen all told, who wanted 
 to tell the time by my watch and be my al- 
 moner with my purse. While I was crossing 
 swords with them — as many as could get at 
 me — a man sprang from the house where Mar- 
 ion was sheltered, and dispersed the banditti." 
 
 "Tell your tale to Corneille, the new poet 
 who has revolutionised the stage with his 'Cid,' 
 and he may make a drama of it." 
 
 "But for this hero, it would have been my 
 tragedy," said the marquis, patting his shoul- 
 der where the wound still stung. 
 
 "Well, who is he?" 
 
 "I have been hunting for him, while you were 
 after the deer, for I long to renew our acquain- 
 tance!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 199 
 
 "If he is in love with Marion, why nut go 
 to Marion's? That is the way to kill two birds 
 with the one stone," said the brilliant Boucha- 
 vannes. 
 
 "But she has given up her dwelling! She 
 dismissed her solitary servant, and she fled — " 
 
 "Returned to Paris?" 
 
 "Impossible! Marion is too well known to 
 pass the City bars without the officers of the 
 civic taxes recognising her!" 
 
 "That is true, Saverny!" said Gasse. "The 
 idea of my deploring my transfer to Blois, and 
 Marion is here! Come here, boy!" he said 
 coaxingly to Saverny. "Tell me how T far you 
 followed her traces, for I will take them up, 
 having nothing else to do!" 
 
 "Why, I thought you were sent here, on 
 active service?" 
 
 "Active service, in Blois!" and Gasse yawmed 
 plainly. "Alack!" 
 
 "Does he persist," struck in Bouchavannes 
 with his eyes toward the kitchen, whence is- 
 sued the delicious odor of roasting venison. 
 "Does he persist that Marion is here, incog- 
 nito?" 
 
 Whereupon several accompanied the speaker 
 and hemmed Saverny in with chairs, so that 
 he had to repeat his story of the nocturnal ad- 
 ventures, with such embellishments as would 
 enhance his importance. 
 
 Beside them a dispute of quite another stamp 
 was rising. 
 
 In all times the star ascending has upholders 
 who trj- to decry the constant supporters of the 
 declining one. 
 
 The old school and the new were in opposi- 
 tion on the stage and in the library, for plays 
 were readable in those da vs. Corneille, at a 
 
200 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 bound, impossible to divine from his "Gallery 
 of the Law Palace" or "Melite," built on the 
 ancient lines, had attained the elevation when 
 he could be aimed at, by his "Cid." 
 
 The style was mocked at from its familiarity. 
 He spoke of forbidden things and called spades 
 by their name at a period when the Quality 
 tried to be diverse from the populace by using 
 paraphrases. The new playwright's "Cid" of- 
 fended the established canons, particularly in 
 wedding the woman whom he loved; this had 
 never before been seen in tragedy. The grand 
 tragedy was still "Pyrarnus" and"Bradainante," 
 or Mairet's "The Last and Great Soliman." 
 Scuderi was cited as able to crush Corneille at 
 a stroke of the pen. What a bold and vain 
 spirit had this innovator, to boast of invent- 
 ing when everything had been created by Gar- 
 nier, or Hardy, or "the Theophile!" In fact, 
 the whole Academy had not a member but 
 could out-write this upstart. 
 
 Chapelain the satirist was at the head of one 
 set, deriding the idea that the famous minds 
 had not exhausted all topics, and Goden, Bish- 
 op of Grasse, could only defend the new genius 
 by averring that he might write some piece 
 worthy of attention if he would abide by the 
 good old plans and remember Aristotle! 
 
 As for the people, the play-going public was 
 but a thick wall on which the drama was su- 
 perficially frescoed. 
 
 As for society, it was composed of sceptics: 
 they would have shrugged their shoulders and 
 laughed at any one who suggested that nature 
 repeats even her grandest effects; that there 
 might still be a Charlemagne, vast, poetic and 
 almost fabulous in verve, one that would be 
 to their Corneille and Moliere and to our Shake- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 201 
 
 speare, what Napoleon the Great is to Charle- 
 
 magne. 
 
 "At all events," said Brichanteau, eager to 
 get away to dinner, "let us sum this up. 
 Granted that your 1 Corneille is a fellow of merit 
 and to be esteemed, he is of the minor nobility 
 with a name smacking of vulgarity!" 
 
 "He comes,'' added Bouchavannes, "of a fam- 
 ily of pettifoggers, who clipped ducats to lay 
 up pence!" 
 
 "Gentlemen," said another, who had listened 
 patiently, "if the public like this new-comer's 
 rhapsodies, all is over with high art. The thea- 
 tre will go to the dogs, and to see a good old 
 play, we will be compelled to go to the country 
 fairs where, I trust, for a long while will be 
 harbored in the traveling booths the sacred 
 traditions. Say what you will, my opinion is 
 that this Corneille has been set up to kill off 
 the established plays in order to give a clear 
 stage for the still newer sort — " 
 
 "What! worse after Corneille?" was the gen- 
 eral cry. 
 
 "Certainly, after Corneille! Has not my 
 Lord Richelieu in his portfolio two or three 
 tragedies — " 
 
 A few faces smiled; one man laughed, but 
 instantly turned it off as a cough; they all be- 
 came grave, and Gasse whispered: 
 
 "Say 'My Lord' without naming names or 
 speak in a lower tone!" 
 
 "Yes, hush! my dear Villac! Who knows 
 but the Bloisians are redhot Cardinalists?" 
 
 The townspeople had crowded round the de- 
 baters, the subject being a novelty to them. 
 
 But Villac had been an early arrival; as a 
 kind of amateur steward to the party, having 
 selected the Horn of Hubert for the sportsmen, 
 
202 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 he had, as usual with lovers of the table, 
 tasted the wine. So with a flushed face, glad 
 in turn to be under the eves of the natives, 
 he cried, in the reverse of a whisper: 
 
 "Basta! Down with oppressors and suppres- 
 sors of free speech! The devil fly away with 
 the Scarlet Robe! Has not his Eminence 
 enough of a field with the Army, the Navy and 
 the floor of Parliament to leave playgoers their 
 stage! Why should he impose himself on our 
 tongue?" 
 
 "He is right," subjoined Bouchavannes, like- 
 wise excited. "Death and downfall to this 
 Richelieu, who is making but a poor place of 
 France! He abates and he rends! His scarlet 
 mantle is only fit to hide his gory hand!" 
 
 "I stand by ye!" said Rochebaron, rising un- 
 steadily, for he had been calming his appetite 
 with bumpers of Gascony wine, "with such a 
 monopoliser, what is the use of the King?" 
 
 "The King," said Brichanteau, delighted at 
 the sensation thrilling the crowd at all these 
 tirades, and desirous to outdo his foregoers, 
 "the King is just a lantern who saves the flame, 
 Richelieu, from the tempest by his tarnished 
 glass! The people follow the light, not know- 
 ing — not caring that it is veiled and that the 
 glass is not the source of effulgence!" 
 
 "Welcome the day," said Bouchavannes, 
 "when with our swords we snuff this flame!" 
 
 "Snuff some flames," remarked the royal jes- 
 ter, "and they burn but the brighter!" 
 
 No one laughed; the whirlwind had to blow 
 itself out, and the silence of the hearers was 
 taken by the young men as approbation. 
 
 Bouchavannes unfolded his arms and made 
 the movement of embracing his friends. 
 
 "Ah! if everybody thought as I do, about 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 203 
 
 this head, it would not be long before — " 
 "Lei us arrange to — " began Brichanteau at 
 the sudden stoppage of the other haranguer. 
 
 "To give him a good mortal stroke!" said 
 Bouchavannes, bringing his fist down on Hie 
 table and breaking a flask of cordial by the 
 shock. 
 
 Langely rose at his table. His black suit 
 lengthened his tall figure. His buttons jingled 
 flat as he said in a lugubrious voice: 
 
 "A conspiracy!" he cried out. "Young 
 hearts, remember the Marillacs!" 
 
 "The victims of Laffemas and Laubarde- 
 mont," muttered the bystanders, shuddering. 
 
 Michel and Louis de Marillac were brothers, 
 whom the Queen Mother, Maria de Medici, had 
 patronised and lifted to power. Michel had 
 become Keeper of the Seals and Louis was 
 given the charge of the Army in Italy. 
 
 After "the Day of Dupes," w r hen Richelieu 
 turned the tables on the coalition of his ene- 
 mies, namely, the Old Queen, the present one, 
 Prince Gaston, and all their allies, his first 
 strokes in retaliation were to cast down their 
 favorites. He had the seals of state taken 
 away from Michel de Marillac, who was ban 
 ished from the capital. Marshal Schomberg 
 was ordered to arrest the other Marillac, even 
 in head-quarters, and he brought him to the 
 Cardinal, at Rueil. 
 
 Marillac's relatives sued for mercy; Maria 
 and Gaston vowed that any harm done their 
 friend would be amply repaid; they averred 
 that they answered for him with blood and 
 property and that they would not allow the 
 least injury to be done him. 
 
 The warmest supporters of the Prime Min- 
 ister flinched. 
 
204 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "He is a genius," acknowledged their asso- 
 ciates, "but, see! He is becoming a tyrant!" 
 
 Brother Joseph argued with his superior. 
 
 "Joseph," said the statesman, "this Marillac 
 w r as chosen by the Old Queen to assassinate 
 me, if the Colonel of the Corsican Guards hung 
 back, just as Guise and Ancre were done to 
 death!" 
 
 "If it is personal reprisal, then I dispute no 
 more," said the Capuchin. 
 
 "By Saint Francis!" cried Richelieu, in- 
 censed, "to use your own oath! This system of 
 tempering the rule of France by Italian bra- 
 voes must end! I am not going to fall beneath 
 the knife of a Clement or a Ravaillac! Chalais 
 was a mere popingay to Marillac, but I will 
 make as short shrift of one as the other!" 
 
 "Chalais was a puppet of the court! The 
 people did not care for his passing away, any 
 more than for a feather out of the King's cap! 
 But, Marillac!" 
 
 "Marillac has plundered the people and the 
 realm," continued the Premier. 
 
 "Perhaps the accusation was calumny," said 
 Joseph, feebly, for it was not his wont to con- 
 travene his principal with pleas of mercy. 
 
 "His malversation is abundantly proven. I 
 have sheaves of evidence! He is a traitor. He 
 was in communication with the Duke of Lor- 
 raine!" 
 
 "Hard to prove that!" 
 
 "Laubardemont holds the proof!" 
 
 "He can prove anything!" 
 
 "Besides," said the Minister, with a slight 
 smile, "who but Marillac sent to Rome that 
 word against you, brother, which so long de- 
 lavs the cardinal's hat!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 205 
 
 Joseph felt his pale check glow. He bowed 
 and merely faltered: 
 
 "Marillac no more plundered than other gen- 
 erals. Soldier — robber! He laughed at the 
 charge of peculation, saying that the fine 
 would always be more than his property, how- 
 soever acquired!" 
 
 "He has stolen enough to bring to the block 
 the head of a Marshal of France," replied the 
 other determinedly. 
 
 Marillac was condemned to death for his in- 
 roads on the Treasury, under an act which his 
 brother Michel had drawn up. He was de- 
 capitated a few days afterwards, to the grati- 
 fication of no one but the peasants whom the 
 Marshal had borne hard upon, after the man- 
 ner of all the Great Captains of that period. 
 < 'ontemporaries attributed the deed to a per- 
 sonal enmity of Richelieu. 
 
 But whatever the popular opinion, the re- 
 collection was sombre and the spectators of 
 the courtiers and the royal jester trembled as 
 they eyed the latter, who sat down quietly, 
 after his reminder, having cast round him dire 
 consternation. 
 
 Those who had found chairs resumed their 
 seats, and drinking went on, but without gusto. 
 
 "Is that dinner never to be served?" said 
 several. "Are we to go on forever with our 
 tongues hanging a yard out of the mouth!" . 
 
 "Coming!" returned a head-waiter at the 
 door; "remark, gentlemen, that a dinner for 
 such a distinguished partv is not a light 
 affair!" 
 
 "Don't let it be heavy!" said Langely. 
 
 The laughter was sincere this time, and some 
 minutes passed merrily. 
 
206 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE ROYAL EDICT. 
 
 But the Chevalier de Villac, intoxicated to 
 the stage of nursing a fancied wrong, suddenly 
 said to his neighbor, though they had been 
 hobnobbing aud toasting Marion: 
 
 "My dear Montpesat, you used language 
 about my protege Corneille, a while ago, which 
 tingles yet in mine ears!" 
 
 "What did I say? for, on my honor, I have 
 forgotten!" 
 
 "I — I will not sully my lips by repeating the 
 insults," replied Villac, who had, in fact, for- 
 gotten the words also, "but they must be an- 
 swered for." 
 
 "Do you mean with the " 
 
 He slapped his sword-hilt. 
 
 "Just so!" 
 
 "Or do you prefer the pistol?" 
 
 "Both," said the chevalier. 
 
 They rose, locked arms and staggered among 
 the revellers, with a view of seeking a quiet 
 corner. But they had to pass the table where 
 the royal jester sat alone. 
 
 He thrust out his long leg to bring them to 
 a halt, and said: 
 
 "A duel? Hark ye! There is a new order 
 before the King for his signature! It may be 
 promulgated by this hour! Remember how 
 the Lord of Boutteville lost his head for hav- 
 ing put his hand once too often to his sword 
 after the like prohibition!" 
 
 The two dropped their arms, dismayed, and 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 207 
 
 suddenly changing mood, as men will do in 
 wine, cried in unison: 
 
 "The fool is right, and we are fools — to want 
 to fight about this scribbling play-wright! To 
 the deuce with Corneille!" 
 
 As they returned to their places, partially 
 sobered, a citizen asked who had made bold to 
 slide his chair among the courtiers: 
 
 "Who is this bland but grave gentleman, all 
 in black? He sends the cold shivers down my 
 back!" 
 
 "That, sir, is M. Langely, the King's liege 
 buffoon. He has many another fool in all 
 Fiance, but they are not bound by his wages!" 
 
 "I am not astonished, with such a sad merri- 
 man, that the King — long life to him! — is so 
 melancholy!" said the citizen. 
 
 "Faith! the Bloisians are looking up," said 
 Boucha vannes. ''Let me explain, sir! This fool 
 of the King's is suspected to be more of a 
 Cardinal's man than the King's — hence his 
 humor!" 
 
 Langely had not resented the observations 
 on himself; but, at this reflection on the Prime 
 Minister, he rose, bowed and said: 
 
 "Have a care, gentlemen! Our mighty ruler 
 is a mower who traces a wide swathe; the 
 blood gushes liberally where his blade has 
 swept, but he has only to spread his blood- 
 colored mantle over the remains, and who dare 
 speak a word? Xo one! All is over!" 
 
 A silence ensued, during which nothing was 
 audible but the cease 1 ss noir ; and bustle in 
 the kitchen where the dishing up was begin- 
 ning. In the large room, the tables had been 
 lengthened by joining them, and all the napery 
 Of the inn \v;ir called into requisition. 
 
208 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Beside this jester," said Rochebarou, guard- 
 edly, "grim Pluto is a jolly companion!" 
 
 The dishes began to clatter and the plate 
 to clink as the table was set. 
 
 "Gentlemen!" said the host, appearing, ru- 
 bicond and smiling from ear to ear, on the 
 threshold: "You are served!" 
 
 A rush was made for the room, and, for a 
 few minutes, all was confusion out of which 
 order gradually emerged. 
 
 The repast w as worthy of the Hubert's Horn. 
 The table was covered with the dishes, done to 
 a turn, and the vessels for the divers liquors. 
 
 All serious subjects were dismissed, and for 
 a while glasses and cups clinked and clattered, 
 and knives and forks played. 
 
 In the stillness which follows the outset of a 
 meal at which are engaged cavaliers after a 
 hunting party, the open space before the inn 
 was covered by a mob. Citizens had hurried 
 from the town in every part on hearing the 
 town herald's trumpet-call at the bridge head. 
 
 This musical annunciator was reinforced by 
 a brother, who wore the roval blue and had a 
 fleur-de-lis'd flag pendant from his trumpet. 
 The two were escorted by a united troop of 
 city watch and the light horse of the garrison. 
 
 The Sheriff presided civilly over the proces- 
 sion, with four javelin-men, one of whom car 
 ried a kettle-drum with which he beat a roll 
 for silence after the trumpet blast. 
 
 "Here, here." cried Captain Gasse, disturbed 
 in dissecting his slice of haunch. "Have you 
 no public square but this to exercise your 
 crier's voice within!" 
 
 The host had waddled to the doorway and 
 exchanged a word of enlightenment with the 
 Sheriff. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 209 
 
 "Please ye, gentlemen," said he, turning bis 
 red face round, "it is a royal proclamation 
 and must be published in all the public ways. 
 Tins is the first open place from tbe bridge, 
 and, besides, all lilois, I do believe, has col- 
 lected here, under my windows, to see your 
 worships do justice to my dinner!" 
 
 "Order and silence!" shouted the town crier, 
 "for a proclamation of the King!" 
 
 "The King!" sneered Bouchavannes, still sul- 
 len, and looking to see where Langely was. He 
 had remained at bis table at the door. "That 
 is a royal mantle which cloaks Richelieu." 
 
 The drum beat and the trumpets flourished, 
 and the crier in a nasal voice bawled, without 
 regard to punctuation — which, to confess the 
 truth, did not exist in the document: 
 
 "Ordinance, by his Majesty and his Council 
 assembled! Louis, by the Grace of God, King 
 of France and of Navarre, to all present to 
 whom this comes, Greeting!" 
 
 He made a bow, and the drum and trumpets 
 prolonged their task to give him a breathing 
 spell. 
 
 "Having considered that every ruler wishes 
 to exterminate duelling by severe penalties, 
 and that, notwithstanding the edicts signed by 
 the Kings our foregoers, duelling is more prev- 
 alent at present than heretofore, WE ordain 
 and command that, henceforward, as duellists 
 are felons who deprive us of our subjects by 
 taking their lives, they are to be brought be- 
 fore our courts, or if one survive, that sole sur- 
 vivor, and tried for the misdeed. If found 
 guilty, he or they are to be banged high in the 
 
210 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 air with a short rope! Noble or baseborn, 
 hanged! To make this edict more efficacious, 
 be it also known that WE renounce for this 
 kind of crime OUR right to grant pardon. 
 This is OUR good pleasure! 
 
 " Signed: LOUIS." 
 
 A loud cheer drowned the drum and trum- 
 pets, breaking out again. 
 
 "Wait," said the crier, lifting his hand. "It 
 is countersigDed: RICHELIEU!" 
 
 The cheer was as loud, but not as sincere or 
 spontaneous as the former; it was Langely 
 who led it off with his stern voice. 
 
 Captain Gasse was a valiant trencherman, 
 and a brave soldier; but the reading of the 
 edict ran counter to his appetite. After a few 
 attempts to finish his platter, he pushed it 
 back, with the indignation burning in the other 
 courtiers, and said: 
 
 "Gentleman, this has spoilt my share of the 
 feast! The idea of hanging gentlemen like the 
 Thieves, Penitent or Impenitent!" 
 
 "Stuff!" said Bouchavannes, setting down his 
 glass of Burgundy untasted. "Hang us? I 
 prithee, where is the hemp grown with which 
 the rope is made to hang a noble?" 
 
 "Never mind the detail," said Langely in his 
 cutting tone. "Perhaps by a little bribe you 
 may have a silken cord, as, I have heard of, 
 in other countries!" 
 
 The crier had continued his delivery by an- 
 nouncing that the edict was to be published 
 further by copies affixed to prominent objects. 
 He took one of these to be the post to which 
 horses might be attached, at the inn door. A 
 varlet hung the paper, stretched on a frame 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 211 
 
 and glazed with scraped horn to defy the 
 weather, to the post by a string. 
 
 ■•Mark," proceeded the caustic jester, "they 
 give you a sample of what follows by hanging 
 i he proclamation!" 
 
 '•Would he wore there who made it!" said 
 Bouchavannes, but, luckily, his voice was thick 
 from his not having cleared it with his wine, 
 and his neighbors pretended not to hear the 
 treasonable utterance, to which, as Saverny 
 remarked, his ballad was milk-and-water! 
 
 The dinner went off badly. The wine turned 
 sour, and one by one the carousers withdrew, 
 under pretext of seeking lodgings for the night, 
 the inn being full. 
 
 No one was bold enough to propose riding 
 towards Paris after dark. 
 
 The marquis' adventure with the footpads in 
 the heart of Blois gave a taste of their daring. 
 How much bolder would they be in the woods 
 through which ran the Faris Road? 
 
 "Cousin Saverny,'' said Brichanteau, as a 
 choice knot of the gallants sat out at the inn 
 door in the twilight, "talking of thieves, did 
 you say you had exhausted all means to dis- 
 cover the hero who rescued you from that band 
 the other night!" 
 
 "That is what I said. I have vainly made 
 inquiries throughout the town. The footpads, 
 with the exception of one, the captain — save 
 the mark! — who was found with a broken neck 
 in a neighboring cellar — the gallant, Marion, — 
 all have vanished like a nightmare! with apol- 
 ogies for misusing that simile for a lovely 
 dream-like Marion the peerless!" 
 
 "None of your ancestors were more neatly 
 plucked from under the scimetar of the Sara- 
 cens, I warrant!"' said Gasse. 
 
212 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "True, captain! and to think that I should 
 not know him again. I followed him indoors, 
 but, you will understand, he upset the lamp, 
 as I was relieving the lady of it, and a dark- 
 ness, like that Egyptian, made us all blacka- 
 moors in the eclipse." 
 
 "Strange conduct!" said Brichanteau. 
 
 "I suppose you exchanged names?" queried 
 the captain. 
 
 "I have his as 'Didier.' " 
 
 A peal of laughter went round the welkin 
 encircling the marquis. 
 
 "Is that the name of a Christian?" cried 
 the same gentleman who had objected to "Cor- 
 neille," as being vulgar. "That is very low, 
 quite common!" 
 
 "He called himself so. A name for a warrior 
 in arms with his visor down! Many victors of 
 blue blood may wear brighter names, but a 
 braver heart is not in their breast! I had a 
 dozen brigands laying it on to me. He was 
 beside a woman — Venus — Marion Delorme, 
 and he quitted her, ye nymphs of Lesbos! to 
 leap into the ring of steel, and save me. My 
 debt is enormous, and I vow, before ye all, to 
 repay it!" 
 
 He held up his hand in a gesture worthy 
 of an actor in "the Horaces." 
 
 Langely's dry laugh echoed along the street. 
 
 "Since when has the Marquis de Saverny 
 paid his debts?" said he. 
 
 This time the applause was merry and 
 heartv. 
 
 "Those which blood may pay," retorted the 
 spendthrift, proudly, "I have always liqui- 
 dated. My heart is my mint, and its drops all 
 the coin with which I can close my accounts." 
 
 "Bravo!" said his friends. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 213 
 
 The night came on densely. Within, the 
 kitchen, though reposing, so to say, after the 
 effort of the grand banquet, so ill-appreciated 
 through no fault of its own, glowed redly like 
 the forge of the Cyclops. The turnspits, taking 
 the air in their vacation, at the door, seemed 
 like Cerberus' whelps. 
 
 The windows throughout the town, particu- 
 larly on the upper part, glittered; the good citi- 
 zens there had no fear of being overlooked. A 
 lamplighter, carrying his ladder so that he 
 bore an unpleasant resemblance to the execu- 
 tioner, took in the tavern in his peregrination, 
 and — no doubt, pursuant to an order — attached 
 a spare lantern to the tying-post over the 
 placard. 
 
 The host ordered a waiter to hang a couple 
 of stable lanterns over the tables where the 
 remaining members of the hunting party slow- 
 ly imbibed their hot wine, with little of that 
 gaiety usual after a good dinner. 
 
 "That beast of a proclamation," commented 
 the landlord, to his head-waiter. "It makes 
 them see black!" 
 
 "Rather, it makes them see red! It means 
 bloodshed, master! To order men of the sword 
 not to fight, compels them to do it, in order to 
 show they are superior to paper and ink!" 
 
 "Nevertheless, Cardinal Richelieu has been 
 a gallant knight. I was at the Siege of La 
 Rochelle " 
 
 "You, at the Siege, master!" cried the wait- 
 er, incredulously. 
 
 "Yes, I was sutler to the Swiss Guards." 
 
 "Which attended the King, and did no fight- 
 ing! I understand." 
 
 "Well, this statesman at whom these swords- 
 
214 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 men sniff, and backbite, be went under fire as 
 if be were sbot-proof !" 
 
 "What would be the use of being a bishop, 
 or a cardinal, unless you could feel that vour 
 gown shielded you from the heretic's bullets!" 
 said the waiter, piously. 
 
 As his master was about to retire within 
 doors, he laid his fat hand on his arm, and 
 added: 
 
 "While on the subject of heretics, I think 
 that we are mistaken about the young couple 
 in the parlor with the two sleeping-rooms. 
 They are not lovers." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "But he is a theologian and she his pupil. I 
 caught a speech or two he was making as I 
 came down the stairs, the other day, and — 
 zookers! it was preaching, for a hundred 
 francs!" 
 
 "Ah, she is too beautiful to stand in need 
 of preaching! If ever an angel face covered 
 an angel soul, that woman has them!" 
 
 "It used to be so! when the sons of Adam 
 courted angels!" replied the waiter philosophi- 
 cally. "But that was at a distance and Wom- 
 ankind, a comprehensive word, master mine, 
 inasmuch as it includes kind woman, and, 
 alack! the other kind! Womankind wear any 
 face. How often the fairer the face the blacker 
 the heart!" 
 
 "Saucepans and smokejacks! how you talk! 
 but, then, any one can guess that you have 
 been twice married!" rejoined the host. "But," 
 he resumed, interrupting himself, as he looked 
 up the broad and massive stairs, "stand aside, 
 for here comes the young gentleman whom you 
 accuse of being a theologian. Faith, his step, 
 like his garb, is funereal J Yon may bo right, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 215 
 
 after all! However, the money of a heretic 
 is as good as a faithful believer's, and he has 
 paid up to the mark!" 
 It was Didier who came down the broad 
 
 stairs. 
 
216 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A DUEL UNDER THE NOOSE. 
 
 Jealousy was easily aroused in a moody 
 heart like Didier's; he could not say that 
 Marion had sought the glances of the intrusive 
 Saverny, but it struck him that they were not 
 perfect strangers. But his love was at that 
 pitch when he was fearful of offending his 
 idol by putting questions to which the frank 
 answer or the elusive reply might endanger 
 his happiness. 
 
 Lovers may not be perspicacious, but they 
 are always aware that they live in a palace of 
 ice — a hot breath may crack the wall and the 
 whole shiver to atoms. 
 
 So he made no more than a passing remark 
 on this dangler who would persist in forcing 
 his person on their company, and at the first 
 word from Marion, who shared the desire of 
 obscurity with him, to the effect that her abode 
 was not tranquil, he volunteered to seek one 
 more suitable. 
 
 He was minutely acquainted with Blois, but 
 he had some difficulty in finding a house re- 
 mote and yet not exposed to the attack of the 
 poachers, also robbers, who dwelt in the forest 
 and plundered isolated dwellings without the 
 walls. 
 
 But having found such a one, he furnished 
 it, and spite of Marion's disinclination to mat- 
 rimony, it was understood between them that 
 thev should be married on the eve of entering 
 it. ' 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 217 
 
 She became gloomy after this decision, which 
 he hoped would make her joyous, but she was 
 taxing her wits how to execute her pari in the 
 ceremony under a false name and provide the 
 necessary papers to back up her subterfuge. 
 
 In the meantime, Didier engaged rooms at 
 the Horn of Hubert. 
 
 He was far from foreseeing that this house, 
 so quiet at the time, would become the centre 
 of all the noise in Blois as soon as the aristo- 
 cratic party having Prince Gaston's leave to 
 hunt in Chambord Forest, should choose it as 
 their resting-place. 
 
 Hence, nothing was more untoward for the 
 lovers, who had selected the Horn for a nest 
 of peace, than to hear not only the revelry 
 after the tumult of preparations for the feast, 
 but the uproar of the mob hailing the publica- 
 tion of the royal edict. 
 
 "It is a proclamation of some sort," said 
 Didier, as nightfall came, w T hen they habitually 
 took their strolls. "I will look at it and tell 
 you as I return. This time you must not go 
 out. There has been a feast of some sort below 
 and I see many a strange face." 
 
 He did not add that he believed that he had 
 spied the Marquis of Saverny among his Paris- 
 ian friends. Fops wear a family likeness, as 
 they are of the mode very modish, and he might 
 be in error. But the manners of the gallant 
 irritated him, and he had a longing to be quits 
 with him for having entered Marion's apart- 
 ments and stared at her, if not ogled her, in 
 the brief space before he upset the second 
 illuminator. 
 
 He passed through the hall and slowly went 
 out upon the street. No one noticed him, the 
 gentlemen being deep in chat, of a sombre 
 
218 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 kind, thanks to the late tragic interruption and 
 chewing its bitter cud. 
 
 For ten years past, Richelieu had been pur- 
 suing the policy inculcated by Brother Joseph 
 in his sermon on the night of Ramire's disap- 
 pearance. The oldest nobles trembled for their 
 sons whose family trees bid fair to be trimmed 
 a la Cardinal, and they saw with sorrow, min- 
 gled with indignation that, as they suffered a 
 change and abasement, the ecclesiastical, cleri- 
 cal and legal branches of the octopus inter- 
 lacing France were also pruned, without their 
 being advantaged. 
 
 Didier went by the party, half-recognizing 
 Saverny, and took an unoccupied seat at the 
 same table as Langely, who sipped some hypo- 
 eras alone, so dreaded was the malicious jester 
 now that all had a taste of his wit. 
 
 "The mandate against duelling is all very 
 well," observed Bouchavannes, "if it bore upon 
 the swashbucklers and pick-quarrels, but the 
 tag at the tail spoils it, like a spluttering 
 flourish after a plain signature." 
 
 "What flourish?" said Saverny, absently. 
 
 "I mean that the offenders are to be hanged!" 
 
 "It is hard to believe it," said the marquis. 
 "The rope is quite a correct treatment for com- 
 mon folk, but this must be a jest!" 
 
 "Did you not hear it read? Well, read it!" 
 and he pointed to the placard on the post. 
 
 "It is too far off," said the coxcomb, gaping, 
 "and I am too fatigued to go there. Hey," he 
 cried half-saucily, half-goodnaturedly to Did- 
 ier, "you who are beside the fool ! My dear fel- 
 low, pray spell me out that proclamation." 
 
 Didier looked, not at him, but at Langely, 
 whom he heard characterized as a fool and 
 comprehended by the buttons that he was at 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 219 
 
 table with a court dignitary more respected 
 than many another functionary. King Louis 
 did not laugh often, but when he did the jest 
 was a sanguinary one. 
 
 "You, sir, in the large cloak! You are not 
 deaf, are you?'' said Saverny, piqued at being 
 ignored. 
 
 lie had not recognized Didier from the short 
 time when the light shone upon him in the 
 room; in the street, he had not seen the color 
 of his eyes even. 
 
 His voice grated on Didier, who began to 
 recall its tones of silly conceit and arrogance. 
 Lilting his head slowly, he fastened his gaze 
 on the marquis, who might w T ell be daunted by 
 their increasing intensity, enlarging in the 
 dark. 
 
 "Are you addressing me?" he curtly de- 
 manded. 
 
 "Nobody else! I do not mind paying for 
 your refreshment if you will read me that 
 paper over your head." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "You, provided you can read writing!" 
 
 Didier rose calmly, not as if eager to oblige 
 Saverny, but to enlighten himself. He read 
 the document through without moving his lips 
 and remarked negligently, to his table com- 
 panion, not to the questioner: 
 
 "It is a royal edict, which punishes with the 
 gibbet all wielders of the sword, whether low- 
 born or of high degree." 
 
 "It is equality before the gallows," said 
 Langely. "The world is progressing!" 
 
 "You are blundering, good fellow!" said 
 Saverny. "Know that a good gentleman is 
 not doomed to be hanged. His privileges for- 
 
220 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 bid that! We have rights to far different 
 deaths — only the base can be hanged!" 
 
 He turned to his friends, laughing insolently. 
 "This is one of the shopkeepers of Blois! He 
 is impudent. You read it wrongly, my man!" 
 continued he. "I daresay your broad-brimmed 
 hat cast a shade over your eyes! Take it off, 
 when replying to your betters! You will read 
 better and run less likelihood of incurring the 
 lash! Off with your hat, sirrah!" 
 
 Didier took a step so hastily and violently 
 towards him that he overturned a table in the 
 way and the glasses, partly emptied, rolled, 
 breaking, to Saverny's feet, where the lees 
 spirted on him. He sprang up and thus con- 
 fronted Didier, who still marched on. 
 
 "Have a care, sir!" said the Bloisian, willing 
 to avenge his enmity against the marquis on 
 one of his station; "you insult me! I read 
 the proclamation for myself. Now, I will read 
 it for you, but I claim to fix the adequate com- 
 pensation. I will read it, sir, but you must 
 pay me in blood! I will have your life!" 
 
 "Baiting" a citizen was a sport well known 
 to the courtiers, but rarely had the game turn- 
 ed on the hunter with such vehemence. All 
 rose to their feet and, seeing the seriousness of 
 a combat after this severe prohibition, they 
 tried to quiet the marquis. 
 
 Didier had suddenly become cool; some men, 
 after the provocation is launched, are free of 
 bile and in the best health for the sequel. 
 Face to face with Saverny, he remembered 
 him unmistakably, for he said: 
 
 "Dam not making an error in one thing! You 
 are Nazaire, Marquis of Saverny! And I am 
 q-thirst for your blood, d'ye hear!" 
 
 The noble laughed in his face. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 221 
 
 "He lias divined my quality!" said he, sneer- 
 ing. "Our race-mark is imprinted on our brow! 
 I guessed be was of tbe lower orders, and be 
 recognises I am a lord!'' 
 
 "On many a fighting ground," responded 
 Didier loftilv, "the blood of the lowborn and 
 the lordling have mingled without France re- 
 pudiating either! Let us mingle our blood, 
 marquis, if you please!" 
 
 "The Edict!" said several voices, while the 
 host and his waiters blocked up the door. 
 "'Ware the Edict!" 
 
 "Was ever so much quarrelling?" said the 
 landlord. "This time, my good fare has turned 
 sour in the mouth!" 
 
 "They did not take enough of it," commented 
 the waiter. "But they will be punished," add- 
 ed he; "it looks as if two of them will take 
 their parting-cup under the gallows-tree!" 
 
 Saverny had become serious at this stage. 
 
 "You are too hasty, sir," said he to the 
 challenger. "At least, let this matter proceed 
 orderly. You may not be experienced, but we 
 gentlemen are bound to be. Here are two sec- 
 onds of mine!" 
 
 The friends looked askant at each other. A 
 duel to the death, when the victor would be 
 hanged, perhaps threw sharp responsibility on 
 the abettors. But Captain Gasse and Villac, 
 also in the army, felt that they must not wince. 
 
 The marquis took them by the hand, as they 
 thus stood foremost. 
 
 "You see here the Count of Gasse, about 
 whom no one can see a flaw! This is the Vi- 
 dame of Villac, champion of the Sisters of the 
 Catharine's Wheel; he belongs to the house 
 of La Feuillade, of w ? hich the Marquis of Au- 
 
222 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 busson is head. Now for your declaration! Are 
 you a noble?" 
 
 "What does it matter — under this?" said 
 Didier, touching the fatal proclamation with 
 his hand. "I am a nameless foundling; but 
 I have blood to spill in exchange for yours!" 
 
 "That you should be willing to fight is noth- 
 ing, sir," returned Saverny. "But a foundling 
 — that is another matter. You may be offspring 
 of a noble, and it is a greater evil to degrade 
 the son of a lord than ennoble a vassal. I will 
 cross swords with you." 
 
 This settled, the seconds would have little 
 trouble to arrange the encounter. 
 
 Didier said that he was ready at once, which 
 made the bystanders cry that he was not 
 usurping the pretensions to a high origin. 
 
 "He has not a sword," remarked Gasse. 
 
 He was not alone in finding relief at any 
 prospect of a delay, when Saverny and this 
 ardent stranger might cool down. 
 
 Langely came up to the group in debate and 
 solemnly tendered his sword to Didier, who 
 had laid aside his own since so closely attend- 
 ing Marion that a conflict had seemed im- 
 possible. 
 
 "Take a fool's sword," said he in his voice 
 which wavered between jest and earnest. "To 
 commit a folly, it is just the thing." And as 
 the young man hesitated, he continued: "It is 
 to be relied on, being better tempered than its 
 master! You are a brave fellow and will do 
 it honor!" Then, changing his tone to his hab- 
 itual sneer, he concluded: "In exchange, be- 
 queath me a bit of the rope they hang you 
 with, as it brings the wearer good luck, you 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 223 
 
 "Willingly," replied Didier, bitterly, as he 
 took and tried the sword. 
 
 Convinced that he had, indeed, a good blade, 
 he turned to the marquis, who felt a vague im- 
 pression that they were not strangers, and said 
 in a clear voice: 
 
 "Heaven be merciful to the deserving!" 
 
 Brichanteau clapped his hands, like a school- 
 bov, and exclaimed iovouslv: 
 
 "It will be a handsome encounter, and that 
 is delightful!" 
 
 "Where do we stand?" inquired Saverny. 
 
 "Under the lantern," rejoined Brichanteau. 
 
 Villac shook his head. 
 
 "You must be out of your wits," protested 
 Gasse; ''you cannot see with the shadow of 
 your own person! You will scratch out one 
 another's eyes instead of piercing a limb." 
 
 "It will be light enough for bloodshed!" said 
 Didier moroselv. 
 
 "Well said," cried Saverny. 
 
 "The swords should send out sparks enough 
 to light up the field," went on Didier as Lange- 
 ly also was about to interfere. 
 
 The two combatants threw down their cloaks 
 and hats after having saluted each other. Did- 
 ier held the borrowed sword in hand; the 
 marquis drew his. They fell on guard by the 
 post. 
 
 "Waiting for you, sir!" said the noble. 
 
 "Not long! I am ready!" was the reply. 
 
 The seconds kept silent. In the stillness the 
 steel was heard grating and clicking, while 
 the fencers seemed to mark time with their 
 feet, which nearly touched. 
 
 This time, Didier had another antagonist 
 altogether than a Malargue; that was a brute 
 who only sought to win at any hasard. But 
 
224 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE'/ 
 
 the aristocratic gentleman would have felt dis- 
 honored if he did not kill his opponent accord- 
 ing to the etiquette of the fencing-schools. 
 Swordsmanship being a main chapter in a 
 nobleman's book of training, Saverny, fop 
 though he was, gave a good portion of his time 
 regularly to its practice. It followed that Di- 
 dier made little headway, spite of his impa- 
 tience and resentment against his contender. 
 The courtiers shared the feelings of their cham- 
 pion, regarding the agile leaps out of reach, the 
 shifting of footing, the well-parried thrusts and 
 lunges, all as part of a game. It was to the 
 fighting in which Didier had figured at Blois, 
 what angling is to fishing. 
 
 As the bystanders applauded in a suppressed 
 voice, encouraging the combat, and Didier 
 boiled over with rage at the prolixity, what 
 he dreaded came to pass. 
 
 Marion, left alone by her lover, had opened 
 the window after a while to look at the stars, 
 when the clink of weapons and the two men 
 under the lantern light, with the surrounding 
 spectators, naturally drew her attention down- 
 wards. She was not a minute recognising Di- 
 dier at swords-point with the marquis. She 
 conjectured that they had met and that her 
 beloved had seized the opportunity to punish 
 the gallant for intruding on her presence. 
 
 She sprang up, drew a mantle about her and 
 ran down the stairs. At the foot she over- 
 turned the head waiter, who was peeping out 
 at the door, held ajar, instead of going up to 
 his couch. 
 
 At the instant of her appearance, Saverny 
 had received a slight wound in the sword-arm; 
 he retaliated by a well-launched thrust which 
 threatened to transpierce his opponent. But 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 225 
 
 that was the nick when Marion dashed out of 
 the doorway. Seeing — apparently — that Di- 
 dier would be stricken to the heart, she flung 
 her cloak upon the sword, which diverted the 
 line, and uttered a piercing scream. 
 
 "Stop! Didier! God be good!" 
 
 But the two shook off the mantle, and re- 
 turned to the charge, both recognising the in- 
 tervener and emboldened by her presence. 
 
 But in the quiet that scream resounded far. 
 Down the street the steel heads of the archers' 
 halberds shone as a patrol of the watch came 
 out from under the arches of St. Nicholas, and 
 Bouchavannes, having his sword drawn to 
 knock aside foul blows, beat down his friend's 
 blade. 
 
 "All is lost! Here comes the watch!" 
 
 A red glow burst forth above the steel 
 points. The archer beside the captain of the 
 squad had revived a torch by swinging it in 
 the air after beating its head against a horse- 
 block. 
 
 The soldiers must have distinctly seen the 
 two men crossing swords, for they came on a- 
 pace. They had the new edict on their mind. 
 Blois piqued itself to act upon it before Paris 
 did. 
 
 "You cannot run," whispered Brichanteau. 
 "Pretend to be wounded to the death!" 
 
 The marquis had to acknowledge that this 
 advice could not be improved upon. He 
 dropped as though shot, and Brichanteau half- 
 enveloped him with the mantle which Marion 
 had thrown into the arena with the effect of 
 a red flag on a bull. 
 
 The noble uttered a very genuine groan of 
 pain, for the stones were hard, and he had exe- 
 cuted the mock fall with that conscientious- 
 
226 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 ness which makes a good actor black and blue 
 under the similar circumstances. 
 
 Didier glanced toward the noble and paused, 
 indecisive, under the belief that he had slain 
 his opponent. 
 
 Eunning up at the head of his men, though 
 hampered by his spurs, insignia of knighthood, 
 for he never rode a horse within the citv walls, 
 the Ward-and- Watch Captain shouted: 
 
 "Hold, in the King's name!" 
 
 "You had better save the marquis!" said 
 Count Gasse, careless about what military dis- 
 cipline enjoined upon him. "He is a dead man, 
 if they take him!" 
 
 "Stop, gentlemen!" cried the captain, as the 
 seconds surrounded Savernv, in so stern a 
 
 €/ 7 
 
 voice that they checked the disposition to lift 
 him up. "This is going too far for a joke! 
 Odsbodkins! They choose, to fight a duel, the 
 very light that showed our proclamation 
 against hostile encounters under penalty of 
 death by hanging! The impudence! But I see 
 they are the Parisians! I might be sure that 
 our good Bloisians would not act so scanda- 
 lously." 
 
 Still Didier stood irresolute; Marion's inter- 
 vention had unmanned him, for jealousy sug- 
 gested that she had rushed between rather to 
 shield the marquis from punishment than on 
 behalf of himself. 
 
 "Surrender," said the watch-officer, thinking 
 he meant resistance and holding out his left 
 hand for his sword. "Give up your rapier!" 
 
 "Stav!" said Langelv drilv, taking the sword 
 from Didier's hand with a strong wresting mo- 
 tion; "it is mv blade! If vou reallv want it, 
 apply to the King, whose jester I am." 
 
 The captain ordered his men to seize Didier 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 227 
 
 and went over to the spot where Saverny was 
 stretched out, unmoving, partly under a table 
 and partly shrouded in the mantle. His eyes 
 were opened but they seemed without a spark 
 of intelligence. Langely might have said that 
 this trait was not remarkable in a court gal- 
 lant, but the captain thought that the man 
 was dead. 
 
 "Who was this?" asked he, bending down. 
 
 "This was Nazaire," said Brichanteau, enter- 
 ing into the spirit of the deception with avid- 
 ity, "Marquis of Saverny, whose uncle is the 
 Marquis of Xangis. He is a royal page." 
 
 "He is dead," said Gasse, with the air of one 
 who had seen many mortal wounds. 
 
 "This is Captain Gasse, come to join your 
 garrison," added Villac; "you can take his 
 word for it. He is a veteran of the Italian 
 frontier wars, though yet a young man." 
 
 "Dead, is he?" repeated the captain; "that 
 is so much the better; it will save those law 
 fellows from writing out a charge as long as 
 my arm against him. He has died handsomely, 
 which is more than can be said of what will 
 befall the other! Ugh! Hanging! Ah, it will 
 be a great day for Blois to see a gentleman 
 hanged, like a deer-stealer!" 
 
 Pushed aside and jostled by the gentlemen 
 and the archers, Marion had witnessed the 
 hurried proceedings with a wondering eye. 
 She had not half comprehended the solemnity 
 of the occasion, for she knew that, heretofore, 
 duels were as common among young men as 
 sarabbands. But she was frightened now on 
 hearing that Savernv was dead, by her lover's 
 hand, spite of her intermediation. She per- 
 haps had saved Didier by her flinging the cloak 
 on the blades, but for what? 
 
228 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 The captain of the archers seemed to think 
 the marquis' death was enviable! 
 
 The landlord of the inn, with his waiters, 
 most of them wearing nightcaps as showing 
 that they had not had a hand in the unlawful 
 meeting, crowded the doors and windows. 
 They looked on with awe as the marquis' 
 friends lifted him up and carried him away in 
 Marion's mantle, laid on a rude litter impro- 
 vised of the top of a table which they kicked 
 to pieces, without asking the host's leave. 
 
 Marion tried to approach Didier, but he was 
 surrounded three-deep by the archers, who had 
 a high idea of their capture since he was the 
 slayer of a marquis and the elect for the halter. 
 
 "Farewell, Marie!" said he, over their heads 
 and between their halberds, "farewell, and for- 
 get me!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 229 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BLACK AND GREY. 
 
 Petrified by terror, all the more deep as it 
 was as yet incomprehensible, Marion Delorme, 
 repulsed by the rear file of the watch, fell in 
 a swoon in a chair by the table where Langely 
 coolly finished his glass, still warm, of honeyed 
 drink. He knew her well and stayed by her, 
 therefore. The host and his assistants re- 
 mained indoors, fearful of compromising them- 
 selves by succoring the companion of a rash- 
 brained youth who contravened so deadly a 
 mandate. 
 
 "Why did Didier say farewell in that lament- 
 able voice of despair," murmured she, reviving 
 in the cold night wind off the river, and she 
 looked around. The red flare of the torch was 
 dying away in the direction of the Castle. 
 "Why did he bid me forget him?" 
 
 Xo one but the tall man in black velvet was 
 on the open space. All was in glaring con- 
 trast to its animation after the banquet and 
 even during the silent duel. 
 
 "Sir," said she, almost fearing that this grave 
 person was a phantom, "what has that young 
 man done, and what are thev going to do with 
 him?" 
 
 Langely took her by the hand, and she felt 
 his trembled in hers — whether because she was 
 icy cold or out of compassion. He caused her 
 to rise and tetter, upheld by his grip, to the 
 post where he said : "Read !" 
 
230 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Though scarcely in her senses, she ran her 
 sight over the paper and comprehended that 
 death awaited duellists. 
 
 "Just heavens!" she exclaimed, snatching 
 away her hand and clasping it with the other. 
 "They have taken him hence, therefore, to do 
 him to death!" 
 
 Langely nodded. 
 
 "They were fighting, yet it might have ended 
 without any one knowing but for my coming 
 between and rousing the town — bringing the 
 watch by my calls! I was calling for help, 
 sir," she went on piteously, "because I feared 
 that he might be killed — whose life is dearer 
 to me than my own !" — 
 
 "Saverny, Marion?" girded Langely. 
 
 "Oh, I know vou — bv vour biting voice! You 
 are the royal merrymaker!" 
 
 "I am Langely, at your orders, fair Marion!" 
 
 "No. It is the other, Didier, that I love! 
 Not one of these tears are for the beau whom 
 he slew! For he slew that annoying fop, did 
 he not?" 
 
 "The marquis' friends bore him hence as one 
 dead, certainlv," rejoined the jester, evasivelv. 
 
 "What's his life? A butterfly's! Pinned to 
 a tree by an idle schoolboy! But Didier, noble, 
 intelligent, brave — oh! that his breath should 
 be stopped by a halter! Never! To think that 
 I summoned death out of the netherworld by 
 my screams! Impossible! But since when is 
 a duel, crossing of swords in the hands of men 
 accustomed to them as women to the broider- 
 ing-bodkin or the distaff! since when is duelling 
 a crime?" 
 
 "Our Minister lost a dearly beloved brother 
 by the duelling sword, they say, and so he hates 
 the hasty argument of steel." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 231 
 
 "Will they try him? Will they doom him?" 
 
 "My dear .Mniioii, they will try him! The 
 lawyers will never lose the opportunity to in- 
 augurate the action of the new command when 
 one of the victims was a martinis!" 
 
 "Where did they take him?" 
 
 "To prison." 
 
 "But the cage in these country towns — the 
 warders — with nionev?" stammered Marion, 
 too hurried in her ideas to express them con- 
 secutively and in full. 
 
 "Well, 1 daresay one could extricate a pris- 
 oner from the guardhouse, but this is a special 
 prisoner, taken in infringement of the royal de- 
 cree! They will lodge him in the Castle!" 
 
 "Well, people escape from castles!" said Mar- 
 ion with a return of hope. 
 
 She had seen nobles return to the world who 
 had, like Bassompierre or Beaufort, hydra- 
 heads of rebellion, obtained release from even 
 the Bastile. 
 
 "You do not know Blois Castle," returned 
 Langely, with pity. "Like that of Nantes, one 
 may say that they who built it wanted a strong 
 shell outside their consciences!"' 
 
 Marion was not listening. 
 
 She blamed herself for all ; but for her link- 
 ing herself with this youth, whose life was 
 previously unspotted with blood, he would not 
 be imprisoned for the crime. 
 
 "It is because of my faults," she muttered. 
 "Heaven is striking me, through him. Boor 
 Didier! Langely, just think that I esteem 
 nothing too good or sweet for that young man, 
 and they award him the dungeon and the scaf- 
 fold! Perhaps they will torture him, for has 
 In- not slain a noble?" 
 
 "Unless he confesses he was wrong to cross 
 
232 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the royal word, I doubt not they will put him 
 to the torture!" 
 
 k 'I will go back to Paris — I will appeal to 
 the King!" 
 
 "He has a right royal heart, my master!" 
 said Langely. "But read!" and he rapped the 
 paper which gave a funereal sound like the 
 dry wing of a bat. 
 
 '•His right to pardon is waived?" said Mar- 
 ion despairingly. 
 
 "Yes; still you might see him." 
 
 "Will you present me?" 
 
 "Willingly, poor child! But I cannot intro- 
 duce you to the Cardinal." 
 
 "No? And then—" 
 
 "The Cardinal countersigned that edict. It 
 is a capital offence, and those w T ho offend must 
 roll down the fatal declivity." 
 
 "Horrible," said she, shuddering. "You fill 
 me with the chill of the grave! Away! I 
 want nothing of you all! I am vile, infamous, 
 shameful! But all that a woman can do shall 
 be done for him in tribulation!" 
 
 Langely watched her depart, with an un- 
 steady step, in the direction whither Didier had 
 been led, and putting up his sword, the instru- 
 ment of so much distress, said to himself: 
 
 "Life is a jest! But never, in my rare, gay 
 moments, did I imagine that Marion Delorme, 
 the courted of her sex, would implore the royal 
 buffoon for the life of man! She who has had 
 so many break their hearts, empty their purses 
 and besmirch their names for hopeless love of 
 her." 
 
 He looked after the form in white, un- 
 mantled, wending its tottering way toward the 
 vast Castle, of which the high walls had been 
 witness of so manv memorable events. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 333 
 
 "A white ;uit that ventures against a granite 
 rock!" commented he. "Whom does sin- ven- 
 ture so much for? 'Didier.' A name of no 
 sense. But an uncommon man! Brave as in y 
 sword, which I shall treasure for his having 
 wielded it. Whom did he look like as he stood 
 up against the flippant Saverny? He wore a 
 royal air — such innate nobilitv as his cannot 
 be hidden under the bushel of 'Didier.' ' 
 
 "What name do vou utter, mv good friend 
 Langely?" 
 
 The jester started. Without any sound a 
 man had come round the post and stood next 
 him. He was attired in a grey robe. 
 
 "Brother Joseph?" exclaimed the jester, with 
 a reverence so low as not to be accorded to 
 higher dignitaries of the realm. 
 
 "What did you say about Didier — a young 
 man of Blois, whose acquaintance you only 
 could have made by accident?" 
 
 The royal jester had to be keen-sighted, since 
 one who jokes at all the world must make 
 enemies. He had long ago judged the Cardi- 
 nal's right hand man correctly. To him Joseph 
 was not a hypocrite in religion, a canting poli- 
 tician or a kind of ogre. 
 
 He perceived that his attachment to his 
 master, to the kingdom and to religion was 
 sincere. 
 
 What the jester liked in him most was his 
 intrepid spirit, of which few of the court in- 
 triguers possessed the like. 
 
 He had already come to the conclusion that 
 Didier was the son of some exalted personage, 
 and this interest of tin 1 Confessor of the Prime 
 Minister confirmed his view. 
 
 He answered, with a softening of his voice, 
 so that Joseph could understand all that hap- 
 
234 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 pened before the Horn of St. Hubert since the 
 banquet. 
 
 "Saverny has been persecuting Marion?'' said 
 the Capuchin, summing up. "He followed her 
 here, and seeing that she had made the ac- 
 quaintance of this Didier, picked a quarrel 
 with him, although Didier had saved his life? 
 Tt is fortunate for the shallow-pate that he 
 was slain!" 
 
 "What warmth!" thought Langely. "To be 
 sure, Saverny is no great friend of mine, but 
 I am not going to deliver him to this tiger in 
 grey, by revealing that I think his fall and 
 death a sham! Let us dry Marion's tears, for 
 I am badlv out in mv forecast unless the Ca- 
 puchin can shield Didier better with his gown 
 than Marion with her mantle!" 
 
 He went on to relate that the watch had 
 come and, while permitting the marquis' 
 friends to carry away his lifeless body, had 
 borne the other antagonist to the Castle as a 
 royal prisoner. 
 
 "Marion has followed, eh?" said Joseph. 
 "Do you think that, at length, she is capable 
 of a true passion?" 
 
 "She loves this man," replied the jester simp- 
 ly. "Who saves her adorer will make her his 
 debtor for life. And Marion, in these times of 
 plot and marplot, is not to be scoffed at!" 
 
 The Capuchin did not remark on this sug- 
 gestion, but abruptly said: 
 
 "Langely, you lent this young man your 
 sword, did you? Ah, listen to what I say: 
 It may be that your sword will stand you in 
 better stead with the Cardinal for its loan 
 than your bauble with the King!" 
 
 With this enigmatical sentence the monk 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 235 
 
 took the road travelled by Didier under escort, 
 and by his mourning flame. 
 
 "Mischief on these plotters and planners, 
 with their oracular riddles;" muttered the jes- 
 ter, fingering his swordhilt nervously. "They 
 spoil one's digestion and they torment the 
 brain. I shall die a Cardinalist, I prophesy, 
 though most of my life a King's man when, 
 the saints know, few are the King's men, and 
 inconstant they! Let me see: There has been 
 a favorite for each of my bells! He took a 
 fancy for his coachdriver, his trainer of the 
 hounds, Luynes because he taught him hawk- 
 ing, Bautru because he carried him on his back 
 over a puddle in the Tuileries gardens — and all 
 cost him a pretty penny. I cost him nothing, 
 for mv salary is alwavs behindhand. They 
 tried to amuse him, not being fools! And I, 
 seeing that he will always be a morose king, 
 keep him low-tuned! You will see that I will 
 be his favorite to the death! That is why the 
 Cardinal, through Brother Joseph, seeks to 
 suborn me! I think that I have done the best 
 night's work of them all by helping this Didier 
 to teach Master Saverny a lesson! Only, is 
 he a protege of Joseph or Armand? This is 
 to be ascertained." 
 
 But he seemed to bear enough on his brain 
 at the moment. He was going to a room lie 
 had prudently retained at the Barleycorn Hos- 
 telry, when an old woman accosted him. 
 
 "Bray you, sir," said she whiningly, "were 
 you not among those Parisian gentlemen who 
 dined at the Hubert's Horn?" 
 
 The jester nodded and disengaged his cloak 
 from her thin, wiry fingers. 
 
 "Then vou would know Mademoiselle Mar- 
 ion?" 
 
236 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Marion Delorme?" said he surprised. "Cer- 
 tainly, I know Mademoiselle Marion! Who 
 does not?" 
 
 "Is she stopping at the Horn?" 
 
 Langely reflected. 
 
 "Why do you inquire about her?" said he 
 guardedly. 
 
 "Because I was her woman, and she left, 
 in a hurried departure from her old quarters 
 by Old Street, a casket of jewelry which I be- 
 lieye she will not be sorry to see again." 
 
 "You pursue her to restore jewelry? Ye 
 stars and planets! look down on this duenna 
 who does not lay up her mistress's valuables 
 for her own old age! My pretty one," con- 
 tinued he, "if you will follow your nose as it 
 points, to-wit, downwards, you will arrive at 
 the Castle. Mademoiselle Marion is at its 
 gates, trying to coax the governor to admit her 
 to see her gallant, locked up there." 
 
 "Master Didier locked up?" 
 
 "Have you not heard that he has been fight- 
 ing a duel, contrary to the express command 
 of the King, countersigned by the Cardinal?" 
 
 "I heard that there was a great to-do at the 
 inn, but — why do you stare so! If I were a 
 young woman, sir — " 
 
 "Oh, you remind me — who the deuce do you 
 remind me of? But, no matter! The Witch 
 of Endor, I suppose," he added to himself as 
 Rose, for it was she, hurried toward the point 
 indicated. "Ever since I consulted that sor- 
 ceress of the Blanchapelle Lane, witches have 
 been my dreams. This old hag — whom does 
 she look like!" 
 
 At the door he paused, clapped his hand to 
 his forehead and said, as he went up the stairs 
 in the dark: 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 237 
 
 "Laffemas! the Cardinal's protege! Laffe- 
 mas, Master of Requests! Lieutenant-Criminal! 
 Secretary to the Council in another week, may- 
 hap. Could she be his grandam? Ah, all 
 
 these rogues have a family likeness. For Laf- 
 femas is a rogue! and I doubt I did Marion a 
 good turn by directing this harridan to where 
 she weeps! All is one, in the end! Of them 
 all, I think I shall sleep the soundest!" 
 
 Indeed, in ten minutes he was snoring like 
 an old boar in his wallow. 
 
 In the meantime the Capuchin had reached 
 the princely fortalice in whose records feasts, 
 tournaments, marriages and crimes of the high 
 and mighty were mingled. 
 
 Marion was in the shadow, w r eeping, as 
 Langely had conjectured, like Valentina of Mi- 
 lan deploring there for her husband assassi- 
 nated by the Duke of Burgundy, or Isabel of 
 Bavaria bewailing the loss of her Chevalier 
 Bois-Bourdon. 
 
 Her historical reading was superficial, but 
 she had heard, from those almost the contem- 
 poraries, of the Duke of Guise butchered by the 
 orders of Henry the III. That gory memory 
 made her shudder. 
 
 She had been warned off by the sentinel who, 
 by order, blew the flame of his arquebuss 
 mat eh, and threatened to shoot if she ap- 
 proached the gate. 
 
 She retired into a natural niche where the 
 crumbling stone had fallen out, and continued 
 her profound sorrowing. 
 
 At this time, how far from possible realisa- 
 tion was the prophecy of the witch of Paris, 
 that she was destined to be happy with the 
 unfortunate young man whose love for her had 
 
238 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE;' 
 
 led to his incarceration within that gloomy 
 edifice? 
 
 Joseph easily discovered her, but the appear- 
 ance of Dame Rose, an unwonted apparition 
 after dark in the city, caused him to draw 
 back. A pile of stone and wood for repara- 
 tion afforded him a shelter and the old woman 
 passed him, unconscious of a third person at 
 this odd interview. 
 
 "Dame Rose!" said Marion when the woman's 
 skinny finger was laid on her arm. 
 
 "Rose?" muttered the monk. "This is her 
 old servant in her former lodgings. What 
 fidelity! to come out on her aged feet after 
 the curfew! There are still faithful servants, 
 then!" 
 
 Faithful or not, Rose did not say a word 
 about the mislaying of jewels which she had 
 pretended to Langely, prompted her to follow 
 her mistress. 
 
 "I heard that there was a duel fought un- 
 der the windows of the Hubert, and that the 
 guards took hither the survivor of the affair. 
 Who is it, mistress? The splendid gallant 
 from Paris, or the moody youth of Blois?" 
 
 "Didier is in there," replied Marion with an 
 effort to be calm. "Rose, you are no innocent, 
 and you have attained a ripe age. How may 
 one, with money and influence, obtain an in- 
 terview with a prisoner! or at least convey 
 him a letter of cheer?" 
 
 Rose meditated. At least, here was a 
 chance of transferring still more to her store 
 from Marion's. 
 
 "Oh, I have a long acquaintance with Blois," 
 returned she, in a cheery voice. "I must know, 
 to speak with, several of the prison warders." 
 
 "Ah!" said Marion, in a sanguine tone. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 239 
 
 "Write the note you spoke of, and I will un- 
 dertake to pass it inside there, spite of the 
 sentinel and his smoking firearm!" 
 
 "I dislike leaving the gate where he went in,'' 
 said the mourner, "but where can I go to write, 
 at this hour?" 
 
 "J went to my own cottage, after you freed 
 me of your service," said the old woman. "It 
 is not far, though without the walls. Have 
 no fear; nothing will be done till daylight, and 
 I think that, as he has transgressed a royal 
 edict, they will send down judges from Paris. 
 All this takes time," said she judiciously, "and 
 with time, and money, which, you say, 3*011 
 have, much may be done." 
 
 "Good ! you restore me hope, my good Rose," 
 cried Marion, taking her by the hand. "To 
 your cottage! If only I can send him a few 
 lines during the day!" 
 
 "You will be remarked in your white dress," 
 said the woman; "take my overskirt which is 
 black, and throw it over your shoulders for a 
 cloak. Pray heaven that we do not meet any 
 prowlers, though, heaven wot! they are quiet 
 since your brave young gentleman gave them 
 a thrashing and broke their captain's neck. 
 La ! How deceiving these quiet young men are ! 
 To think that he killed a valorous robber and 
 this evening, struck down a noble of the court 
 without more ceremony than a glutton wrings 
 the neck of a prawn!" 
 
 The monk had seen and heard all this. He 
 followed the pair stealthily but it was so lonely 
 without the walls that he could not fail to be 
 seen by the sharp-eyed Rose, however inatten- 
 tive was her companion. 
 
 "That is my house," said the woman. "Go 
 right on to it, and open the latch. I will rejoin 
 
240 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 you instantly. I wish to see that vou are not 
 dogged by this shadow of grey, creeping like 
 a monstrous mole in our rear." 
 
 While Marion obeyed, too sorrowful to act 
 otherwise than mechanically, but a little alle- 
 viated by this semblance of a friend — one who 
 had seen Didier and could talk about him, at 
 least ! the brave old woman resolutely returned 
 in her road. 
 
 But the Capuchin had time to execute a 
 slight change in his apparel. He did it in 
 the cover of a pile of ruins, a bastion demol- 
 ished under the royal decree concerning use- 
 less forts. He had simply turned his grey 
 frock insideout and he appeared now as a black 
 friar, or Dominican, to the puzzled eyes of Rose. 
 
 It was he took the lead in challenging. 
 
 "Who are you, citizen or stranger, and what 
 are you doing at this hour under the walls?" 
 
 Rose stammered, woman-like, questioningly: 
 
 "I am an old citizen, and I ought to know 
 you? Who are you, reverend father?" 
 
 "Ah, a devout woman?" said he less sternly. 
 "I was afraid that I had fallen among robbers, 
 especially as you had a young woman with 
 you, and robbers employ such as decoys. But 
 you would not intend harm to one of my cloth, 
 particularly as I have been without the 
 walls on an errand of mercy. One of the rob- 
 bers who waylaid the Marquis of Saverny, not 
 so many nights ago that it can have slipped 
 the recollection of 'an old citizen/ was lodged 
 in the Castle. He is dying of a wound received 
 in the affray from a gentleman named Didier. 
 It appears that this rogue, a play-actor in his 
 less dishonest path," continued the garrulous 
 friar with an ill-disguised sneer, "cut the purse 
 of Master Didier during the affray. I would 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 241 
 
 Dot receive his confession, you understand, 
 while he held the wages of crime; and so he 
 gave me the purse, barring what the warders 
 squeezed out, to be returned to this Didier, 
 whose pardon he entreats." 
 
 "The prison? Are you al (ached to the 
 Castle prison?" queried Rose, fixing her eyes 
 on the speaker. 
 
 Notwithstanding the twilight, not so dark 
 along the river, both studied each other, and 
 came to accurate conclusions. 
 
 "This is a sharp priest!" said the woman. 
 
 "This is a deep villain," said the monk. 
 
 "Since this evening, only," glibly returned 
 the latter. "I came down by the carrier's wa- 
 gon; you would not have me travel post haste, 
 would you, sworn to poverty as I am? I might 
 have travelled in better style," he added, sigh- 
 ing, as if not altogether cut off from mundane 
 luxuries, "if I had agreed to say I was chap- 
 lain to Captain the Count de Gasse, who comes 
 here to join the garrison, but I could not re- 
 peat such a falsehood!" 
 
 Rose sighed and nodded sympathetically. 
 
 "Besides, in the wagon, pillowed on straw, 
 it was perhaps as comfortable as using the 
 chaise, for the captain would have kept it on 
 the gallop, like he does his horse." 
 
 "So you are attached to the prison?"' re- 
 peated the old woman, obstinately. 
 
 "My duties commence to-morrow. I am vi- 
 car to the chaplain. But I am happy to say." 
 he went on self-sufficiently, "that when they 
 pension off the present incumbenl — " 
 
 "Father Eusebius?" 
 
 "That is it. I am sure of the office, for T, 
 look you, good woman, am the appointee of the 
 new Master of the Court of Requests — " 
 
242 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "M. Laffemas, your friend?" cried Rose with 
 animation. 
 
 "My friend! why, I am his instructor in poli- 
 tics! Thanks to Father Luc, his 'good-htck,' 
 he, he! He has risen rapidly! No longer will 
 they call him 'the Cardinal's Headsman,' as 
 they say Father Joseph is his 'Headman' — an- 
 other jest of mine! he, he! At the next pro- 
 motion given him, I will be chaplain to the 
 castle, you will see!" 
 
 While he was rubbing his hands in almost 
 childish glee, Rose muttered: 
 
 "A protege of my grandson's! Good, good! 
 It is a fine thing to have a friend in the pris- 
 on! All is going well!" 
 
 Beaming with satisfaction, she gave a faint 
 chuckle and said, aloud: 
 
 "Father Luc, you are in the way to fill up 
 your alms-purse, and do a kindness to a lady 
 who, I have grounds for believing, is looked 
 upon with favor at the court." 
 
 "Here, at Blois?" said the pretended Domini- 
 can with surprise. 
 
 "If she is here, it is because she is conceiv- 
 ing some plan in support of Prince Gaston's 
 intentions. Yesterday, a party of his adher- 
 ents were over at Chambord, under cloak of 
 killing off the superfluous bucks." 
 
 "Ha!" said the self-appointed prison-chaplain 
 quickly. "And they were on hand to welcome 
 Count Gasse on his coming to enter upon his 
 garrison duties. This looks like a budding 
 conspiracy, forsooth!" 
 
 "Well, be that as it may, this is the point. 
 This lady, from Paris, has a gallant in this 
 town whom she is seeking to shape as a helper 
 in the scheme. nis name, which you have 
 mentioned first, is Didier — " 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 243 
 
 "Didier plotting for Prince Gaston— 
 
 "Who wants his brother Louis removed from 
 the throne, divorced by death, so that he may 
 marry his Queen — ■" 
 
 "Abominable treason," exclaimed the priest. 
 "You are a «jood woman who will not go un- 
 rewarded. Let me haste and advise Master 
 Laffemas!" 
 
 "Wait, wait— this Didier is already caged; 
 he is in the Castle prison — " 
 
 "He is there?" and the friar pointed. "No 
 doubt, no doubt !" 
 
 "Just so, for infringing the fresh-issued 
 royal edict forbidding duelling under pain of 
 death, and death by hanging at that!" 
 
 "I know," said Joseph, with a know-all air, 
 "there are no secrets to my master Laffemas!" 
 
 "Didier. having killed his antagonist, the 
 Marquis of Saverny, has only to await examina- 
 tion. The order for execution must follow." 
 
 ••It preceded it," said the other. "The Edict 
 instructs the judges." 
 
 "But there is often good pickings on a 
 doomed man !" said Rose drily. "This fine lady 
 wishes to correspond with him; and it is un- 
 derstood, even to you churchmen who know 
 so little of the world, he. he!" chuckled the 
 old woman again, "that the post between the 
 imprisoned and their friends outdoors pays a 
 heavier charge than his Majesty's mails." 
 
 The friar laughed. 
 
 "Since he is a ward of mine, this Didier, I 
 can see him as often as I please. If this is 
 clear, you have only to hand me any communi- 
 cation' for him, and stick a gold piece on the 
 wax, to be sure of a reply. All you get above 
 the gold, keep, Dame Rose, while I keep all 
 the postage the gentleman may pay." 
 
244 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 & 
 
 "You can manage that the more readily,'" 
 observed the hag, "as you are his purse-bearer !" 
 
 Both laughed. Seldom had either passed a 
 merrier quarter of au hour. 
 
 Then Rose recollected her mistress, no doubt 
 in tribulation at being so abruptly abandoned 
 bv her recovered friend and servant. 
 
 '"Wait here for the letter," said she. "Be 
 careful, and — who knows? There may be a 
 great reward for us if we baffle the plot." 
 
 "Baffle a plot! That is the business of M. 
 Laffemas," said the grey monk who had be- 
 come a black friar without any ceremony. 
 "We will be enriched for life and he — he will 
 displace M. d'Argenson as Lieutenant-Criminal, 
 take my word for it!" 
 
 He wrapped his gown round him, for the 
 breeze came more chillily off the river, laid 
 his head and shoulders against a tree stump, 
 razed at man's height not to interfere with 
 the line of fire of a culverin on the Castle, and 
 resigned himself to await Rose's return. 
 
 "A consummate villain," he mused in the in- 
 terval. "But I must wait to be sure before I 
 act on this trace. There is a likeness between 
 her and Laffemas in voice, traits, and gestures, 
 which would delight Dr. Letellier, the royal 
 physician, who preaches upon hereditary marks 
 being indelible and everduring. If Laffemas 
 is son of hers, or yet a grandson, then I can 
 break forever the hold which he keeps over the 
 Cardinal." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 345 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OF THE GOOD GUARD OVER HIS MAJESTY'S 
 
 MAILS. 
 
 Letters were veritable compositions in those 
 days, although Marion stood upon no forms in 
 addressing her lover in jeopardy. But Rose 
 had a missive of her own to indite and this 
 took her more time. In fact, she spoiled sev- 
 eral sheets of paper, though a valuable com- 
 modity, before she had completed one to her 
 mind. She put the spoilt paper on a fire of 
 a few sticks which she had kindled on the 
 cold hearth after lighting the two-branched 
 candlestick by which they had done their writ- 
 ing. Marion held out her open hand to her, 
 with coin and a ring on it. 
 
 "Take what you deem sufficient," said she; 
 "and pawn the ring as soon as a goldsmith and 
 moneylender's is open in the day. We must 
 not stint, with M. Didier in peril!'' 
 
 Rose cleared the palm and rapidly left the 
 cottage, bidding Marion make herself at home. 
 She had not breathed a word about her hav- 
 ing already found the messenger. 
 
 The Capuchin-Dominican was still at the 
 spot. He took the golden louis, test€'d it me- 
 chanically between his teeth as most persons 
 did the dubious coin of that day, and took the 
 note which Rose confided to him. 
 
 "Be sure that it falls into the right hands," 
 said she hypocritically. "It was written with 
 
246 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 tears. Never have I seen such pearls from 
 such diamond eyes!" 
 
 "Is not that another letter you have in your 
 tucker?-' said the monk, who must have had 
 good eyes, for the darkness had deepened. 
 
 "Yes," said Rose; "it is for the post. I am 
 writing to a cousin at Grenoble, who thought 
 of coming to my cottage to rent it. But I 
 must harbor that court lady there, d'ye see, so 
 that, in case she must be arrested, we may 
 have the honor of leading the guards to her." 
 
 "The honor!" echoed Joseph, laughing. "By 
 my patron-saint! the royal jester is a dolt com- 
 pared to the old ladies of Blois!" 
 
 He said nothing more about letters, but 
 stepped off toward the Castle as if eager to 
 be there to await the gate-opening. 
 
 Convinced that she had secured a faithful 
 ally, Bose went to the posting-house of the 
 Hubert's Horn and, finding an ostler at the 
 stables, getting ready a horse for an early riser, 
 she induced him for a silvery consideration to 
 accompany her within the house where she de- 
 posited the letter of her own concoction in a 
 box for the purpose. 
 
 "It will not be franked till morning," ex- 
 plained the ostler, "but I will see master and 
 pay him whatever it is charged out of the pis- 
 tole you give me." 
 
 "I make it two," said Rose, "since you are 
 sure it will go." 
 
 "I wish I were as sure of becoming head 
 stableman here." 
 
 "Why not?" said Bose pleasantly. "You are 
 a sharp and obliging fellow, like all Picards." 
 
 "But the head-stableman is a Picard, too," 
 returned the ostler with a grimace. 
 
 In the meantime the Capuchin had proceeded 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 247 
 
 straight to the Castle gates, where lie gave the 
 proper password to the sentinel aDd also in- 
 timated that he wanted speech with the cap- 
 tain of the gate. 
 
 This was all in the line of the guard's duty 
 so he pointed with his arquebuss-butt that the 
 speaker might go on under the frowning arch- 
 way. 
 
 In a room in the hollow abutment half-a- 
 dozen soldiers were nodding as they sat on a 
 long bench; two were sleepily throwing dice 
 on a drumhead, and two more were smoking. 
 The sergeant sat at a desk and seemed rack- 
 ing his brain over a book, exhibiting varied and 
 hopeless caligraphy to drive a reader of palimp- 
 sests frantic. 
 
 At the appearance of a priest where they had 
 expected to see a superior officer at the least, 
 their awakened countenances expressed dis- 
 gust. 
 
 The Capuchin, still a Dominican, went over 
 to the sub-officer at the desk and said famil- 
 iarly: 
 
 "The cream of the morning to you, Sergeant 
 La Bellune, and a pleasant time at Blois!" 
 
 "Father Jo — " stammered the man, dropping 
 his quill which, overladen with ink, inflicted 
 another blot among the many giving the page 
 the appearance of being the target for a dis- 
 charge of a blunderbuss. 
 
 "Hush! I knew you were down here, pre- 
 ceding your captain by a few days to smooth 
 the way for him! Come, come, do not look 
 glum, Hlois is not the Markets Quarter of 
 Paris; but all the saints take not the sunny 
 side of the great avenue in Paradise, and with 
 so many of year comrades here you ought to 
 feel at home." 
 
248 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "What can I do for your Enii — that is. Rev- 
 erence?" said the old soldier, evidently undesir- 
 ous of carrying on a dialogue and checked 
 every now and then in what might be a dis- 
 agreeable revelation by a blink of the eccle- 
 siasticaFs eyes. 
 
 "Take me to the night warder and let him 
 show me the prisoner Didier's cell." 
 
 "A royal prisoner," said the sergeant who 
 had risen with alacrity to oblige but now 
 seemed inclined to drop back into his leather- 
 bottomed stool again. 
 
 "By order of You-know-whom!" said the 
 monk, suddenly slipping a ring upon his finger 
 which had hung among his beads on its string. 
 
 Shaking his finger a little, this ring's stone 
 rattled peculiarly, being a stone loose within 
 a stone, what the ancients called an eagle- 
 stone, with the belief that it contained a magi- 
 cal power, especially when in a ruler's posses- 
 sion. This rarity was known to be Richelieu's, 
 one that he seldom trusted out of sight, though 
 Father Joseph was another self. 
 
 Disrespecting the guardroom diary's parch- 
 ment, he stamped the ringhead upon its face, 
 right on the ink blot, carried the wet bezel to 
 another place less unclean and imprinted the 
 arms of Richelieu thereon. 
 
 It was not chance, but just over this mark 
 was the line, pure phrase of form in a charge, 
 "By order of the King." The sergeant re- 
 garded them as invisibly coupled, and bowed 
 as if the two rulers of France stood before 
 him. 
 
 Rising again, he said: 
 
 "Corporal Longuepec, take my place and see 
 if you can make head or tail of this file of 
 Dutch herrings stood on end — but which my 
 
OR. RICHELIEU DEFIED. 249 
 
 foregoer calls figures of an account! I give 
 my sonl to all the imps if I can understand il ! 
 Come, reverence!" he continued. 
 
 No sooner had the two left the smoky guard- 
 room by an inner door, than one of 'the old 
 garrison asked, turning to his new comrade, 
 for the fort had received a reinforcement of 
 Parisians: 
 
 "Who is this black monk to whom the ser- 
 geant is so civil, he who is, between us, an Eng- 
 lish bulldog for politeness?" 
 
 "That black friar is a grey monk — " 
 
 "A Franciscan?'' 
 
 "Yes, a Capuchin! That is, his Grey Emi- 
 nence!" 
 
 "The Shadow, so to say, of the Card—" 
 
 ''Silence in the ranks," said an old soldier, 
 sternly, and a silence followed, the country 
 soldiers looking awe-stricken at the new draft, 
 to whom the right-hand man of the Minister 
 was known under even a turned coat. 
 
 In half-an-hour afterwards, Joseph came out 
 and quitted the prison; very little was needed 
 to have had the garrison, as represented by the 
 night watch, salute him with royal honors for, 
 in spite of the veteran's hush, the thoroughly 
 awakened men had chatted of the Cardinal 
 and Brother Joseph, with many a legend of the 
 latter. 
 
 The Capuchin, having reversed his gown, 
 reached the Hubert Inn as a man was mount- 
 ing leisurely at the side gate. 
 
 He was clad in blue and wore the fleur-de-lis 
 in silver on his velvet hunting-cap. 
 
 "Are you the courier of the post?" inquired 
 the Capuchin. 
 
 "Yes, your reverence," was the careless an- 
 swer. "Antoine-Louis, at your service." 
 
250 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "The Reverend Father Carre, with whom you 
 once rode to Italy, tells me that you are a 
 devoted man to the State — " 
 
 "Father Carre was good to my father when 
 his barn was struck by lightning; I am de- 
 voted to Father Carre — " 
 
 "And to the King and State—" 
 
 "To the King, the State, the Cardinal and the 
 rest of the Royal Family!" returned the man, 
 joyously. 
 
 "Then you know this?" showing him in the 
 ray of a lantern swinging at the stable gate, the 
 ring which had convinced Sergeant La Bellune, 
 and ringing it like a little bell. 
 
 "I know it, and I obey." 
 
 "Father Carre took you along with him as 
 a pleasant travelling-companion?" queried the 
 Capuchin. 
 
 "Not altogether that," replied the rider 
 frankly and with conceit, "but I am a bit of 
 a politician and he wanted to sound me on 
 the policy of turning out the Jesuits." 
 
 "Indeed?" said the other, surprised. 
 
 "Yes; I ride over a good piece of the country; 
 I chat with innkeepers and their servants, trav- 
 ellers, drovers, cottagers, with whom I stop 
 when my horse casts a shoe or breaks a rein; 
 so I was able to assure Father Carre that the 
 Jesuits bore no good name except as excellent 
 instructors of the youth; but as these youth 
 were the sons of the county families, the peo- 
 ple knew no good of them. If the Cardinal 
 revenged himself for their writing pamphlet* 
 against him by ridding the kingdom of them by 
 means of thePope's mandate, why! the pens- 
 ants would not shed blood for them, nor tears 
 when they packed up." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 251 
 
 "That is how you came to go all the way to 
 Rome with him?" 
 
 "Faith, reverend father, to toll the truth as 
 if I wore at confession," said the man merrily 
 and bravely, for he began to suspect that he 
 was being tried, "I have to howl with the 
 wolves after dark or I should be waylaid on the 
 road when I carry the family jewels to Paris 
 for resetting, for the daughter's marriage! I 
 mean that I nurse the acquaintance of such 
 illustrious highwaymen as Captain Malargne, 
 alias the Flayer, who I hear is dead of a 
 broken neck; another Captain — the playactor 
 Lorient alias the Matamore, who is in prison 
 down there, and others who would not be fa- 
 mous to vour reverence. Therefore, having an 
 inkling of this acquaintanceship, the w r orthy 
 father engaged me, tacitly, to keep off these 
 gentry who line the road to Rome!" 
 
 "Yon are a valuable man," said Joseph em- 
 phatically. "What is your ambition?" 
 
 The man did not hesitate. He felt that his 
 hour to strike the iron was come and he should 
 make the lucky horseshoe or maul the metal 
 in vain. 
 
 "To marry the niece of Daddy Horion of the 
 Hubert's Horn and succeed the old fellow, who 
 is an excellent cook but no host. In short, 
 with my savings, to show three hundred gold 
 louis." 
 
 "Friend Antoine-Louis, you shall have five 
 hundred, I pledge!"' 
 
 "Order of the State?" 
 
 "Under the King's name, and by order of 
 the Minister. Now, what is your route to Paris 
 with the mailbag?" 
 
 "I do not go over the bridge, because my 
 horse shies at the new planks in the footway, 
 
252 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 and I strike in upon the highway at yonder 
 young oakwood," he continued, pointing with 
 his short-handled whip. 
 
 "That suffices. I will await you in that little 
 wood." 
 
 "What the deuce does the Grey Eminence 
 want to waylay the mail carrier for?" grumbled 
 the courier; but he did not say a word about 
 the interview on getting the bag from the host 
 or when asked if all were right, on his being 
 handed the traditional stirrup-cup. 
 
 In the oak grove the Capuchin was placidly 
 waiting, seated on a mossy stone just off the 
 track. 
 
 "Dismount and hand me the bag," said he. 
 
 Antoine-Louis obeyed more readily than he 
 would the captain of a band of highwaymen, 
 for he was brave, and without more than a 
 slight convulsion of his features saw the monk, 
 with quickness and dexterity, open the bag 
 by passing a knife, heated in a diabolical in- 
 vention of a pocket spirit-lamp, novel to the 
 courier, through the massy wax seal and undo 
 a knot to which Gordius' was simplicity. 
 
 He took out the letters by handfuls but 
 stopped half-way, extricated one from the 
 mass, opened it as skilfully as the bag, and 
 perused it to himself. 
 
 "Heavens!" said he, without moving his lips, 
 so that the mail-carrier might imagine it was 
 done by an automaton with a wax face. "Rose 
 is mother of this Laffemas! She is the woman 
 who 'mothered' the poachers at Richelieu and 
 to whom was confided Rami re! 'My son!' she 
 calls him 'her son/ as plainly as the three let- 
 ters can speak. Besides, she rejoices in his 
 station, and in the degree I promised him! It 
 is her son! And she begs him to hurry down 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 253 
 
 to lilois to sec thai Didier's execution is carried 
 out. This love of Laffemas — this bloodthirsty 
 desire to be rid of Didier — I need be no necro- 
 mancer to divine the problem. Didier living is 
 a menace to Laffemas, who is no progeny of the 
 Cardinal! They made him believe that Ramire 
 gave birth to a son. and that Laffemas is that 
 child. Was there a child? And is Didier—? 
 At all events, Didier must not die!" 
 
 The courier had calmly smoked a pipe while 
 this transgression was going on. With the 
 same peace he watched the Cardinal's agent re- 
 store the letters to the sack, and renew the 
 sealing. He was letting the letter which he 
 had read go with the rest so that there was 
 no abstraction to complain of. 
 
 "This is for the needle and thread to repair 
 the rent," said he. giving the man a gold piece. 
 "Resume your journey; and, one of these days, 
 when I stop at the Hubert, Father Joseph will 
 expect to have the new host and his wife wait 
 on him at his table." 
 
 "The best of the house, reverence! The 
 cream, Emi — " 
 
 "'Sh! woods have leaves which some men 
 can read, these days!" 
 
 "If I should be questioned about the delay — " 
 
 "Ply the whip and spur and make it up!" 
 
 "The opened bag?" 
 
 "It was by oidcr of the King and for the 
 welfare of the Stale!" 
 
 Joseph returned to the city. 
 
 The courier galloped oil', muttering: 
 
 "For 'the State' read 'Richelieu!' It strikes 
 me that I put my first step on the golden lad- 
 der when I rode to Rome with Old Father 
 Carre!" 
 
254 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NO HUNGER LIKE THAT FOR A PENSION. 
 
 After turning his "Joseph's coat" so as to 
 present himself once more as a black friar, 
 the Capuchin asked at the prison gates, this 
 time, for the chaplain. His Dominican brother 
 was in the sick ward. This was in the east 
 turret, for isolation's sake. Joseph went to 
 him and showed such proofs of his appoint- 
 ment to take his active duties that on his re- 
 turn to the prison, with the doctor called to 
 see his patient's progress, and the governor, 
 summoned to witness the transfer, he was 
 placed as spiritual controller. 
 
 In company with the doctor and a turnkey, 
 for opening the communicating doors, massive- 
 ly protected, he made the rounds of his new do- 
 main. 
 
 ''This/' said he, at one point, a grated win- 
 dow allowing a view of the Castle inner gar- 
 dens, where princesses had promenaded in the 
 halcyon days, "this is rather a parlor than a 
 cell. A state prisoner — that is, a noble?" 
 
 The doctor laughed. 
 
 "It is a state prisoner, sure enough, but his 
 nobility is in doubt. He is that young man, 
 Didier, who slew the Marquis of Saverny in 
 a duel, in the teeth of the decree against such 
 practices. As he is doomed by that very Edict 
 to death by strangulation, the governor kindly 
 consigned him to the most agreeable place of 
 sojourn for the few hours remaining him. We 
 await advices from Paris." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 255 
 
 "A duellist? And the door not guarded? 
 said the new chaplain surprisedly. 
 
 The warder jangled his bunch of keys, almost 
 a cartload. 
 
 "Oh, he is no trouble. He is, on the con- 
 trary, so taciturn that I ordered his cravat to 
 be taken away. He may meditate suicide!" 
 
 "I should like to see the moody young man," 
 said Joseph. 
 
 •Certainly. Ranulphe, open the peeping- 
 wicket." 
 
 The turnkey slid aside the small trap-door in 
 the large one, and Joseph looked into the cell, 
 comfortable as cells go, upon the young man 
 in whom he had shown material interest when 
 he fought with Malargue for the first time. 
 
 Didier heard the grating of the panel, but, 
 save a slight shrug of the shoulders, continued 
 looking out of the small window on the fig- 
 trees in the garden, without curiosity, and with 
 only that contempt being manifested. 
 
 "Morose, silent, scornful! Doctor, this is 
 rather a patient than a prisoner! He is going 
 melancholy mad!" 
 
 "Oh, if he is sickening into anything, it is 
 the jail fever. We had a bad outbreak at the 
 last assizes. A prisoner, the bandit who was 
 a playactor and who was brought here, 
 wounded after an affray in which that poor 
 Saverny was maltreated, has a touch of it, and, 
 I hear, the judges will not be sorry if a com- 
 mission is sent down to take the special cases." 
 
 "I remember the fever of two vears back," 
 interposed the turnkey with an old function- 
 ary's familiarity; "the prisoners died like sheep 
 and the city paid ten crowns per day for posies 
 of medicinal herbs to be placed before the 
 judges." 
 
256 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "It seems to me that a young: swordsman 
 may well look pale with nothing to gaze upon 
 but a plot of Mariets and Mart- golds!" said the 
 friar with an emphasis on the "Marie" in the 
 names of the two flowers which he cited, mak- 
 ing Didier start. One more obtuse might have 
 taken the hint that here was a friend in the 
 secret of his passion. 
 
 "Pale?" repeated the doctor, somewhat rude- 
 ly displacing the monk to put his eye to the 
 wicket. "Yes — no! decidedly he has a color! 
 Hum! it would be an unpardonable fatality if 
 he were carried away before the judge from 
 Paris came to try his case — and impolite!" 
 
 "Unpardonable?" questioned Joseph. 
 
 "Yes, they would never forgive the prison 
 doctor if he let the fever cheat the Executioner, 
 especially when the Executioner is the Cardi- 
 nal's own — " 
 
 "M. Laffemas?" 
 
 "An old enemy of mine! And I care not who 
 hears it!" 
 
 The warder had prudently hurried up the 
 passage. 
 
 "Will you finish the round to-day?" said the 
 doctor, dully, as if regretting his frankness. 
 
 "Are there many vet to be seen?" 
 
 "Only the common herd! petty offenders! 
 Except the playactor, who is amusing, as he 
 frets and vociferates mouthfuls of the passing 
 kind of tragedy." 
 
 "In a fever, too?" said the monk, with signifi- 
 cance. 
 
 "Yes, he has a fever! He will drink, and he 
 is wounded. If he had fought a duel, he might 
 also cheat the headsman." 
 
 "I will see no more until after breaking mv 
 fast!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 257 
 
 "Not breakfasted? Come and have breakfast 
 with me! I can promise you a feast! The new 
 Captain Gasse, who is related to my own fam- 
 ily, the Themines, kindly inaugurated his join- 
 ing the garrison by sending me some venison, 
 killed by his friends in the Forest, and a basket 
 of wine! We are out of the warder's hearing — 
 you are not an Abstcmist Father?" 
 
 "This is actually the feast day of St. Domi- 
 nick!" said Joseph with an air which might 
 appear jolly to one who knew ecclesiasticals 
 well. 
 
 "Good! you will be a favorite in this Castle!" 
 
 The doctor had a suite of pleasant rooms 
 about which he narrated a story or two of the 
 royal personages previously occupying it. 
 
 "This young old man is soured," said Joseph 
 to himself. "He must have been disappointed 
 in something." 
 
 They sat down to a copious dinner, rather 
 than breakfast. The monk knew how to please 
 the Breton, for such, without his revelation, 
 by the round head, thick-set frame, jovial man- 
 ners, and loud voice, he might have been 
 guessed to be. He ate and drank heartily. 
 
 "Zookers!" cried the doctor in delight. 
 "Worse companions than you have been car- 
 dinals! but what can you expect under a con- 
 sumptive King and a Cardinal who thinks more 
 of turning a verse than furthering the real sci- 
 ences useful to man and the kingdom." 
 
 "I know something of the court," observed 
 Joseph, gravely. "In time, I have seen many 
 comments on the Minister revoked. Has he not 
 established an Academy of the Arts and Sci- 
 ences?" 
 
 "He ought to do more for medicine, an ailing 
 
258 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Minister of an ailing King, all of an ailing 
 kingdom!" 
 
 "What do you personally complain of, dear 
 host?" asked the Capuchin, slowly sipping the 
 wine. 
 
 "That I cannot get any hearing for my plea. 
 I have written no end of petitions, with proofs 
 in support, which would fill our moat, showing 
 that I am not ignorant of the Pest and its work. 
 I say that it has its origin beyond Marseilles, 
 where all researches stop, and I am willing, 
 if my expenses are paid, to cross to Africa and 
 go into that unknown world to seek the source 
 of this deadly stream, the Plague." 
 
 "Let me see, as a Breton, you would be fond 
 of voyages?" said Joseph drolly. 
 
 "Oh, I am not of the maritime districts. 
 Well, I like travel, but I love science. Ensure 
 me my outlay, with a position that will enable 
 me to call on France in distress and danger to 
 my mission, and I undertake to supply our phy- 
 sicians with means to combat the cruellest 
 enemy of civilisation." 
 
 "I thought the great wars — " 
 
 "Wars of man, great? There are few war- 
 riors but who spare some creatures — but the 
 Plague — plague on it! it sweeps away all, 
 learned and loon, child and centenarian, states- 
 man and petty clerk! Let the faculty but know 
 how to cope with the great Pest and the minor 
 disorders will be rooted out, by another cen- 
 tury!" 
 
 "What answer did you get to your petitions?" 
 
 "Silence! the great wet-blanket by which in- 
 ventors are smothered by jacks-in-office! Pri- 
 vately, I received a hint that I had best not fly 
 over the underlings' heads — " 
 
 "I was just going to say, write to the Chief 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 259 
 
 of the State, that is to him next the Chief, 
 since the King docs little outside of his prov- 
 ince — to Richelieu." 
 
 "They tell me not to do so; for, twenty years 
 ago, my brother killed his elder brother in a 
 duel." * 
 
 "Thymines! ah, vou would be that The- 
 mines?" said Joseph. "But the great man has 
 a noble heart. Did he not make your father 
 Governor of Brittany?" 
 
 "Yes; the old gentleman thinks, to conciliate 
 him; he is as obstinate as — as — a Breton." 
 
 "Richelieu bears him, or you, no grudge. 
 Hark ye, doctor, I have the ear of one of his 
 confessors, Father Carre, of my own brother- 
 hood. The Minister shall hear of you and your 
 project. Father of Mercy! if the statesman 
 can be so wroth with the duellists for depriv- 
 ing the State of subjects, how glad should he 
 be towards one who, by crippling the 
 Plague—" 
 
 "Throttling it!" said the doctor, holding up 
 his glass. 
 
 "Would double the number of lives in the 
 realm?" 
 
 "Tripling — what do I say — quintupling! I 
 will prove this by the mortality tables!" 
 
 ".Make up a packet of your treatises, and I 
 will wrap round them a letter to Father 
 Carre." 
 
 "It was a blessed day when you were ap- 
 pointed to the Castle!" cried Doctor Themines 
 enthusiastically. 
 
 "You are good to say so. So you can com- 
 bat the Plague?" 
 
 "Not yet! but I can make head against its 
 minor manifestations — " 
 
 "As—" 
 
260 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "The prodromae fevers — the precursory fe- 
 vers — " 
 
 "Jail-fever, with which that worthy turnkey 
 was so engrossed that he forgot manners and 
 discipline?" 
 
 "Jail-fever? to be sure. Now, that ambula- 
 tory Thespian, the Matamore — he has jail-fe- 
 ver. But if I were to tell the truth, there 
 would be a panic in the Castle. Very likely the 
 judge from Paris would not come." 
 
 "My friend, a judge who scents blood, always 
 comes to his seat." 
 
 "Oh, you think they will send a hanging 
 judge?" 
 
 "As surely as your patient Matamore has the 
 jail-fever!" 
 
 "Which is, the Plague in a minor form." 
 
 "It follows that if the Matamore had a re- 
 lease, you would expedite his liberation that 
 he might not infect the Castle?" 
 
 "I should like to study his case, but — " 
 
 "Since that would make a pest-house of the 
 Castle, keep aloof the judge and his train, 
 whose coming, to say nothing of the sight-seers 
 brought hither, would enrich Blois, you sink 
 yourself and let him go with his play-acting 
 tribe. The plague is nothing new among vag- 
 rants and vagabonds, all know!" 
 
 "Who is likely to release that robber?" 
 
 "Judge Laffemas, of course — " 
 
 The doctor leant back in his chair. He 
 laughed roughly. 
 
 "That tiger — that monster relent, sign an 
 order of release? — Mv friend, vou are mislead- 
 ing; you are not in touch with the court!" 
 
 "Laffemas will release this vagabond be- 
 cause he does not want to enter prisons where 
 the jail-fever, otherwise Pest, is lurking." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 261 
 
 "Good! I recant! the poor devil, who, all 
 things considered, only tried t<> cut a purse 
 and a throat, will go along with his dramatic 
 friends, infecting them, perhaps — " 
 
 "Perhaps be cured by the open-air life! You 
 know we monks are Peripatetics? are we ill? 
 'Let him take a walk!' says the abbot! It is 
 true that our curative walks sometimes extend 
 into Asia or Canada; but we are cured T" 
 
 "If a release order comes for Master Mata- 
 more, depend on my facilitating his departure." 
 
 "And I! all the more as, between ourselves, 
 the encouragement of even itinerant players is 
 no harm in one who seeks a favor of the ruling 
 powers." 
 
 "Does the sullen, apathetic King favor the 
 drama? I thought his ideas rose no higher 
 than the ballet! is not La Mermaison his pet 
 amusement on the stage?" 
 
 "The King does incline to dancers," said Jos- 
 eph gravely, holding out his glass for more 
 wine, having successfully emptied the other 
 under the table; "but I was speaking of the 
 Cardinal." 
 
 "Yes, he writes tragedies!" 
 
 ''And is drumming up France for actors! 
 Mark, you recommend yourself by assisting, in 
 the retention on the great stage of Life, of even 
 one actor. This humble Matamore mav be the 
 'villain' he requires for his piece!" 
 
 "I would open the door to Matamore with my 
 own hand!" cried the Breton, rising. 
 
 "Wait ! Meanwhile, study the map of Africa; 
 you shall trace the Pest to its place of genesis! 
 the petition, the proofs — " 
 
 With unsteady foot the Breton crossed the 
 room, and with unsteady hand took some pa- 
 pers out of a press in the solid wall. 
 
262 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Here they are: a spare petition, which only 
 requires my hand — " 
 
 He filled in the blank with wine lees instead 
 of ink. 
 
 "These are tractates in support — stay — this 
 is one anent Suicide — " 
 
 "Let me — ah! what a superior thesist you 
 are! what lucidity and compactness! if only 
 that young gentleman doomed for duelling 
 were to read this, I am sure he would renounce 
 the thought of self-murder which is in his eye, 
 and meet the noose with resignation." 
 
 "Give it to him, as you go down! give it 
 him — " 
 
 "Will it not look odd, a chaplain so new in 
 his office, transmitting papers to a prisoner — " 
 
 "Not a jot! but — stay!" added he with a 
 bright gleam and laughing at his own bril- 
 liancy; "it will look more professional if we 
 send it round a potion as a double dose. Moral 
 and Corporeal, so all medicines should be!" 
 
 He spilt some powder out of a jar upon the 
 pamphlet, folded the latter up deftly, tied it 
 and sealed it, and said, as he handed it, with 
 the other papers, to his new friend: 
 
 "That to the morose prisoner! the ginger 
 will enliven him and the tract fortify him! that 
 voung man will tread the scaffold as in a dauc- 
 ing measure!" 
 
 "And we will clear the prison of that pesti- 
 lential tragedian?" 
 
 "It is understood. I wish I could see you 
 down the stairs. But those confounded spiral 
 stairs! the wonder of stair-building, for Blois, 
 and the misery of my head, after venison! sin- 
 gular to say, I can grapple with the Plague, 
 but so trivial a puzzle as why eating venison 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 263 
 
 should make my bead swim? — that baffles my 
 science." 
 
 Father Joseph bowed himself out and de- 
 scended alone. 
 
 He was not left lo lose himself, for the war- 
 der was patiently waiting at the foot of the 
 winding steps. 
 
 News pertaining to menials travels quickly in 
 their world, and already it was a most remote 
 nook of the vast fortalke where it was not 
 breathod that the new chaplain carried with 
 him the favor, at least of Father Joseph, the 
 alter ego of his "Red Eminence." 
 
 But the turnkey took care not to be too 
 deferential. It was not easy to say that he had 
 altered, but the Capuchin perceived all. 
 
 "Show me to the room provided for the new 
 chaplain," said he. 
 
 The man was disappointed : he had evidently 
 expected something more theatrical — more in 
 keeping with the mysterious romance sur- 
 rounding his Grey Eminence. 
 
 They went on silently for some paces. Sud- 
 denlv the monk cried: "Stay! I had forgotten." 
 
 He took out from under his robe the packet 
 confided to him by Doctor Themines for Paris, 
 and, then, the smaller one, the pamphlet en- 
 wrapping the powder. 
 
 He fumbled with them both for a moment, 
 then said: 
 
 "The doctor gave me this for your gentle- 
 man-duellist — " 
 
 "No. 7 of the Garden Ward?" 
 
 "Didier." 
 
 "It is the same!" 
 
 "It is a potion to cheer him out of his melan- 
 choly." 
 
 "Poor young man! I will give it him with 
 
264 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 pleasure. And yet, what is the odds? I ai§ 
 not with those who think a man should die 
 capering, in his finest clothes, and with a jest 
 or a snatch of a love song! It is a long journey 
 to the Judgment Seat, with, perhaps, plenty of 
 time to change your tune on the road!" 
 
 Joseph went on steadily, while the jailer 
 thrust the packet in at Didier's door by the 
 panel. 
 
 The Capuchin, shown his room, asked for 
 writing materials and proceeded to compose 
 a report for Paris. He enclosed the papers on 
 behalf of Themines' project and wrote this line 
 for the Cardinal, as to Laffemas: 
 
 "Let me have Superior Order to release one 
 Diego, alias the Matamore, under examination 
 for brawling and robbery with violence. He 
 is dying of fever from drink and wounds and 
 mav as well (iie outside of the Castle walls. In 
 three days, not before, Laffemas may come to 
 try the survivor of the duel infringing the 
 Edict." 
 
 When the jailer, going down past Didier's 
 prison-room, peeped in, as was his duty, but he 
 did it from curiosity, he saw a great change in 
 him. 
 
 "Decidedly, we have a good chaplain," said 
 he, "but our doctor, too, can operate miracles! 
 how joyous the Doomed Duellist is!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 265 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CUPID CAGED. 
 
 Didier had, upon the first knowledge of the 
 visitors, been absent-minded; but the twice- 
 niention of "Marie,'' in the guarded way, had 
 excited him; he reasoned that this strange 
 priest was no enemy, and he awaited develop- 
 ment of his wary introduction. 
 
 On receiving the powder from the doctor, 
 and his tract, he certainly pushed them aside 
 with scorn; but, at the same instant, his lip 
 ceased to curl for he had perceived, between 
 the somewhat yellow edges of the printed pa- 
 per, a slip more white. He made sure that he 
 was unobserved and pulled out this inserted 
 communication. 
 
 Marion's hand! he kissed it and was amazed, 
 happy and vexed at his having despaired. 
 
 "The abyss was deep into which I was 
 plunged, but she is willing to try to cross it on 
 that bridge which love throws over profundity 
 and distances immense, narrower than the 
 sword-edge on which the sons of Mahound cross 
 into Paradise. Wretch that I am, descending 
 so low, and letting her fold her wings and drop 
 to the bottom beside me! Alas! my destiny has 
 entangled her chain of life and she will be 
 crushed with me." 
 
 He had persuaded himself that he was ac- 
 cursed, the most disinherit t'd of men born to a 
 lot in heaven! 
 
 Most foundlings are fain to indulge in the 
 conceit that their origin is exalted, at least on 
 
266 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 one side. Whenever those accidents befall 
 them, during which they are saved from pov- 
 erty or peril by what one styles a special provi- 
 dence — so vain are we to think that even social 
 gravitation may be suspended in our instance! 
 — these unhappy creatures thank their guard- 
 ian angel — father or mother — whose spirit they 
 believe is beside them. 
 
 Didier dwelt in this error. He would have 
 been outrageous towards one who told him 
 that with a peasant's rearing he would have 
 thought like a peasant. His instructor had 
 said that all men were born equal and that 
 education made the differences; but at the 
 same time this worthy man dilated on the ad- 
 vantages of class, and sought to have his pupil 
 become a "gentleman." 
 
 "Marie" had crossed his path and fallen into 
 it, keeping step with him, like this spirit made 
 visible. Sooner than attribute to the messen- 
 ger transmitting her letter so ingeniously, the 
 superior place, he would ignore that his par- 
 ents might be seeking him, and give gratitude 
 to Marion for all. 
 
 "As all on earth were striking at me," he 
 mused, "repulsing me and driving me into ex- 
 ile, she came as my solace, my hope and my 
 enlightener as to what home may be. What a 
 heart she has, so full of adroitness and love as 
 to solve the problem of conveying a letter to a 
 man in the condemned hold ! Her lines console 
 and sustain me! if I am to be delivered, it will 
 be by her!" 
 
 The jailer, passing, saw him wreathed in 
 smiles. 
 
 "Weak woman, she will save me from my im- 
 mediate doom, perchance! but can she save 
 one so wicked and unfortunate, from my later 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 2G7 
 
 destiny? Yet the fortune-teller assured her 
 that we should be happy together! that for- 
 tune-teller, whose trickery I know! Am I to be- 
 lieve in jugglery for which I played the accom- 
 plice? But, whatever Marie's success in deliv- 
 ering me, at least, she shows pity for the poor 
 oppressed lonely one! All hated me, and she 
 loves! 
 
 "Is it possible, though, that at the same time 
 as I am plunged into prison, she still offers me 
 her heart, what happiness she may obtain, 
 what property she possesses, and her youth and 
 beauty? Oh, prodigal to me, a prisoner under 
 the halter, of gifts which would be stintedly 
 paid for by the wealth of a kingdom! If I es- 
 cape with my life," he went on, hanging with 
 both hands to the window bars and peering 
 out on the garden and up at the sky between 
 the grey towers, where the swallows flitted and 
 stole threads from the banners to line their 
 nests, "If I leave this stone cage a free man, 
 what can I offer her in return for so much? 
 so little — nothing but madness and poverty! If 
 heaven brought her to me, it is the other place 
 where we must dwell! What an unequal por- 
 tion! She has never done evil enough to merit 
 that ! I never have done good enough to merit 
 her!" 
 
 A flourish of trumpets on the esplanade with- 
 out the garden wall, reminded him of the royal 
 proclamation, the crowd and the Parisian gal- 
 lants, the quarrel and the duel. 
 
 It seemed to him that all was to occur 
 again, but the voice that arose, though the 
 same town-crier's that he had heard, had de- 
 graded. Town-criers are but human, and 
 change with the day; this one who had bawied 
 the royal mandate the other time, now repeated 
 
268 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the high-strung harangue of an itinerant show. 
 
 "By permission of the Mayor, the Burgesses, 
 the Governor, and the Nobility and Gentry of 
 Blois, I have the honor to state that the illus- 
 trious troupe of Master Mondori, of the Drap- 
 ers' Close, Pont Neuf, Paris, will give three — 
 three — three days' performances, several times 
 a-day, on the Grand Square. Hear me!" 
 
 Didier laughed bitterly. 
 
 "If a ticket came to me as easily as this 
 note — " and again he kissed Marion's note, "I 
 should be wanting at this dramatic feast! I 
 shall be hanged, and the crowd that saw me 
 dance in air will turn to these players and, per- 
 haps, see my story on the stage! No, I will 
 live for her! I will add a fresh chapter to my 
 drama, at all events! Men have 'scaped from 
 prisons to which this solid Castle was a wicker 
 basket! Oh, Marie, my treasure from which 
 these irons keep me! but not for long! You are 
 my fortune, love, welfare, glory and virtue! 
 "Without you, a worm — with your light, a star 
 that has fallen into the mire but struggles, 
 rises, leaps and climbs to bear the reflected 
 lustre where man shall see it! I will escape!" 
 
 But in vain did he search every corner and 
 crack — nothing but the swallows of the Castle 
 could be free in their going and coming. 
 
 "Impossible! I must owe my escape to her! 
 I must yield to woman's influence, wit and dar- 
 ing, for I cannot save myself!" 
 
 He heard unusual going and coming in the 
 prison, the swish of brooms, the washing of 
 water, the removal of cobwebs, the illumina- 
 tion of dark corners where plaster was hurried 
 ly smeared. 
 
 "What is this turmoil for?" he inquired of his 
 turnkey. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. B69 
 
 "Visitors from Paris, sir! the judges are 
 coming to try your case! Whal an event for 
 Blois! people will flock in from the country 
 almost as they did long ago to see the corpse 
 of the murdered Duke of Guise! Ah, but we 
 will not all live to see it!" 
 
 "I will, for one," said Didier with mock gai- 
 ety. "The judge is one figure in the phantasma- 
 goria, the headsman another, and, I think, the 
 victim another — quite as indispensable!" 
 
 '•Truly, you are right, my gentleman! they 
 will come to see you. I only meant that your 
 fellow prisoner, fellow from being in this ward, 
 for he is not gentlefolks — the player Matamore, 
 he will be dead in forty hours, so says the doc- 
 tor." 
 
 "Poor man!" said Uidier, inattentively. 
 
 ''Dying from fever after swordwounds which 
 he tried to cure by some witch's ointment in- 
 stead of applying "to the regular salvers. As 
 for me, let me go regularly out of life! some 
 people, though, will live oddly and so die. It 
 is a certainty," added the warder, seeing that 
 his auditor was listless. "For he has written 
 farewell to his sweetheart — " 
 
 "Ah!" cried Didier, turning his head, his eye 
 blazing. 
 
 "I thought that would prick him!" muttered 
 the other. ''This young man was not moping 
 because he is doomed to the death, but love- 
 sick. Love is like a cordial to these of a loving 
 age! As I was a-saying, sir, this Matamore 
 writes to one Louisette, maid to a famous 
 soothsayer of Paris, one who foretold Chalais' 
 death on the scaf — hem! if she wants to see 
 him alive, she is to travel like a royal courier! 
 Louisette must be a common name in town, 
 sir," went on the talkative functionary, "for 
 
270 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE;' 
 
 that arch-rogue, his superior officer in brigan- 
 dage, Captain Malargue, whose account you or 
 the Marquis de Saverny helped to settle, he 
 used to toast 'Louisette' in his cups!" 
 
 Didier bit his lips. Was he to be tormented 
 by the phantoms of all these knaves, just be- 
 cause he had honored them by crossing swords 
 with them? 
 
 "This man is dying, then?" 
 
 "Unless Louisette brings the royal release 
 with her," laughed the man, "which is not very 
 likely! he will be buried in the corner we re- 
 serve for the criminals here departing. It will 
 be an occasion for the new chaplain to show 
 how well he can preach a funeral sermon." 
 
 "The new chaplain?" 
 
 "The Dominican monk who accompanied our 
 doctor." 
 
 "Ah!" and Didier sighed, for an attache of 
 the prison was not, he feared, so useful to him, 
 as one who had free egress. 
 
 "Oh, he is as good as a Capuchin any day!" 
 said the man with a peculiar look which his 
 charge did not appreciate, not being in the 
 open secret among the officials that his Grey 
 Eminence was pro-tempora acting for the chap- 
 lain on the sick list. 
 
 Didier looked up; it was not he who hurt the 
 Matamore, at least. 
 
 "So this poor fellow is dying of his wounds?" 
 
 "Not from those received the other night, 
 when his gang was dispersed by the Marquis 
 de Saverny, and his leader slain; but old ones 
 re-opening; these rascals have their skin traced 
 over with gash and slash like a tattooed sailor, 
 and I have seen them, at Toulon, where I was 
 overseer of the rowers." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 271 
 
 His hearer felt relieved: this death fell to 
 the score of Abbe de Gondi. 
 
 "I hope this Louisette will come to smooth 
 his pillow," said he, with some deeper feeling. 
 
 "He will be a loss," continued the turnkey, 
 loitering by the door, having finished tidying 
 up the room. 
 
 "I dare say, to his thieving community." 
 
 "No, no, no! to the stage, I mean. A com- 
 pany has come to town — these gentry scent a 
 fair or an execution, for they always pitch 
 their tents where a crowd gathers! a company 
 that counted on having this very actor for their 
 Hector! He was the first person they asked 
 for, before going to beg the favor of the Mayor 
 and the Corporation." 
 
 The prisoner made no reply. 
 
 "They did not seem surprised, I am told, at 
 their comrade being in prison! what unhappy 
 beings! half their life in jail — although," said 
 the man, laughing abruptly, "it is my life, come 
 to think of it! but, then, I am paid for it! 
 which alters the case! Oh, if you do not object, 
 Master Didier, they will be shifting you into 
 another room when you return from your walk 
 to-morrow! this is a hint I give you — for I 
 ought not to say a word. You understand! if 
 you meditated escape, and had tried to wrench 
 out those bars, ha, ha! all would be discov- 
 ered." 
 
 "Change my room?" 
 
 "Whv, yes! you can hardly vet have got to 
 like it! like the prisoner of the Old Chatelet 
 who, let out by the coming to the throne of his 
 present Majesty! and that causing the usual 
 general deliverance, did not know where to go 
 to, in Paris, and asked to pass the nights in the 
 guardhouse!" 
 
272 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "It is a matter of indifference to me," re- 
 sponded Didier, although the idea struck him 
 that this either traversed some plan of his only 
 friend, Marion, or, to look on the bright side, 
 assisted towards its result. 
 
 "You see, they do not want to bring the 
 judge, who may wish privately to see his pris- 
 oner, where the fever-stricken patient lies," 
 said the warden, looking wise. 
 
 The next day, when Didier returned within- 
 doors from a daily tour of the gardens, this 
 same warder, wearing a portentous air of mys- 
 tery and wonder, led him in another direction 
 than heretofore. He was ushered into a room 
 very poor indeed compared with that he 
 quitted. 
 
 While not knowing that, usually, the con- 
 demned are granted favors rather than denied 
 them, Didier stopped on the sill at this sordid 
 sight and said: 
 
 "What means this? this is not only the mean- 
 er cell, but it is, unless I was misinformed by 
 you yourself, that occupied bj T your Matamore, 
 the dying one! Is he dead? is it as a foretaste 
 that I am given the dead man's cell, before the 
 scent of death has been swept out of it?" 
 
 "Poor young gentleman!" said the turnkey 
 to himself. "They have not given him the clue! 
 Oh, well, let me play my part! there is a golden 
 guerdon at the end of my task, or I mistake my 
 man!" 
 
 He gently pushed Didier into the apartment, 
 and said with a loud and forcedly merry voice: 
 
 "Would you jest? Ah, Signior Matamore, 
 your walk has set you up! what an arrant 
 rogue you are to sham sick! Fever! merely to 
 rake up an excuse to get the kind chaplain to 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 273 
 
 send for your sweethearl to conic down from 
 Paris." 
 
 "is the man mad?" muttered Didier, shrink- 
 ing back to the small window. 
 
 "Well," proceeded the turnkey, "you have 
 deceived us all finely and you get your reward! 
 Look! here is your Louisette!" 
 
 Holding- the door but standing aside, he al- 
 lowed Didier, who advanced, with curiosity and 
 a kind of instinct, to send his glance up the cor- 
 ridor, all the better lighted as it had been 
 limed for the visit of the authorities. 
 
 "Louisette!" gasped he, clasping his fore- 
 head, which suddenly beat as if to burst. 
 
 "I thought you would recognise her!" said 
 the other, standing aside altogether so that a 
 woman, hastening along the passage, could en- 
 ter the cell. "This way, my girl! here is your 
 gallant! thank heaven, the good news cured 
 him ! come in, without fear of the fever." 
 
274 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE RELEASE OF THE MATAMORE. 
 
 "Marie!" ejaculated Didier, recoiling but 
 opening his arms. 
 
 The turnkey closed the door and went up the 
 corridor, jingling his keys noisily. 
 
 "Oh, her second name is 'Marie!'" said he 
 under his breath, rubbing his beard with his 
 other hand. "Ah, they may promise strange 
 things on that stage erected on the square for 
 Master Mondori, but it is in his Majesty's and 
 the States of Blois' Castle that the most re- 
 markable deed comes to pass! Fever, quotha? 
 they remove the right Matamore, because he 
 has the fever! I warrant ye, that this other, 
 his counterpart in spite of himself, has his 
 pulse rapping off a hundred and over to the 
 minute! but that Louisette! they do boast pret- 
 tv girls in Paris!" 
 
 "Marie! Marie! you have penetrated even 
 here, to follow me !" moaned Didier. 
 
 Marion wrung her hands, trembling with 
 pain and excitement. 
 
 "Is this a reproach? reproach, my recom- 
 pense?" 
 
 "No, never from this heart, which is the 
 shrine of my faith in you, never can a reproach 
 to you issue! But how have you deceived the 
 governor, the chief warder, the guards? Why 
 have you descended into this netherworld 
 where is gnashing of teeth and wailing and 
 tears? Are you making yourself a companion- 
 captive?" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 275 
 
 "Didier," said she through abundant tears, 
 her courage giving way, "my happiness is in 
 loving von and being beside you!" 
 
 "Let me look on you — let me refresh and 
 regale ray eyes, dimmed by the dense air laden 
 with miserable plaints! When my soul was 
 attached to this body by a leash, the other end 
 was held by a demon and an angel! the demon 
 is my bad fortune which brought me here — 
 the angel, it is you ! I thank heaven that at this 
 moment I see nothing but the angel!" 
 
 "Didier, I am here because you are my lord 
 and master."' 
 
 "What, is there yet a higher favor at the 
 back of this boon? Are they going to let us 
 be wed before — before — all my mortal happi- 
 ness flies?" 
 
 "Wed?" said she in despair. 
 
 "You mean that you have come to be mv 
 wife?" 
 
 She sighed with an averted countenance. 
 
 "I forgive them everything," continued Did- 
 ier violently. "The injustice, the incarceration, 
 die long isolation, all, for this blessing of hold- 
 ing you as spouse before I quit this jealous and 
 implacable -world! My wife, Marie!" 
 
 She had escaped from his frenetic embrace, 
 and said, gently, with the voice of one trying 
 to appease a lunatic: 
 
 "Be my brother!" 
 
 "Oh, no! do not withhold from my parched 
 soul the sacred cup of delight — your being 
 mine before heaven and man! I see, why you 
 came to me in such serenity! you knew the 
 husband would guard his beloved even more 
 carefully than the lover!" 
 
 She sobbed now. 
 
 The interview had turned otherwise than she 
 
276 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 expected. She had seen herself all smiles; she 
 was Niobe, all tears. 
 
 "They threatened me with the torture," pur- 
 sued Didier. "Do you know what my torture 
 was? to think of you shut up above-stairs in 
 that inn, besieged, as it were, by those Parisian 
 gallants! they would halloa at you if you ap- 
 peared, and storm the stairs with rude words 
 and coarse laughter! It was not the least of 
 the torments I have undergone in my loneli- 
 ness, that I pictured you surrounded by that 
 swarm of wasps and gadflies! Oh, chaste and 
 noble flower, that you should bloom, and have 
 those insects flutter around you!" 
 
 "Didier, be prudent! they may listen with- 
 out, there!" 
 
 "How is it you are here?" 
 
 "I do not know! I wrote you a note — " 
 
 "It is on my heart ! it has pacified my throb- 
 bing heart, which swelled to bursting with gall, 
 without that dulcifying kindness." 
 
 "My old servant Rose, whose house in the 
 suburbs is my shelter — she offered to pass it in 
 to you." 
 
 "I thank her. I thought ill of that woman. 
 Forgive me, in her name. I am apt to think ill 
 of all the world; but not hereafter, this boon 
 being so great !" 
 
 "She induced a soldier of the castle-guard to 
 come with the word that I might enter the 
 prison under the name of Louisette and the 
 garb of a waiting-maid. This Louisette was 
 supposed to arrive from Paris." 
 
 "Louisette," said Didier, "was the maid of 
 that fortune-teller w t 1io was laughed at, often 
 by me, when she promised us happiness! now I 
 revere her talents!" 
 
 "I was told that I must pretend to be visit- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 277 
 
 ing one Matamore, a playactor imprisoned for 
 
 some slight oflense — " 
 
 "Slight? one who waylaid thai foppish mar- 
 quis under your window!" said Didier. 
 
 "And who, so their story went, might be re 
 leased in order to join his comrades entertain- 
 ing the citizens on the Grand Place." 
 
 "Entertaining! he who is dying of gangrene 
 and fever! What imbroglio is this?" 
 
 "What matters, if yon are released, whether 
 it be under your name or another's!" insisted 
 Marion, afraid that he would argue and remon- 
 strate. "Listen! I am convinced that we are 
 puppets! a stronger hand than ours controls 
 us! Why may it not be this good angel that 
 you flatter me with being, but wmich comes to 
 your rescue and will place you without there, a 
 free man ?" 
 
 "Free! bound to make you his wife, if only 
 for this act of charity! but, no! you are de- 
 ceived! Matamore, merely a robber, a vaga- 
 bond, stole a purse or set the blood flowing in 
 a paltry affray. I have killed a noble — " 
 
 "Sa veiny, dead!" said Marion without emo- 
 tion, for which the other had looked with jeal- 
 ous suspicion. 
 
 "And in the teeth of an express edict forbid- 
 ding swordplay, with a fatal intent. No, I 
 must warn you that my star in evil. I am ig- 
 norant whence I came but I foresee that my 
 step over the edge is into blackness. Marie, re- 
 ceive my last wish — a prayer! turn from me, 
 as if that man whom you wish me to personate 
 were here, and has, indeed, the pest! Leave 
 me alone to pursue my lonely road, a short one 
 now ! Alas! before I long went down this road 
 1 was aweary of it; it is a hard journey where 
 the sun rises cloudy and the morning sky 
 
278 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 weeps; and the sun goes down red and the 
 clouds howl in wrath! The bed that is kept for 
 me, cold with ice, is too narrow for more than 
 one!" 
 
 "Your hand is cold," said she; "but your 
 heart must ever warm to me! Let us live in 
 the shadow, though it be of the disgraceful gal- 
 lows! let me share your flight! at least, let 
 me be the fellow-fugitive with you!" 
 
 She clung to him and twined her fingers as 
 if inextricably. 
 
 "Admit that I escape," said he, "do you re- 
 flect that misery will attend every step we take 
 in exile? My petty patrimony will be confis- 
 cated! my rag of a name — I must change that! 
 stealing one that must be better! though it is 
 a beggar's — at least, his father and mother left 
 him that! Perhaps, would follow us long sor- 
 rows in the tears of which the lustre of these 
 eyes would finally be extinguished!" 
 
 She slipped from his arms as he was about 
 to press his lips to her eyes, and fell on a stone 
 bench, burying her head in her hands. 
 
 "I vow to you that this picture is as true as 
 that the fortune-teller showed you ! I pity you, 
 for this prospect terrifies me! Away and return 
 no more!" 
 
 She rose and, through her sobs, cried in a 
 strangled voice: 
 
 "Kill me, but do not speak in that vein!" 
 
 "Marie," said Didier, taking her in his arms, 
 "my treasure! why shed so many tears, when 
 I would lay down my life to prevent the out- 
 pouring of one alone! Do with me what you 
 will; come with me, if I may go hence, under 
 any name you choose. You shall be my for- 
 tune, my glory, my future!" 
 
 "You cut me to the heart by what you said," 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 27<? 
 
 she responded, disengaging herself from the 
 embrace. 
 
 lit 1 fell on his knees, on the granite flags, and 
 bent over her hand which he seized. 
 "I hurt you, for whom I would die?" 
 "You are cruel to make me weep — I who 
 have never wept so much as since I knew you!" 
 said the favorite of Paris, recalling her past of 
 festivity and adoration. 
 
 How handsome she was, though in the twi- 
 light of a prison cell! 
 
 A marked hut careful rapping on the wicket 
 aroused him from his contemplation. 
 
 "Is it all a dream ! have they come to awaken 
 me on the scaffold?" cried he, groping as it 
 were for a weapon, not to be forced apart from 
 his idol. 
 
 She sprang to the door, full of the same fore- 
 boding as racked him. 
 
 The wicket slid back and she saw not the 
 jailer, but the Capuchin. 
 
 She recognised the Cardinal's familiar, but a 
 bony finger laid on his lips made the almost 
 universal sign for silence. The expression of 
 his visage, as far as the double shadow of the 
 corridor and his cowl permitted to be seen, 
 still farther imposed prudence. 
 
 Marion said nothing, therefore, and as her 
 face was turned from the prisoner, the latter 
 perceived nothing unusual. 
 
 "There need be no alarm," said she. "I must 
 go. If I can, expect me to-morrow!" 
 
 The door opened and she darted out, blowing 
 him a kiss. 
 
 Father Joseph was deaf to the sigh which 
 Didier heaved at this disappearance. He 
 caught Marion by the arm and drew her up to 
 the mouth of the passage. 
 
280 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Have you cheered him, or is it otherwise? 
 for I see tearmarks on your cheek." 
 
 "He is not quite so unhappy," replied she, 
 dubiously. 
 
 "You shall come again to-morrow at ten. 
 This kind of cordial must not be placed within 
 the patient's reach," said Joseph, smiling grim- 
 ly, "lest he take too much! there are drugs 
 which fail when not administered in guarded 
 doses!" 
 
 "I may see him to-morrow?" exclaimed Mar- 
 ion with a transport which revealed the state 
 of her heart. 
 
 "Yes. Meanwhile, return to Dame Rose's 
 cottage. To her, perfect silence! Here, you are 
 Louisette from Paris and that man is the Mata- 
 more of Mondori's show." 
 
 Marion went home as in a vision, walking 
 the roseate clouds of Love, which wear a black 
 lining towards the earth. 
 
 For the first time, the capricious, ethereal 
 creature, who had imagined that she ruled in 
 her sphere, felt that she was a marionette at 
 the beck of others. 
 
 "Father Joseph busies himself on behalf of 
 this unknown Didier! Ah, was it not Madame 
 de Combalet who told me that Joseph never 
 acted in any matter but a secret of State? 
 What secret of the State can this nameless 
 youth comprise in his brain?" 
 
 Marion, with all her experience of the court, 
 hardly understood that, for fifteen years, the 
 State w T as another title for Richelieu. 
 
 Twice again, Marion made her call; it was 
 all she lived for. Didier did not count the hours 
 more closely than she did. 
 
 "Why are you so grave?" she asked on the 
 third occasion. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED 281 
 
 "Because it seems a momentous event over- 
 hangs us! I am not accustomed to such boons 
 as this providential assistance to enable us to 
 meet, and I fear it is the calm before the tem- 
 pest breaks. Who is our secret friend?" 
 
 To have bet raved her knowledge that the 
 Cardinal's chief agent was facilitating this in- 
 terview in favor of a man who mocked at the 
 Edict which he dictated and countersigned, 
 would force her to disclose how she was so 
 deeply acquainted with the court. This revela- 
 tion of her true self was what she dreaded. It 
 would instantaneously strip her of the angelic 
 robe in which his love had clothed her. 
 
 It was her one great fear, surpassing all oth- 
 ers. How would he bear this discovery, with- 
 held by a hair? with what changed vision 
 would he look upon her? 
 
 The silence oppressed both without either 
 venturing to speak. They were like those ad- 
 venturers in the Alps who pass shuddering, 
 but trying to suppress even the shudder, under 
 a hanging cliff of ice, for the flutter of an 
 eagle's wing might precipitate it upon them. 
 
 This breath would wreck her and make Did- 
 ier more miserable than all his miserable life 
 had known. 
 
 The last time! were they meeting for the 
 last time? was this winked-at meeting only a 
 trick of the cruel Cardinal to add a new terror 
 to the death under which Didier lingered? 
 
 There was a stir in the town; a horn blew. 
 
 They glanced at one another. Was it the 
 trumpet to cry the execution? had the judge 
 arrived from Paris to go through the farce of 
 sentencing a man to death who had convicted 
 himself by drawing his sword on another, un- 
 der the Edict itself? 
 
282 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 She turned pale; he became red, proud that 
 he should mount the platform with so immortal 
 a love in his breast! He would outlive the 
 world — for this passion was only in the bud! 
 the fruition would be in another sphere. 
 
 "Do they come to part us?" said Marion in a 
 faint voice as she heard steps in the corridor. 
 
 The wicket opened. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Louisette, a packet from 
 Paris; the courier has come." 
 
 It was the turnkey's voice and his brown, 
 rough hand thrust in at the panel a packet 
 sealed and bound with silk. 
 
 Marion had not the force to take it. Didier 
 did so, but his hand was thrilled and his eyes 
 were dazed. The seal was the broad blood-red 
 one of the Minister. 
 
 "Open it," whispered Marion, as the warden 
 went away. 
 
 Didier opened the packet and read the docu- 
 ment within with fevered and doubting eyes. 
 
 "Release of Diego, alias 'Matamore/ play- 
 actor, on condition of his quitting the kingdom 
 in fifteen days." 
 
 "You are Matamore for this purpose," said 
 Marion, scarcely audible as she was choking 
 with emotion. "Let us hasten! Who knows 
 but the real Louisette will be here, at the heels 
 of so welcome a courier!" 
 
 "Louisette — the real one?" 
 
 "It is the name of a servant of the fortune- 
 teller of Paris," said Marion, surprised at his 
 being in stupor. "You said so! I am personat- 
 ing her, do you not bear it in mind? even as 
 you are supposed to be Matamore, who is re- 
 leased." 
 
 "Released?" 
 
 "Yes; we must go forthwith! Warder!" she 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 283 
 
 screamed at the door. "Good news! a release! 
 a release!" 
 
 "What, may we go out, together?" said the 
 man with stupefaction slowly diminishing. "I 
 am to be free, to have you by my side? to 
 look on you thus, forever?" 
 
 "Yes; the door opens! see! come, come!" 
 
 "Wait!" said the turnkey, as he stood in the 
 open door, suppressing a smile. "This is no 
 way for a man next to dead of his wounds 
 and the fever, to leave the Castle! What would 
 they cry at the governor and the officer of the 
 day, to say nothing of the doctor and the spirit- 
 ual adviser, if we thrust a dying man out, on 
 his shaking legs, like you presume? By the 
 tire that roasted St. Lawrence, think better of 
 us! Here is the hand-barrow. Take that coun- 
 terpane and envelop our poor Matamore, if you 
 prize him in the least, Damsel Louisette! Oh, 
 you need not show me the release! The gov- 
 ernor has read his official advice of it, before 
 you !" 
 
 Marion was stupor-stricken. She witnessed, 
 with blurred vision, two sub- warders enwrap 
 Didier in the bedclothing and extend him on a 
 litter which they took up. She followed, with 
 her heart so cold that she might seem to be 
 attending the dying, indeed. 
 
 At the little door in the great gateway — for 
 what honors did a playactor and vagabond ex- 
 pect? the Capuchin was waiting. Others kept 
 at a distance from him. 
 
 The doctor held a bottle of disinfecting vine- 
 gar to his nose. 
 
 He lifted the cloth a little from Didier's face 
 and let it fall. 
 
 "It is my patient," said he quickly. 
 
284 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Certify in the book," said the governor, with 
 a similar impatience. 
 
 The door closed. The prisoner and Marion, 
 with the litter-bearers, were in the free air! 
 
 Marion clasped her hands and paused in a 
 prayer of gratitude. When she resumed the 
 pursuit, the litter had gained the Grand 
 Street. 
 
 "Whither are you taking him?"' she said, dis- 
 tressed as if all so far was so good that it must 
 turn to the bad. 
 
 ''To Signor MondoiTs theatre," replied one. 
 "They are pulling it to pieces and packing up, 
 but still some of his caravan are on the 
 ground." 
 
 Ten minutes afterwards, with a vivacitv and 
 intelligence contrasting with the renewed be- 
 wilderment of Marion and her charge, who 
 fretted in his hoodwinked and enforced inac- 
 tivity, Signor Mondori, a plump little Italian 
 with a black face which enabled him to enact 
 the Boabdil without coloring his skin, received 
 "his dear old" Matamore with effusion of joy. 
 
 "The very stopgap we wanted," said he, while 
 the two men carried the litter under the canvas 
 of a tent not yet struck down, to the annoy- 
 ance of the rabble which had followed the little 
 procession. "This is the finest Matamore 
 known in the theatrical profession from Basle 
 to Blois! Look at the figure of him — long legs 
 as if he were a cork ball on compasses! he has 
 a round, strong voice so that you could hear 
 him from the church to the other side of the 
 bridge! You who have never seen true acting, 
 must wait till he pulls himself together again, 
 and when he rushes on to avenge the loss of the 
 noble old man's daughter, or niece, just see him 
 run the wicked Moor through the midriff! Oh, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 285 
 
 J toll you lliis Matamore is fine! Now, our com- 
 pany is complete enough to go back and cany 
 Paris by storm !" 
 
 Marion bad lingered at tbe marquee door- 
 way, irresolute, still doubting that a scheme 
 could be so artfully planned and neatly carried 
 out. Mondori bowed to her respectfully. 
 
 "You have tbe jet-black eye for the Xime- 
 nas," continued be. "You shall play the fiery 
 mistress of the champions!" Then, taking ad- 
 vantage of the crowd of citizens departing and 
 his own satellites being engaged in clearing 
 the ground of the last appurtenances of this 
 portable theatre, he drew Marion into the door- 
 way, where tbe pinned-up flap concealed them 
 somewhat, and said in a less flippant voice: 
 
 "We shall be out of the town limits in an 
 hour. Take some soup with my daughters and 
 give him, in there, a glass of Oporto. Mark! 
 You are members of my troupe. Why the lady 
 should travel as the hospital nurse for the gen- 
 tleman, as hale as my hand; whether you are 
 man and wife or mere tender lovers, fleeing the 
 Law; or pure necromancers who want to make 
 the Fair One with the Goldy Locks a captive 
 in some tower grim — these things disturb me 
 not a doit!" He winked roguishly. "You are 
 Senora Maria and he is Don Matamore, whom I 
 have known since he was a boy and played the 
 motive power in the inwards of the golden 
 eagle on which Messire Jupiter descends from 
 the skies to save the hero, in 'Jason in Jeop- 
 ardy,' by M. Hardy. Lively, lads! We must 
 be far on the road by nightfall!" he concluded, 
 cheering on his men. 
 
 While the theat rical caravan was leaving the 
 town by one way, an equipage of formidable 
 character was approaching by the opposite. 
 
2SS RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 "IT IS A WISE CHILD—" 
 
 The cortege was as real and imposing as the 
 theatrical train was artificial and humorous 
 withal its pretensions. 
 
 Since the roads were far from safe, reports 
 of the doings of Malargue's gang prevailing 
 up to the gates of Paris, Captain Cavoye, chief 
 of the Cardinal-Minister's military establish- 
 ment, had detailed twenty-five men, not includ- 
 ing officers, of the arquebusiers, armed for 
 battle, to escort a noted member and represen- 
 tative of the ministerial household. They sur- 
 rounded and cleared the way for a ponderous 
 coach nearly as large, and almost as gaudily 
 gilded, as the living-wagon of Signor Mondori. 
 Its enormous body, garnished with Venetian 
 plate-glass panels, swung on immense leather 
 straps, baldrics for a giant in "Orlando Furi- 
 oso," and clattered as all crunched in the ruts 
 and ground to atoms the large stones, strewn 
 in the mire like plums in a pudding. These 
 were left by the carters, good, honest souls, af- 
 ter having used them to stay the wheels on 
 declivities, to do the same service to others — 
 but they were terribly in the way of those who 
 did not require them. 
 
 In this vehicle, a small room on wheels, sat, 
 with a secretary and an armed guard, Master 
 of Requests Laffemas, specially appointed to 
 try the first case arising under the Royal Edict 
 against duelling. 
 
 It was dusk as this carriage rolled upon the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 28? 
 
 bridge, whore it was stopped. The gentleman 
 
 noticed the repairs and was under sonic appre- 
 hension that the planks would not bear the 
 weight of his conveyance. 
 
 So he alighted, enjoyed the deference with 
 which the bridgeware! and his guard received 
 him, with apologies for the governor and Mayor 
 not being on the spot. 
 
 "I cannot account for their delay," began the 
 bridge-keeper, "for you were seen coming, 
 but—" 
 
 At this instant, a gun was fired on the Castle 
 ramparts. 
 
 "But they are saluting," added the man, bow- 
 ing again. 
 
 "Saluting! So is your squeaking old shoe 
 saluting!'' corrected the sergeant of the guard. 
 ''That is a single gun! Look! It repeats its 
 fire. And, see! The gay flag is lowered and 
 up goes — the black flag, by all that is fiendish! 
 A prisoner has escaped! and one under sen- 
 tence of death, too!" 
 
 "A prisoner, escaped?" reiterated Laffemas, 
 turning green with anticipatory disappoint- 
 ment and twisting his head on its long neck 
 like a vulture from which was snatched a bone. 
 
 Sinking his dignity, catching up his gown in 
 one hand and holding his portfolio in the other, 
 he rushed up the ascent toward the Castle, fol- 
 lowed by his private guardsman and secretary, 
 who had trouble to keep up with his vehement 
 pace. 
 
 In front of the Castle, a woman was kneel 
 ing beside a man, ignominiously tossed down 
 on the sward, upon his own tattered long cloak. 
 At a distance, some holding their noses, stood 
 soldiers and citizens. 
 
 "Don't go near! It is the plague!" cried 
 
288 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 they on seeing the judge and his retinue strid- 
 ing up the hill. 
 
 Laffemas stopped short. His two immediate 
 companions almost ran against him. This 
 cheek allowed the arquebusiers to march up, 
 followed by the coach, and the judge's arrival 
 was made a little more imposing. 
 
 At the gate stood the governor, waving his 
 hat in welcome but evidently determined not 
 to leave that cover until this dead body was 
 carted away. 
 
 Two scavengers arrived with a barrow. It 
 had served for the removal of Didier and was 
 abandoned after the departure of the dramatic 
 cohort which escorted him. 
 
 On their lifting the body and placing it on 
 the litter, with repugnance making the wit- 
 nesses shudder, strange in such men, the poor 
 woman rose and tearfully accompanied the 
 spurned outcast. 
 
 At this juncture, not knowing why he was 
 so espewed, an old woman came up at the 
 best speed of which she was capable. 
 
 "Louisette!" she exclaimed, in amazement. 
 
 At her name, the girl by the litter turned her 
 head, but it was plain that she did not recog- 
 nise the stranger appealing to her but who 
 knew her well. 
 
 "Dame Rose!" muttered Laffemas. "My 
 mother! She knows her own maid, but why 
 does she almost surrender the secret into the 
 power of these gawks and petrifactions? 
 What is the meaning of this obstacle to my 
 reception, and who has escaped the prison?" 
 
 "Didier, your 'case,' has got away!" said the 
 governor, coming forward as soon as the litter 
 was far removed. 
 
 "Didier, escaped?" echoed Laffemas, clap- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 289 
 
 ping his hand to his forehead and lotting his 
 gown fall. "Impossible!" 
 "But, enter!" continued tho governor, an old 
 
 soldier, who had been hint by the guest's ir- 
 regular arrival. 
 
 Ho would not saj a word, until they were 
 in his room. 
 
 The doctor and the chaplain stood by. Tho 
 latter's aid had left the Castle. 
 
 ''This is the way of it," said the Captain of 
 Blois, "as these gentlemen, doctor and chap- 
 lain, will bear me out, where my tale wants 
 confirmation. 
 
 "We kept two prisoners here, in the same 
 part of the old prison, your Didier, a native of 
 Blois, under arrest for duelling despite the 
 mandate, and one Matamore, a play-actor who 
 was suffering from sword- wounds — " 
 
 "And delirium tremens" interposed the doc- 
 tor. 
 
 "This developed into a palpable case of the 
 pest. So we had the actor isolated. By a 
 blunder of the warder, however, on his return 
 from the promenade, Didier was shown into the 
 room of the actor, and as the latter was shifted 
 elsewhere for health's sake, no one perceived 
 tho change — " 
 
 "No one?" 
 
 "Oh, the turnkey, of course, but discipline, 
 dear judge! No one here questions — they 
 obev! So the turnkey brought Didier the 
 bread and soup which he would have brought 
 to the other, with the same unconcern. 
 Through this mistake, a singular event oc- 
 curred: There came from Paris one Louisette, 
 a very pretty girl, with notice forerunning her, 
 that she had obtained the release of her gal- 
 lant, this Matamore. the tragic actor!" 
 
290 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Ah! you had notice he was to be released, 
 eh?" broke in Laffemas. 
 
 "Certainly. A pretty state of things if we 
 were to let out prisoners on production of pa- 
 pers purporting to be pardons and releases, 
 considering the number of blank letters with 
 the royal signature afloat!" 
 
 "Not many with the Cardinal's counter-sig- 
 nature!" interrupted the judge, sarcastically. 
 
 "Well, we received our incontestable notice 
 so that when, two days after, that is, this day, 
 Louisette produced the release, we liberated 
 the supposed Matamore — that is, the tenant of 
 his cell." 
 
 "But Louisette—" 
 
 "Oh, not that Louisette out on the esplanade! 
 another, one to whom she could not hold a can- 
 dle to light her to dress! Though she is a 
 pretty thing — " 
 
 "Another Louisette! Another Matamore!" 
 cried Laffemas, exasperated. 
 
 "Yes, it puts me in remembrance of a com- 
 edy we acted at Angers, when I was a pupil 
 of the Loyolaist Fathers — the 'Two Dromios.' 
 In short, we let out Louisette I. and her Mata- 
 more, who was Didier, and when we came to 
 see that Didier was presentable for your ex- 
 amination, since your coach was espied by the 
 lookout in the tower, lo! it was this vagabond 
 Matamore, dead as a bleak on the strand! 
 Dead of the plague — " 
 
 "The plague!" repeated Dr. Themines. "I 
 have had his room, the passages and the whole 
 route which his corpse followed, washed with 
 charcoal water and proof-vinegar!" 
 
 Laffemas had listened with consternation, 
 but in the time he had regained his wits. 
 There was too much happy accident in such an 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 291 
 
 escape to content him. He looked round suspi- 
 ciously, but the laces of doctors, chaplains and 
 governors — of prisons, are not usually maps on 
 which the mind tracings are to be read. 
 
 He bit his lip. 
 
 "Let me see the release," said he, after the 
 pause. "Cheret," he added to his secretary, 
 "go out on the parade, and bring me in the old 
 woman who called by name the mourner be- 
 side the plague-stricken man." 
 
 A room was ready for him. He installed 
 himself in it; took the refreshment he needed 
 after his journey and the shock of baffled spite, 
 and meditated, lonely, at length. 
 
 Dame Rose came in. 
 
 Judge Laffemas dismissed his secretary with 
 order to stand at the door with his guard, and 
 allow no interruption. 
 
 ''Mother," said he, in a low voice and bend- 
 ing toward her, where he had seated her at 
 the table. "Was that Louisette bv the dead 
 man?" 
 
 "That was mv Louisette, mv trusted maid at 
 Paris, when I acted the soothsayer so admir- 
 ably, thanks to the full and profound informa- 
 tion on my patrons that you afforded me." 
 
 "What would I be head of the Cardinal's se- 
 cret service for, if I could not do that? But, 
 on the other hand, you gathered much of value 
 to us," said Laffemas, nodding loftily and 
 gratefully. "You are sharp in spite of your 
 years. Now, how is that vou have been 
 gulled? I repeat, gulled; for here, you should 
 have watched for me, and prevented the escape 
 of Didier. My laurels are at stake! This case, 
 the first under the Edict, would have formed 
 the step on which I rise to oust that fellow 
 
292 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 d'Argenson! I long to be Lieutenant-Crimi- 
 nal !" 
 
 "I have been played like a fish, my son!" 
 whimpered Rose. "An arch-devil was at work 
 all the while and though I had her under my 
 hand, she acted so acutely and finely that I 
 never suspected her in the slightest degree." 
 
 "What arch-devils are there in sleepy Blois?" 
 
 "Oh, this one came from the capital. It is 
 Marion — " 
 
 "Do you mean Marion Delorine? True, still 
 missing from Paris — " 
 
 "She did not return to Paris! She remained 
 here, with that gallant, for the greater evil to 
 Marquis Saverny! Malargue and Matamore, 
 both useful knaves, who served me well when 
 I masked as the fortune-teller. Through her 
 influence at court, I dare say, she procured — 
 not the release of Didier — impossible thing for 
 one infringing the royal decree — but for Mata- 
 more. Then she palmed herself off upon the 
 officers of the prison as my maid Louisette, 
 while I believed she was strolling under the 
 prison windows or along the river, moping in 
 lovelorn solitude! While I was having my 
 nap, she was concerting with her Didier how to 
 escape." 
 
 "Well, how have they escaped?" 
 
 "How do I know? You are very severe with 
 me!" 
 
 "Not at all ! On the contrary, take the pasty, 
 and the wine! You were always fond of lux- 
 uries! Or never would you have succored the 
 poachers and taken toll, I warrant, of the con- 
 tents of warren and preserve and deer park." 
 
 He poured her out some wine and filled his 
 own glass again. Then drawing his own knife, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 393 
 
 he cut the pasty and served her. No son could 
 be more attentive. She smiled again. 
 "Yes, they were rare old times!" sighed she. 
 
 "Marion is no fool! she has often deceived 
 those to whom we are but wooden figures," 
 said he, consolingly. 
 
 The old woman was about making a gesture 
 of contempt, but there might be too much 
 truth in her son's remark and she let her hand 
 drop. 
 
 "It is a proverb at court that it is better 
 to be her ally than her antagonist! Besides, 
 the new shuffle of the cards has it that she 
 did not flee in the direction of Chambord for 
 nothing. The Prince of Orleans has always 
 been infatuated with her, as much as he can 
 be with any woman." 
 
 "He would come to Blois, even if Marion 
 had stayed, for his pains. She loves this Di- 
 dier with all the absorbing passion of a first 
 and only love." 
 
 "First and only fiend!" growled Laffemas, 
 with a grimace as if an internal cord were 
 twisted. "Will you never cease harping on 
 that string?" 
 
 "Of course, I do not believe in fate, though 
 its arch-minister at times, but — " 
 
 "I doubt that you believe in anything!" 
 snarled the judge. 
 
 "But some would say that it was a stroke of 
 fate that he should be presented to her in mv 
 Well of Truth." 
 
 "Well of balderdash! But how came that?" 
 
 "Louisette had replaced the actor Matamore, 
 who sneezed during an apparition, by that 
 thievish bully Malargue. Malargue had an en- 
 counter with Didier, who was seeking advent- 
 ures in Paris, and was pitched into the river. 
 
294 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Louisette took Didier for a temporary assistant 
 in my tricks, and I, not knowing, of course, who 
 was below-stairs, bade Marion look into the 
 peeping-tube. She saw Didier. It appears that 
 they both fell in love, on the instant." 
 
 "You were very much Marion's friend — " 
 
 "There! in that?" cried Rose querulously. 
 "It led her to renounce her life of pleasure, 
 riches, brightness, revelry, to be tagged to the 
 sword-knot of a nobody, who is under sentence 
 of death and wandering Lord knows whither!" 
 
 "You are a rarity, mother!" said Laffemas, as 
 if changing the subject, but still pursuing his 
 aim. "You are the only one who has lived an 
 hour with Marion and not been bewitched by 
 her." 
 
 "I hate her! and you must hate her, too. If 
 she marries this Didier, and she is capable of 
 committing matrimony to gain her end! mark 
 you she will not let the secret of his birth rest! 
 A man may be content to dwell humble and 
 unknown in some distant Eden corner, but a 
 woman who may secure a title — never! She 
 will wed for love; she has a fortune; and she 
 will employ that fortune to discover his par- 
 ents!" 
 
 "I agree with you." His eyes were baleful. 
 "Has she sounded you on the point? Have you 
 blabbed anvthing?" 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "You are getting old, and the old are gar- 
 rulous without knowing how badly! Has she 
 any idea?" 
 
 "I want to see you Lieutenant-Criminal, as 
 the good Dominican promises. I want to see 
 you in ermine and blue — " 
 
 "Hold! What Dominican? The chaplain 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 295 
 
 here — there is no other that I Unow of in 
 Blois." 
 
 "The one who has replaced him while he was 
 sick." 
 
 "Indeed! He was among the officials who 
 greeted me, with little eagerness and no cor- 
 diality," said "the Executioner" of Lis Emi- 
 nence; "this chaplain, whom I know, as he is 
 a friend of our Father Carre. He did not look 
 ill?" 
 
 "I only know what the soldiers gossiped. 
 This Dominican, for he wore the dress of the 
 black friars— called himself 'The Clerk.' I," 
 she went on, hesitating, without being able to 
 distinguish the kind of apprehension suddenly 
 tilling her as she felt that her hearer had grown 
 cold toward her without losing any degree of 
 his interest in her communication, "I was only 
 too glad to use him as my agent in correspond- 
 ing, through Marion, with the imprisoned Di- 
 dier." 
 
 "Oh," cried Laffemas, knitting his brows, 
 "you, you facilitated the communication of 
 Marion and her lover? Eh, eh?" 
 
 "I wished to lull them till you arrived; to 
 lift that young man's soul with love so that he 
 should suffer like the Fallen Angel when he 
 dropped out of her arms into the hands of the 
 executioner!" 
 
 "You hate him, too — and you assisted in his 
 escape?" 
 
 "I have been cheated, I suppose! Then, 
 haste and overtake them! Didier is your 
 game, by royal precept; Marion — you can en- 
 tangle her in some plot that will award her 
 death! Say she was here to concoct regicide 
 with Prince Gaston — " 
 
 "Very well ! But you are letting the bubbles 
 
29f> RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 die on jour white wine, mother! Have an- 
 other! and more of the pasty! The aged should 
 fare well, the little time they have here to feast 
 before they sup in Paradise, and compare the 
 edibles of this lower world with the ambrosia 
 above!" 
 
 Rose held out her plate, but his manner was 
 strange. 
 
 "I will begin the chase," said he, averting his 
 glance, and using his own knife to carve her 
 the slice of pie. "Didier must die!" 
 
 "He must soon die!" said she; "too long he 
 has lived, your standing menace!" 
 
 "He, a Didier, a menace to me!" 
 
 "Can you not guess why? Because — " she 
 leant over to him and whispered in his ear: 
 "Jean, you are in his place." 
 
 "I? Has he aspirations to be Master of Re- 
 quests?" 
 
 "He is the Cardinal's son!" said Rose, so 
 terribly clear that his laugh was cut in short. 
 
 "Then, I—" 
 
 "You are my own grandson! Has not every- 
 thing shown that?" 
 
 "I do not doubt that! It remains to show 
 vou that I am truly vour son!" returned Laffe- 
 mas, with odd emphasis. 
 
 He rose steadily, having drunk little. He 
 wiped his knife with care and put the napkin 
 which he used in his pocket, no doubt through 
 inadvertence. Yet, men of style still carried 
 table-ware. 
 
 "Stay here, mother, and have a nap. If any 
 one comes, simply say that I engaged you to 
 keep my room in order. I shall make this my 
 headquarters while I pursue and bring back 
 this Didier. who, by all that liveth, must die, 
 as you say!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 297 
 
 ''Then you must be so high that none can 
 pull you down:" 
 
 "Or bo Ear away that a certain long arm can- 
 not roach inc.*' 
 
 "That is better! Take me with you! Let 
 us go where 1 went in my younger days — where 
 the sky is cloudless the longer half of the 
 year; where we might have a host of slaves to 
 tender to our least caprices! India! It is 
 lovely for the rich!" 
 
 "A good suggestion! Be comfortable! I 
 may not be long! A fugitive like that, and 
 a chief of the State police! It is uneven bat- 
 tle! You are sure," he said, passing in don- 
 ning a travelling dress instead of his judicial 
 robes and belongings, "that we alone possess 
 this secret!" 
 
 "You and I alone, my dear boy !" 
 
 He returned to her, led her to a sofa and 
 tenderly drew his black gown over her, press- 
 ing the fur collar up round her neck. 
 
 "I am drowsy," she said. "So much stress 
 on my mind and heart — " 
 
 "Best!" said he, kissing her filially on the 
 forehead. 
 
 At the door he turned to look back. She 
 had her eyes fixed on him proudly, affection- 
 ately, absorbedly, and yet inquiringly. 
 
 He hastily sprang out and shut the door. 
 
 His secretary and his guardsman stood there, 
 like statues. 
 
 "Come with me," he said to the former. 
 "Stay, you, till relieved by the sergeant of the 
 arquebusiers. Let no one pass in there. The 
 woman whom I have engaged for housekeeper 
 is setting out my things. If I do not return, 
 she may remain there all the night." 
 
298 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 They were used to his ways, and never ven- 
 tured to question. 
 
 He descended through the devious passages 
 of the Castle, piloted by his secretary who had 
 some knowledge of the place already. 
 
 When they emerged on the broad space, 
 three o'clock was striking. 
 
 "Who would be called 'the Clerk,' in the 
 Dominican Order?" he asked abruptly. 
 
 "I know no such officer in that fraternity, 
 but, master," replied the scribe with a paling 
 face, "is not Father Joseph 'Le-Clerc du Trem- 
 blav?' " 
 
 Laffemas stopped and made as though to 
 retrace his steps, biting his lip and turning 
 pale likewise. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 299 
 
 CHArTER XXL 
 A WOMAN WITHOUT JEALOUSY 
 
 But a young girl, weeping in her coquettish 
 little apron, almost jostled him, so blinded was 
 she with grief, and he caught her by the arm. 
 
 "Louisette!" he exclaimed. 
 
 The girl dropped her apron and stared at a 
 stranger so familiarly accosting her, in Blois, 
 of all places. 
 
 "It is well!" said he. "lama friend! I was 
 a patron of your cave in the Blanchapelle Lane! 
 But you, who were so bright, you are in tears!" 
 
 "So would you be in tears if you had fresh 
 come from the pauper's grave of your gal- 
 lant!" retorted the girl pertly. 
 
 "Which gallant?" said Laffemas, smiling in 
 her face. "Malargue, Matamore, or their sub- 
 stitute?" 
 
 "Sir!" 
 
 "Oh, hark ye! Do not play the prude with 
 me! A Parisian! Pshaw! Whom have we 
 been burying?" 
 
 Louisette shook a tear out of her eye and 
 responded: 
 
 "That poor Matamore! Malargue, having 
 survived a drenching in the Seine, came down 
 to this unlucky place to break his neck in flee- 
 ing from a sword ! Matamore has died of fever 
 from his wounds! also, a sword!" 
 
 "You may say the same sword," observed the 
 Cardinal's "Man of the High Works," emphati- 
 cally. "My bereaved lass, you have to thank 
 
300 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Master Didier, Number Three in your lovers' 
 list, for the sharp divorce of steel." 
 
 "They were slain by that Didier?" 
 
 "They owe their death to him! decidedly! 
 Ask anyone who knows! This gentleman! 
 M. Cheret, is not this truth?" 
 
 The secretary bowed and in an oily voice re- 
 plied: 
 
 "The deaths of Messieurs Malargue and Mat- 
 amore are due to Master Didier, it is on rec- 
 ord!" 
 
 "The brave fellow! To kill such splendid 
 fighting-men!" 
 
 "Tut, tut!" exclaimed Laffemas, surprised at 
 the outburst which he had not in the faintest 
 degree expected. "Perhaps, though, you will 
 not applaud him when you hear that he has es- 
 caped from prison — " 
 
 "The daring fellow! Escaped from that 
 monstrous pile!" she clapped her hands. 
 "Why, he is a hero!" 
 
 The Master of the Bequests Court was at a 
 loss what to say. This enthusiasm where he 
 had thought to kindle enmity made him lower 
 his head. 
 
 "I shall be glad to tell him so." 
 
 "Oh, will you? Theu, perhaps, you know 
 whither he has gone?" 
 
 "I can guess, sir! I followed poor Matamore 
 to the grave." 
 
 "It was verily Matamore?" 
 
 "No doubt! Therefore, the supposed Mata- 
 more, removed under royal order of release be- 
 cause he had not an hour to live in his fever 
 — that must have been the prisoner who es- 
 caped ! Clever man !" 
 
 "You argue like that owl-eyed Laubarde- 
 mont! Go on! That was Didier." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 301 
 
 "They took him to his supposed comrades, of 
 course!" 
 
 "Of course! Aud these comrades — " 
 
 "Were the actors of Signor Mondori who 
 have been three days performing on the Grand 
 Square!" 
 
 "How kind! To let him die among his com- 
 rades! His playfellows! Thoughtful releaser! 
 Bless the King and Cardinal!" 
 
 "To say nothing," added Louisette, archly, 
 "of the plague being imparted to the rogues! 
 Depend on it, the clergy had a hand in this 
 act of mercy, in order to rid the country of 
 the actors!" 
 
 "Gone with Mondori's troupe!'' exclaimed 
 Laffemas, exultantly. 
 
 "What have I said?" and the girl wrung her 
 hands, frightened by the fiendish gladness she 
 had evoked. 
 
 "That Didier has fled with the strollers!" 
 and Laffemas rubbed his hands in glee. 
 
 "Oh, be blistered my lips for letting out that 
 much!" 
 
 "Not at all! For you will bless it as I do! 
 I could kiss them for it! Mark, this Didier did 
 not become a solitary fugitive. He had a Loui- 
 sette with him, the one who procured him the 
 release." 
 
 "Oh, the royal release! It is influence, not 
 •mercy, which obtains such things?" 
 
 "Pretty simpleton, yes! much influence! 
 Such as is wielded by a court beauty! by the 
 court beauty!" 
 
 "Mademoiselle Marion Delorme!" cried Loui- 
 sette. 
 
 "You have said it! Now, your Didier is an 
 ordinary, black-and-sour-visaged youth, whom 
 no one would remark in a crowd, even at Blois! 
 
302 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 but to flee with a Marion is to leap into the 
 river with a millstone round the neck for a 
 buoy! he is lost! your Didier, my Didier, the 
 headsman's Didier, will swing from those bat- 
 tlements, in three days, or my name is not Laf- 
 femas!" 
 
 The poor girl trembled in every limb. She 
 fell on her knees and muttered: 
 
 "The Cardinal's Executioner! there is no 
 hope!" 
 
 "Plenty of hope for revenge!" hissed the 
 judge in her ear. 
 
 "Revenge? on whom?" 
 
 "Did you not hear that Didier has fled, not 
 alone, but with the beautiful Marion Delorme!" 
 
 "I do not hate him for that, or wonder! she 
 is truly beautiful!" 
 
 "But she has run away with your gallant, 
 little idiot!" 
 
 "Then he did not love me! all is over. Leave 
 me to die!" 
 
 "But I want you to accompany me to identify 
 this Didier!" 
 
 "So that you may bring him to the scaffold? 
 never! If you drag me with you, I will bite my 
 tongue in twain rather than speak as you dic- 
 tate! leave me, or I will curse you!" 
 
 "Obstinate woman! but a few days' reflec- 
 tion will bring you to your senses. Cheret, stay 
 with her and have her locked up if she tries to 
 quit the town." 
 
 He summoned his arquebusiers to the num- 
 ber of ten, the best mounted, and rode over the 
 bridge on the track of the strolling players. 
 
 "Put me in the prison, where the fever 
 rages!" said Louisette wildly as the secretary 
 touched her arm for her to rise from her knees. 
 
 "Singular desire on the part of a young wo- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 303 
 
 man!" said a voice, methodical and frigid, 
 which made Cheret start. 
 
 "Oh, it is our faithful Cheret," railingly wont 
 on this speaker. "Who is the woman?" 
 
 "Father Joseph, please! it is a j^irl of the 
 people whom I found in a swoon!" 
 
 "Father!" repeated the girl, who had the 
 faith of her class, at the period, in the wan- 
 dering monks as peculiarly the friends of the 
 poor and oppressed. "What this man says is 
 false! this gentleman," proceeded she, recov- 
 ering the glibness of speech of a Parisian, "is 
 the assistant of M. Laffemas, the great Cardi- 
 nal's Executioner, as we say in Paris!" she 
 added, seeing that the Capuchin slightly 
 frowned disapproval of her denunciation. "I 
 am not of the people! but come of the petite 
 bourgeoisie, the petty tradesfolk! my father 
 was well-known in the St. Denis quarter, for 
 he kept the draper's shop, at the sign of the 
 Golchian Ram, three doors only from the Gate. 
 This gentle — I should say, villain, is going to 
 lead me into prison, look you, good father! 
 merely because I will not swear away the life 
 of a young gentleman of this town — an old citi- 
 zen though young — everybody here know T s Mas- 
 ter Didier!" 
 
 Cheret had tried to stop her but her tongue 
 was uncontrollable. Then he looked round at 
 Joseph in despair; he was wearing the Domini- 
 can garb and the secretarj T at once recognised 
 how right he had been to surmise that under 
 bis often-used name of Le-Clerc, he had played 
 some part in the recent events disturbing Blois. 
 
 "This Didier is the slayer of the Marquis de 
 Savcrny," began he. 
 
 "In whose service are vou?"' 
 
 "In M. Laffemas'—" 
 
304 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "You are paid by the Cardinal-Minister. You 
 are in his service, therefore. I discharge you, 
 on the spot. Go straight to Paris and be paid 
 your arrears. Straight! do not dare go in to 
 the Castle." 
 
 "But my papers?" 
 
 "You were engaged to give your whole time 
 to the Minister. You can have no private pa- 
 pers on a journey! Go!" 
 
 Cheret bowed to hide his malevolent face 
 and, backing while he bowed, left the priest 
 with the maid. 
 
 Thoroughly confident that he would be 
 obeyed without reserve, as manifestly without 
 questioning, Joseph did not do the secretary 
 the honor of a glance to see whither he went, 
 but directed his eyes on the waiting-maid. 
 
 "Who are you?" said he. "If vou come from 
 town, how do you know this voung 'old citizen' 
 of Blois?" 
 
 Louisette was convinced from the abject sub- 
 mission of Cheret that she was talking with a 
 great dignitary although he might be assumed 
 to be a poor friar. 
 
 She related, not without her smile coming 
 again, how she had sallied out to bring in Ma- 
 largue, but failing him, had contented herself 
 with Didier to be their demon of the sooth- 
 sayer's jugglery. 
 
 "The day he fought with Malargue!" ex- 
 claimed the monk. 
 
 "Duel! did he fight with Malargue, then?" 
 
 Joseph did not reply; he was musing. 
 
 "You were maid to that celebrated fortune- 
 teller, then? you and she quitted your house 
 when the police were making inquiries about 
 you all. Where is she?" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 305 
 
 "Master," said Louisette weighing her words, 
 "she is a woman with a double face." 
 
 "Nol unusual. Go on!" 
 
 "I believe she was not so young as she ap- 
 peared. It seems to me, on thinking it over, 
 that she wore a mask of wax, oh! so like life! 
 and that she was really old — very old, for her 
 hands were badly wrinkled!" 
 
 "Hood! she needed the years of the Sybils 
 to read the lives of her patrons as it is sure she 
 did!" 
 
 u Oh, she was marvellous!" said the girl, dis- 
 mayed. "May I say, father, without injuring 
 mvself, that I think I have seen her since her 
 flight—" 
 
 "My child, she was a creature of evil. Conse- 
 quently, you are not betraying in revealing 
 what may benefit justice. I will see that you 
 are protected from her physically, and as for 
 her leading Spirit the Devil, I will undertake to 
 absolve vou so that vou may defv them both." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Louisette, drawing a long 
 breath and glancing at the Castle, said: 
 
 "Father, while I was following the bier of 
 poor Matamore, I happened to look back. The 
 judge, whose writer you dismissed — " 
 
 "Laffemas?" 
 
 "The same! he arrived with much show and 
 pother! I could think it was Prince Gaston 
 coming into Blois! It seemed to me, but I was 
 at a distance, that he was accompanied into 
 the Castle bv an old woman, who had all the 
 carriage, you understand, of my late mistress." 
 
 Joseph put his closed fist to his mouth and 
 gnawed it, as was his habit from school-days, 
 when deeply pondering. 
 
 "That I can readily verify," returned he 
 abruptly. 
 
306 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Little, but, perhaps, something to you, my 
 Lord!" she gave the title at a venture, certain 
 that she was dealing with a high official of the 
 realm, "perhaps much! Once, that man, the 
 judge, though dressed as a cavalier — which he 
 did not look — and that made me notice him ! he 
 called at my mistress's — " 
 
 "The fortune-teller's?" 
 
 "La Signora Floretia's, yes. But not to have 
 his fortune told! They were very cautious! 
 ordered me out of the room, but — " 
 
 "You listened?" 
 
 "Well, I caught only a word or two of their 
 salutation when alone — It seemed to me that 
 she hailed him with pride as 'Son — ' " 
 
 "Good!" 
 
 "And that he, sulkily, called her 'Mother,' 
 She used a different voice when speaking with 
 him to that she used for the company and to 
 me, do you see, and that same I called to mind 
 when I heard this old woman accost the judge. 
 It is devil and dam," said Louisette spitefully 
 as a finish to her betrayal. 
 
 "Stay in the town," said Joseph quickly. 
 "Here is a gold-piece for your entertainment. 
 When lodged, leave your address at the guard- 
 room there, at the Castle Gates, for 'Father 
 Le-Clerc' " 
 
 He relapsed into meditation, not looking up, 
 and Louisette departed quietly. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 307 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 TI1E FURY OF A THWARTED JUDGE. 
 
 After a few minutes, the Dominican-Capu- 
 chin proceeded to the Castle where he was more 
 deferentially received every time he came in. 
 
 He went straight to the rooms assigned to the 
 .Master of Requests. 
 
 The Arquebusier Sergeant was at the door, 
 believing it a post of trust and taking little 
 rest. 
 
 "The judge has gone, your Eminence," said 
 the soldier, not to be deceived about the "Other 
 Cardinal's" identity by a change of frock. 
 
 "I know it. I come to see the person he left 
 in charge of his room." 
 
 "Your pardon, Eminence, but the passage is 
 forbidden." 
 
 "To me — to the Minister's agent?" 
 
 "To all, reverence!" said the arquebusier re- 
 spectfully but with little yielding in his tone. 
 
 He was one of those who were impressed 
 with the legend, long disseminated by Laffe- 
 mas, that he was the nearest in blood to the 
 Prime Minister. The rapid promotion of the 
 judge was of a nature to make this impression 
 indelible if not altogether unalterable. 
 
 "I want to enter there." 
 
 The arquebusier barred the door with his 
 sword. 
 
 "I see that you require a reminder of your 
 vow of service. Y'ou swore, if I recall the 
 words to a Idler, to let no obstacle or order 
 stop one coming from the Cardinal, although 
 
308 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 a writing to the contrary in his hand was 
 shown. You have not even the writing — not 
 of Judge Laffemas. 1 ' 
 
 "It is true." 
 
 "Now, you know I am the Minister's private 
 secretary, who bears his seal, which you see! 
 Now, hearken: I repeat his order, which is that 
 of the State, the King and his Chief Minister: 
 Open that door to me!" 
 
 Nevertheless, the soldier hesitated: he was 
 one of those who detested the clergy without 
 being a Huguenot, and wished never to take 
 an order except from a swordsman. 
 
 "I give you two minutes, which are running 
 on. Then I will call up the Castle soldiers. 
 You will fulfil your secret and treasonable 
 command, w 7 hoever gave it, but you will die 
 shattered by bullets. Don't be a fool ! you are 
 not a Duke of Guise, and you cannot believe 
 fame will record how you fell, defending you 
 know not what woman!" 
 
 The sergeant trembled. 
 
 At that same instant, a terrible groan of in- 
 tense pain, mental as well as bodily, burst from 
 the room he was Quixotically guarding. 
 
 "You see," said Joseph, sternly, "you will 
 open the door too late, after all!" 
 
 The soldier opened the door. 
 
 "I was doing my duty!" he muttered. "Pest 
 on this hydra-headed Crown!" 
 
 The monk rushed past him, but recoiled on 
 the threshold. 
 
 "Villain!" he cried. "You kept the door for 
 the assassin to have time to escape!" 
 
 "Assassin!" repeated the other, advancing 
 after him within. 
 
 It was his turn to recoil. Writhing on the 
 floor, sprinkling it with blood from her froth- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 309 
 
 iflg mouth, the old woman was soon. In ono 
 baud was the table cover, which she bad seized 
 in her agony, trying to gag herself to repress 
 
 the effort of nature to seek relief by an outcry. 
 
 "Haste for a doctor! Save her and I will not 
 accuse you!" said the Capuchin. 
 
 The soldier retreated and reached the head of 
 the stairs at a bound. In a voice hoarse with 
 horror he shouted : 
 
 "The doctor! in hot haste! the doctor to the 
 judge's chambers !" 
 
 Joseph had knelt down by the dying woman 
 and supported her head on his knee, making a 
 pillow of the folds of his gown. This move- 
 ment exposed its grey other-side and the blood- 
 shot eyes of the sufferer fixed themselves on it. 
 
 "The grey monk! the Capuchin! you are 
 Father Joseph!" 
 
 "I am the priest who seeks to smooth your 
 way into heaven !" was the reply, in a strange- 
 ly soft voice for the gloomy, steeled politician. 
 
 "Do not take my confession. Write down 
 what I mav have time to sav." 
 
 He placed her on the sofa and picked up the 
 paper and sheaf of quills which she had pulled 
 off the table with the cloth. The ink-horn had 
 remained on a corner, not even overturned. 
 
 By this time, Themines had arrived. Joseph 
 nailed him to the doorway sill by an imperative 
 gesture and said to the arquebusier, behind 
 him : 
 
 "Close the door, and let no one enter. The 
 priest is receiving the confession of the dying!" 
 
 The door closed as if to be scaled, as he put 
 the pen in the ink. With wondrous fortitude 
 or that false strength found in extremity by 
 one filled with a grand purpose, the old woman 
 
310 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 rested herself on an elbow and said in an even 
 voice, almost unnatural: 
 
 "I am Dame Laffemas, mother of JeaD Laf- 
 femas, who was father of Jean, alias Norbert 
 Laffemas, the judge and favorite of the Cardi- 
 nal. Fond of my son and to shield him, I con- 
 sented to act as receiver to a band of deer- 
 stealers, to which he belonged. Thanks to this 
 position, which allowed me to smuggle for the 
 nobles, and thus make powerful friends to save 
 me from arrest, I laid by much money. Thanks 
 to this position, again, there came to me one 
 night, my son, with a young girl of the neigh- 
 borhood, a daughter of the bourg of Richelieu, 
 named Ramire — heathen name! My son said 
 that, by orders of his superior, the liege lord, 
 I was to proceed with her and my son, to the 
 seaport and thence to a far country. 
 
 "We went to the French Indies. Here Ra- 
 mire gave birth to a boy, after having worked 
 herself into a fever, through beseeching me to 
 help her to escape that it might have been born 
 in France. But the authorities had an eye up- 
 on us which we could not elude, for I chafed 
 to quit the country on my own accord, also. 
 
 "At this same time, news arrived for my son 
 from France that his wife, a woman of the 
 bourg whom he had been forced to marry, was 
 in a delicate situation. Fired with jealousy, al- 
 though he did not love her, you understand — 
 he vowed that he would make his way over the 
 sea, spite of all. He fled, was followed and shot 
 in the jungle. 
 
 "In the excitement, I fled and, more lucky 
 than he, reached the sea. With me was the 
 child of Ramire, who had died of a serpent- 
 sting at the first stage of our flight. I took 
 ship as a menial, although I had added to my 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 311 
 
 store by being a sick nurse to the native nobles' 
 harems, and, by being one of the crow and not 
 a passenger, evaded all inquisitive officers at 
 ports where we touched, and was landed at Rot- 
 terdam. There I learnt that Goodwife Laffe- 
 nias had had a son born to her., 
 
 '"An infernal idea seized me. I conceived 
 this cast into the future: by substituting the 
 boys, I might, at a certain age, produce the 
 wholly base-born offspring of Laffemas' wife 
 as the son of Kamire and her cavalier, while 
 the other, the true son of Viscount Armand Du- 
 plessis, since Cardinal-Duke de Richelieu, 
 would rest in ignorance and sequestered until 
 I should otherwise deal with him. 
 
 ''I managed all this without remark and no 
 suspicion followed me to Blois. I placed Ra- 
 mire's child, where a certain good woman 
 would eventually care for him. Thus I had 
 him under my eyes, and, from time to time, pre- 
 tendingtoaid the woman out of pure friendship 
 for her, I contributed from my hoard that he 
 might be educated as a gentleman. Remorse 
 perpetually stung me, particularly as time ad- 
 vanced and the one known as Laffemas, as this 
 was 'Didier,' introduced to court as the son of a 
 namesake, rose gradually with such certaintv 
 that rumor soon accredited him with the name 
 of Richelieu. 
 
 "Perversion of the heart! soon I began to 
 like this youth who made good use of his secret 
 and his wits. I wondered — I applauded the 
 baseborn who filled his posts well, committed 
 few errors, and almost bore out the fiction that 
 he was fit to succeed his suppositious father!" 
 
 She laughed with the glut of craft iuess until 
 choking; Joseph offered her cordial out of a 
 phial. 
 
312 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 He was subject to fainting fits and carried 
 this medicine. 
 
 "I refuse it. I shall find the strength. But 
 let me sign what I have stated." 
 
 She wrote a better hand than one would ex- 
 pect from a peasant. 
 
 "You were right not to offer me that wine/' 
 said she with odd merriment. "Either that or 
 the pasty is poisoned — my son; as I call him — 
 he has killed me! But I will be even with him 
 and punish in him his faithless mother who de- 
 ceived my own poor exiled son!" 
 
 Resuming her story without excitement, she 
 pursued: 
 
 "They grew up; the disinherited one miser- 
 able with comparative poverty; the other, the 
 usurper, glorious with power and wealth. This 
 wealth, of which he was liberal to me alone, 
 chained me to him. Having command over the 
 police archives, he searched all that related to 
 the affair of Ramire's disappearance from 
 Richelieu. But he did not discover all. He 
 thinks still that he is a legitimate son of Made- 
 line Cloche, afterwards Laffemas. 
 
 "Time drawing on just before he became 
 Master of the Requests Court and with a fur- 
 ther promise of the Proctor-generalship, he be- 
 came fearful of me. Not that I would betray 
 him knowingly, but old age might make me 
 talkative. He called me to Paris, installed me 
 as a fortune-teller and by supplying me with 
 secrets of the ruling families, helped me to 
 make an impression on the credulous which has 
 not faded yet?" 
 
 Joseph nodded slightly, not wishful to grati- 
 fy the vanity of his heartless harpy. 
 
 "Laffemas had fallen in love with the reign- 
 ing court beauty." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 313 
 
 "Laffemas in love with Marion Delorme!" ex- 
 claimed Joseph, moved from bis rigidity by I his 
 unexpected statement. 
 
 "He loves her and was afraid to say a word. 
 He would be a laughing-stock since she was be- 
 sieged by all the lords and beaux. Then again, 
 Marion kept open bouse for all tbe plotters so 
 that no one could say she was hostess solely for 
 any party. Laffemas, rising by the Cardinal's 
 favor, purely, dared not risk the suspicion of his 
 coquetting with any of his enemies. He never 
 called on her. He was dying to make her re- 
 gard him warmly and thought to use my necro- 
 mancy as his aid. 
 
 "Marion came to my house, as all the fine la- 
 dies did. Here is where the hand of chance 
 comes in. Laffemas was detained and did not 
 come that day. But by a chance — " 
 
 "Sav, Heaven!" interposed the monk solemn- 
 
 iy. 
 
 "Hasard or heaven ! Didier, tired of leading a 
 snail's life here, was in Paris, seeing the lions! 
 my maid went out to seek a certain accomplice 
 who aided us in our jugglery, and she accosted 
 the young man. He saw Marion face to face! 
 They loved! do you hear? they loved! 
 
 "A minute before, had Laffemas come, he 
 might have laid riches at her feet, a title, all 
 that he relies on wringing or coaxing from his 
 indulgent father," sneered the old woman; "as 
 it was, he had lost her forever! all because he 
 was taxing some applicant for a post — for a 
 paltry thousand livres, he lost that treasure, 
 Marion the flawless gem! That is the beginning 
 of his punishment! Now, for murdering me, 
 whom he believes to be his grandam, visit 
 him with more blows of adverse fate!" 
 
 "You have done enough for justice," said the 
 
314 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Capuchin gravely, though thrilling at the heart, 
 "now, think only of heavenly mercy ! You must 
 forgive the trespasses of others, if you trust to 
 have yours forgiven! Forgive that false wife 
 of your son! your murderer, likewise, and all 
 who have wronged you ! As for Didier, who is 
 enormously your creditor, I undertake to ob- 
 tain his forgiveness!" 
 
 "You will reach him too late!" suddenly 
 shrieked the woman, her nerves strained by a 
 pang of intense anguish. "Laffenias is on the 
 road to hunt him! By his death, he will less 
 fear discovery, joined to mine! Haste! for he 
 may be killed with impunity in their arresting 
 him, as under the Edict!" 
 
 "I go! but one word: how were you pois- 
 oned?" 
 
 #The pasty! cut with a knife poisoned on 
 one side of the blade — I am sure of that, for he 
 partook of both wine and pie! Revenge me! 
 save that young gentleman! save the son of 
 Richelieu!" 
 
 Joseph sprang nearer, but with an out- 
 rageous spasm which must have twisted and 
 snapped her heart fibres, she rolled over out of 
 his grasping hands and died between the divan 
 and the wall tapestry which she clutched, bit 
 and tore. 
 
 The Capuchin straightened himself up, hor- 
 rified. 
 
 "Never have I seen a more ghastly death!" 
 muttered he. 
 
 He retreated to the midst of the room, where 
 he reflected. 
 
 "What kind of poison? perhaps there will be 
 time to have the body examined. These old 
 hags are mere skin over an osseous frame. Let 
 us try." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 315 
 
 He opened the door. On his brow empearled 
 
 a cold sweat and his usually calm features 
 seemed convulsed as the moribund's had been. 
 
 The sergeant shrank back, appalled. 
 
 "Retain your guard. Wait to be relieved till 
 I return. Go not within there — peep not! or 
 you will be blasted, like them of old who looked 
 upon the Gorgones!" 
 
 In fifteen minutes he had returned, flanked 
 by Captain Gasse, who had entered on his 
 duties, and the captain of the escort of Red 
 Arquebusiers. 
 
 "Post each of you a man at this door," said 
 the Grey Eminence with authority. "Another, 
 under the window, of each corps. Let no one 
 enter there but the King's physician, who will 
 arrive from town in the afternoon to-morrow." 
 
 He went away to send a courier for Dr. Le- 
 tellier. On his return from the posting-house, 
 he met Dr. Themines at the door of the guard- 
 room. He was inquiring about the mystery in 
 the judge's rooms. 
 
 "A woman has died of the pestilent fever, 
 which, you know, is raging in these walls," said 
 the monk. "It is a fellow townswoman of 
 yours, Dame Rose, of the little cottage by the 
 Grist Mill of the Augustine Brothers. When 
 your colleague arrives from Faris, examine and 
 report with him. Mark, Dr. Themines," con- 
 tinued Joseph, with a strange smile, 'it will 
 be a reminder to serve you, to have your name 
 appended to the report next Dr. Letellier's." 
 
 "The royal physician my colleague?" cried 
 Themines, with sparkling eyes. 
 
 "He will be on the road early in the morning. 
 Receive him well!" 
 
 Themines followed the dread Capuchin to the 
 gates. He returned, murmuring: 
 
316 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "There is a dead one in the rooms given to 
 the judge, the same suite as where Queen Maria 
 de Medicis mourned the murder of the Marshal 
 d'Ancre. Fatality is the host of the Castle!" 
 
 Then he joined himself to the posted sentries 
 at that door, determined that no other medical 
 practitioner should perform the autopsy of the 
 old dweller of Blois, but he and the King's. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 317 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 LED BY AN EVIL STAR. 
 
 Judge La ff em as had gradually cast off the 
 insignia and legal-lord trappings with which he 
 commenced his manhunt, and, towards the 
 third day of non-success, appeared clad like the 
 minor magistracy. Severe in cut, black of hue, 
 of Flemish broadcloth of which the quality be- 
 trayed his high rank, his gold chain of office 
 was the only other thing by which a chance- 
 comer might guess that he was not dealing 
 an irh a petty bailiff. Laffemas did not wear the 
 mien and he had not the stature and bearing of 
 a notable functionary. This gold chain was 
 the emblem of his Stewardship of Champagne, 
 one more of Richelieu's rich gifts to his spu- 
 rious favorite. 
 
 Wearied, the cunning man w r ore something 
 of the air of a balked fox. 
 
 For this want of dignity, of irrepressible 
 courage under difficulties, and testy tone, he 
 paid dearly. The personal animosity his chal- 
 lenges drew from all classes, added to the dor- 
 mant resentment of the numerous haters of 
 their legal oppressors, returned to his inquiries 
 such a plentiful lack of gain that his retinue 
 were daunted and his spirit would have been 
 quenched if he had not two fateful and potent 
 reasons for coursing after Didier. This man 
 was the sole block in a double sense to his 
 future happiness as he projected it. 
 
 Gall was added to a cup tolerably tinctured 
 with rue and hyssop by finding in this pro- 
 
318 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 vincial obscurity such a thunderbolt as might 
 annihilate him. Not only was he, if his grand- 
 mother was to be believed — and that he be- 
 lieved her was shown by his murder of her for 
 the distress she caused him — not only was Did- 
 ier, we repeat, the true heir to the Cardinal's 
 good graces, but he had achieved a triumph 
 which all the fashionable flutterlings of Paris 
 were solicitous to claim: Didier, by pure love, 
 since he was a nonentity without fortune in 
 gold, had conquered the belle of the court and 
 capital. 
 
 Misled by boor, priest and gentry, Laffemas 
 was forced to despatch detachments right and 
 left in the expectation of capturing his prey on 
 a side-path. 
 
 Hence, he found himself with a mere squad 
 of his guards, after three days out of Blois, 
 with a sergeant who envied the departed com- 
 rades who could not fare worse, and had not 
 the misfortune to be harried under the sly eyes 
 of the Inquisitor. 
 
 The remnant grumbled that their horses 
 were foundered by the terribly bad roads and 
 the by-paths which false clues had turned them 
 into. Accustomed to luxuries in Paris, they 
 roundly abused the constant bill of fare, com- 
 prising over-fat pork, skinny poultry, skim- 
 milk cheese and black, hard bread, to which 
 the grindstone had contributed grit, to the det- 
 riment of teeth, already aching from biting of 
 cartridges. 
 
 Still, such bands of itinerant players as Mon- 
 dori's troupe would seek modest tracks, and 
 would be glad to receive the shelter of barns 
 and hangers, so that the law lord, spite of con- 
 tinual suspicion, was compelled to believe that 
 he was rightly directed from the main road. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 311) 
 
 Hut whether the peasants spoke in scarcely 
 comprehensible dialect or the curate and his 
 superiors answered iu faultless speech, the re- 
 plies amounted to the same: they did not catch 
 up with the mountebanks. 
 
 In tine, with horses footsore, and the post- 
 horse Laffemas had hired on the down-come of 
 his steed, also going dead-lame, the disconso- 
 late party stopped perforce at a little hostelry 
 undignified with a name, and distinguished 
 from the hovels solely by a wisp of straw tied 
 by a grapevine. In the language of tokens, this 
 signified that they might expect a straw bed 
 and wine. But the sign deceived, like those of 
 other lying prophets hitherto met. They were 
 offered accommodation in a garret so filthy that 
 the sergeant and his soldiers unanimously de- 
 clared that they would sleep in the stable with 
 their poor chargers, and would dilute a little 
 brandy, prudently bought on the road, with 
 spring water rather than taste the cider, its 
 odor alone so offended them. 
 
 Proof through hatred, jealousy and general 
 spite to physical needs, Laffemas, however, felt 
 his gorge rise at this misery after the long jour- 
 ney. He lingered at the door after his follow- 
 ers had bestowed themselves in the outhouse, 
 holding the host by the apron-strings. 
 
 "Hark ye, fellow," said he sharply. "I am, 
 as you see, Intendant of a County! a royal ser- 
 vant, and, as good as that again, a servant of 
 the Prime Minister. I am travelling on State 
 service, so it wants but a wink of my eye and 
 a pass of my hand, so, to have you billet my 
 men without a silver-piece for the dues. But 
 I shall deal liberally with you. Keep my men 
 hospitably and tell me, in the interim, where 
 in this desolate neighborhood I can find re- 
 
320 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 freshnient at which a galley-slave would not 
 heave, and a bed on which a martyr off the 
 grid, would not declare he had exchanged for 
 the worse!" 
 
 It is a poor host, not proud of his inn. The 
 Boniface made a grimace, but the golden chain 
 had its magic, and he rejoined with a sem- 
 blance of content: 
 
 "Master Justice — " 
 
 "You mav even sav Judge — " 
 
 The landlord of the Straw-truss-and-Vine 
 pulled at his forelock with his right hand and 
 kicked backward with his left foot, which was 
 his idea of a suitable salutation to the digni- 
 tary. 
 
 "Come this way, sir, to the break in the 
 road," said he, plucking Laffemas by the sleeve 
 and taking him to where a tree had been felled 
 and allowed a view over a wild and unfertile 
 country. 
 
 "Ha! good! I see a new house and an old 
 castle! which is the more likely to receive a 
 man of my quality in a suitable manner? I 
 make no secret that I am a Cardinalist, look 
 you !" 
 
 He had a view of a moss-grown and ivy- 
 streaming dungeon-based tower, with stone 
 walls in tolerable state of preservation. This 
 was the more strange as the demolition of 
 strongholds was one of the cares of Laffemas' 
 master. Near this antique survivor of the great 
 intestine wars, rose the red-tiled peaked roofs 
 and sharp pinnacles of a new brick mansion, 
 with stone at the corners. The trees and hedges 
 of magnificent holly hid the lower part of both 
 edifices. 
 
 "The two are one house," said the host, "for 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 321 
 
 your purpose. That donjon keep is the old, old 
 Castle of Nangis — " 
 
 "Nangis, oh! yes, the old marquis was a 
 great favorite of the late King Henry, and his 
 son honors the old dotard !" commented the 
 judge. 
 
 "The new house is all but connected with the 
 old. The Chateau is used to bring out the 
 younger branches. Under those roofs collect 
 for family councils — one of which I believe 
 they are holding at present, but the news 
 reaches us but imperfectly, and at lunno in- 
 tervalley, as the parish priest says in Latin — " 
 
 "At Ion go intervallo" said Laffemas, gra- 
 ciously, "I understand." 
 
 "The family council, I was saying, comprises 
 the families of the four baronies on which Nan- 
 gis is placed, as you might say a war-horse 
 stands on four legs. There is Nangis, which is 
 bound in war time to supply the King with a 
 hundred spearmen — it used to be as many 
 knights! God rest the old warriors! Then 
 comes Nesle, Brichanteau, Saverny — " 
 
 "Saverny," repeated the listener as if pricked 
 by a wasp. 
 
 "To be sure, Saverny! The young lord, I hear, 
 is making a famous stir in Paris! a wild youth, 
 a 'rake-shame,' as they say, but we all have 
 been merry in our youth, that is, all of us who 
 make old bones worth the picking; and he will 
 mend!" 
 
 "Saverny! this is bad omen!" mused Laffe- 
 mas. "I have travelled very roundabout and, 
 ten chances to one, the corpse will have pre- 
 ceded me to that door! But," added he. bright- 
 ening up with a ghoulish smile, which made the 
 host recede. "I shall arrive for the funeral 
 feast. Is the road safe?" he suddenly de- 
 
322 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 manded of the inn-keeper, as he turned round 
 at the latter's retreat. 
 
 "My lord, we leave all the doors on the latch 
 throughout the parish! Since my young lord 
 the marquis took the cream of the lively young 
 men to Paris as pages, footboys and what-not, 
 we live in peace like the giraffes and carob- 
 beans of Scripture! If your honor continued 
 to wear that gold chain openly instead of wise- 
 ly drawing the cloak over it, he would wake 
 in the morning as hale as ever and not be found 
 hanging in it! for, truth must be told, whoever 
 it shames, we hold law officers in low esteem!" 
 
 "I hope," said quickly the judge, turning 
 again, "that Lord Guillaume up at the castle 
 does not share that uncomplimentary opinion 
 with you folk?" 
 
 "No, the old lord is a recluse and knows noth- 
 ing of the villainies going on! he hates priests 
 only, I dare say, having quitted public affairs 
 since the Bishop — that is, the Cardinal de Rich- 
 elieu — obtained the upperhand and rules the 
 realm." 
 
 "Well, I am not in holy orders," replied the 
 judge, stepping forward briskly for, in spite of 
 the roads being safe, he wished to be housed 
 before nightfall. 
 
 The way was clear, along a planted road 
 where the new trees fought for the mastery 
 with juniper, furze and holly. He soon saw, 
 defined in the fading sunlight, the two edifices, 
 old and new. 
 
 One was imposing in its grey severity, the 
 other enticing with the vagaries of an archi- 
 tect who combined Italian novelties with a live- 
 ly wit of his own; the windows sparkled in the 
 declining sunshine with all colors, the carvings 
 of stone and oak showed the clear-cut of new- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 323 
 
 ness, the bricks had a warm tone cheering to 
 a wayfarer who had been starved three days. 
 
 "But the pest on the mourning!" muttered 
 Laffemas, pausing under the noble oaks of a 
 park in the style of Henry the Fourth. 
 
 The huge gateway of the old tower was hung 
 and garlanded with black, and an enormous 
 hatchment, that is, a diamond-shaped board, 
 painted by a town artist, was fastened up 
 against the battlements. 
 
 "The host was right," said Laffemas, study- 
 ing the armorial devices on this mourning-tab- 
 leau, "there are the arms of Nesle, Brichan- 
 teau, Saverny, and Nangis in the centre. The 
 news of the marquis being done to death has 
 certainly reached here, if not the remains of the 
 scapegrace." 
 
 Before the great gate, the iron-grill thrown 
 open to facilitate the going and coming of ser- 
 vants, wearing crape ribbons and other marks 
 of woe, were grouped some soldiers of the gar- 
 rison, for Nangis seemed kept up in war state. 
 These stood respectfully aloof from several gen- 
 tlemen, who saluted, welcomed, and chatted 
 with two new arrivals. 
 
 "It is Brichanteau," muttered Laffemas, slow- 
 ly drawing nigh and jostled by country-people 
 carrying baskets of fowls, eggs, and fruit, no 
 doubt for the funeral banquet which the judge 
 had scented. "But who is that he is touching 
 elbows with — a sort of Achilles who puffs him- 
 self out as though he were master of the cere- 
 monies? well, death brings us acquainted with 
 strange relatives! I suppose this fiery captain 
 is some sprig of the family tree!" 
 
 The person to whom M. Brichanteau looked 
 up with an air of deference, which was the cue 
 for his relatives and the domestics to evince 
 
324 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the same regard, was a typical soldier-of-for- 
 tune of those days when war was a game over 
 which thirty years was often spent. 
 
 He wore a pair of black mustaches which, 
 like his long chin-tuft or royale, had been un- 
 flecked by Time's silvering touch. But a dread- 
 ful wound had lacerated his skull so as to be 
 unsightly and he had donned a palpable, un- 
 mistakable wig of grey horsehair, brought 
 down forward where the gash had seamed his 
 forehead to meet a black silk patch over his 
 left eye which it concealed. 
 
 He was clad in the uniform of the sub-officers 
 of the Duke of Anjou's regiment, but with a 
 foreign-made gorget of damascened steel, silver 
 and blue-black, and a morion, which might 
 have come down from an ancestor of the time 
 of Charles IX., shining in broad contrast to the 
 plumed hats and flat cloth caps of nobles and 
 servants, respectively, hovering round him. 
 
 "What is he?" asked Laffemas, eagerly, of a 
 passing domestic. 
 
 "The captain? Captain Dalgarado? he is the 
 majordomo for the obsequies of Marquis de 
 Saverny." 
 
 "The majordomo pro tern.? Hum! he looks 
 very common to order this establishment about, 
 and have the pert Brichanteau bow to him." 
 
 He sidled up to the group and admired, in 
 spite of himself, the martial figure, with that 
 terror of the peaceful citizen for a survivor of 
 siege assaults and charges on the trampled 
 field. 
 
 In an interval of giving orders about the pro- 
 cession of magnates when the corpse should be 
 carried from the chapel, where it was lying in 
 slate, so Laffemas now learnt, to the family 
 vault on the hill where a cypress marked the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 325 
 
 last home of the Nangis-Savernys, the master 
 of the ceremonies happened to catch the eye 
 of the stranger, who made bold to salute him. 
 
 "Who is this little fellow with the parch- 
 ment skin and in sable? The undertaker's 
 man?" queried the captain, of Brichanteau, in 
 a low voice. 
 
 "I do not know! But be on your guard, my 
 dear Saverny!" replied the other in the same 
 tone. ''He may be a spy, of which he has 
 the appearance, by my fay! If he accosts you, 
 speak him fairly, but in a voice as little like 
 your old one as possible! What the deuce! 
 Have the accent of a veteran with your excel- 
 lent disguise! Your valet is to be praised for 
 his deception! I have seen actors accounted 
 marvellous whose making up for a character 
 did not approach your assumption." 
 
 Saverny — for this "Captain Dalgarado" was 
 that worthy noble, still trying to evade the 
 royal Edict — nodded conceitedly. 
 
 "Let me alone! The part fits me like a sheet 
 of w 7 ax! I am warmed up to it! 'Sdeath! 
 Have I not cheated my good old uncle, to say 
 nothing of servants who knew me as a boy — 
 and is this little clerk of some rustic tribunal 
 to see through my disguise? It is a pleasure 
 to trick a spy, if spy he be! And Spy is in- 
 scribed on that low brow!" 
 
 "Still be wary! This fellow is not altogether 
 new 7 to me? Ilave you ever seen him bete, re?" 
 asked Brichanteau. 
 
 "Am I to bear in mind all the shark-faces 
 and fox-noses of the creditors' clerks that have 
 darkened my ante-chamber?" returned the mas- 
 querading marquis loftily. 
 
 "Be careful!" continued his friend. ''His 
 
326 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 clothes have a town-tailor's cut! where have I 
 seen him before?" 
 
 It is doing Laffemas the justice to state that, 
 convinced of the gentlemen recognising him — 
 so prominent a personage was he, in his own 
 estimation — if he did not adopt some precau- 
 tion, he convulsed his face so that he seemed 
 afflicted with chronic toothache. 
 
 "He is going to address you, surely," were 
 Brichanteau's final words, as a valet plucked 
 him by the sleeve and begged him to come 
 to a lady, in a litter between two mules, in the 
 courtyard. "Draw him out, boy, and we will 
 have him chased out of the county like a writ- 
 server, if he is a spy! But in the name of Cau- 
 tion, use a hoaDse voice! Are you not the hero 
 of a hundred sieges and orgies!" 
 
 On seeing the speaker depart, and isolation 
 surround the mock captain, Laffemas, bowing 
 again, ventured to step up to the latter. 
 
 "What a dreadful calamity!" said he in a 
 piteous voice, making the feint to dry his eye 
 with the flowing lace of his cuff. "What woe 
 to the house of Nangis-Saverny! I understand 
 that your honor was present at the affray?" 
 
 The superb captain, as the inquirer still pre- 
 sumed him to be, looked at him up and down 
 with the air peculiar to men of the sword ad- 
 dressed by men of the courts of law, and con- 
 descended to reply, in the disguised voice which 
 Brichanteau had recommended. 
 
 "You are right, sir! I had the honor to be 
 his second — a duty which has its thorns, I sup- 
 pose, for, verily! What times and modes! If 
 they hang a noble for fighting a duel, little 
 under a life-imprisonment should await the sec- 
 ond in the affair of honor!" 
 
 Laffemas bowed to hide confusion. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 327 
 
 "I am so little expert in (he law," said he, 
 hurriedly, "being but a slew aid, that I do not 
 
 know the penalties! But a royal decree! coun- 
 tersigned by the Prime Minister! It is not to 
 be sneezed at, as honest folk say." 
 
 "The penalty is that the Marquis de Saverny, 
 of old family though he was — for the head of 
 the house, Lord Gruillaume de Nangis, was 
 brother-inarms of 'the Evergreen Gallant' Har- 
 ry the Fourth! peace to his memory! 'scaped 
 death by the hangman — faugh! By letting 
 himself be pierced by a lowly blade." 
 
 "A lowly blade killed our young marquis?" 
 cried out the judge in sympathy, the more em- 
 phatic as the crowd pressed around to hear 
 of the homicide for the twentieth time from 
 the ocular witness. 
 
 ''He was decidedly killed," resumed the mock 
 captain, curling his chin-tuft with sad reflec- 
 tion. "It was one of the daintiest, killingest 
 thrusts in tierce which I ever saw delivered, 
 and, as the leavens hear me! I have seen 
 thrusts delivered — at my body for that matter 
 which, did the blades still remain stuck in me, 
 would make me resemble the St. Sebastian by 
 Del Piombo in the library yonder." 
 
 "I — I thought I heard you say.it was a thrust 
 in quarte," corrected one of the bystanders, 
 wishing to show that he was not a brief so- 
 journer at the castle. 
 
 "In tierce, sir!" said the captain fiercely, so 
 that the interrupter quailed and slunk behind 
 Laffemas. "And I ought to be able to define 
 sword-thrusts!" 
 
 "Who is better capable?" said the judge with 
 a winning smile. "So, it is matter of history, 
 henceforth, the poor young marquis was 
 pierced by a sword-thrust in tierce?" 
 
328 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 ''Which in the first place cut through a thick 
 doublet of Spanish leather, soft as silk but 
 warranted dagger-proof by the Genoese who 
 sold it at the sign of the Thumb-bell and Bod- 
 kin, in the Rue des Angevins — deuce fly away 
 with him! Then, the callous steel made its 
 bloody way through the side, by the lung, into 
 the liver, and oh! by my soul! what a deluge 
 of blood, as you may guess! Gentleman, the 
 outlet was a wound horrible to behold!" 
 
 He covered his face with his hand in deep 
 emotion. 
 
 A look of sympathy appeared on all coun- 
 tenances while a groan hailed the speech. 
 
 "Of course, he died outright?" said LafTe- 
 mas, to break the pause. 
 
 "No, he—" 
 
 "Of course, outright!" interposed Brichan- 
 teau, who had returned and now hastened to 
 support the story-teller. 
 
 "He died," proceeded Saverny, recovering 
 self-command, "almost instantly! It was a 
 martyrdom of bounded duration!" and he 
 raised his uncovered eye solemnly to the sky 
 where the dark was spreading. "I saw spasms 
 succeed delirium — " 
 
 "Ah, me!" said a woman in the outer circle 
 of listeners. 
 
 "An awful attack of tetanus succeed the 
 spasms — " 
 
 "Misery of man!" cried out a devout servant, 
 crossing himself. 
 
 "And," concluded the mock captain, "to the 
 opistathonos came the improstathonos!" 
 
 "All this to the poor young lord ! The saints 
 be good to us!" ejaculated the hearers, and 
 even Laffemas was impressed by the doctors' 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 329 
 
 Latin which quite paralleled his own Law 
 
 Lai in. 
 
 "I never heard the like," said he. 
 
 A servant kindled two immense balls of 
 tarred hemp in cressets at the tower gateway 
 and the courtyard was thus lighted. The 
 group, on the point of breaking up, frightened 
 in the dusk, rallied around Laffemas and the 
 mock captain. 
 
 "I gather from this," pursued the latter, 
 "that it is erroneous to affirm that the life- 
 stream must issue by the jugular vein. If I 
 had my way with the Lieutenant-Criminal — " 
 
 Laffemas shuddered as the single eye was 
 fastened on him, fearful that the speaker di- 
 vined something of his profession. 
 
 "I would have those learned men prosecuted 
 who hold with Dr. Pecquet that the lungs 
 exude blood at the last gasp, for the exem- 
 plification of which they vivisect dogs." 
 
 "Dead, our poor marquis!" sighed Laffemas, 
 watching the play of ruddy light on the front 
 of the new and the old residences. "To lose 
 all this fine propertv through a prod of an awl, 
 like that!" 
 
 "It was a death-dealing stroke from a long 
 Spanish sword!" said Saverny. 
 
 "I conclude that you were a student in sur- 
 gery, sir?" said the judge, with admiration 
 which the spectators shared. 
 
 "All my study of surgery was active, on the 
 battlefield," rejoined the veteran modestly. 
 
 "But you must have profoundly read on the 
 subject?" persisted the chief auditor. 
 
 "Yes, hem! In Aristotle!" said Saverny. 
 luckily remembering that sage could be cited 
 i S a well of universal learning. 
 
 "Any one could tell that — and deeply read, 
 
330 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 'fore the laws!" cried Laffemas, with entkusi- 
 asm. 
 
 Brichanteau was again at his friend's elbow. 
 He nudged him to keep quiet, but in vain. The 
 audience urged him on. He was that most in- 
 corrigible of actors, one in love with his part. 
 
 "In sooth," went on he, while only superfi- 
 cially regarding the stranger against whom he 
 was thus repeatedly warned as possibly a spy, 
 "my heart is one which is far from devoid of 
 malice! Nothing in the world delights me! 
 Gentlemen, I do evil with rapture! I am fond 
 of slaughter!" 
 
 The crowd receded a little and Laffemas 
 alone stood his ground so as to confront this 
 terrible slayer of men. 
 
 "Hence, it was my intention, when I should 
 enter on a career at manhood, to become either 
 a soldier or a doctor! I wavered, like Buri- 
 dan's ass, between the two extremes, which 
 are so identical in their aims! Finally, I chose 
 the sword instead of the lancet — it is more 
 gentlemanly and a little less fatal! Ah, how 
 young wits vary — I remember oscillating be- 
 tween the diverse professions of play-actor — " 
 
 "You would have made a laudable Slayer-of- 
 Moors — a Matamore! incomparable!" ex- 
 claimed Laffemas, clapping his hands. 
 
 "A poet!" 
 
 "Captain Fier-a-bras a poet? I declare I 
 cannot see that!" said the judge while Brichan- 
 teau wrung his hands in despair of checking 
 the courser in his bounds. 
 
 "Yes, I wrote — " but recalling his epigram 
 about shaving which came near to being his 
 epitaph, the marquis halted. 
 
 "Actor and poet!" said Laffemas, taking a 
 pleasure in hounding on the speaker witli a 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 331 
 
 faint hope that out of the garrulity would 
 come something to his advantage — he knew not 
 what — but cross examiners have this impulse 
 to encourage talkativeness. 
 
 "Or bear-leader!" 
 
 Spite of the mournful occasion which as- 
 sembled the visitors, a roar of laughter hailed 
 this step toward the ridiculous from the sub- 
 lime. 
 
 "Bear-leader? Well, you were companion, 
 you said, of his lordship the marquis!" said 
 Laffemas cynically. 
 
 "But I had a keen appetite, and to have 
 something to eat morn and night, I cast ideas 
 of poesy and the stage and training of Urso to 
 the winds!" 
 
 "Come away," whispered Brichanteau. "Un- 
 der heaven, I fear that you have been drink- 
 ing!" 
 
 "One moment," said Laffemas, insinuatively. 
 "Where did you derive this phantasy for rhym- 
 ing, you, a soldier?" 
 
 "Oh, in — what the mischief is his name? — 
 Aristotle!" 
 
 "What a charming companion you must have 
 been for the marquis!" said the judge; "he 
 who dashed off witticisms which made the 
 court writhe with hilarity and — the bench 
 issue warrants for his being brought before 
 them!" 
 
 "That pasquin! I am lost!" muttered Sa- 
 verny, shivering. 
 
 "Courage! And dismiss this prying knave!" 
 whispered Brichanteau. 
 
 "Let me first lull any suspicions I may have 
 raised," said the mock captain hastily. Then, 
 aloud, he observed: "I, companion of Marquis 
 Nazaire? The Lord forbid! I was not of his 
 
332 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 grade; he was a lieutenant when I was but a 
 non-commissioned officer." 
 
 "I should have thought vou alwavs wore the 
 epaulet!" said Laffemas with inability to sup- 
 press a sneer. 
 
 "I was in the command of the Duke of Caus- 
 sade when the marquis took a fancy to me, 
 from my skill at the rapier, and the duke, who 
 was not tenacious about trifles — gave me over 
 to him." 
 
 "Egad! What a trumpery present!" said 
 Brichanteau, vexed at his counsel remaining 
 unheeded. 
 
 "You cannot have more of the cat than her 
 skin!" said Saverny drily. "I was promoted to 
 be officer for teaching the marquis and other 
 noble scions to parry and thrust. I still have 
 a black mustache though I lost my flowing 
 locks by a petard exploding prematurely at 
 the assault on the Red Half-moon at Mons. I 
 am worth my pay, and am willing to prove 
 with firearm or cold steel that I am as good a 
 man as another! That's my tale!" 
 
 "Then come away indoors, since you have 
 reached the end!" urged Brichanteau. 
 
 "Pardon me," persisted Laffemas, following 
 the gentlemen to the tower entrance. "But 
 you would be in charge of the marquis' re- 
 mains, since he was your brother-in-arms?" 
 
 "True! I had the honor to escort the body 
 from Blois." 
 
 "Did the peasant folk seek to steal the bones 
 as a new Saint Nazaire?" questioned Laffemas, 
 no longer able to control his malice, on seeing 
 that some understanding of an occult nature 
 existed between the disguised noble and his 
 friend. 
 
 "No, sir! But the roads were not safe! 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 333 
 
 There was a rumor that, under pretence of 
 carrying ou1 of Blois the corpse of m,v la- 
 mented patron, the CrowD sought to transport 
 coin to pay for the galleys building ai Nantes. 
 So, as the broken band of Malargue the Flayer 
 was re-uniting, I was told off to organise a 
 counter-troop. I mustered in a score of d<s 
 peradoes, and. faith! we have deposited the 
 marquis safe and sound — that is, intact, in the 
 chapel yonder:" 
 
 "Now, sir!" said Brichanteau with fretful- 
 ness, "you have the poor body at rest! Pray 
 thee: good night!" 
 
 But the indomitable judge once again caught 
 the marquis by the sleeve in the very door- 
 way and said, in silky tones: 
 
 "No more of the marquis, then, since that is 
 your good pleasure! But — " 
 
 "It is a spy! He will never have done!" 
 whispered Brichanteau. "Shall I have him 
 cudgelled or ducked in the w T atering-trough?" 
 
 "Your last question, friend?" said the mar- 
 quis imperatively. 
 
 "How does the respected master of the castle 
 take the loss of his adored nephew 7 ?" 
 
 "Quietly, sir! Ominously quietly," inter- 
 rupted Brichanteau. 
 
 "Eh, sir! quietly? And yet, it is known, that 
 he loved him as a man of age loves life when 
 he is without children! I have heard that he 
 had but the single hope — to see Marquis Na- 
 zaire rule here, married — giving him a little 
 nephew to lead him under those old trees to 
 yonder warm seat by the sun dial !" 
 
 Saverny, at last willing to escape this im- 
 portunate questioner, rapidly plunged into the 
 interior. 
 
 "You have heard aright, sir," said Brichan- 
 
334 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 teau, barring the way. "He loved poor Na- 
 zaire! With a warm heart, though the snow 
 has chilled his head! Good night!" 
 
 "Stay!" cried Laffemas. "In order that I 
 should verify your kind wish of a good night, 
 let me beg your majordomo to accord me a 
 room with a bed — " 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "I am tired — I have come from — from — 
 Tours to see the funeral and the inns will be 
 thronged!" 
 
 "Under what quality do you require hospi- 
 tality beneath this sorrowful roof?" said the 
 other. 
 
 "If he has recognised me, I am lost," thought 
 Laffemas. "But, no! I am a good actor, and 
 he is deluded! My back is in danger, but, 
 nothing venture! My lord," replied he, in a 
 steady voice, "I am steward of a lady who was 
 deeply enamored of the late marquis. Hear- 
 ing of the untimely death, I thought — nay, I 
 know that she will be consoled if I am able 
 to report in what comforting way his funeral 
 was conducted ! Let me tarry and see the cere- 
 mony!" 
 
 Brichanteau made a wry face. But it is al- 
 ways well to have a spy under the hand. 
 
 "Tobie — Andre!" he called out to passing 
 servants. "A guestroom for this M. — M. — " 
 
 "M. Xorbert, steward — this goes no farther, 
 my lord! to Mademoiselle Marion Delorme!" 
 
 "Oh, you are steward to Mar — " 
 
 "Hush!" and he laid his finger on his lips. 
 "No scandal in presence of the dead still above 
 ground!" 
 
 "You are right! To the room with Master 
 Steward!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 335 
 
 / 
 The gentleman turned his hack on Laffemas, 
 who followed the valet, muttering: 
 
 "I am inside the fort ! Now, what is the mys- 
 tery which makes the dainty Brichanteau pair 
 off with an old camp-follower like that!" 
 
336 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE STROLLERS. 
 
 Didier's short visit to Paris was but an epi- 
 sode classed with his other casual glimpses of 
 town life in his travels. 
 
 Hence, he was flung into a new world, only 
 a stage less insupportable than the stay in 
 prison, by his entrance into the circle of stroll- 
 ing players. 
 
 These gentry to him were all the Law and 
 the Church designated them: vagabonds. 
 
 Broken gentlemen and unfrocked priests en- 
 tered the army, in preference to going upon 
 the stage. 
 
 Amusing, clever, intelligent to the last stage 
 of finished sharpness, regarding the outer 
 world as their prey for its dullness, the ac- 
 tors entertained Didier for but a brief time 
 with their novelty. 
 
 Perhaps, had he been alone, condemned to 
 their society, philosophy would have come to 
 his aid and enabled him to support his changed 
 existence. 
 
 But with Marion by his side, among the rogu- 
 ish sons of Thespis, every moment was a tor- 
 ment. It galled him that a mountebank should 
 address her on a footing of equality — it seemed 
 to him that the whiff from their sordid frip- 
 pery sullied her. So with the Spanish costume 
 in which they had garbed her — who might not 
 have worn it before her? Some drab who had 
 been whipped at the carfs-tail and sent to be 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 337 
 
 drowned in the well of a Rasp-house! II was 
 iint the 1( ;ist of the woes which had thronged 
 
 upon him since he had first crossed swords with 
 Malargue, who decidedly was his bag of mi 
 luckiness, thai .Marion should be mingled with 
 these ballad-mongers. 
 
 Mondori in particular kept his ire ablaze, 
 with his familiar paternal address, the same 
 he used to all the company. They hailed him 
 as "father," and he assumed all the airs of the 
 general paternity. But he was so good-hum- 
 ored, so irresistibly merry, so full of devices 
 which cheated inn-keepers, stupid burgomas- 
 ters and blundering horse-patrols, that one had 
 to forgive his manners. 
 
 But Marion soon taught herself patience for 
 •the sake of love, and bore with charming meek- 
 ness the descent in her station. 
 
 "Let us bear with them," said she; "remem- 
 ber, our lives are at stake. In this company 
 we may get nearer and nearer to the confines 
 of the kingdom and, once we cross the border 
 or the seas, we may be safe." 
 
 Didier smiled again. 
 
 "Yes, I have travelled — how fortunate that 
 same roving now! I have a smattering of 
 tongues, so that we shall not be plundered in 
 England, Italy or Germany — wherever we 
 chance to be wafted by this fitful wind.'' 
 
 The manager of the band had his orders, one 
 would think, for he did not stop to give repre- 
 sentations at any of the night-halts. He 
 pressed on with a haste and persistency which 
 amazed the actors, never having seen so much 
 energy and neglect of picking up the gold 
 pieces on the part of the indolent, happy-go 
 lucky Italian. 
 
 It was due to this rapid march without any 
 
338 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 performances to delay them, that Laffeinas was 
 baffled. 
 
 On being asked why he neglected his busi- 
 ness, the manager winked slightly, clapped his 
 fat hands together in mock reverence and said : 
 
 "Thanks to St. Francis, we have no need 
 to act for ducat, sequin, genevan or Ruyter! 
 Not for a month! In the meantime, live at 
 ease! and guard that couple of new comrades, 
 as our what-do-vou-call-it that fell from the 
 sky in 'the Taking of Troy?' Ah, the Palla- 
 dium! That man and that woman, they are 
 our dual palladium, and while they endanger 
 us — perhaps, why, they also plump out our poor 
 cashbox!" 
 
 "St. Francis! What new patron saint has 
 the padrone?" inquired the thin, lathy, wasp- 
 like Florentine who personated Scaramouche. 
 
 "Do you not recall the Capuchin who earn- 
 estly conferred with the manager at Blois, be- 
 fore we received this substitute for that poor 
 Matamore? Well, what is a Capuchin but a 
 Franciscan? Depend on it," said the buffoon, 
 one Signor Le Gracieux, "we owe this streak 
 of good fortune to that friar!" 
 
 "Good nothing!" grumbled the black-browed, 
 burly gentleman who played the "Taillebras," 
 that is, the Tyrants, and who was a confirmed 
 misanthrope, "we shall be fried in our own 
 fat if we are captured by the police of the 
 capital! This woman is no ordinary fugitive, 
 and that man slew a noble!" 
 
 From Didier's disgust, which Marion's forced 
 affability did not wholly alleviate, the stroll- 
 ers kept aloof, and when the party at a hill 
 alighted from the caravans to walk up and 
 ease the horses, lineal descendants of Rosi- 
 nante, the loving couple paced the ruts alone. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 339 
 
 Iii these intervals they continued to exchange 
 confidence od their new life, the woman coun- 
 selling the forbearance she showed, and Didier 
 exhaling his impatience and loathing. 
 
 "Do yon not think, Marie?" said Didier, with 
 a bitter laugh as, on a hilltop, they turned to 
 see behind them the tawdry train ascending, 
 putting their shoulders to the creaking wheels, 
 carrying the wardrobe, with Mondori guarding 
 the mule on whose back was strapped the 
 money-box which was not a misnomer, for 
 once, in their adventurous progress, ''do you 
 not think that I have dragged you down suffi- 
 ciently low? But you would follow me, wretch 
 that I am, unto the prison pit into which you 
 descended, like the angel who fiew T down into 
 the healing Pool! My destiny is a funeral car 
 to which your bright one should never have 
 been chained — for it will be crushed in the 
 abysm and you will lie under its fragments! 
 I told you. in the castle keep, that I was un- 
 lucky! look on this crew of scarecrows, and 
 answer if I was not right?" 
 
 "Didier, are you reproaching me for w T hat I 
 have done to walk bv vour side?" 
 
 She had clasped her hands and trembled in 
 a plaintive mood. 
 
 "Never!" he cried out, reckless if he were 
 overheard — lovers are often desirous of parad- 
 ing their transports. "Never will a reproach 
 toward you issue from these lips, blessed by 
 contact with yours! I should be accursed above 
 all mankind, the most deserving of outlawry of 
 all outlaws, which we are at the time being, 
 if this heart were to rebuke you, when you 
 are its sole saint — its faith!" 
 
 When, indeed, all was set against him, as he 
 was struck and thrust into ward and duress, 
 
340 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 with death the prospect, not even exile as its 
 foil of hope — she had come as his saver. 
 
 "Yes," said he, turning his eyes toward her 
 from the evening star as if she were the serv- 
 ant of Venus and he was the liege of both 
 goddess and her attendant, "you are my shelter 
 as you were my only hope when I languished 
 in despair." 
 
 "I, saved you?" she faltered. 
 
 "It is all due to you, whoever the direct 
 agent of heaven! Who came down from the 
 skies into my limbo but you?" 
 
 "Would not that priest be more fit agent of 
 providence?" said she, eager on her part to 
 know more of the motives which made Father 
 Joseph the friend of the unknown Didier as 
 well as her own, for the Cardinal's right-hand 
 man had not hitherto been friendly to her. In- 
 deed, a certain sermon of his, at St. Gene- 
 vieve's, had been cited to her as pointed at no 
 other mark. 
 
 She had mocked, then, saying: "Because his 
 Eminence is the Scarlet Premier, am I to be 
 the Scarlet Woman of this era?" 
 
 "Who tricked my jailer?" he proceeded. 
 
 "That Capuchin," answered she. "I stand to 
 that!" 
 
 "The priest did his part — so did the doctor, 
 the warders, peradventure, the governor of 
 the town and fort, but at least none of these 
 accompanied me in my flight!" said Didier with 
 lover's logic. "Who is the fellow-fugitive but 
 you?" 
 
 "Certainly I have abandoned all to follow 
 you," she murmured, without a sigh, although, 
 on the western sky, suffused with the orange 
 sunset, a vision of her drawing-room in Paris 
 suddenly loomed up, and by a trick of the 
 
 \ 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 341 
 
 memory the chattel- of the players, mouncing 
 tin- acclivity, seemed the small-talk of the in- 
 timates of her boudoir. 
 
 "What other woman, " pursued the young 
 man, admiringly, "would have had the intelli- 
 gence, fortitude, and unfailing love to console 
 me in my bondage, sustain me in this hegira of 
 shame and pour on my fainting soul the balm 
 so invigorating of hope?" 
 
 Through tears came her pleasant words: "It 
 is the only happiness I have ever known, to 
 follow you and love you!" 
 
 "Wipe your eyes and look up — let me see 
 in them what intoxicates and strengthens me 
 for this dolorous pilgrimage! Before I met 
 you, it seemed always to me that I had two 
 shadows, my own and a demon that, unlike 
 the other, accompanied me as w 7 ell in the dark- 
 ness as in the light! That shadow has not 
 left me — will it ever quit me? But on the 
 other hand an angel keeps step with me — its 
 wings fan my fevered brow and cool my heated 
 heart! Be blessed, Marie! For you fascinate 
 and concentrate my attention — seeing you, I 
 see no more ! Your eyes are two lakes in which 
 my spirit Moats, like the swan and its mir- 
 rored self — in their compass is all the limit I 
 wish to disport in and exist!" 
 
 "What are they mouthing up there?" said 
 the comedian to the manager. ''Did you give 
 them a part? I hope it is nothing that 
 trenches on my line?" 
 
 "Loon!" replied the manager. "Do you not 
 see that they are doomed to be tragic! That 
 woman might be a queen of no painted throne- 
 room and that young man, who pinked the 
 master of fence, Malargue, has a hand to flour- 
 ish Excalibur itself! Per Baccho! If only 
 
342 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 they will spout what is set down for them 
 with the fire they are putting into their dia- 
 logues between themselves! We shall be able 
 to re-open in Paris and make our fortunes! 
 Born Morgana, that woman ! and born Orlando, 
 that man!" 
 
 "Supposing," said Didier, seeing that they 
 were still in advance of the party, which 
 stopped on the hill brink to rest, "supposing 
 that we cross the frontier or the ocean, will 
 it be there, in the far country, where the King's 
 writ will not run, that you contemplate to 
 make me your lord and master? Come, come, 
 whatever bonds may lie on you in this jealous 
 and implacable France, they must be snapped 
 by the tension of distance." 
 
 Marion turned pale. Was there a land of 
 civilisation where her reputation had not pre- 
 ceded her? 
 
 "Be content," said she in a shaken voice, 
 
 "can we not remain brother and sister?" 
 
 "Did I refuse liberty when you came into 
 my cell and offered it under odd conditions 
 of mystery and ignominy? Why will you not 
 accept that liberty in exchange for your own? 
 You would not refuse me a drink from this 
 spring! Well, why refuse my thirsty soul the 
 bliss of holding you before heaven and man 
 as my wife?" 
 
 "Alas! A wife!" sighed Marion. 
 "Then, we could wander all the world over 
 in surety, and we should not have to resent 
 the whisper and the slur! Oh, chaste and 
 high-growing flower," he exclaimed in a rhap- 
 sody which, without the words being distin- 
 guished, delighted the connoisseurs of tirades 
 in the mass of strollers now coming up, "let me 
 be able to show you to the world, proud that 
 
OR. RICHELIEU DEFIED. 343 
 
 the husband cherishes the purity which the 
 lover respected!" 
 
 "Be careful, Didier, they will overhear you!" 
 she cried out. 
 
 "Those ribalds!'' sneered the young gentle- 
 man, without looking round. "Pah! Do not 
 revive the wrath which the sight of them kin- 
 dles!" 
 
 "A ragged escort,"' said Marion, gravely, "but 
 mark! they defend us! I did not choose them 
 to be your guard — that was the work of a 
 wiser one than I. Think that, with a squad- 
 ron of dragoons around us, we should have 
 been brought to a standstill at the first garri- 
 son town! But, with these tatterdemalions, 
 slipping by woodmen's paths and the goat's 
 trails, skulking past cottages and under the 
 castled cliff, we pass unchallenged! If the 
 gendarmerie and the custom-house officers bar 
 the way, Signor Mondori has his unctuous 
 laugh and a mirthful word which clears the 
 road like a talisman! Oh, happy these idlers 
 who have the 'Open Sesame!' to the robbers' 
 caves of this earth! Who enjoy the mental 
 treasures of which the Forty Thieves cannot 
 pilfer them!" 
 
 "In a word," said the man disdainfully and 
 with pain, "yon envy them!" 
 
 "They may be imprisoned, whipped, branded 
 — expelled from town and burg!" returned Mar- 
 ion sadly, "but at least they will not be sus- 
 pended to the gibbet! Remember the dead 
 Saverny! remember the deadly Edict, signed by 
 the King and countersigned by the Red Cardi- 
 nal!" 
 
 Her cheek was blanched; her lustrous eyes 
 lost their pearly brilliancy around the black 
 pupil. 
 
344 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "You are right, and always right," said Di- 
 dier, changing his fervent tone and relaxing 
 his excited gait to allow the strollers to over- 
 take them with their creaking wagons. "Let 
 mv evil destiny cling to me — at least you com- 
 bat it every moment with your youth, beauty, 
 happiness and hopes! Am I to despair when 
 I see that I have been selected to enjoy these 
 boons, prodigally lavished on me, though our 
 morose monarch would esteem them cheap at 
 the price of Navarre and Bourbon! When is 
 my fate to be other than this one, during which 
 I can repay you with — what? Folly, misery, 
 death! Heaven led me to you but Satan 
 seems to have forged this chain binding us! I 
 have seen on the highway two men linked by 
 steel — one was a malefactor, the other his cap- 
 tor, who was afraid of losing him and so con- 
 sented to be coupled with sin! I, your prize 
 — whither do you lead me?" 
 
 "Where we shall be happy by-and-bye, be- 
 loved!" interposed Marion, lowering her tone 
 so that he should imitate her prudence. 
 
 "What good have I ever done in my useless, 
 aimless life — or what evil can you have 
 wrought, that we are equalised and I merit 
 you?" 
 
 "All I know is that my happiness comes from 
 you — the only happiness I care to feel!" 
 
 The vesper bell resounded from a petty 
 church here and there over the darkling vales 
 and, irreverent as were the strollers by prac- 
 tice, habit caused some of them to stop and 
 cross themselves as they murmured the even- 
 ing prayer. 
 
 Didier stopped short and took Marion by the 
 hand. 
 
 "No doubt vou speak what you think when 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 345 
 
 you talk in that strain," said he, with a r< mm 
 of his customary gloominess; "but am I to 
 imagine thai the laics have done dealing out 
 i heir black cards to me, and that a1 lasl I 
 shall have a heart — diamonds! instead of the 
 clubs of peasants and the swords of their bet- 
 ters? My star is bad! Its course is most oft 
 amid the clouds which obscure and vomit con- 
 suming lightnings! [gnorantof whence I came, 
 I Tear that whither 1 go is more melancholy! 
 
 "See. Marie, the road branch's here! This 
 way. where the troupe goes, it is arid and 
 bleak! 80 fits it the better for me! Go you 
 thither, over the gentle undulations and those 
 fertile plains! It is time for you to take a 
 new direction or even to turn back — for surely 
 no one will harm a beautiful woman, in this 
 age of gallantry!" 
 
 '•Indeed!'' she sneered with a causticity he 
 had never remarked in her previously. 
 
 ••Let me go on with these coarse fellows to 
 the first point of proximity to the border. 
 Stay with me and what awaits us at my jour- 
 ney's end? A couch so narrow that it will not 
 suffice for two! And a cold so intense that 
 it would freeze even vour eternal vouth and 
 whiten your glow of loveliness. Begone!" 
 
 "With you!" she replied, fastening her hands 
 on his arm as though the ambulatory actors 
 were coming to divide them. 
 
 "You must be reft of sense to wish to share 
 my burden — my banishment — my poverty! 
 Are these the hands to fell the giant cypress of 
 Louisiana? The banian-tree of India? Is the 
 anaconda to be wrestled with and hurled into 
 the roaring cataract, as one drops a bully into 
 the placid Seine? I foresee such prolonged 
 
346 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 sorrows that even your unquenchable eyes 
 would be dimmed by tears!" 
 
 Marion shuddered, so powerful was the pic- 
 ture he presented, but while she sobbed, she 
 shook her head. 
 
 The best mounted of the company passed; 
 the heavy wagons groaned as they surged in 
 the ruts. Scaramouche passed with a smile, 
 the Tyrant, with a frown; the women sighed 
 and looked covetously at the cloudy yet ener- 
 getic lover and envied Marion, though she 
 wept. 
 
 Sometimes, Love delights in these veils of 
 tears over the adorable eyes of his chief en- 
 chantresses. How many a landscape fails to 
 entrance until the rains descend and out bursts 
 the cascade under its celestial bow! 
 
 "Your fate combined — nay, coalesced with 
 mine appalls me! Begone!" 
 
 "You are doing it finely!" said Mondori, 
 sponging his forehead with an Indian hand- 
 kerchief and smiling on the pair. "I shall cast 
 you for 'Darius' Daughter sueing to Alexan- 
 der!' by the illustrious — illus — really, I forget 
 the author, but the piece is an excellent tra- 
 gedy all the same!" 
 
 He gave them a blessing with his fingers, like 
 the Pontiff signifying a benediction on the 
 world. 
 
 Unconsciously, Didier reflected the smile, 
 and instantly changing his tone he said, with 
 great remorse for having caused the weeping: 
 
 "Marie, my treasure — so many tears, when 
 to buy the cessation of one, I would lay down 
 my life!" 
 
 "Didier, I would sooner you slew me out- 
 right than spoke in this heart-rending mode!" 
 said she, rising from kneeling at his feet. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 347 
 
 The strollers had passed on: the lovers were 
 alone in the twilight. But it seemed to Didier 
 that an afterglow lingered on the summit of 
 
 the ascent and enveloped Marion. He caught 
 her in his arms and sued for forgiveness. 
 
 The long, serpentine boughs of the straggling 
 ground-elm and beech curved down over their 
 heads and shook the dew, like incense from a 
 sprinkler, upon them. 
 
 "Do not depart from me," he continued em- 
 bracing her as if she were struggling to be 
 free. "Stay with me and be my fortune! Oh, 
 may not inconstant fate abruptly diverge from 
 the course it has pursued toward me, these 
 twenty years, and, for your sake — since you 
 deserve all that this globe provides of delights 
 — shower favor upon me? Be my glory as you 
 are my love — be my guiding-star and lead me 
 on to welfare and felicity! How bewitching 
 you are! No, I cannot live where you are not!" 
 
 A distant halloa and a blast of the trumpet 
 which, among the players, represented indif- 
 ferently Roland's horn, the Wild Huntsman's, 
 the bugle at the gate of the enchanted castle, 
 and so on, resounded from another hill where 
 the troupe paused to rest and await the belated 
 pair. 
 
 "A kiss upon our reconciliation — " 
 
 "As though we ever quarrelled," responded 
 Marion, pouting. 
 
 "And let us on! Briefly, w T e may be king 
 and queen over this mimic world of the stage! 
 But at the frontier, we cast off the borrowed 
 wings and take a flight into the realms of hap- 
 piness!" 
 
 On the mount Mondori still lingered. 
 
 "Good!" said he on seeing the couple. "You 
 made me uneasy, for 1 hear from a faggot- 
 
348 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 gatherer that a squad of musketeers are at an 
 inn over there; it may be a party in search of 
 you. Let us hasten. There," continued he, 
 pointing to the castle tower and the red roof 
 which had attracted Laffemas' attention from 
 almost the same point of view, "that fort which 
 mocks at the ordinance for such bullies of 
 stone to be thrown down, must be a solid habi- 
 tation w T here we can find shelter. If haply 
 some feast collects the nobility and gentry 
 there, then our fortune is made! Yes, I see 
 conveyances on the road, for the lanterns glit- 
 ter like will-o'-the-wisps — all converge to the 
 great house! Take heart, the old fossils are 
 crumbling away — if we meet with a new lord 
 who has been to Paris and wishes well to the 
 Arts, our fortune, as I said, is gilded!" 
 
 And locking arms with Didier, to the lat- 
 ter's shocked pride, and followed by Marion, 
 smiling, the good-natured stroller hurried them 
 on to the Castle of Nangis. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 349 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 NO MAN IS A HERO TO HIS SECRETARY. 
 
 When the judge rose in the morning, which 
 was at a late hour for the country, from his 
 town habits and his fatigue, the courtyard was 
 lively with company. The tidings had been 
 diffused of the death of the young marquis 
 and, though he had not been seen in the vicin- 
 ity for some five years, the esteem in which 
 his family was held caused a vast concourse 
 to assemble. 
 
 Laffemas, dressing himself still more care- 
 fully to appear to be the domestic of a modest 
 household, and lining his face with the black 
 end of a partly burnt sulphur match, which 
 altered his features, descended among the 
 throng. He listened to the conversation but, 
 as the most of the gathering were gentlemen- 
 farmers and squires who took the occasion to 
 grumble at the taxes, at the poor crops and 
 the low price of live stock, he learnt nothing 
 to assist him in his quest for the troupe of 
 Mondori. 
 
 Politics were discussed but, as he was a 
 stranger, he noticed that the chat flagged 
 when he approached a knot of speakers. At 
 the most he gleaned that the King was believed 
 a mere painted idol of the court and that the 
 First Minister was feared as much as he was 
 disliked. The aversion sprang, like that as- 
 cribed to the Marquis of Nangis, from his being 
 in the priesthood. 
 
 He congratulated himself on his incognito, 
 
?50 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 while dreading it was not perfect enough to 
 deceive the Banneret of Brichanteau, who mis- 
 liked his astute and ungrateful countenance 
 and had circulated a word against him which 
 he had overheard, accompanied by ill-sup- 
 pressed laughter. 
 
 "This little man in black is a raven! Such 
 are sure to be lured by the dead!" 
 
 He had at the dawn again insisted on his 
 friend under the mask being prudent. 
 
 "What bird of evil mien would cheat 
 iEsop!" said he, watching the suspicious judge 
 in all his perambulation of the park. 
 
 All at once, as the air became warm with 
 the sunshine, a hum of pleasure mixed with re- 
 gretful sympathy rose from all the detached 
 groups which ceased to idle at the crossways 
 and formed hedges so that the master of the 
 castle could proceed on his walk unstayed. 
 
 The old Marquis of Nangis did not seem to 
 see anyone as, leaning on the arm of a valet, 
 he took his regular stroll in the beech avenue. 
 He was plunged in a profound spell of grief 
 and meditation. His step was slow, his head 
 hung, and his white hands trembled. He was 
 clad in black velvet, with lace cuffs and collar 
 in the pointed mode familiar in Vandyck's 
 pictures. 
 
 Laffemas went up and down the side paths, 
 keeping pace with the aged lord, and in turn 
 kept under supervision by Brichanteau, at 
 whose elbow trotted Saverny. 
 
 As soon as the old noble felt the necessity 
 of repose, his supporter led him to a mossy 
 bank, before one of those tricky waterworks, 
 after the Italian manner, which, if one sat in 
 the wrong place, would cause a Triton, who 
 in peace held an empty conch to his lips, to 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 351 
 
 spoul a mass of spray upon the luckless vie 
 tim. 
 Fortunately for Laffemas, he had not the im- 
 
 pudence to take a scat beside the marquis, 
 though he ventured to walk up to him. 
 
 Bowing lowly, he said in a tone of defer- 
 ence and sympathy at which the hearers were 
 surprised, so sincere did it seem: 
 
 "Alas! my lord marquis, we have truly lost 
 the hope of the great house! The Marquis of 
 Saverny was such a nephew as one sees rarely 
 in these degenerate days!" 
 
 Nangis looked up and, for the first time since 
 he had heard of his nephew being killed and 
 brought to the castle for burial, expressed an 
 interest in what was spoken to him. 
 
 "Ah," continued the "left-hand man" of Rich- 
 elieu with the same faultless imitation of con- 
 dolence, "there was one who would have 
 softened the harshness of old age! Allow me 
 to weep over him with you!" 
 
 "The mischief! are we mistaken in the ge- 
 nus?" muttered Saverny to his sole confidant, 
 "this is rather a crying hyena than a raven!" 
 
 "What is he driving at?" remarked the ban- 
 neret, bewildered. 
 
 The two gentlemen approached the couple 
 so as to overhear the dialogue. 
 
 "Never was there a better disposition in a 
 young and handsome gentleman!" proceeded 
 Laffemas, still hovering around his prey, so to 
 say, without daring to take the seat beside 
 the mourning one. "He served the All-Merci- 
 ful as faithfully as he did our Highness the 
 King, son of that Henry whom your lordship 
 served so truly! How reserved the youthful 
 lord was toward the gentler sex!" 
 
 "What a liar!" muttered Saverny. "This is 
 
352 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 a scoundrel to be whipped out of the yard on 
 sight r 
 
 "Just was he in his deeds," said the panegy- 
 rist, lifting his voice on perceiving that he was 
 alluring an audience in the squires who gradu- 
 ally drew near under pretence of bowing to 
 the host. "Wise was his discourse and he 
 handled a very pretty pen!" 
 
 ''Still harping on my lampoon!" thought Sa- 
 verny, pulling at his false mustache which 
 almost bristled with his mixed pride and ap- 
 prehension. 
 
 "Many of the quips and cartwitcliets which 
 amuse the finer minds of the capital are attrib- 
 uted to him!" 
 
 "The deuce they are!" thought Saverny, 
 wishing for a gag to silence this belauder. 
 
 "In one late and notable instance, the King 
 himself deigned to laugh — and the skies above 
 rarely reflect the laugh of the morose son of 
 the amoroso King Henry of Navarre and 
 France! — the marquis had composed a most 
 happv hit at the roval Edict against chin- 
 tufts—" 
 
 Saverny hastily put his hand over his goatee. 
 
 "I would it were meet that one might recite 
 a pasquin on a mundane subject on this occa- 
 sion, but the saints forbid I should mar your 
 lordship's dolor! In fine, this — " he indicated 
 the chapel with a flourish of his Cambray hand- 
 kerchief, "this was a brave and perfect noble- 
 man, whom all the historians will celebrate! 
 To die thus and so untimely!" 
 
 Laffemas buried his face in his handkerchief 
 and sobbed. The auditory respectfully echoed 
 the outcry. The marquis was visibly deepened 
 in his grief, and he hid his countenance in his 
 thin hands. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 353 
 
 "Old Nick fly away with mv funeral orator!" 
 whispered Saverny to Brichanteau; "do you 
 not soo that he makes mine uncle the more 
 miserable by praising me up to the skies? 
 Prithee, can you not temper the affliction by 
 running me down on the descending scale — 
 confound him!" 
 
 "The man is a domestic of a lady of whom 
 you were fond! He thinks to curry favor with 
 me and the rest of the family bv laying the 
 colors on thick, as the Egyptian priests gilded 
 the mummy of the patrons who paid best! 
 But let me try to undo this extravagant and 
 hurtful praise!" 
 
 He advanced, and elbowing Laffemas a little 
 aside from the still seated noble, said with no 
 politeness: 
 
 "You will excuse me, sir, but you do not 
 know what goes on in the town! You are mis- 
 taken, all through, in judging my poor boon- 
 companion Saverny!" 
 
 The old marquis turned a tearful eye to this 
 interrupter and a slight ire kindled in his 
 dulled orbs. 
 
 "Saverny was not a jolly companion! He 
 was a dullard and scoffer at the outset and, by 
 my hope of salvation, deteriorated every day!'' 
 
 On the secret, Saverny gave him a little nod 
 ef approval. 
 
 "Witty? He was, believe me, the greatest 
 noodle of the many idiots who dangled hope- 
 lessly around the fan of Mademoiselle Marion 
 Delorme! That you ought to know, as at- 
 tached to her house! Brave — who is not brave 
 who comes of the Xangis stock? Hut he did 
 not handle the sword as well as he did the 
 pen of which you boast — for, look vou. r a 
 
354 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 stranger ran him through, as a butcher sticks 
 a great pig!" 
 
 "This is too strong!" muttered Saverny, try- 
 ing to silence his advocate by a sign. 
 
 "As for the pasquin, he repudiated it — all 
 believe his plea that it was written by the 
 fellow who composed his love and other let- 
 ters! In conclusion, dear my kinsman, his 
 death is worthy of no consideration — save the 
 family, in honor bound, none mourn him but 
 the creditors whom he fooled daily and, per- 
 haps, a light-o'-love whose jewels he borrowed 
 to have reset and pawned with the Lombards!" 
 
 The judge had been discomfited by this out- 
 break, which also astonished the other hear- 
 ers, coming from the deceased's "best man." 
 
 "Do you decry the late lord for fighting a 
 duel!" said he; "that is a pretty cause of blame 
 — that, a crime! that reprehensible to you who, 
 methinks, have been in the Army — " 
 
 "As vou, methinks, have been sometime in 
 the law!" retorted Brichanteau, contemptuous- 
 ly rapping the speaker's cane, which with its 
 gilt tip to an ebony cane resembled a wand of 
 office. 
 
 Laffemas turned greenish white with alarm; 
 he was alone on a strange ground where his 
 true address might not win him a friend. 
 
 "Continue to malign me," whispered Saverny 
 who saw that his uncle had lost his sorrowful 
 air for one of perplexity at the cousin's unex- 
 pected denunciation. 
 
 "Uncle, Saverny was false-spoken, touchy, 
 ungrateful even to those who paid his gam- 
 ing debts! The truth to tell, he was not to be 
 regretted !" 
 
 "Sir, he was often seen in the churches!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 355 
 
 interrupted Laffernas, seeing that he was los- 
 ing ground. 
 
 "Ay, to wink at the fair devotees and offer 
 Ihem the holy water as they went out to their 
 chairs! For Saverny was a rash, silly liber- 
 tine!" 
 
 "Von are going on finely," whispered the 
 pleased object of these cross-purposes. 
 
 "Whv did he not get on in the Army?" con- 
 tinned Brichanteau, emboldened; "because he 
 was mutinous and not docile, as this gentle- 
 man, who taught him the rudiments of drill, 
 will testify!" 
 
 Saverny bowed. 
 
 "Handsome? Ah, sir," turning to Laffemas, 
 "surely you had not seen my poor cousin re- 
 cently! He had lost his good looks, as who 
 would not who turned night into day and so 
 dimmed his eyes with the lamps of the basset- 
 table and the private theatre that he was com- 
 pelled to use one of those double-convex rubies 
 for an eyeglass, the like of which the bald 
 Julius Caesar, saith ancient history, employed 
 of yore! Purblind; his blonde hair became 
 red; his slightly bent shoulders positively 
 hunched! All said it was in pity that a lass 
 here and there wasted a smile upon him!'' 
 
 "Enough!"' muttered Saverny, treading on his 
 voluble friend's foot. 
 
 The old marquis had a touch of color on his 
 wan cheek and his hands began to twitch as 
 though he sought for a cane to chastise this 
 tco-frank friend. 
 
 "It must have been pity that made the Cyth- 
 erians smile," resumed Brichanteau, taking 
 breath, and delighted at this opportunity to 
 pay off some petty scores, "for he had no lucre 
 to purchase their sunshine! Generous as was 
 
356 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 his uncle, copious as the yield of his estate — 
 on my word, he dissipated all over the dice and 
 cards! The notorious Delorme girl had been 
 his queen of hearts — faith ! That on the paste- 
 board was all the one worshiped now!" 
 
 The old marquis tried to rise, but sank back 
 and his lips, white with indignation, quivered 
 in attempts to utter a scathing sentence. 
 
 Laffemas thrust himself forward as his 
 spokesman and boldly addressed the banneret. 
 
 ''My lord, it is inexcusable to speak thus of 
 a deceased nobleman who was also your friend 
 and kinsman!" 
 
 A murmur of approval greeted the defence. 
 Decidedly, Brichanteau was overdoing the 
 dash of acid in the sauce. 
 
 "If you think that I am overcharging the 
 picture," said the gentleman, plucking Saver- 
 ny by the sleeve, "ask this officer." 
 
 Thus put forward, Saverny replied, with infi- 
 nite embarrassment which the beholders 
 thought did him honor: 
 
 "Sir, he was my patron — I will uphold that 
 he was all that you say he is not with sword 
 or lance, on horse or afoot!" 
 
 "Bravo!" said Laffemas, assisting the old 
 lord to rise and transferring him to his valet 
 with a commiserating air. "My lord, let this 
 worthy majordonio console you in one way while 
 I do the same in another! Hark ye," he con- 
 ( inued as the valet led the mourner aloof from 
 Brichanteau at whom he darted a reproachful 
 glance, "we shall soon have his murderer un- 
 der safe ward! His case is certain to end in 
 the march to the gallows! The King has said 
 so — and his Eminence the Cardinal-Minister 
 has confirmed if! Your sorrow penetrates my 
 very heart!" 
 
OR. RICHELIEU DEFIED 
 
 This sneaking-soul possess ;i heart?" s;ii<l 
 Brichantean to Saverny. 
 
 "Well," concluded Laffemas, standing on lip- 
 toe and hissing after the departing lord with 
 ext ended neck, "we will hang this Didier with 
 whom the noble lord condescended to cross 
 swords — from vour own turret flagstaff if yon 
 like!" 
 
 "Didier?" repeated Sa veiny, leaning on 
 Brichanteau's arm, much as Nangis did on his 
 valet : "what a peasant I was to fight with 
 the man to whom I owed my life! Yes, it is 
 the same; I can see that now." 
 
 A tall, thin man in black, the worse for wear 
 and smelling of the fetid drugs used by the 
 embalmer of that benighted day, came running 
 up to say a w r ord to the old marquis who had 
 relapsed into his reverie, after the collision 
 of opinions of which his bosom was the clash- 
 ing-ground. 
 
 "What do yon want?" challenged Brichan- 
 tean. 
 
 "I am the undertaker's assistant! Is the 
 hour settled for the interment of the late Lord 
 Xa zaire?" 
 
 "I" interposed Saverny, solemnly, "I will fix 
 the hour for that function I" 
 
 The country gentlemen had turned aside on 
 the master's departure toward the castle. 
 
 Laffemas watched Saverny and his friend 
 with growing suspicion, but of what foundation 
 from their collusion — a follower of fashion and 
 a rough soldier — he knew hot with any clear 
 definition. 
 
 "Why am I loitering here?" he questioned of 
 himself, as he entered the kind of greenery and 
 alcove where the old hosl had rested. "Is there 
 need for me to see the interment of the marquis. 
 
358 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 or at least his coffin's deposition on the shelf 
 of his family vault to be able to file my state- 
 ment that one of the principals in the fatal 
 duel is out of the grasp of the law? I am los- 
 ing precious time, for my grandam must be 
 dead and stark before this by hours, and since 
 she would not have betrayed me, fond of her 
 kin as she was! and subtle the poison — nobody 
 but an enemy like Father Joseph will hint that 
 the judge in whose chambers she is found a 
 corpse, had a hand in her taking off! Yet I 
 am anxious about that foe! Kichelieu lends an 
 ear to him, and on him shares, with his kit- 
 tens, an affection with which I am not pro- 
 fusely regaled. Is there anything in the fable 
 of the voice of nature! Would he feel a twinge 
 if he confronted this Didier — in whom I see 
 traces of a likeness! Ah, I must crush this 
 viper and reduce him to carrion, bloated be- 
 yond likeness of man, even!'' 
 
 While meditating, he relaxed his knees and 
 sat down on the bank, near to the spot which 
 Nangis had occupied. 
 
 A roar of laughter from Saverny and his 
 companion cracked the air and made all eyes 
 turn toward the bower. 
 
 The pressure on a spring, concealed in the 
 seat, had released the stop on the conduit pipe 
 attached to the Triton. The marble figure 
 promptly poured a stream of icy water upon 
 the unfortunate judge who was so shocked and 
 bewildered by the discharge that he stood 
 transfixed in the spout as if frozen. 
 
 Then he staggered out of the spray, 
 drenched, and dripping like the Triton itself. 
 
 Spite of the sentiment which the vicinity of 
 the dead above ground usually spreads, all wit- 
 nesses of the ducking of the little lawyer or 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 359 
 
 steward — another name for harrier among the 
 hounds which torment the farming class — 
 burst into a peal of laughter which accompa- 
 nied him by echoes, and by repetitions from 
 the servants and guests in the park, as he re- 
 treated, sputtering cold water and threats of 
 so sulphurous a nature that they almost con- 
 verted his execrations into visible steam. 
 
 On the road, out of hearing of the hilarity, 
 he stopped to remove his outer garments and 
 shake them, as well as his wig. 
 
 "Oh, to repay them all and, chiefly, that one- 
 eyed officer, with his 'mignon' companion, for 
 this piece of horseplay! what malevolent god- 
 mother led me into that water-trap — now that 
 I have lost my own beldame? Oh, to be 
 revenged upon all under that roof! If the 
 young master had not escaped us by dying of 
 the wound Didier inflicted I could rejoice at 
 seeing him and that hated one adorn the same 
 triple tree!*' 
 
 Out of sheer malice he had already given the 
 poor old lord as much pain as lay in his power 
 at the moment. 
 
 Forced to confess that the means of gratify- 
 ing his ill-will could not be invented by his 
 whs, he retraced his steps towards the wayside 
 taphouse where he expected to pick up his es- 
 cort and resume the hunt for Didier among the 
 strolling players. 
 
 He was partly pleased and partly annoyed 
 on seeing several of his arquebusiers and their 
 captain on the road, coming his way. 
 
 There was a man in black in their midst, 
 bestriding a farm-colt, whose presence puzzled 
 him till all drew so near that he recognised 
 him at the same time as he was identified by 
 them. 
 
360 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE- 
 
 He saw, too, that they grinned at his damp 
 clothing and bedraggled wig. 
 
 "It is Cberet," muttered he. "What is my 
 secretary, whom I left at Blois, doing with my 
 guards?" 
 
 He turned pale and but for a tremor in his 
 legs would have struggled through the hedge 
 and tried to make his escape over the fields. 
 
 "The murder of the old hag has been discov- 
 ered, and I am blamed for it!" he fearfully con- 
 jectured. "Cheret has undertaken to pursue 
 me and bring me to the bar of justice! a pretty 
 thing for a judge, who came down to try a fore- 
 doomed criminal, to be tried in the same court! 
 Rather than that — well, I do not know what 
 course is preferable! but, nonsense!" he added, 
 since now flight was out of the question as the 
 horsemen would rapidly run him down, "the 
 old woman would never have denounced me! 
 how staunch was she to the poachers in the 
 days when I was not yet born! it is a proverb 
 at Richelieu! she would not betray her own 
 flesh-and-blood !" 
 
 So saying, he awaited, though with trepida- 
 tion, the coming up of the arquebusiers. 
 
 They had collected to the number of fifteen; 
 three or four more, of a rear-guard, hastening 
 up on a call of the bugle. 
 
 The captain had called in his stragglers, it 
 was evident, and all had joined the squad at 
 the Wisp-of-Straw. 
 
 Cheret had been the nucleus around which 
 all gathered and he was their pilot who re- 
 gained their master for them. 
 
 "Cheret! our dear Cheret!" exclaimed Laffe- 
 mas quickly, to preclude any questioning on 
 his lamentable appearance, "how glad I am to 
 see you — " 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 361 
 
 "And I reciprocate, except that I did not 
 want to see your honor in this plight/' 
 
 "It is nothing — I missed my way and my 
 footing — I fell into the ditch," faltered Laffe- 
 
 mas. 
 
 "What a sad mishap! but I see, some good 
 Samaritan gave yon a pair of shoes and stock- 
 ings, for they are not wet!" 
 
 "A truce to bewailing my accident," hastily 
 said the judge; "how is it you are on this 
 road — " 
 
 "My master," said the secretary, in his turn 
 embarrassed, "I was sent about my business, 
 from Blois, by Father Joseph — " 
 
 "Scut about yout business?" 
 
 While the soldiers formed a group and re- 
 freshed their horses with a little grass, plucked 
 for them with the solicitude good troopers 
 show for their chargers, the two men in black 
 whispered together. 
 
 "What was the news fresh at Blois?" went 
 on Laffemas impatiently. 
 
 "That I was discharged by Father Joseph 
 from the Minister's employ and ordered to go 
 to town and get my arrears — " 
 
 "What, you so greedy for money, came after 
 me, on the contrary — " 
 
 "Affection, your honor!" 
 
 "Tut, tut!" interrupted the judge in a tone 
 which showed he was not to be deluded. 
 
 "Besides, I had overdrawn my pay from the 
 Treasurer!" 
 
 "That is more like my acute Cheret Father 
 Joseph discharged you! dear, dear! from my 
 service — •" 
 
 "From the Cardinal's — " 
 
 "It is the same!" 
 
 "Not yet!" returned the secretary. 
 
362 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Laffemas bit his tliin lips and motioned him 
 to speak on. 
 
 "He told me that, as the Minister paid me, 
 I was in the Minister's service! Father Joseph 
 is not one to argue with." 
 
 "What possessed you to run after me?" 
 queried Laffemas with suspicion, frowning. 
 "What occasioned his dismissing you!'' 
 
 "I refused him admission to your apartments 
 in the Castle!" 
 
 "It was my order — " 
 
 "At which the Grey Daemon snapped his 
 fingers!" 
 
 His colloquist shuddered. 
 
 "Do you mean to say that he removed you 
 from the guard at the door?" 
 
 "And the guard, too!" 
 
 Laffemas turned green, like one with a nau- 
 sea. He made an effort to speak and tried two 
 or three times to swallow as if something 
 choked him; he had seen the same effect of 
 dread in persons on whom he uttered sentence 
 of death. 
 
 "Then, he entered the room ?" 
 
 "Your honor, he entered and found the old 
 townswoman dead whom you hired to sweep 
 it out and prepare it for your return." 
 
 "Dead!" 
 
 "Dead, as that cat in the stagnant ditch!" 
 
 Laffemas wanted to express horror, pity — 
 some emotion natural under the discovery, but 
 he could not imagine what a guiltless one 
 would say. 
 
 Cheret must have guessed the worst, but all 
 he said was: 
 
 "They said, in the Castle, that the doctor 
 went running to the rooms and came slowly 
 out of them. He is mad on the subject of the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 363 
 
 Black Death and, of course, pronounced the 
 sudden stroke to be that of the Pest." 
 
 "Ah!" sighed Laffeinas, relieved. 
 
 "But mv opinion is — " 
 
 "Your opinion?" repeated the other, with a 
 wrench at his heart again where raininess had 
 fallen. "You have a medical opinion, M. Che- 
 ret, forsooth?" 
 
 "I do not see, my lord, why I should not 
 have a medical opinion," impudently retorted 
 the secretary, lowering his voice without that 
 lessening the pertness, "when the pastry-cook 
 of your honor has a medicated glaze for his 
 patties!" 
 
 "What say you?" and he lowered his voice, 
 while blanching. 
 
 ".Merely that the old woman died, I take it, 
 of eating too greedily of the fruit and pasty 
 provided for your honor's refection! Plague 
 on it! it is time she died, she who set all Paris 
 by the ears, and for whom the new Lieutenant- 
 Criminal would be seeking to burn her alive, 
 mayhap, as a sorceress!" 
 
 "Of whom are you speaking, dear M. Che- 
 ret?" said Laffemas, in perplexitj- w T hich over- 
 came his fears. 
 
 "I am surprised you did not recognise, in this 
 old woman who had sunk so low as to do char- 
 woman's work, the Witch of Blanchapelle 
 Lane, at Paris — " 
 
 -The Witch—" 
 
 "Certainly! And yet, how would you have 
 guessed that, forasmuch as, in her scene of in- 
 cantations, she wore a wax mask of superfine 
 execution! she tied through the lingers of that 
 stupid Laubardemont, who lias for such feeble- 
 ness lost the office of Lieutenant-Criminal, and 
 she sought refuge in Blois." 
 
364 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "A fugitive from justice? what a narrow es- 
 cape I had! he, he! Had I lingered at Blois, it 
 might have been said that I harbored this runa- 
 gate, of whose identity with the Parisian ma- 
 gician, I give you my word, I had not the slight- 
 est suspicion!" 
 
 "That is the right thing to say," observed 
 Cheret approvingly. "Without her mask, how 
 the mischief could you be thought to know her? 
 pardy!" 
 
 "How is it anybody down here knew her?" 
 
 "Nobody who had not dwelt under the same 
 roof could have done it!" continued the secre- 
 tary. "But her maid, at Paris, had come to 
 Blois to see a gallant of hers before he died in 
 the Castle ward — " 
 
 "Lou—" 
 
 " — Isette, exactly!" finished Cheret coolly. 
 "She arrived in time to see two of her precious 
 acquaintances elude the new Lieutenant-Crim- 
 inal—" 
 
 "Yes, yes, the new Lieutenant — who is not 
 Laubardemont, you have said — Who has been 
 appointed?" 
 
 "My lord," replied the secretary with sudden 
 respectfulness as if he recollected something to 
 change his key, "after sauntering in Blois, cog- 
 itating on my dismissal by the Grey Robe, and 
 gleaning all the particulars of the events agi- 
 tating the dormouse town, videlicet: the duel 
 under the very decree against it; the death of 
 the Marquis of Saverny, and the escape by sub- 
 stitution for the dying Matamore of the Blois- 
 ian named Didier; the death of the refugee 
 Witch of Paris by — pest or poison; who should 
 ride in at the bridge gates but a royal mes- 
 
 senger— 
 
 "A royal messenger!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 365 
 
 "1 understand your surprise — this time, h 
 was a royal and not a cardinalistic messenger. 
 He was seeking your honor!" 
 
 "Seeking uk His color going and coming 
 irregularly. 
 
 Cherel flipped a large letter, with an enor- 
 mous rod seal on the envelope, out of his inner 
 pocket, and dropped on one knee, having dis 
 mounted since his master had conferred with 
 him. after the manner of heralds before a mon- 
 arch. 
 
 "The seal of State!" cried out Laffemas 
 snatching it and bursting silk and wax in his 
 haste. "Long life to the King! I am appointed 
 Lieutenant-Criminal !" 
 
 His heart beat tnmultuously and a mist cov- 
 ered his little grey eyes which seemed unable 
 to contain the light of exultation which illumi- 
 nated them. 
 
 "How good is the King!" said Cheret, and 
 without pausing, he added: "How good is the 
 Cardinal!" 
 
 "An older is enclosed! I am to prosecute the 
 slayer of the Marquis of Saverny to the death!" 
 
 "To do which you must pursue him." said 
 Cheret. 
 
 "Alas! we have been baffled!" sighed Laffe- 
 mas. "But procure me a carriage! If w r e scour 
 the country — " 
 
 "My lord, I forgot to mention that I also 
 gleaned at Blois, for my budget, that the pre- 
 tended Matamore joined the company of play- 
 ers to which belonged once on a Time the real 
 actor-ruffler!" 
 
 "Well, we were following their caravan, but 
 it vanished in the mists!" 
 
 "My lord, when I quitted the College of 
 Amiens, do you know what I most reproached 
 
36(3 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBEf 
 
 the good fathers for having taught roe? to 
 walk with eyes east down in meekness!" 
 
 "What trifles are you flirting with, as the jes- 
 ter balances a feather? Let us to horse and 
 hunt for the strollers — " 
 
 "I am coming to them," continued Cheret 
 with provoking slowness wdiich he his master 
 dared not rebuke, "Thanks to this downcast 
 direction of the vision, I often see what others 
 overlook! When I left Blois, I noticed that 
 the wheel of one of the players' carts was loose 
 of the tire. That w r obbling mark enabled me to 
 track it far. Then they had it mended at a 
 smithy, but I procured an accurate description 
 of the new band of iron, which was clumsy and 
 made another-guess sort of a mark, as easv to 
 follow—" 
 
 "You followed and you have housed them!" 
 said Laffemas with glee. 
 
 "My lord, I was on that track with the 
 guards, whom I brought together from their 
 scattered halting-places, little hoping to meet 
 my lord and present him with the opportunity 
 to justify his high promotion by capturing this 
 malapert Didier — a plain petty gentleman who 
 has dared to kill a marquis of old stock as a 
 peasant boy spits a frog on a willow wand!" 
 
 "Let us follow at once!" cried Laffemas. 
 
 "Take my horse. I can stick to the mark of 
 the wheel better on foot." 
 
 The cavalcade started on this singular quest. 
 In the van w r alked the secretary, with his eyes 
 on the dust, as if he had lost a purse. Behind 
 him, rode his employer, ill at ease on the cart- 
 horse but ignoring his pains in the double lux- 
 ury of gloating over his new 7 office and the pros- 
 pect of arresting Didier, the whole ecstasy a 
 little — only a little — diluted by the shadow of 
 
OK, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 3b7 
 
 the Grey Robed one, which would intercept the 
 rays from the iris. 
 
 "Cheret suspects that old Dame Hose was 
 poisoned — what thinks Father Joseph?" 
 
 But while the police agents mighl hesitate 
 to arrest a Master of the Requests Court, they 
 would forbear from lifting a hand against their 
 chief. He might bask for a little period, at all 
 events, in the glory of his elevation. 
 
 "Much will the King and Cardinal pardon in 
 him who punishes the upstart who mocked at 
 their Edict!" thought he. 
 
 The track deviated like a clue dropped by a 
 playful hand, but all things come to an end. 
 
 It was as the cavalry stumbled and the riders 
 grumbled upon the need to bait their horses, 
 that Cheret exclaimed, as he pointed past a 
 grove of young walnuts which had obscured 
 the distance: 
 
 "There! the train of carts and ragged ranters 
 winds into that castle gate!" 
 
 "That Castle!" repeated the new Lieutenant- 
 Criminal, astonished at the trick of fate, "it 
 is the Castle of Nangis! Impossible that merry- 
 makers would be welcomed there! the black 
 tlag is living — the Marquis of Saverny is lying 
 in the chapel there — hark! the bell tolls as the 
 prayers are said over his cold corpse!'' 
 
 "They enter, corpse or no corpse! And de- 
 pend upon it, not only is the man Didier in 
 their midst, but — " he rose towards Laffemas 
 who bent over the horse's neck towards him, so 
 attractive was his glance, and added, with a 
 stress which proved thai he knew his master's 
 infatuation, "the supreme decoy-duck, Marion 
 Delorme!" 
 
368 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE MEANNESS OF A NOBLE. 
 
 Cheret had not mistaken: it was the com- 
 pany of Mondori which sought shelter in Nan- 
 gis Castle. 
 
 No sooner had the dogs of the guests, stray- 
 ing over the grounds after the bones mixed 
 with the rushes swept out of the halls and kit- 
 chen, perceived the strangers, particularly dis- 
 liking those who carried bundles of clothes and 
 the musical instruments, than they set up a 
 furious baying. The hounds, deprived of exer- 
 cise lately, not only joined in the clamor with 
 yelping but broke their bounds and came rush- 
 ing, pellmell, with the curs, to surround the 
 new-comers and menace them with exposed 
 fangs. 
 
 The players drew their theatrical weapons, 
 which were real enough for a combat, and 
 stood on guard before the tower until a valet 
 ran up and the whippers drove off the dogs. 
 
 In the midst of the hubbub, as unseemly as 
 the merriment attending the ducking of Judge 
 Laffemas, Saverny, in his quality of conductor 
 of the funeral, approached and curiously re- 
 garded the actors, recognising Mondori, who 
 bore a marked reputation in Paris, and quiz- 
 zing the ladies of the troupe, who, however, pre- 
 sented no very charming aspect in dishabille 
 and without toilet embellishment. 
 
 One of the latter piqued his inquisitiveness 
 as she remained draped in a mantilla, in the 
 Spanish mode, and kept the background, al- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 369 
 
 though her grace of carriage and evidenl ex- 
 cellence of form should have placed her fore 
 most, if she had the Thespian's usual vanity. 
 
 Appealed to for harbor, Saverny gravely ac- 
 corded permission for the wanderers to be en- 
 tertained, warmly enough to palliate their dis- 
 appointment nt not being able to repay with 
 an exhibition of their talents. 
 
 "Give them the red barn," said he to the but- 
 ler. "Hark ye! the Marquis of Nangis is in 
 mourning for his nephew, so behave decently 
 and make as litt le noise as von can. To-morrow 
 we bury the dead heir to this estate, you tinder- 
 stand, so that you must not raise your jocose 
 songs and recite your comic scenes to mingle 
 inharmoniously with the psalms which will 
 be sounding in the chapel this night." 
 
 "We shall make less hullaballoo than your 
 pack of dogs did when they came to yap 
 around our shins," said the chief comedian. 
 
 •'Impertinent one, have a care for your ears!" 
 interrupted an indignant servant. "Dogs are 
 not strolling-players, 'fore heaven!" 
 
 Mondori turned angrily on his actor, saying: 
 
 "Hold your peace — do you want us to be 
 turned out to sleep on the highway!" 
 
 The grateful comedians filed before Saverny 
 and bowed to him as representative of the gen- 
 erous host. Had Brichanteau been bv, or am- 
 
 * * 
 
 one whom Marion would have recalled as a 
 town gallant, she would have continued her pre- 
 cautions, but who could perceive in the bat- 
 tered veteran a Narcissus of the time? So she 
 let her veil fall aside as she paced by with 
 Didier at her elbow. The marquis had but one 
 eye available but it saw enough. Moreover, 
 the peerless beauty was not to be mistaken. 
 "It is Marion!" muttered Saverny as he was 
 
370 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 left alone. "What an odd occurrence, though 
 no more strange than the prank I am forced to 
 carry on! Marion among these mountebanks! 
 But how finely the Spanish costume becomes 
 her — how elegantly fits that green basquin! If 
 I could be wrong, a comparison with the por- 
 trait which I always carry, in her memory, 
 would set me right!" 
 
 He looked at a medallion painted expressly 
 for him by the royal painter. 
 
 "Is she stage-struck? or has she made a new 
 conquest among the tinsel monarchs? She is 
 not a woman to scamper over the country all 
 alone! I must question one of the party about 
 her." 
 
 Since the main object of Mondori was to 
 place his two wards in security, according to 
 his understanding with Father Joseph, one roof 
 was as good as another; besides, the barn was 
 immensely capacious and admirably adapted 
 for rehearsals while accommodating the unde- 
 sirable guests with plenty of sweet hay. 
 
 The party congratulated themselves on their 
 good fortune and began to regard Marion as 
 of fair omen, though the lugubrious Didier did 
 not partake in this impression. 
 
 Saverny had not passed ten minutes in skirt- 
 ing the barn precincts before he spied the comic 
 player, whom he hastened to accost. 
 
 But at the first words relative to the Donna 
 Ximenes of the company, remembering his 
 manager's warning on that head, the Scara- 
 mouche stammered and, catching sight of Did- 
 ier, who came forth to rid himself of the intol- 
 erable surroundings, he said: 
 
 "If you want to learn anything about our 
 principal lady, why, apply to her noble com- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 371 
 
 panion, this gentleman!" And he proceeded on 
 
 his errand. 
 
 It was to tell a droll story and sing a funny 
 ballad in the kitchen, spite of the major-domo's 
 caution, in order to obtain a relish for his sonp. 
 
 Saverny had no sooner taken a glance at the 
 new-comer than he was at no loss to recognise 
 his antagonist in the duel and the defender in 
 the conflict with Ma la rune's band. 
 
 '"France forever!" muttered he, adjusting his 
 eye-patch and curling his mustaches, "this is 
 my friend! he must have given the alguazils 
 the slip!" 
 
 Didier had bridled up at finding himself the 
 object of this scrutiny and stepped nearer the 
 marquis. 
 
 "Zounds !" exclaimed the disguised one, in his 
 natural voice, "if vou were not the Master 
 Didier who was put in prison, why, I will go 
 blind of the other optic all the rest of my exis- 
 tence!" 
 
 The tone of raillery betraved him and the 
 hearer started with amaze. 
 
 "If the Marquis of Saverny were not dead," 
 replied Didier in something of the same vein, 
 "I should say you are his living self! But, dead 
 or revived, may his blood fall on his own head 
 for he brought it about that I should slay him 
 by his rash words." 
 
 "Hush! you are the man!" 
 
 "And you, the marquis whom these mourn!" 
 
 "Yes; and you were in a certain room with a 
 balcony oven* which you leapt to deliver me 
 from the night-ninimers! hence, I owe you this, 
 my life!" 
 
 But the gentleman of Blois drew back as he 
 advanced fraternally with open arms, as to an 
 equal. 
 
372 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Excuse my surprise, marquis," returned 
 Didier coolly, "but I am of the impression that 
 our second encounter wiped out the obliga- 
 tion r 
 
 "Not at all! You saved me — you did not kill 
 me. That was a trick to enable me to cheat the 
 myrmidons of Richelieu, as you have done by 
 your wit or — " slyly, "a woman's!" 
 
 "What woman's?'' ejaculated the other, 
 frowning and looking back towards the barn 
 where the reek of soup ascended from the air- 
 hole and subdued chatter in a lively tone arose. 
 
 "This!" rejoined Saverny, holding out the 
 medallion of Marion, "take it, happy mortal! 
 you have won the original and I do not care 
 any longer to cherish the likeness." 
 
 "Ma—" 
 
 "Marion! yes! take it." 
 
 Didier seized the portrait and bitterly gazed 
 on it. 
 
 It was Marion of the court, in a rich dress 
 and jewels, but also "Marie," as he knew her, 
 with the candid bearing, intelligent brow and 
 black eyes. 
 
 Fiercely he began but concluded his question 
 sadly: 
 
 "Was it for you that she sat for this?" 
 
 "Happy man!" answered Saverny, nodding 
 affirmatively. "It is you she prefers and dis- 
 tinguishes from amid the host! Ah, who would 
 not become a beggar to enjoy her smiles!" 
 
 Didier laughed harshly and in a desperate 
 tone. 
 
 "It is plain that I am very, very happy!" said 
 he, with his hand tightly closing on the medal 
 that it might be crushed. 
 
 "I compliment you," continued the fop, bow- 
 ing out of character with his assumed rudeness 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 373 
 
 in mien. "Marion is a good sort of girl, egad! 
 
 Never has she consorted with any but refined 
 gentlemen! One may be proud of strutting on 
 any promenade with her, she is so worthy of 
 admiration. It gives one a pretty effect, she 
 is so stylish! As they say of such a one: 
 'That is the fool to the King!' or of another: 
 'See there, the familiar of the Prince!' so it will 
 be said of you: 'Hail the favorite of Marion 
 Delorme!'" 
 
 With a wave of the hand, he refused the por- 
 trait which Didier indignantly was about to 
 return to him. 
 
 "Keep it, sir! it falls of right to you." 
 
 "I thank you," faltered the other, thrusting 
 the medallion within his doublet much as 
 though it were the Spartan's wolf, even if it 
 gnawed his heart. 
 
 "That was she in a Spanish dress, of course! 
 'never saw her more enticing, 'pon my honor! 
 What a merry company she is in now!" said 
 he as the players greeted some sally with sup- 
 pressed but hearty laughs. "But that is noth- 
 ing to the company she dwelt in, in the town. 
 Ah, the nights we have had — the two Brissacs, 
 light and soul of junketing! Hist! the great 
 Cardinal himself! Effiat, Argenteau — 'fore 
 heaven! a goodly company!" 
 
 "Rather too numerous!" observed the hearer 
 grimly. "How shameful!" 
 
 "How excellently the Fate who plaits our 
 threads has woven this three-ply!" resumed the 
 coxcomb. "I am not going to stand in your way 
 to felicity! I pass here for defunct! ha, ha! 
 And to-morrow r , they will lay me on the shelf 
 in the family vault! ha, ha! You who have 
 baffled sleuth-hounds and keepers, and for 
 whom Marion deceived some castle governor, 
 
374: RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 no doubt, to set you free, will reach the king- 
 dom's bounds with her among these hilarious 
 rovers! Good! good! it will make a story to 
 regale the revellers!" 
 
 "A pretty story, indeed!" said Didier gloom- 
 ily. 
 
 "Be on your guard against a little man in 
 black, who gave out that he was the lady's 
 steward — but, it comes to me that he is a crow 
 of a higher flight! alcalde, my dear Spaniard! 
 but, a fig for the pettifogger! Marion could al- 
 so twist him round her little finger!" 
 
 "By the precious Blood!" exclaimed Didier, 
 his eyes flashing, and he stamped his foot as 
 on a serpent. 
 
 "Pish! are you jealous!" cried the astonished 
 courtier. "Jealous of the queen of this mun- 
 dane Olympus? how ridiculous! Poor Marion! 
 poor child! would you go to preach her a ser- 
 mon on Constancy?" 
 
 "I do not preach Constancy," returned Didier 
 in a resolute voice, "but I practise it, sir!" 
 
 Bowing, he passed under the trees in a soli- 
 tary walk, during which his meditation became 
 more and more involved and burdensome. 
 
 Saverny stood annoyed and embarrassed at 
 this curt dismissal. 
 
 "By St. Nazaire, I am afraid that Marion has 
 degenerated from her stay at Blois! verily, the 
 moss grows on the rose leaves! but to think 
 that, while under the shadow of the gallows, 
 both of us, Saverny and Didier, can laugh at 
 the sentence in the Edict!" 
 
 His laugh was cut short by a jostle to his 
 elbow. 
 
 "What do you say, captain? that you have 
 Marion Delorme and her dear friend Didier 
 among your guests?" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 375 
 
 The marquis sharply turned and with vexa- 
 tion, but it was blunted by a sort of double 
 recognition appearing in the speaker. 
 
 "Her steward?" exclaimed he. 
 
 "No, no, not the lady's steward, this time, 
 but Norbert Laffemas, the Lieutenant-Criminal 
 of France and Navarre!" 
 
 Sa veiny did not flinch, but he was startled, 
 especially as the judge had exchanged his outer 
 garments for a suit which Cheret must have 
 provided in accord with the appointment he 
 tarried, and the proud functionary was backed, 
 at a little distance, by the troupe of arque- 
 busiers. 
 
 "Judge Laffemas! the Cardinal's Exe— " be- 
 gan the noble. 
 
 "His Eminence's executor of special works! 
 ay! But what did you say about Marion and 
 her cavalier, here present, prithee, major- 
 domo?" 
 
 The marquis shrank a little beneath those 
 sharp eyes; but it is only fair to say that he 
 instantly recovered his equanimity" through 
 aristocratic pride, which enabled him to slip 
 prettily out of his quandary. 
 
 He perked up his head naughtily, and with 
 the brusqueness befitting his assumption of the 
 hardened free-lance, answered: 
 
 "A malison on the big-wigs and all their tag- 
 rag, moreover! Since you, good my lord, ac- 
 knowledge that you palmed yourself"off here as 
 a domestic, I do not deem you worthy of a 
 reply! Address me anew before gentlemen, 
 and by the great mangonel of — of — Aristotle! 
 I will drub you out of their presence with niv 
 scabbard!" 
 
 W it Ii thai he stalked swaggeringly away, be- 
 lieving that his cloak wax" not penetrated. 
 
376 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 When he was at a safe distance, he mused to 
 himself: 
 
 "Deuce take all blunderers, myself chiefly in- 
 cluded, for I have put my foot in it, first with 
 Didier and next with this mock steward! I 
 am a bad actor, who makes errors in each part 
 he undertakes. Yet am I sinning in goodly 
 company, for we are overwhelmed with bad 
 actors enow! What a crew to engird our fasci- 
 nating Marion! Shame!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 377 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THEMIS AND THESPIS. 
 
 Rudely repulsed by the pretended adven- 
 turer, Laffemas prowled over to the barn where 
 be was rewarded by intercepting one of the 
 strollers. 
 
 One glance through the door as this fellow 
 passed out, had confirmed his suspicion and the 
 supporting hint from Saverny. 
 
 The player whom the Lieutenant-Criminal 
 seized by the sleeve was Le Gracieux, whose 
 hump bark and paltry air belied his name. 
 
 "Who is that member of your band,'' said 
 he, "attired in tawdry Spanish costume, who 
 keeps in the background among ye?" 
 
 "She performs the Ximenes, what we call the 
 leading ladies," was the reply, "but her real 
 name I do not know! we never give our real 
 names in the profession!" added he, loftily, 
 "for under our theatrical cognomens we oft 
 conceal famous ones of noted families!" 
 
 "Famous nonsense!" snarled Laffemas, but 
 he was obliged to be coaxing and he fumbled 
 in his new clothes for his purse. 
 
 In the meantime the wily actor had reckoned 
 up his interlocutor. 
 
 Accustomed to circumvent and battle the of- 
 ficers of the law, and to perform such char- 
 acters, which he did with zest, he estimated 
 correctly the wearer of this still' raiment be- 
 coming the magistrate, the face of an Italian 
 sbirro, and (lie piercing, small eye under the 
 beetling brow. He was about to resume his 
 
378 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE;' 
 
 promenade and continue his study, when he 
 heard the chink of coin, and, unwonted as was 
 the welcome sound, he spun round with the 
 celerity of an automaton. 
 
 He was not mistaken: Laffemas was holding 
 up a fat purse. 
 
 "So you are interested, friend,'' said he, "in 
 our Ximena?" and he sidled up, with his eyes 
 fixed on the lure. "You want to know who 
 she is?" 
 
 "Not at all," was the reply; "but who is her 
 Eodrigo?" 
 
 Upon this question which indicated that Laf- 
 femas, though he might not have the appear- 
 ance, was an amateur of plays, the actor smiled 
 more and more amiably, and nodded as he 
 said: 
 
 "Oho! you want to learn about her gallant — 
 her supporter?" 
 
 "Just so! is he in there?" cried the judge 
 impatiently. 
 
 "They are inseparable, as befits lover and 
 beloved!" 
 
 Laffemas grimaced as in pain and hastily 
 ordered : 
 
 "Point him out to me, and — " 
 
 "Her lover," said Le Gracieux, "you behold 
 him in me!" 
 
 Laffemas felt like taking advantage of the 
 rogue bowing very lowly in sham humility, to 
 launch a kick at him, but the trickster had him 
 at his mercy, perhaps, and he contented himself 
 by jingling the purse over the player's head, 
 to conceal his disappointment. 
 
 "Do you know the music of Genevans?" 
 queried he. 
 
 The Swiss coin was not abundant under 
 Mondori's flag, but Le Gracieux danced a step 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 3?9 
 
 to whal the tempter called music, and rejoined 
 with ecstasy: 
 
 "Ah! there is unearthly melody in its notes, 
 by the mass!" 
 
 Laffemas chuckled, thinking he had seemed 
 his prey. 
 
 "Friend, there are twenty pieces in this 
 purse." 
 
 ••Humph!'' sniffed the actor as though they 
 had a delicious odor, malgre the Roman em- 
 peror who perceived no smell in money. 
 
 "How would you like to have such music 
 played by your own hand?" cried the judge, 
 holding out the rattling purse altogether too 
 near the avaricious hands which suddenly and 
 dextrously tore it out of the other's grasp — 
 though it was a tenacious one. 
 
 "I do like it! My lord!" he proceeded in a 
 theatrical tone, "if this back of yours had a 
 hunch as big as your capondined abdomen, and 
 both were money-bags crammed with represen- 
 tative coin of all the realms and principalities, 
 namely, sequins, ducats, rose nobles, drachmas, 
 doubloons and louis, look you! I would — " 
 
 '•What?" 
 
 •Slow all the dross in mine own pouch and 
 say—" 
 
 "What, what?"' 
 
 "You are a generous man and I thank you!" 
 
 "Pest on the ape!" 
 
 "Deuce take the black cat!" sneered Le Gra- 
 cieux, laughing in the dupe's face. 
 
 "This is a plot! Certainly, Didier and Marion 
 have bribed this gang of mouthing tragedians 
 to keep them perdu in the herd!" mused Laffe- 
 mas. "Oh, these accursed spawn of Egypt and 
 Bohemia! they will likewise hold their silence. 
 Here," he cried to the retreating actor, "restore 
 
380 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the purse or I will have it wrenched from you 
 bvmv soldiers!'' 
 
 "Restore a purse! for what do you take me? 
 What would the world of fashion say of a 
 gentleman, perhaps a law lord, who takes back 
 a gift! one who carried foreign coin and palms 
 them off upon a born Frenchman! for what, 
 forsooth! to buy of me a head and my immortal 
 soul! out on it! deed infamous!" 
 
 "That is roundly spoken," said the judge, 
 detaining him from making his exit into the ' 
 barn, "but I want my money back!" 
 
 "My lord, I retain it as a salve for my 
 wounded honor! and I am not calling you a 
 host with whom I have a reckoning!" 
 
 Upon which, the clown, making a whirl 
 which cast the dust upon his victim, dived 
 within the barn, slamming. the large door be- 
 hind him. 
 
 "A villainous ballad-monger!" yelped Laffe- 
 mas at his heels until the wooden partition 
 closed between them. "The idea of such base 
 characters having a sense of pride! If I were 
 not hunting more noble game, I should have 
 the whole troupe cast into bondage and 
 whipped out of the province at their own carts' 
 tail!" 
 
 He made the tour of the barn, listening to 
 the muffled talk, commonplace yet grandilo- 
 quent, of the players, with a laugh at Le Glo- 
 rieux' no doubt displaying his windfall and 
 relating his adventure in his own way. 
 
 "But it is not seemly in the official charged 
 with the Police of the kingdom to net the 
 whole company and pass them one by one 
 through the meshes to discover the pair I 
 want. To seek a needle in a haystack is a 
 trifle to this puzzle!" 
 
OK, KICHELIEU DEFIED. 381 
 
 Saving passed round to the side where his 
 soldiers and secretary could not see his undig- 
 nified act, he peered in at a crack. 
 
 In vain to distinguish the fleeing couple in 
 
 the dimly lighted contusion of players, trying 
 on dresses, cooking supper, spouting what 
 came to the eavesdropper's ears as gibberish — 
 and was little better! 
 
 To try that mass for the fugitives was to 
 seek without a magician's art, in the crucible 
 containing alloys, the ingot of pure gold which 
 might swim disengaged amid the dross in fu- 
 sion. 
 
 On the other hand, how could he return to 
 Paris, as his first essay in the new post, empty 
 handed? How ask the royal confirmation of 
 his appointment -if he did not produce the of- 
 fender against the King's decree? 
 
 As he was turning aside, reluctant to give 
 up the quest like a fox roaming a farmyard 
 and tantalized by the fluttering fowls, and as 
 strongly averse to asking hospitality of the 
 Lord of Nangis, where he was the laughing- 
 stock after his baptism, he had an idea strike 
 him. 
 
 He clapped his hand to his forehead and 
 laughed outright, like a fiend in a picture of the 
 Last Judgment who has speared a celebrated 
 sinner. 
 
 "I have it! I have my Didier!" he murmured, 
 feeling the loss of the coin no more in his rap- 
 ture. 
 
 Returning to the door of the barn, he opened 
 it widely and, with authority, shouted: 
 
 "Gentlemen of the Mondori Company, oblige 
 me with a little attention!" 
 
 With which prologue, he stepped within the 
 
382 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 place and assumed as noble an attitude as pos- 
 sible upon the threshing-floor. 
 
 All but Le Gracieux (who thought this appar- 
 ition betokened an attempt to recover the 
 purse, and he plunged into a heap of hay) 
 quitted their occupation and hurried around 
 the stranger. 
 
 They knew by instinct and unhappy habit 
 that it was a magistrate and from the manager 
 downwards feared the worst issue. 
 
 But it is doing them the justice to state, with- 
 out hesitation, that it did not occur to any one 
 to betray the fugitives, on whose behalf they 
 sagely concluded that the intrusion was made. 
 Through the open doorway was seen the for- 
 midable array of the Cardinal's guards, and 
 Secretary Cheret was marshalling them as 
 though to support this herald in his errand. 
 
 "What is your will?" said Mondori, with his 
 habitual smile chilled on his fat lips by the 
 bearing of Laffemas, which his assumed affa- 
 bility did not wholly correct. 
 
 "I am not a man used to academic phraseol- 
 ogy," began Ihe judge, making a salute to the 
 ladies, and peering all around to discover Mar- 
 ion and her partner. "The matter is thus. I am 
 an officer in the household of his Eminence the 
 Cardinal-Duke and Prime Minister!" 
 
 This diffused an awe which silenced even the 
 baby or two squalling at the breast. The purse- 
 snatcher shook under his odoriferous covering 
 so that the mound seemed animated. 
 
 "But reassure yourselves," went on the en- 
 voy, smiling graciously, "I am on business 
 which delights the great man's leisure. Known 
 to ye all as patron of the Fine Arts, as witness 
 his establishment of the Academy, he does not 
 disdain to use some idle moments — granting 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 38 
 
 • i 
 
 that :i Statesman may have idle moments — in 
 preparing plays which will evince another side 
 to liis genius of many facets! Yes, gentlemen 
 and ladies of the Thespian art, my Lord of 
 Richelieu regrets thai the celebrated troupe 
 of comedians and tragedians, bearing with such 
 lustre the golden name of Mondori!" he bowed 
 to the Italian with captivating condescension, 
 "should have left the capital not fully appre- 
 ciated. Amends will be done forthwith for this 
 oversight! 1 am charged to select among ye, 
 or comprise the entire company before measl he 
 stock force for the theater which his Eminence 
 intends to open immediately upon your arrival 
 and study of his tragedy of 'Mirame,' in the 
 hall of his new mansion!" 
 
 To be sure, the man in the haymow groaned, 
 but the others had but one voice to cheer this 
 speech. The ladies blew kisses — so agreeable, 
 after their fears, ^as this turn to the prospect, 
 and the man bowed with joyous countenance. 
 
 "It is a ruse, master," whispered Le Gra- 
 cieux. sneaking out of his covert up to his man- 
 ager and speaking in a faint aside, "he is a 
 cheat! there were but a dozen pieces in the 
 purse which he declared to contain twenty!" 
 
 "Hut," continued Laffemas, knowingly, "the 
 company which performs to applause in a city 
 oft dwindles down to a poor nucleus when wan- 
 dering among the rustics. I beg to say that, 
 before I make the preparations for the journey, 
 at my lord's charges, I should propose that 
 each of you shall favor me with a specimen of 
 his or her skill! a tag of a part, you compre- 
 hend?" 
 
 "Of course we comprehend/" returned Mon- 
 dori, wreathed in gleeful smiles, as well his 
 own as upon the broad faces of those surround- 
 
384 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 iiij; him. "I said, all along the road, that good 
 luck would attend us for our noble act! hem! 
 Between ourselves, it was his Grey Eminence 
 who befriended those two runagates — this 
 speaker is but an intermediator, depend on it ! 
 The Grey Robe wishes to have his two wards 
 conducted to Paris without fear of impedi- 
 ments from the local officers. Oblige this 
 noodle with an end of a speech and let us to 
 supper, before we take up the return march to 
 Paris! Ah, these rural and suburban audiences 
 are all very well, but for me, give me the con- 
 noisseurs — the cognoscenti of the great cities!" 
 
 Singling out Marion and her companion, who 
 had remained in the obscurity against the wall, 
 he added pleasantly: 
 
 "How happy you should be in our party! You 
 will wear brand-new clothes, be sure of a feast 
 every day, and have no greater evil to endure 
 than recite an amateur dramatist's verses! 
 How happy is our fate, as Ariadne said to The- 
 seus — I suppose it would be Theseus? in the 
 tragedv of — of — never mind — ours is a happv 
 fate!"* 
 
 Marion furtively approached Didier on fully 
 recognising the pretended messenger, and 
 strove to draw him towards the little door at 
 the side of the barn. But he had folded his 
 arms under his cloak, and, avoiding her sueing 
 glance by down-turning his gaze, kept immobile 
 as a statue. The poor woman trembled with 
 impatience and bewilderment at this suicidal 
 behavior in the emergency, while the glad act- 
 ors pushed one another to be the first to display 
 their qualifications. 
 
 Regaining his impudence at the fresh aspect 
 of the affair, Le Gracieux, shaking the straws 
 off his clothes like a bird preening himself of 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 385 
 
 feathers, had the impudence to come forward 
 and declare himself in the eyes of his startled 
 dupe: 
 
 "My lord, since you recruit comedians for his 
 Eminence of whose literary pretensions I have 
 had an inkling, through my friends attached to 
 the Gazette de France, behold Le Gracieux, the 
 low comedian of the Troupe Mondori!" 
 
 In a falsetto voice he chanted: 
 
 "Id ancient fable, you have read 
 Of horrors thick on Gorgon's head! 
 For grim Medusa here's a fig! 
 My terror is of legal wig! 
 You'll see a row upon the Bench, 
 Suggesting gibbet, torturer's wrench, 
 Handcuffs, legbands, and eke the whip, 
 Which at the judge's sentence skip! 
 
 "Oh, that a brother-knave should shear 
 The manes from broken jades to rear 
 A frightful mop upon a judge. 
 To make, like wisdom, sound his fudge! 
 When Rhadamanthus stops his jig. 
 He'll take no man, but just a wig!" 
 
 Mondori had frowned and shaken his head 
 furiously at the carping vocalist, and Laffemas, 
 who had tried more than once to check his re- 
 viler, at last screamed, rather than spoke: 
 
 "You are singing so badly out of tune that it 
 would scare an osprey! Be quiet — enough! and 
 to spare!" 
 
 "] admit that the air may be false, but. the 
 sentiment is true!" replied the incorrigible jes 
 ter. 
 
 The bad example was catching, for the "old 
 man" of the company began a tirade from the 
 Spanish repertoire; 
 
386 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Hem: Scene from 'the Duenna of Honor' — 
 Hem! 
 
 « "jhe fairest sights (hath said a mighty queen) 
 Are — first: a knight a-charging o'er the green, 
 A bishop at the altar saying mass, 
 A miser starving on his bed stuffed out with 
 
 brass — ' " 
 
 "The next," said Laffemas; "will the ones I 
 seek never come forth?" 
 
 The "Tyrant" vociferated in his thunderous 
 accents: 
 
 " 'Behold the fierce Taillebras, from Thibet 
 
 come to tell 
 How I struck down the Mogul, daring to rebel! 
 And the Great Cham—' " 
 
 "I've the mind to bid you go back there 
 again!" said the judge rudely, and the fe- 
 rocious Stentor drew back, scowling hideously. 
 
 His hearer had not noticed his ill-humor for 
 he had at last spied Marion, who looked lovely 
 though saddened by her inability to induce 
 Didier to resume their flight or even regard her 
 piteous appeal. 
 
 "Peradventure," broke in the Taillebras up- 
 on his reverie, taking it to be dumb admira- 
 tion, "you would prefer me in a more patriotic 
 part. You should see me as Charlemagne!" 
 and swinging his arms like a windmill and de- 
 claiming with uncontainable vehemence, he re- 
 sumed : 
 
 " 'How odd is destiny! Oh, heavens! hear my 
 
 plaint! 
 My cruel plight would wring a groan from e'en 
 
 a saint! 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 387 
 
 I must cast off my mighty sovereign estate, 
 And to another yield my love so blithe and 
 
 great ! 
 
 II tilled me to the brim with joy intense — 
 Hut now embitters with a ruefulness immense! 
 No longer are the doves to mate within the 
 
 dells? 
 
 No longer are the bees to cram their honey- 
 cells? 
 
 No longer are the sheep to wear their fleecy 
 coats? 
 
 And from your nannies, you must part, you 
 bncksome goats!' " 
 
 Laffemas had his eyes half closed, watching 
 the unconscious Marion. Aroused by the ap- 
 plause from his brethren at this outburst for 
 the loud-lunged tragedian, the auditor clapped 
 his hands and exclaimed: 
 
 "Lovely! admirable! That is Garnier's 
 'Bradamante' for a hundred louis! what a mas- 
 sive poet !" 
 
 •Shall I proceed?'' 
 
 "No, thank you!" Laffemas hastened to say. 
 Turning to Marion, whom he pointedly ad- 
 dressed, he pursued: 
 
 "Let us have a change of voice! the sex, the 
 softer sex! Here is a charming lass! What is 
 her name, manager?" 
 
 "We call her Ximena, because she plays 
 those roles," said Mondori, leading Marion for- 
 ward, and whispering: "Take heart! speak 
 what you were taught! this is a fine chance 
 to get free transport at ion to town, where you 
 will meet your befriender!" 
 
 Laffemas gloated on the shrinking figure be- 
 fore him. Never had he dreamed to see the 
 blushing one so pale; the arrogant favorite so 
 
388 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 humbled; the reckless one so timid. It was an 
 alteration which caused him to hope that he 
 could conquer with terror. 
 
 "The Ximena, you say? Let me see: in that 
 piece vour lover slays some one in single com- 
 bat—'' 
 
 "A duel!" cried Marion, alarmed at the al- 
 lusion. 
 
 "Certainly! I have a good memory — for 
 plays," said Laffemas, jeeringly. "The lover 
 takes to flight and — but tell us the story in 
 mellifluous numbers which, I am positive, will 
 be increased in music by your medium." 
 
 The woman averted her sight from him and 
 glanced towards Didier, who remained 
 shrouded in his mantle, and in a tremulous 
 voice recited: 
 
 " 'Since my appeal to houor and your treas- 
 ured life 
 
 Stays not your speeding to your doom with hor- 
 rors rife! 
 
 If e'er you recked I loved you, Rodrigo, wrest — 
 
 Oh, wrest me from Don Sancho's arms and 
 hateful breast! 
 
 Your falchion draw, to bar me from a course 
 of woe, 
 
 If I could to my greatest loathing ever go! 
 
 Impose upon me silence while your good blade 
 leaps 
 
 To prove no villain safe whom mail of Malice 
 keeps. 
 
 If yet to love of mine your own as lovingly re- 
 sponds, 
 
 Then, rise a victor in the fight which breaks 
 my bonds!'" 
 
 At the conclusion, while the comedians ap- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 389 
 
 plauded, spite of their jealousy, Laffemas 
 sprang forward, for she was fainting from the 
 wrestling of emotions; — Didier remained so un- 
 accountably cold; and kissing her chill, blood- 
 less hand with exaggerated gallantry, he de- 
 clared her adorable. 
 
 "The ladies will kindly excuse me, but I do 
 not care to hear any other voice after this one, 
 which so surely plays on the inmost fibres of 
 the heart." 
 
 Releasing her hand which had not responded 
 to his venturesome pressure, but dropped inerl 
 while she turned her eyes once more, without 
 hope, upon the motionless Didier, he said to 
 Mondori, to try to prevent his interest in Mar- 
 ion being too apparent: 
 
 "That is Corneille, the new dramatist, and 
 there is no denying that he falls short of Gui- 
 lder in flow of cadence and sonorousness. But 
 he will improve — you will see, sir, that Cor- 
 neille will improve, for the Cardinal takes him 
 in hand and, being a playwright himself, the 
 young man must profit by his suggestions! 
 How proud I shall be to present your leading 
 tragedienne to his Eminence! what talent if in 
 the lachrymose vein, as far as that specimen 
 verse showed — what magnificent eyes, though 
 <lrowned in well-affected tearfulness! The 
 shocking idea of her gifts being buried in the 
 provincial bushel ! I take you all under my pro- 
 tection." 
 
 He looked back at the doorway, blocked up 
 by Cheret and the arquebusier captain, behind 
 whom the smoking matches of his followers' 
 firearms formed a cloud most ominous. 
 
 "My secretary shall get you a chaise, lady!'' 
 continued he. advancing as Marion retreated, 
 for the reinforcement had encouraged him. 
 
390 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "You shall have all the honors in our journey 
 to Paris." 
 
 On seeing the soldiers, Marion recoiled, and 
 being close to her companion, whispered: 
 
 "Didier, rouse thee from this inexplicable 
 apathy! the Cardinal's guards are here! be 
 quick and bold, and you may yet escape by the 
 little door before they surround the barn!" 
 
 But the arm which she jostled was rigid as 
 though turned wholly to bone; his eyes re- 
 mained on the floor and he did not show by a 
 tremor that he had realised their predicament. 
 
 Cheret nodded with a knowing air. 
 
 "I had anticipated your lordship's desire," 
 said he, "I have a light vehicle at the park 
 gateway!" 
 
 "Signor Mondori, follow with your troupe 
 at the best speed. I will share my guards with 
 you, though, in faith! the reduced number ill 
 accords with the state necessarv to the Lieu- 
 tenant-Criminal — " 
 
 "The Lieutenant-Criminal!" exclaimed Mar- 
 ion, shuddering at this accession of power to 
 the wretch whom she had already dreaded. 
 "Do you hear? can you cope with this mon- 
 ster now that his venom is redoubled?" 
 
 "Come!" said Laffemas victoriously, augur- 
 ing all that was favorable from the silence 
 following the announcement of his title. 
 
 Didier sprang forward, the abrupt movement 
 astounding from the quiescence in which he 
 had so long rested. He overthrew Mondori and 
 stood before Laffemas, flaming with wrath. 
 
 "She shall not go, but I will come!" cried 
 he, flinging down broad-brimmed Spanish hat 
 and voluminous mantle. "I am Didier, the 
 doomed!" 
 
 To those of the theatrical company to whom 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 391 
 
 the revelation was a surprise, it was a momenl 
 of stupor. 
 
 "Von can leave these poor good-souls in 
 peace," said the self-made prisoner, "for they 
 were unaware of my identity. You have your 
 prey, mocking fiend that you are! I resume the 
 chain. Had I not chafed under the other — of 
 roses — which I hasten to repudiate, you would 
 not have taken me so easily!" 
 
 Indeed, so savage was his bearing, that the 
 Lieutenant-Criminal recoiled under shield of 
 his captain while Cheret drew back without the 
 door. 
 
 As if he were leading the way, Didier stalked 
 out of the building. 
 
392 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE GRANDEUR OF A WEAKLING. 
 
 The red Arquebusiers' invasion had been re- 
 garded sourly by the castle servants; but iSa- 
 verny had his private reasons for not inquiring 
 too narrowly into their grounds for entering, 
 to intervene prematurely. 
 
 But, on seeing Didier walk out of the barn, 
 accompanied by Laffemas, and immediately 
 followed by Marion, wringing her hands and 
 imploring to her lover, he took a step in that 
 direction, whither all gaze was concentrated. 
 
 He saw Marion, frozen in the heart bv a 
 cruelly cold glance from Didier, who had told 
 her, in a tone to correspond, that she could not 
 divert him from this course. 
 
 Saverny waved his cane for the household at 
 hand to come with him and hurried to the spot. 
 
 Recoiling, with a hand on her bosom, Marion 
 had fallen on a garden seat where she dwelt 
 unnoticed, save by the ladies of the theatrical 
 company who sank their petty rivalry to bear 
 succor to her. 
 
 As the marquis approached, he heard Laf- 
 femas, failing to pretend a laugh, hiss to his 
 prisoner with condensed ire: 
 
 "So, ho! my master, you are not playing a 
 farce here?" 
 
 "It is you who are in the character that is 
 laughed at!" was the young gentleman's re- 
 joinder. 
 
 "Oh, I play funny parts badly, I admit! My 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 393 
 
 forte is in more serious ones, in collaboration 
 with my Lord Cardinal! In our tragedy you 
 are cast for a rule: that of the Victim!" 
 
 Marion, who had been moaning, must have 
 heard this sinister threat for she screamed and 
 half-arose. 
 
 Didier turned from her and from the tor- 
 mentor with the like disdain. 
 
 Saverny had arrived, and at his heels were 
 sturdy domestics, who had prudently caught 
 up canes, Cudgels and tire-irons, and who, at 
 least, outnumbered the soldiery. This is say- 
 ing nothing: of the guests for the funeral, who 
 looked on at a distance, but were armed, from 
 the insecurity of the roads, and their serving- 
 men were also supplied with weapons of a re- 
 doubtable nature. 
 
 "Yes, yes," said the Lieutenant-Criminal, 
 with a low taunting humor which disgusted the 
 soldiers, "you may well wriggle your head on 
 your shoulders as long as it is on them to wag! 
 Let us see if you will continue still to act your 
 part as loftily! Come to the chapel where a 
 priest will leave the corpse to help you prepare 
 your spirit for its ascension!" 
 
 "Ah!" sighed Marion, rushing forward 
 through the group of actresses and, again re- 
 pulsed by Didier and the arquebusiers w T ho 
 barred her approach with their firelock rests, 
 she turned her eyes desperately along the 
 earth for a foreign support. 
 
 Promptly informed of the intrusion by an 
 officious valet, the old Marquis of Xangis is- 
 sued from the castle, accompanied by his own 
 guard of halberdiers. 
 
 At the unite appeal of Marion, who came 
 tottering towards him with clasped hands and 
 a countenance white as a phantom's, all his 
 
394 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 gallantry was awakened. He had been a boon- 
 companion of the late King in his amorous ex- 
 ploits and the call of beauty in distress fired 
 him. 
 
 His step was active, his form straightened, 
 and he drew his sword, though a parade one, 
 with a flourish, like a royal champion. 
 
 But before Marion could recover voice on see- 
 ing this defender draw near, Laffemas glided 
 between with a smirk and a long, low bow: 
 
 "My Lord Marquis," said he, "I claim assist- 
 ance in the name of the King, whose Lieuten- 
 ant-Criminal I have the honor to be." 
 
 "Lieutenant-Criminal!" repeated Saverny, 
 stopping short in drawing his sword and re- 
 taining hold of his cane. 
 
 "The mask is off!" added Brichanteau, low- 
 ering his own hand. "The fox is a tiger-cat !" 
 
 "My lord," continued the high officer of jus- 
 tice, "the assassin of poor Marquis Nazaire had 
 fled, but here he is — we have captured him. 
 you see!" 
 
 •'Nazaire's murderer?" said the marquis. 
 
 "Who broke prison, more or less by the aid 
 of this woman!" proceeded Laffemas, looking 
 down with a blending of admiration, hatred 
 and adoration thrilling to see, at Marion who, 
 seeing that the Lord of Nangis had been para- 
 lysed in his offer to rescue by the announce- 
 ment of the title, cast herself on her knees to 
 the arbiter of this issue. 
 
 "Show mercy to him as you expect mercy 
 from above!" she said in a lamentable voice. 
 
 "She, at his feet!" cried Brichanteau, furious- 
 
 "You are right, sir! T ought to be at hers!" 
 responded the judge with his labored gal- 
 Ian try. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 395 
 
 "Remember thai there is a Judge above who 
 may be pitiless i<> you if you harden your hearl 
 to me now!" she pursued. 
 
 "Marion in the dust! the world is reversed," 
 muttered Saverny. "But how she loves thai 
 man! to humble herself like this, to that cai- 
 tiff — how she loves him, as never a man be- 
 fore!" 
 
 Laffemas had replied to the pious appeal by 
 a contemptuous gesture; at the same moment, 
 the priest in the chapel entoned the Psalm: 
 "Dixit insipiens — the fool has said there is no 
 God!" 
 
 Several of the country lords crossed them- 
 selves, but the Lieutenant laughed harshly. 
 
 "Of a verity, it is a fine sermon you preach, 
 lady fair! the more remarkable as a sermon is 
 not what we are accustomed to hear from 
 those ruby lips! But cease to preach, and re- 
 turn you to your realm, queen of fashion and 
 social charms! reign over the balls, the dainty 
 suppers and the festivals! For you, what 
 would not I — any gentleman, do? — but the 
 King's proclamation. Laws-a-mercy! the fellow 
 killed a noble in a duel against the express 
 prohibition — he is an outlaw and I might have 
 him strung up to the next tree!" 
 
 A sli udder of horror ran through the two 
 opposing ranks. 
 
 "I never believed in the wehr-wolf till now." 
 said Mondori, reckless if he were overheard, 
 "but this monster is no human being, albeit 
 he appeareth and discourseth in broad day!" 
 
 "Give the word," said Brichanteau to Xan<, r is. 
 "give me the word, uncle, and, though 1 incur 
 the gallows myself. 1 will lead on our friends 
 and hirelings to rescue thai gentleman!" 
 
 "Marie." said Didier, participating in the 
 
396 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 general disgust, ''rise! do not sue to that thing 
 of wig and sables!" 
 
 Trembling in every limb, the poor woman 
 stood up. 
 
 "Liar!" said Didier to Laffemas who receded 
 at his outburst, "it was not a murder — it was a 
 fair duel." 
 
 "I was a witness to that fairness!" said Bri- 
 chanteau. "Captain," continued he to the 
 arquebusier, "let the gallant fellow have a 
 deer's law — let him run — give him a chance to 
 escape or at least to die shot — like a gentle- 
 man!" 
 
 "Peace!" said Laffemas angrily. "Do you 
 allow rebellion to be counselled in the King's 
 domain?" he asked Nangis, who had become 
 palsied and irresolute after his first spell of 
 excitement. "It is written that blood calls for 
 blood! I am afflicted by such rigor, but it is 
 down in the law-books, so! He slew a man — 
 a noble — the young Marquis of Saverny, and it 
 is not here, where his body passed over the 
 ground, and haply sprinkled it with his pre- 
 cious blood, that leniency should be advised 
 or practised! Gentlemen," proceeded he, tak- 
 ing the increasing assemblage into his confi- 
 dence with flippancy which jarred on all ears, 
 "he slew the nephew of this worthy old hero! 
 a perfect young gentleman! If he had not been 
 done to death, as my heart is not rock, I — I — " 
 
 "He whom all believe dead," said Saverny 
 advancing up to the speaker who thought he 
 was about to cuff him, and stood on guard, "is 
 not dead in the slightest, thank St. Nazaire!" 
 
 He plucked off the false mustaches and 
 chin-beard which came away together, and re- 
 moved hat and sham scar with the wig. 
 
 All the people of the neighborhood and ens- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 397 
 
 tie applauded, as at a miracle, the re-appear 
 ance of the young heir to Nangis. 
 
 "Nazaire de Saverny!" exclaimed Laffemas, 
 
 in the midst of the general amaze, "but — but 
 — unless this is a prodigy! is not his bier yon- 
 der — are not the clergy chanting the prayers 
 over — ■" 
 
 "Over an empty shell!" said Brichanteau. 
 "It was a deception to baffle your bandogs! 
 He is alive. Do vou not know your own, 
 uncle?" 
 
 Like one aroused from a bad dream, glad 
 that Hie terror had vanished, Nangis rushed 
 forward and sank into Saverny's arms, mum- 
 bling: 
 
 '•(iod be praised! my nephew — my dear Na- 
 zaire! my beloved heir!" 
 
 While they were embracing strenuously and 
 affectionately, Marion dropped on her knees, 
 with her face turned this time towards the 
 cross on the chapel roof, thanking a just heaven 
 that her beloved was saved. 
 
 Didier bowed to Saverny and said with ap- 
 palling coldness: 
 
 "Why have you returned when I wished to 
 be where vou were thought to-be? I wished 
 to die!" 
 
 "God forbid!" cried Marion; "whv does he 
 wisli to die?" 
 
 "You have done me a poor kindness, my 
 lord, to make me owe life to vou," resumed the 
 prisoner, to the surprise of Laffemas; "do you 
 believe, otherwise, that I would have let this 
 spider catch me in his web — not fly that I 
 might be but a wasp that — you know — stings 
 sharply. Bah! death is the sole thing for 
 which I have a desire!" 
 
 "What does he say?" interposed Marion. 
 
398 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Nay, nay, grace having fallen from the skies, 
 you will live on!" 
 
 "Stop, stop!" said the Lieutenant, ''all is not 
 over! Is it a fact that we see before us the 
 Marquis de Saverny?" 
 
 "He is crazy! why, gentlemen, he knew the 
 lord at Paris!" said Brichanteau. 
 
 "Is this really the young lord?" persisted 
 Laffemas. 
 
 "Look at the old nobleman who smiles 
 through his grief!" said Marion, with a sad 
 triumph. "Can you doubt the truth while be- 
 holding this happy reunion?" 
 
 "Is this he?" stammered the old lord, "is 
 it my son, my nephew, my heir — my dear Na- 
 zaire! my soul — my own flesh-and-blood? as 
 well deny the goodness of the All-merciful! 
 Did the lady ask if this were my nephew?" 
 
 "My lord, do you in so many words affirm 
 that this is your nephew the Marquis Nazaire 
 de Saverny?" obstinately repeated the Cardi- 
 nal's protege. 
 
 "Indeed, it is!" responded Nangis with force. 
 
 "After this avowal," said Laffemas, unable 
 to repress his exultation, "in the King's name, I 
 arrest you, Lord Saverny! hand me your 
 sword!" 
 
 "Oh, my poor boy!" gasped the marquis to 
 whom such a succession of strong emotions was 
 rending. 
 
 "Heaven have pity!" ejaculated Marion, al- 
 most as much bewildered. 
 
 "Ha!" said Didier, "you take still another 
 head! You will justify your sanguinary of- 
 fice, sir, by returning to this Roman Cardinal 
 of yours with a head in each hand!" 
 
 "By what right do you arrest my nephew?" 
 
OK, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 399 
 
 said Nangis, and Briehanteau urged him to the 
 front to challenge the act. 
 
 "Ask the Prime Minister for a reckoning," 
 was Laffemas' reply. "Under the ordinance, 
 all survivors of a duel merit death bv tin- 
 halter!" 
 
 He held out his hand, with working, clutch- 
 ing lingers for the sword demanded of Sa veiny. 
 
 "Yon were a fool to disclose yourself!" com- 
 mented Didier. 
 
 Saverny hesitated, but at a sign from Laffe- 
 mas the arquebusier officer came to take the 
 weapon bj T force, and he drew the blade. 
 
 "Take it," said he, as if transferring to a 
 dupe a snake in torpor which might thaw and 
 sting. 
 
 "Stay!" interrupted Nangis with renewed 
 vigor, his white hairs seeming to bristle on his 
 brow and his eyes animated with pristine fire. 
 "No one is lord on this estate save Guillaume 
 de Nangis! Sole and alone, I have the right 
 to administer all kinds of justice in this castle! 
 Here, our Sire the King would be merely my 
 guest, mark you! To none but me hand your 
 sword," concluded he to his nephew. 
 
 Saverny gladly drew back his sword for 
 which Laffemas was leaning forward, and 
 passed it to Nangis who gestured for his valet 
 to take it. 
 
 A low murmur of gratification ran round the 
 ranks of the spectators on seeing the judge's 
 discomfiture. 
 
 "On mine honor," said Laffemas, feeling that 
 the voices were counter to him and that Iiis 
 powers might not suffice in the confined place 
 where all was hostile to him. "your claim is 
 based on a very dilapidated feudal right, my 
 lord, but I do not care to afflict you! Let the 
 
400 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Cardinal blame me," he added with a confident 
 smile which alone would have denoted that he 
 believed himself strong by private reasons to 
 obtain his master's indulgence, "but I — " 
 
 "You are an infamous scoundrel,'' said Did- 
 ier; "act as you will!" 
 
 "I submit," went on the Lieutenant-Criminal. 
 "Put out your matches," he said to his guards, 
 "vou are among friends! All I ask of vour 
 lordship is a stronghold where I may detain 
 the prisoners until we hear from Paris?" 
 
 "Your fathers," said the Lord of Nangis 
 proudly to those about him, "were vassals of 
 mine — I forbid you to help this officer." 
 
 "Ha! do vou take it thus!" cried Laffemas 
 in a loud voice, assuming as much dignity as 
 possible; "then, lords, squires and serving- 
 men, listen to me! I am Lord Lieutenant of 
 the Criminal Police! a judge wherever I sit! 
 The agent of the Prime Minister, my Lord 
 Cardinal-Duke! I order that those two culprits 
 shall be conducted to safe ward! The castle 
 warders may double my own watch, but you 
 will answer over all, since this is Nangis Cas- 
 tle and not the King's fort. It will be a rash 
 and eke a bold man who traverses my com- 
 mand, for if, when I bid one of ye go here or 
 there and do as told, he so much as wavers — 
 then, his head is at stake — and on the stake 
 within the hour!" 
 
 Daunted, for the might of the great Minister 
 was talked of in the remotest province, remem- 
 bering that by exceptional favor alone Nangis 
 Castle had not been demolished, the castle 
 guards paired off with the arquebusiers, and 
 their officer arranged for the incarceration of 
 the two c;i] (fives. 
 
 "All is lost !" moaned Marion. "Oh, lord, if 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 401 
 
 you had a heart," she began to Laffemaa as 
 Didier was led away without a glance for her. 
 
 "When you come to me," responded the 
 judge in a low lone, "1 will tell you what is in 
 the heart, which you doubt, affecting you!" 
 
 The woman trembled; in that shadowy soul 
 were depths out of which might come light- 
 nings terrible to contemplate and more terri- 
 ble in their effects. 
 
 But her mind revolted to her beloved one, 
 who had left her and now disappeared under 
 the castle portcullis, without a glance of fare- 
 well at that supreme moment. 
 
 Saverny took it all less seriously. 
 
 Brichanteau accompanied him to his prison 
 cell, which, however, was being furnished to 
 make him at ease. 
 
 "I daresay," said he jestingly, "the fellow 
 will receive double payment for two heads!" 
 
 Enrapt in his business, unaware of what had 
 happened, the undertaker threaded his way 
 through the crowd breaking up, balked of the 
 funeral and full of intelligence to bear home- 
 ward. 
 
 "Will no one tell me,'' faltered he, looking in 
 all quarters, "what hour of what day is fixed 
 for the burial of the late Marquis of Saverny?" 
 
 "Man from the tomb," replied Laffemas with 
 an indecent laugh, "return in a month for the 
 answer!" 
 
402 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE COUNTERPLOT. 
 
 Laffemas waited vainly for the suggested 
 visit of Mademoiselle Delorme. 
 
 To kill the time, he went over the day's 
 events and those leading up to it with Cheret, 
 who clung to his fortunes and hoped that be- 
 hind this bulwark he might defy Father Joseph 
 whom he detested for having discharged him. 
 
 The new Chief of Police was in an execrable 
 ill-humor as the minutes dragged and the 
 castle clock marked the quarters. 
 
 "While we are detained here," said he sud- 
 denly, looking up from an easy chair in the 
 rooms which the new steward had found for 
 him, with terror if not with zeal, ''that demon 
 of a Capuchin will have sped to the ear of the 
 Cardinal and we shall be undermined!'' 
 
 "Richelieu loves bloodshed — he will not re- 
 scind the sentence — " 
 
 But his collocutor dreaded all that the Grey 
 Robe might cover. He was still sure that his 
 pseudo grandam had not revealed anything in- 
 criminating him — but all his wariness might 
 yet have failed: a clue might point to him as 
 her destrover. 
 
 "I will go to Paris," said he, "leaving you to 
 watch that this Didier does net again escape." 
 
 He paced the room, flapping a sheet of pa- 
 per, and reminding the secretary of a tiger lash- 
 ing himself with his tail, in sullen fury. 
 
 He listened at the door but, as by tacit agree- 
 ment, that part of the castle set aside to the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. \0:\ 
 
 usurping Lieutenant was as though under a 
 
 ban. 
 
 < 'herel spoke in a soft voice in the silence un- 
 der which his employer chafed. 
 
 "You asked me at what Father Joseph was 
 aiming?" 
 
 "Did I? when?" said the judge distractedly. 
 
 "It is your thought. I read thoughts of my 
 superiors. It saves time to anticipate." 
 
 "Well," returned Laffemas, with affected 
 resignation, seating himself, with a sigh from 
 a heated bosom. "At what is the arch-plotter 
 aiming, pray?" 
 
 "My lord, I am confidant that Father Carre, 
 in his too frequent journeys to Rome, carried 
 correspondence for the Grey Robe as well as 
 for the Red One!" 
 
 "What does the restless monk require since 
 doubtless he has the hat?" 
 
 "For one thing, he espouses the candidature 
 of the Bishop of Autun instead of him of Aries 
 and. your lordship will see, Autun will have 
 the next cardinal ship." 
 
 "It is indifferent to me!" 
 
 "But why does he scheme for this advance- 
 ment?" 
 
 "I do not even try to guess." 
 
 "Because it conciliates the numerous Italian 
 relatives of his Grace of Autun. Father Jo- 
 seph is plotting for reign on a loftier throne 
 than that of France — " 
 
 "Would Richelieu be Pope?" exclaimed Laf- 
 femas, with joy, seeing a new career for him in 
 Rome, where a man of his qualities as bravo 
 and sbirro might expect a fortune. 
 
 Cheret shook his head, vexed at having 
 kindled a hope where he had expected to ex- 
 cite dismay. 
 
404 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "The gout nails him to France;' was his re- 
 ply. "It is Father Joseph who has the aspi- 
 ration." 
 
 "Impossible!" 
 
 "Ah, you little value Joseph du Tremblay," 
 said the secretary with admiration wrung from 
 him. "Look at his position: his brother, as 
 Governor of the Bastile, controls the liberties 
 of half the nobles and all Parisians under its 
 guns. He himself rather commands the army 
 of Cardinalistic spies than his master; it is he 
 through whom all secrets filter — and God only 
 knows how clearly he lets them soak through! 
 private and political, he knows all the secrets 
 of all Frenchmen, high and low! Often has he 
 astonished the wisest by his wide familiarity 
 to the minutest detail with some scandal be- 
 lieved inscrutably veiled in the past! The 
 King dreads him, Prince Gaston starts at his 
 name, the Court bow to him with awe and 
 even the caustic Langely forbears to spew his 
 venom upon him." 
 
 "Hist!" 
 
 "I heard nothing!" 
 
 "No, it is the rising wind in the tapestry. 
 An owlet fluttering by. Father Joseph, Pope! 
 I confess I cannot see that." 
 
 "Live to see that, my lord, and you will per- 
 chance be lying in the dungeon awaiting death, 
 like those two young gentlemen. " 
 
 Cheret spoke very calmly but with earnest- 
 ness impressing Laffemas, who ceased to listen 
 at the door. 
 
 "Does he hate me so?" 
 
 "Certes! Who but you ever came between 
 him and the Duke who was his pupil, and for 
 whom he has a jealous love?" 
 
 "That is true! I believe I am the only per- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 105 
 
 son to whom a private audience li:is been 
 given, while the Cardinal's Chief Confessor 
 
 w;is kept at the door;' said the officer of jus- 
 tice, with pride. 
 
 Ten o'clock struck. 
 
 "Ton!" said Laffemas, disgusted. "She will 
 not come!" 
 
 "Hark:" said the secretary, rising. 
 
 "It is — no, a man's heavy step — with spurs 
 on!" said the other, sinking back in his chair, 
 disappointed. 
 
 The arquebusier captain entered, with a kind 
 of contempt for the two men of the quill, whose 
 orders ho was compelled to receive. Hut he 
 qualified his submission by spiteful inuendoes. 
 
 His deep-lined features were twisted into a 
 smile which he did not care to mask. 
 
 "Another escape!" ejaculated Laffemas, 
 bounding forward, not ignorant of this officer's 
 contrary humor. 
 
 "My prisoners? Xo, my lord — I am not like 
 those sleepy warders at Blois — I do not let 
 my wards escape." 
 
 "But some bird has flown?" 
 
 "You are right! The master of the castle 
 has set out for Paris — " 
 
 "The Marquis of Nangis travels, at his age?" 
 
 "Yes, my lord; but he will not need to go 
 so far! The King is at Chambord!" 
 
 "The King! He seeks the King?" 
 
 "Who comes, via Chambord, to see the dou- 
 ble execution at Blois T Cheret hastened to 
 suggest. 
 
 •1 do not know what he is there for, but 
 my orderly rode over country with the news 
 for me. On the road he mot the old marquis 
 hurrying, no doubt, to procure his nephew's 
 
406 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 pardon of the King, and who do you think was 
 in the old coach with hini?" 
 
 This was evidently the bolt which the irate 
 captain withheld to do the most hurt. 
 
 "Marion!" cried Laffemas, reading truly how 
 much the man meant to wound him and how 
 surely he had gauged the injury. 
 
 "Mdlle. Delorme was with the ancient spark! 
 She goes to plead for her gallant, as the noble- 
 man for his relative and heir." 
 
 Laffemas and Cheret looked at each other, 
 disconcerted. 
 
 ''Any orders?" said the captain, as if that was 
 all that had brought him. 
 
 "I will act on my previous inspiration," said 
 the judge to his confidant. "I will go to Cham- 
 bord or the city to contravene this double 
 machination! Yes, captain, an escort and a 
 light carriage, if such a one is procurable! If 
 not," with a grimace, "I must take to the sad- 
 dle." 
 
 While the officer went to fulfil the com- 
 mand, Laffemas instructed his secretary to 
 keep supervision over the two captives. 
 
 "You are sure that Joseph intends to pro- 
 cure the election to the Pontificate?" he de- 
 manded, frowning. 
 
 "That much I worked out from the fragment 
 of the cipher correspondence which Carre 
 bore." 
 
 "Then, let him beware how he thrusts bars 
 in my wheels! The Italians are vengeful — 
 they are determined that a foreigner shall 
 never rule in the States of the Church ! Father 
 Joseph, or his French nominee, is doomed!" 
 
 In an hour, he was seated in a comparatively 
 light vehicle which rolled over the rugged road, 
 surrounded by the arquebusiers, delighted to 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 407 
 
 be on the return and bewailing the sad fate 
 of their comrades remaining to supplement the 
 castle guard over the two duellists. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Lord Nangis, accompanied 
 by .Marion, as stated, was well on the same 
 way. 
 
 The old noble seemed given a new life by 
 the inevitable choice of his personal interme- 
 diation with the Crown to save his nephew. 
 On his way to the stable to see to the prepa- 
 ration of a carriage, co-eval with the litters 
 with which Catherine de Medicis travelled to 
 Paris, he passed Marion, and the sight of her 
 sorrowful face doubled his own w r oe. 
 
 The same grief made a man of him, without 
 the trappings of aristocracy. He went to her, 
 took her hand and said, in his low voice: 
 
 '•Come with me, since your mission is like 
 mine — to sue for a young life! both may be use- 
 ful to our country in the troublous times which 
 I foresee when such rulers guide France! a 
 priest and a force of spies! Cease to weep, 
 lady! The King, to whom I haste, will grant 
 pardon! It is a right of his position, and a 
 duty of his race toward a Nangis. Be tranquil, 
 sore heart! In his blood, as in name, he is 
 the true son of Henry the Fourth, I avouch!" 
 
 Marion smiled slightly through her gloom. 
 She knew Louis XIII. better than this old cour- 
 tier, long absent from the court. 
 
 "You were companion of his sire?" said she, 
 not to speak her thought, which was adverse 
 to the enthusiasm making this white-headed 
 man juvenile. 
 
 "For his father, indeed, I wore out many an 
 iron coat as the nephew whom r seek to save 
 wears out satin doublets for the son! I assure 
 von. lady, that I will have merely to show him 
 
408 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 my frosty pow, and plead to him in the name 
 of his father's patron: 'St. Ch-is!' and he will 
 annul the sentence — forgive the little harm — 
 since no one was slain — and reinstate my neph- 
 ew in his favor." 
 
 "Richelieu — " began Marion. 
 
 "Let Richelieu find a saint more potent to 
 oppose to his King's father's!" 
 
 On the road, at a turning, a lugubrious song, 
 but a little heightened by a slight tone of tri- 
 umph, seemed to hail the equipage. 
 
 "A psalm!" said the marquis, leaning out of 
 the small glass window, "ill omen!" 
 
 "The priests, my lord," said the coachman, 
 controlling his four horses which the chant 
 had startled, as well as had a lantern on a pole 
 amid a small group of men in white and black. 
 "They were disappointed of singing their bal- 
 lads over the young lord, so they vent them 
 on the bats and hedge-sparrows!" 
 
 "Quid gloriarisf repeated Marion. "My 
 lord, as you knew Queen Marguerite of Na- 
 varre, and she spoke Latin better than I fear 
 me I speak French, pray interpret — what is 
 the meaning of that psalm?" 
 
 Nangis was indeed one of the bevy of sparks 
 and beauties who surrounded the author of the 
 "Heptameron." He smiled at the reminiscence 
 and answered with lightness: 
 
 "I was wrong! This is rather of good omen! 
 That is the utterance of King David, denounc- 
 ing the tyrants who boast of doing injustice! 
 promising them death and destruction, and to 
 those who trust in the Lord tender mercy! 
 Lady, we are on the true road!" 
 
 Toward morning, the strength of the old man 
 giving out and forcing them to stop at an inn, 
 they were gratified with the tidings, by the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. L09 
 
 post rider, thai the King, us though to meet 
 them, had left the town palace and was al 
 < Ihambord. 
 
 Nangis \\as glad, all the more as he heard 
 that the noble in charge of the transfer was an 
 old companion-in-arms, the Duke of Pellegarde. 
 
 "Our suit is won !" said lie, rising in the morn- 
 ing with renewed nvacity and insisting on 
 Marion taking breakfast with him. 
 
 He was very dull for it was foggy, and 
 threatened rain. 
 
 It is true that she had the tact, ingenious in 
 charm as she was, not to talk of her lover but 
 of the Marquis of Saverny, whose adventur* a 
 in Paris she detailed with such art that tic- 
 fond dotard began to believe that his heir 
 would be a loss not sheerlv to France, but to 
 Europe! All that Laffemas had plastered with 
 praise, was richly gilded and burnished. 
 
 They resumed their drive, cheerful, like fath- 
 er and adopted daughter. 
 
 The servants, who were numerous, partici- 
 pated in the old lord's gaiety, and the coach- 
 man so tickled his horses that they bounded 
 along with vigor like that in the Court of tin- 
 White Horse, in other words, the bronze of 
 Marcus Au reikis, cast in Rome and adorning 
 Paris, at this epoch. 
 
 In this same mood, unlike that befitting 
 those on the thorns concerning the fate of the 
 heir to Nangis and the companion in his mis- 
 ery — heir to Suffering, the party of solicitors 
 arrived at the palace of Prince Gaston. 
 
 The latter had fled, to use the right word, 
 on hearing that his brother was coming to 
 Blois, and had offered his chateau to cover this 
 flight. 
 
 Always conspiring, as more than once has 
 
410 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 been said, he detested being questioned, al- 
 though to lie artfully was his second nature. 
 
 Xangis had not been misinformed: his friend 
 the Duke of Bellegarde, was the Grand Master 
 of the Ceremonies. As a familiar of Gaston, 
 he knew the castle perfectly, and he strove by 
 his deference and celerity in removing ob- 
 stacles to his royal master's repose, to efface 
 the charge of his having sought to dethrone 
 him in his brother's favor. 
 
 The marquis, who had ever on his mind 
 the sordid and modest attire of the companions 
 of the ever-poor King of Navarre, was stupe- 
 fied by the splendor of the Guard Hall, where 
 Bellegarde was marshalling the servants and 
 welcoming the country gentlemen, hastening to 
 pay their respects to the new comer, all the 
 more readily as they, like the duke, wished not 
 to be confounded with the latest plot of the 
 Lord of Orleans. 
 
 They bowed curiously but respectfully to the 
 old noble on learning that he was Saverny's 
 uncle, hero of the now historical duel. 
 
 But the marquis gazed with dazed eyes on 
 the scene: the large hall was crowded with 
 the courtiers and officers of the household — 
 At the door stood the musketeers, with their 
 guns on their shoulders; in the lobbies pa- 
 trolled the Hundred Swiss Guards — Richelieu 
 not having yet obliterated all the foreigners; 
 glorious in their Velasquez-like uniform, their 
 doublets heavy with old gold, their breeches 
 red, their stockings in several clashing hues, 
 and their long swords replaced within doors by 
 gold-headed canes; officers of the escort — an 
 army! threaded the throng, light-guardsmen, 
 the Queen's guards, the Cardinal's, the French, 
 the Swiss Reds, the Outer-guards; haughtily. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 411 
 
 the Gentlemen A Bec-de-Corbin, so called from 
 their peculiarly headed slicks of office, paraded 
 in heavily laced breeches over scarlet hose, 
 black silk vests with purple trimmings, and red 
 plumes in broad-brimmed felt bats. 
 
 Bellegarde eclipsed them all, having donned 
 a snmptnons court suit so heavy with gold 
 lace as to fatigue him as in his young days did 
 the half-armor, while his chest was oppressed 
 with the plaques of orders, over which crossed 
 the ribbon of the Golden Fleece. 
 
 Nangis, in his mourning suit, seemed a blot 
 on the glorious assemblage, but this led to 
 the duke singling him out from the host of 
 suppliants and recognising him. 
 
 He ran to him with the parade step, and re- 
 fusing the proffered hand, embraced his former 
 brother-in-arms, the two white heads comming- 
 ling their locks like patriarchs' while mum- 
 bling those effusive compliments which were in 
 vogue. 
 
 What a contrast: the aged men who had be- 
 gun life under the solitary and spurned ban- 
 ner of the humble King of Navarre, and parted 
 after the campaigns, arduous and perilous to 
 meet in the palace, one bowed with grief and 
 loneliness, the other resplendent with court 
 favor. 
 
 On seeing the attention the meeting occa- 
 sioned among the gilded lookers-on, Bellegarde 
 colored up, recognising that his friend's gar- 
 ments were of a rustic and obsolete cut. 
 
 Scarcely listening to the explanation of the 
 visitor's business, the duke hurried him to a 
 side door, muttering something about sparing 
 him the jeers of the idle spectators. 
 
 "Mock at a greybeard's mourning?" pro- 
 tested Nangis. 
 
412 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Ob, these young bloods are such frivolous 
 youth! But you can judge of them by your 
 precious nephew!" 
 
 He placed him in the lobby and hastily 
 added: 
 
 "Naturally, you shall have your audience. 
 You will impress the sovereign deeply as he 
 is prone to accord any request to his father's 
 associates. That viper Laffemas, I believe, 
 owes his promotions, wonderful in number and 
 in height, to his being son of that Jean Laffe- 
 mas, you will recall, valet to the Prince of 
 Beam? Rumor that he is offspring of the 
 Prime Minister? — tut! scandal! But stay 
 here, brother, while I prepare the King for 
 your plaint. I will set him against this Cardi- 
 nal who never tires to cast down the noble 
 and degrade us. Let the signal be my tapping 
 with my foot — so!" 
 
 Nangis caught his hand and wrung it with 
 vigor, saying: 
 
 "Heaven repay you!" 
 
 At the end of the lobby was a gilded door, 
 before which a royal musketeer was marching. 
 
 The duke knew his name, for they were all 
 gentlemen in that special corps, and accosting 
 him courteously, inquired if the King were by 
 himself. 
 
 It appeared that with him was an official in 
 black allowed "a kissing of hands," iu thanks 
 for some appointment, who was offering the 
 monarch a paper to sign. 
 
 "An order on the Treasury?" laughed Belle- 
 garde. 
 
 "More like a death-warrant, judging by the 
 man's looks, bearing a certain likeness with 
 M. de Laffemas, Master of Requests, who, how- 
 
OR. RICHELIEU DEFIED. U3 
 
 over, 1 hear, has been drowned in a ditch in 
 r.iiit,in.\ !" 
 
 The news of Laffemas' docking at Nangis 
 had reached court, but as usual, with courl 
 gossip, much perverted. 
 
 The duke returned to his friend. 
 
 "As soon as the King is at liberty, I will 
 introduce you," he said. "Courage!" and he 
 left him admiring, with a listless eye, the 
 ceiling decorations by Primaticcio. 
 
 How was it Nangis had quitted the genial, 
 sympathetic travelling companion who had ac- 
 companied him to the Paris custom bars? 
 
 Marion, on approaching her own realm, had 
 reflected on her attire. The Spanish costume 
 with which Mondori had furnished her, might 
 excite the lauds of a Saverny, or the rustics', 
 but it would not pass in the capital, and far 
 less smooth her way to a hearing of the ruler. 
 
 Luckily, she recalled, in Blois, a costumier's 
 who did a little business during the festive 
 times when the Duke of Orleans held court 
 there; this was an old actress who readily sup- 
 plied her need. She appeared at the palace, 
 therefore, in a suit of weeds, somewhat theatri- 
 cal, but very imposing, a little antedating yet. 
 much as would be costumed "The Mourning 
 Bride." 
 
 This beauteous and piteous ligure, recalling 
 the Dido of marble in the gallery, entered the 
 chateau without difficulty and penetrated to 
 the quarters set apart for the Majesty. 
 
 Put here, having no usher, as had Nangis, 
 to remove impediments, a halberdier rudely 
 lowered his spear and barred her passage, say- 
 ing, in a voice to correspond with his ad. 
 
 "No admittance! The Royal Presence is 
 within!" 
 
414 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Marion drew herself up with disdain, like one 
 surprised at being refused the right of entry. 
 
 "Sir, do they now couch lances at ladies here! 
 Whilom, they used to be placed in rest, in 
 their honor!" 
 
 The musketeer whom Bellegarde had ad- 
 dressed, w 7 as relieved and came out at this 
 scene into the hall. 
 
 Marion called him by name: 
 
 "M. de Navaille," said she firmly, "I want 
 instant speech with the Head of the Koyal 
 Household!" 
 
 Nayaille had recognised a court lady by the 
 wit in her reproach to the guardsman and now 
 he knew the beauty again. He bowed, with a 
 sweep along the floor of the plumes in his 
 doffed hat and replied: 
 
 "To be sure, madam! You can go into the 
 ante-room ! Let pass !" continued he to the hal- 
 berdier. 
 
 The latter lifted his lance, grumbling: 
 
 "Oh, a lady for the duke! Why did he not 
 say so? Well, these old relics are more often 
 kissed than the new ones, i' faith ! I will wager 
 that King Harry was too wary to post him 
 as sentry at the Louvre gates when he had 
 an appointment with a lady as lovely as this 
 one!" 
 
 In the meanwhile, the audience of his Ma- 
 jesty with his new Lieutenant-Criminal taking 
 up some time, for Laffemas did not forget to 
 deliver his budget of news about Brittany, in- 
 cluding the movements of Prince Gaston who 
 had gone to Nantes, as with a view to keep 
 up connection with England — Bellegarde had 
 removed his old friend to a side room where 
 he had refreshment supplied him. On his re- 
 turn into the waiting-room, he found it half 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 415 
 
 filled with privileged personages, discussing 
 the news while awaiting turns to sec the King. 
 
 Like a hornet among butterflies and moths, 
 flitted the Abbe of Notre Dame, the Archbish- 
 op's coadjutor, Grondi, with malignant remarks. 
 As if to vie with him in this darting of spite- 
 ful shafts, Jester Langely, who had not seen 
 his master since overnight, shot his shuttle of 
 dry mirth to and fro on the flimsy warp. 
 
 "The Bishop of Auttin gets the new cardi- 
 nal's hat!" said one. 
 
 'Tie won it at the 'holy Siege' — of La Ro- 
 chelle," said Condi, "where he commanded the 
 artillery." 
 
 "I approve the Holy Siege of Rome hailing 
 him," said Langely; "it will be one cardinal 
 made according to the canons!" 
 
 It was into this throng that Laffemas thrust 
 himself, overjoyed at the King approving of 
 his appointment and conduct of Didier and 
 Sa verity's capture, to say nothing of giving the 
 death- warrant of the pair, fully signed and 
 sealed. 
 
 The court nobles feigned not to know him 
 and those attached to the castle were ignor- 
 ant of his powers. 
 
 Langely enlightened them, through the first 
 inquirer. 
 
 "This man in black with trimmings of er- 
 mine? Oh, he is not one of the followers of 
 the Duke of Orleans, or he would be less arro- 
 gant under this roof whence his master has 
 tied, fearful of losing his night's sleep for a 
 prolonged one! This ape, with the airs of a 
 grandee 1 of Spain, is just Sire de Laffemas, In- 
 tendant of Champagne, now Lieutenant-Crim- 
 inal!" 
 
 "An Infernal Lieutenant!" whispered Belle- 
 
416 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 garde right and left, "they call him iu town 
 the Cardinal's Executioner — now, he had be- 
 come the King's — save the mark!" 
 
 "What a man to be at court!" said a country 
 squire. 
 
 "What marvel? A tiger in our menagerie!" 
 cried Langely, facing the frown of Laffemas 
 with composure, for the other had turned sus- 
 pecting he was the object of the raillery. 
 "Better stroke him the right way of the fur! 
 be his friend! Unless he take you by the 
 hand, he may take you by the neck!" 
 
 Going up to Laffemas, from whom the aris- 
 tocratic mob was falling coldly aloof, he caught 
 him by the sleeve and drew him toward the 
 Master of the Household. 
 
 "My Lord of Bellegarde," said he, in a voice 
 so artfully mingling scorn and politeness that 
 even Laffemas was duped: "allow me to pre- 
 sent the son of your old King's valet — Laffe- 
 mas, fresh from kissing of the royal hands on 
 taking his appointment as Chief of the Police 
 of the Kingdoms!" 
 
 Laffemas bowed. 
 
 Bellegarde stood on such delicate ground, for 
 he best knew how 7 deeply he had compromised 
 himself for the Orleans party, that he received 
 Langely's hint with wisdom, if not rapture. 
 
 "I am delighted to make your acquaintance," 
 said he, smiling blandly. 
 
 All the others flocked around the Chief Offi- 
 cer of Justice, at this cue. 
 
 The duke turned aside to mask his chagrin, 
 muttering: 
 
 "Death of my life! to what baseness have we 
 fallen? Oh, to see the son a valet, too, carry- 
 ing the fasces with which his father was chas- 
 tised!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 417 
 
 Iii mudd v boots and tattered doublet, though 
 of bull leather, to show his haste, the Master 
 of the Wolfhounds entered the lobby. 
 
 "The Count of Charnace!" said Bellegarde. 
 "Master of the Hunt! Well, count, what pros- 
 pects of sport?" 
 
 "Tool!" said the Huntsman, shaking his vel- 
 vet-capped head. "I had hopes of some wolves, 
 for a report reached me that they had eaten 
 a peasant or two in the forest! But I have not 
 lighted on their trail." 
 
 "We are luckier!" said Langely, pointing 
 with his elbow to Laffemas. "We have a wolf 
 in our midst!" 
 
 "Thou buffoon!" said Charnace, "can you not 
 promise us something more gay?" 
 
 "Yes," said Langely, who had dextrously 
 caught a glimpse of the writing on the scroll 
 Laffemas was flourishing and to which dangled 
 the seal of State in blood-red wax. "There 
 will be some sport at Reuil, where a couple 
 of gentlemen will be hanged for fighting a duel 
 against the royal Edict !" 
 
 "Do you know that?" stammered Laffemas, 
 rolling up the scroll smartly. 
 
 "What does not our dear Langely know?" 
 said Bellegarde. who feared less the man who 
 appeased Louis XIII.'s appetite for cruelty 
 than he who made him laugh once in a while. 
 
 "Know it!" said Langely, recalling all he 
 had seen at Blois, "it is I who ought to be 
 appointed Head of the Police, if I would ex- 
 change the rod for my bauble! For know ye, 
 that the culprits are the Marquis of Saverny 
 and a gentleman of Blois named Didier!" 
 
 The words fell here on dull ears in silence, 
 but to the right and lef-1 of the waiting-room 
 sounded cries: On the left, over his sherry 
 
418 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 and cakes, the Marquis of Nangis had heard 
 his nephew's name, and in the side piece to 
 the right, Marion, freshly introduced, was ap- 
 palled by the syllables of Didier's. 
 
 "Hush!" said Bellegarde, with unwonted ten- 
 derness. "It is his fond old uncle hears you, 
 there!" 
 
 "Come to sue the King for the life I hold," 
 muttered Laffemas, plunging the warrant into 
 the folds of his mantle as if it might be wrested 
 from him. 
 
 A young nobleman had peered through the 
 Venetian glass at the side where the second 
 exclamation had been heard. 
 
 "A woman! young — fainted — coming to," he 
 said; "by the light of heaven, it is Marion De- 
 lorme! Returned to court! Marion, gentle- 
 men!" Laffemas recovered his breath. 
 
 "Marion, under the same roof as Louis the 
 Chaste! come to sue for her lover's life!" jeered 
 he. 
 
 "Dog!" said Bellegarde in an undertone, "al- 
 ready he snaps at the hand which lifted him 
 out of the kennel! He will die no good end!" 
 
 "Amen!" said Langely, overhearing. "Sue 
 the King for the life of a man! Marion is not 
 yet accredited with my fool's cap! Marion, my 
 Lord Lieutenant," continued he, raising his 
 voice so as to be heard in the adjoining room, 
 "Marion will rather appeal to the Cardinal!" 
 
 "The King receives!" called out an usher, 
 opening a door, and saluting the Duke of Belle- 
 garde, who advanced to take the royal orders 
 as to the introduction of the suppliants, peti- 
 tioners and well-wishers. 
 
 In a moment or two all was order in the 
 ante-room, all stillness. 
 
 Laffemas trembled at the jester's advice. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 419 
 
 He sidled through the courtiers, who paid no 
 more attention to him. and reached the door 
 of the side-room where Marion, who had 
 aroused herself, was near the threshold. She 
 paused in horror at sight of one whom she had 
 hoped far away. 
 
 He flaunted the warrant under her eyes and 
 pointed to the King's signature. 
 
 One glance sufficed her; she hid her con- 
 vulsed features in her white hands. 
 
 All the occupants of the waiting-room were 
 staring at the inner doorway to behold the 
 monarch. 
 
 Laffemas and the lady were practically alone. 
 
 "I will exchange this for a wedding-eon- 
 tract," hissed the Lieutenant-Criminal. 
 
 She started out of her consternation, and his 
 eyes catching hers, they gazed at each other, 
 en wrapt — his had the fascination of a basi- 
 lisk's. 
 
 "Avaunt, Satan!" said she. "The King can 
 cancel what he writes!" 
 
 •The King!" repeated Laffemas, with inde- 
 cent disdain so near the sovereign; "try to get 
 the good will of the King — and, meanwhile, 
 beware that you lose not mine!" 
 
 "I will try the King," said she solemnly, 
 "and that failing, the—" 
 
 "The Cardinal?" queried Laffemas, remem- 
 bering the fool's hint and speaking with self- 
 confidence, more firm than before. 
 
 "No, sir! The King of Kings!" 
 
 The officer of justice uttered a low and im- 
 pious laugh and retired with a smile of self- 
 satisfaction and triumph, while an usher came 
 to lead Marion and the Marquis of Nangis into 
 the presence of Louis the Thirteenth, "Chaste 
 and Just." 
 
420 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 UNHAPPY AS A KING. 
 
 When Bellegarde entered the room where 
 the King prepared to meet his morning's call- 
 ers, the duke found him sitting, almost huddled 
 up, in a capacious arm-chair, sighing deeply, a 
 habit of his. 
 
 He showed in every trait of the pallid, long- 
 drawn countenance traces of that languor 
 which was to carry him off. His long hair 
 was black as the suit of velvet and silk, 
 trimmed with dead silver and burnt mother- 
 of-pearl buttons, which tightly clad his atten- 
 uated figure. His sight was already so fail- 
 ing that he thought to renounce outdoor pur- 
 suits in favor of the hundred petty arts — bird- 
 traps, improvements in fire-arms, designs in 
 coins, and a little dabbling with cookery, to 
 say nothing of painting, poetising, and compos- 
 ing ballet music — which caused the satirical 
 epitaph to be written upon this unworthy son 
 of Henry of Navarre: 
 
 "Here lies a master who had not 
 
 One master gift or grace; 
 Although a hundred virtues his, 
 
 Which high a varlet place!" 
 
 Two or three leather coffers had been un- 
 packed, and from them had been transferred 
 to the dressers and a table by his pointed el- 
 bow, books about fowling, shooting, hounds, 
 falconry, with musical instruments and some 
 
OR, RICHELIEU 1'KIM ED. 121 
 
 of the toys of his own making. Nevertheless, 
 feeling thai he was a delinquent from his re- 
 cent contact with Prince Gaston, Bellegarde 
 
 hardly looked, as he profoundly bowed, at the 
 high forehead, antique profile and aquiline nose 
 of the Bourbons, which still imposed on the 
 impressionable. 
 
 "] have had a bad night's rest, Bellegarde," 
 said the King, between a yawn and a sigh. 
 
 The duke was relieved by the triviality of 
 the remark. 
 
 "My lord, nobody rests in tnese anxious 
 limes!" said he. 
 
 "You are right, duke! The State is rolling 
 at a terrific rate toward an unfathomable gulf!" 
 
 -Oh, nay, sire! What harm can befall while 
 it is guided by a strong and sure hand — " 
 
 The King darted a sharp glance at the cour- 
 tier who did not wince and said quickly: 
 
 "Yes, the Cardinal bears a weighty charge!" 
 
 He did not make disguise over the little place 
 he held in the actual government, no more 
 than when, as a child, his Regency fell upon his 
 mother the Medicis. 
 
 -1 should like to relieve his aged hands of 
 the duty." continued the monarch, plucking 
 the stubble of his chin-beard, which had been 
 shaved, as we know, and which growth irri- 
 tated him like a young bird by pin-feathers. 
 "Albeit, in truth, I have all my work to do 
 to exist, without the additional pain of reign- 
 ing!" 
 
 The courtier did not count the sighs which 
 accentuated the distressful sentences. 
 
 -Why, sire, one may not call the Cardinal- 
 duke oid!" said Bellegarde, who, like most obi 
 men, resented criticisms on age. 
 
 Louis looked round the room, frowning not 
 
422 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 from ire but from short-sightedness, and said: 
 
 'No one is here to listen and peep — " 
 
 Bellegarde made a fierce gesture, with his 
 hand to his side, as to draw a sword and ex- 
 plore the arras. 
 
 "So, answer me frankly, as becomes an old 
 servitor of my father: What is your opin- 
 ion — " 
 
 "Of whom, sire?" 
 
 "Of him!" as if there were only one man in 
 the kingdom to be considered. 
 
 "Of his Eminence?" 
 
 Louis nodded, testily, as if his time was reck- 
 oned. 
 
 "It is with difficulty that one's dazzled sight 
 takes cognisance," faltered the peer. 
 
 "Pshaw! Is this your soldierly frankness!" 
 He examined the room again, from the deep bay 
 of the windows to the folds of tapestry, as if 
 to perceive a mailed foot at the base of them. 
 "Yet we have no monks in these walls, neither 
 grey nor red! No spies, I trust. What do 
 you fear, duke and peer, marshal and minister, 
 that you will not speak out? The King is de- 
 siring your open opinion on the Prime Minis- 
 ter!" 
 
 "If a perfectly open answer is required — " 
 
 "Utterly open, duke!" 
 
 And the King leaned forward in the chair, 
 leaning his weight alternately on one foot and 
 the other, after the peculiarity of his race. 
 
 "Then, you have in him a great man," re- 
 joined the duke boldly, which was the more 
 lofty in him as he was not without misgiving 
 that Kichelieu would yet exile him or disgrace 
 him as he had Luynes, Epernon or those sons 
 of "the Fair Gabrielle," whom he had induced 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 423 
 
 the King not to forgive, although they were 
 his half-brothers. 
 
 "I wish you would assure them so, at Rome! 
 They mighl make him t lit- next Pope!" said 
 the King, not with whole satire. "Mark you, 
 between the prince doing nothing and the 
 statesman doing all, the realm is in tribula- 
 tion!" 
 
 "Urn!" mumbled the duke, who could not 
 understand why he was taken into confidence. 
 
 "Is he not the regulator of all things," pro- 
 ceeded the King, who had these moments of 
 unbosoming himself to his long series of ephe- 
 meral favorites, "peace or war, finance and cus- 
 toms? I tell you, lord, that he is the veritable 
 sovereign! It was a piece of his treachery by 
 which the Catholic League was dissolved! * He 
 has hard hit the House of Austria, to which 
 my Queen Anna is closest kin, and which, 
 more or less on that account, wished w r ell to 
 me!" 
 
 "Nay, nay, sire, did he not establish a rabbit 
 warren for you in the Louvre gardens!" 
 
 "Is that my share of the plunder of wars?" 
 He coughed and looked on his handkerchief at 
 what he had wiped off his thin lips, as his 
 physician ordered, to see if he had broken a 
 blood-vessel. "He intrigues with Denmark?" 
 
 "I do not know — but he let the Crown fix 
 the value of the silver mark for the gold- 
 smiths!" said P.ellegarde, evasively. 
 
 "lie is prodigal in distributing riches to 
 those that please him!" pursued the other, wax- 
 ing still more wrathful at being so softly buf- 
 feted. 
 
 "Sire, he let your Majesty decree by his own 
 hand that edict forbidding citizens to spend 
 inure than a crown per caput in the wine-shop!" 
 
424 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Not content to be King be aims to be Pope!" 
 
 "He makes war on the Pontifical States." 
 remonstrated Beliegarde. "That is unlike a 
 'prentice Pontiff!'' 
 
 "And will profit by some one of those pretty 
 treaties which he arranges in secret!" 
 
 He rose and paced the room, unsteadily, tap- 
 ping the panels with a suspicious hand and 
 slapping the tapestry, from habit. 
 
 "I tell you, Richelieu does eyerything! All 
 requests and petitions flock to him or his crea- 
 tures — I had a specimen of the tribe this morn- 
 ing — " 
 
 "Laffemas?" 
 
 "Yes, the Lord Lieutenant! What a high 
 officer of justice! He wrung from me a death- 
 warrant signature — I, who hate to spill blood!" 
 
 Beliegarde bowed to conceal a smile, for he 
 had seen, at the Siege of La Rochelle, how 
 proof Louis had been to the yells of Hugue- 
 nots dying of thirst in a ditch. 
 
 "And a blank commission for a governor of 
 a province in our Indies! Who are they go- 
 ing to send there, to extort rupees and dia- 
 monds from the rajahs? Another of the Rich- 
 elieu brood! Ah, all is solid there — while 
 here, the shade of monarchy fades — " smiting 
 his hollow chest. "Is there any one without 
 who would haste to meet me?" 
 
 "Those who want to be touched for the 
 King's Evil!" replied the duke, letting his wit 
 get the mastery over him. 
 
 But the speaker did not hear, in the increase 
 of his choler. 
 
 "I accorded the lieutenancy, but I am dis- 
 gusted by the voracity of his legion — he wants 
 the collar of the Fleece for a favorite! A new 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 425 
 
 gallant of his niece. Lady Combalet, I dare- 
 say!" 
 
 •She leads a fine life, sire! All the rest is 
 calumny!" 
 
 "Duke, have you seen him ride forth! with 
 two hundred of his insolent red and brilliant 
 musketeers on foot to guard him!" 
 
 "But he has only a hundred horse!" said the 
 duke. 
 
 "Shameful! lie is ruin to Taj temper!" 
 
 "Majestv, he saves France!'' the nobleman 
 valiantly retorted, seeing with subtletv that 
 the torrent of invectives sought for an ob- 
 stacle to make it foam. 
 
 "It is on my head will fall all the blood! woe 
 is me! Peccavi! While he is signing treaties 
 of alliance with Swedish Reformers and fight- 
 ing against liege sons of the Church, he leaves 
 me to be haunted by the hundreds of headless 
 wretches who lost that casket of the spirit 
 on Execution Place! And all were friends of 
 mine! His purple is dyed by the blood struck 
 from their necks, which my arm, in tender 
 moments, interlaced! He goes out splendid 
 with gold and cardinal-red. I am garbed in 
 mourning and have — look on that board there 
   — to decree that none shall dress in gay col- 
 ors — so that I shall not walk alone, like the 
 «law among the peacocks!" 
 
 "Faith! he does not spare my friends or his 
 own! Remember Saint Preuil!" 
 
 "He hates well, yes — " 
 
 "And loves those whom he haply loves, with 
 imderness!" 
 
 "He has exiled my mother!" 
 
 "And your brother!" 
 
 Louis burst into laughter. 
 
426 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "By St. Gris! you are as keen as Langely — 
 it compensates!" 
 
 Bellegarde allowed the echoes of the harsh 
 laugh to die away and said, in a gentle but 
 steady voice: 
 
 "Armand de Kichelieu is the worthy son of 
 the Captain Duplessis who fought with your 
 sainted sire, my lord, and, faithful, dependa- 
 ble, devoted, he never acts — my word on it! 
 without the belief that he is meeting your 
 wishes! I know not what vast plots are hatch- 
 ing in the Papal City, but rely on this — Riche- 
 lieu will not abandon Louis to be Spiritual 
 King of the Universe!" 
 
 "I hate him!" hissed the other, unmelted by 
 this tribute. "He is a burden on me, an eye- 
 sore, a gall in the flank! I might have been 
 a notable prince without this brighter glory at 
 my side, drowning my effulgence! But he will 
 tread too heavily on the lion! he will arouse 
 the dormant monarch! Mighty as is his fame, 
 it is fed on my fuel, mind! All will go into 
 shadow, like the tomb, if I hurl down the pile 
 of wealth which is his pyramid! may be his 
 pyre !" 
 
 His single auditor had been under fire of 
 an army, but never had he passed a period of 
 time less pleasantly, more gallingly and with 
 such painful apprehensions. The King would 
 never forget to whom he had uttered these 
 emanations of a gangrened heart. And still 
 they were flung forth! 
 
 "Like the ruler, my realm is growing worse 
 in health! But without as within all look to 
 the Minister as the cure-all! Never to the 
 Lord's anointed! How he worries Austria, my 
 ally and mv friend! With what calm he has 
 allowed my ships to be captured in the Gulf 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 427 
 
 of Gascony! He would attach me to Gustavus 
 Adolphus, save the mark! The Most Catholic 
 Majesty after my brother Spain! It is Riche- 
 lieu thai seems the soul of Kingcraft, lilliii!', 
 all the country like that loosened imprisoned 
 genius which, emitted as vapor, threatened to 
 overwhelm the scene! My family is ousted — 
 I will be relegated to some corner, soon! Oh, 
 duke, am I not to be pitied?" 
 
 Bellegarde refrained from a word. He had 
 retired to the south window, but it was a 
 cheerless sight on which he distractedly gazed, 
 while compelled to listen to the outbreak. The 
 forest was gloomy and grey, for a thick mist 
 rose and began to spit drops which spluttered 
 on the dry leaves, tormented a little bv a tit- 
 ful wind which presaged a heavy rain storm. 
 
 Suddenly the duke felt a hot breath on his 
 cheek. The King, finding himself without a 
 hearer, had joined him in the recess. 
 
 "Still raining! No hunting to-day!" snarled 
 he, disappointed. "Do you see that rogue 
 stealing along under the beeches? It is a 
 poacher, I engage! There, he has a 'broken' 
 gun — like that I invented; its short barrel, 
 which his rags imperfectly hide, is carried 
 under one arm and the stock under the other! 
 Oh, duke, I envy that poacher's fate! I would 
 exchange mine for it! He can go hunting 
 when he likes! Make a jest of the prince's 
 deer-keepers, and sleep under the oaks if out 
 late! he will sing while the thunder reverber- 
 ates, and dwell free, like the woodland birds! 
 In his cot, at least, the boor is master! But 
 I am alway to have before my eyes this priest 
 in i»d, who looks on from afar with gravity 
 and sternness, while his tools come and badger 
 me for my signature to his deeds of blood! 
 
428 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 'Sire, this must be done, for your good pleas- 
 ure!' What derision! This man stands be- 
 fore me and the people see only his Red Robe. 
 If anyone asks: 'What is that moving under 
 that cloak?' a passer-by will whisper, as of a 
 child at the apron-strings, 'Hush! it is the 
 King!'" 
 
 He returned to the table, leaned on the chair 
 to control his trembling and coughed hectic- 
 ally. 
 
 "Who waits without? More bearers of 
 death-sentences? Every day it is a new list, 
 duke! Now Protestant, now duellists! He is 
 not choice as to the kind of head! dissenter 
 or combatant! All is one! Like those Tar- 
 tars who heap up monuments of skulls to their 
 Khan, or — what does he do with them?" 
 
 "It is my time to save a head!" thought Belle- 
 garde, turning and tapping on the waxed oaken 
 boards with his heel. 
 
 To the astonishment of the sovereign, who 
 expected only another of the Cardinal's emis- 
 saries, the white-headed Marquis of Nangis, ac- 
 companied at a respectful distance by Mdlle. 
 Delorme in her black dress, entered the room. 
 
OR. RICHELIEU DEFIED. 429 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE SUIT WHICH FAILED. 
 
 Nangis advanced toward the King and sank 
 on one knee with reverence. 
 
 His sight was bad; his limbs were wearied; 
 besides, he imagined he saw enough likeness 
 to his ancient master in this son of his to 
 command sorrowful respect. 
 
 "What do vou seek?" said the King, letting 
 his still puzzled eyes wander from this old 
 noble to the woman who had also knelt, pray- 
 ing, at the doorway. 
 
 "Justice, dread Majesty!" said the marquis. 
 
 "Against whom?" 
 
 "Against the sanguinary tyrant Armand Du- 
 plessis. whom men hail as your Cardinal-Min- 
 ister!" 
 
 Louis started and glanced toward Belle- 
 garde, who was not surprised at the visitors 
 and must have arranged for their entrance. 
 How singular that this suppliant should strike 
 on the head which he had been belaboring. 
 
 "Mercy!" said Marion in a soft voice, in tbis 
 silent interval. 
 
 "For whom do you crave mercy, lady?" in- 
 quired the King. 
 
 "His name is Didier! 1 ' 
 
 "And I plead for the Marquis of Saverny," 
 added Nangis. 
 
 Louis knit his brows. Those very names 
 were in the document of execution which he 
 had signed for the new Lieutenant-Criminal. 
 So "Didier" and "Saverny" were enemies of 
 
'430 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the Minister? What a chance to thwart his 
 foe. Always providing that Richelieu was his 
 foe — perhaps, all things considered, only a bit- 
 ter friend! 
 
 "You, my lord," said Louis, "should be the 
 marquis' uncle, the Lord of Nangis?" The old 
 nobleman bowed, smiling a little at not hav- 
 ing been utterly forgotten. "By what right do 
 you sue?" continued the King of the kneeling 
 woman who seemed less to direct her prayers 
 to him than to heaven. 
 
 He had not recognised her, having studiously 
 avoided even sating his curiosity as regards 
 the most-talked of woman in his capital, but 
 her beauty was manifest through her sorrow. 
 
 "I am his sister," replied Marion, firmly. 
 
 Bellegarde hid an impertinent grimace be- 
 hind his hand. 
 
 "Well, uncle and sister, what would you 
 have?" 
 
 Nangis pointed to the King's hands and re- 
 joined: 
 
 "Justice from this one — mercy from the oth- 
 er! It is all I ask of my two sovereigns, the 
 King of France and the King over high heav- 
 en !" 
 
 "Plead for us both," whispered Marion, 
 thinking that the old man would touch the 
 monarch more surely. 
 
 "My nephew, Nazaire de Saverny, crossed 
 swords with a gentleman of Blois, of uncertain 
 parentage, which was a mistake. Both bore 
 themselves bravely," continued the marquis, 
 looking to see in the royal eye, wan and dis- 
 traught, such a sparkle as would show that 
 the son of Henry of Navarre liked courage as 
 much as his predecessor. "But there is no 
 meeting-place for men of the sword where the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. L3] 
 
 Minister has not posted spies and myrmidons!" 
 
 "1 have heard of the combat! under the very 
 lamp which illumined an edict of ours aueni 
 duelling! It was bold, rather than brave. 
 Enough of explanations! What would you say 
 to me?" and he frowned and glanced aside at 
 the window, against which a breeze thing some 
 drops of hissing rain. 
 
 Nangis rose. In his loneliness, some echo of 
 the popular feeling— that is, the people he as- 
 sociated with — arrived within his castle. He 
 guessed that mercy and justice had failed to 
 win his case, and with the spirit of a wounded 
 lion he determined to put his hand on this 
 opportunity and say in the royal presence wdiat 
 most of his brethren in Brittany thought. 
 
 "I have to say that it is high time that your 
 Majesty reflected over matters." 
 
 Bellegarde made sign upon sign to stay this 
 speech at the outset, but the Bretons are wilful. 
 
 "The Cardinal-Duke cherishes mischievous 
 projects," proceeded Nangis, gathering 
 strength as he went on; "he drinks the blood 
 of your subjects!" 
 
 Louis started; he had twinges of remorse 
 for having let favorites of his meet the axe, 
 without too much combating their doom. 
 
 "Not thus would your lather Henry, of right 
 regal memory, have surrendered his loyal serv- 
 itors! He neve.' struck a blow without hav- 
 ing narrowly inspected where it would fall. 
 Guarded closely by that peerage, it was guard- 
 ed fondly by him. He knew that nun of the 
 sword should not be dealt with by the man 
 of the axe and halter! Such heads should not 
 be wantonly stricken oil', bul reserved to face 
 the blast oi' war! He knew all about this, as 
 
432 RED ROBE AND GREY R03E; 
 
 more than one bullet had scathed the white 
 plumes over his brow!" 
 
 Bellegarde gnawed his lace ruffles; Louis had 
 been at the La Rochelle investment, but all 
 the while he longed and chafed to return to 
 his amusements and frivolous occupations at 
 Paris. It was only in actual fighting that his 
 paternal courage revived in him. 
 
 "Those times were the good ones,-' pursued 
 the noble, smiling, as to old friends, at some 
 portraits of his contemporaries. "I belong 
 there, and I honor them! Never durst a pre- 
 late lift a finger against a peer! Then, the 
 head under the coronet w T ould have been a 
 costly bargain! 
 
 "Sire, in these evil times — take an old gen- 
 tleman's word on it! keep a few true nobles 
 about your person! Some of these days, per- 
 adventure, your Grace may have need of them ! 
 In those days, alas! you may bewail the Exe- 
 cution-place having been so well attended to 
 see those lords of approved bravery, to whom 
 the rising 3 7 outh turned envious glances, dy- 
 ing long before they were aged! 
 
 "The embers are yet warm of the civil wars, 
 and there is an echo of yester-eve's tocsin on the 
 air!'' 
 
 Louis shuddered. He imagined that, in their 
 cowls and frocks, Clement and Ravaillac were 
 ringing a knell for him as for his foregoers. 
 
 "Be less lavish of the sword-play of the exe- 
 cutioner — it is he whose blade should be sealed 
 up in the scabbard, not ours! The worst use 
 you can put the planks to of our noble old oaks 
 is to build scaffolds and gibbets! In their 
 chains, haply, a skeleton is dangling which was 
 a man of valiant heart, who will be mourned 
 for, one day to come!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. L33 
 
 Marion Bobbed loudly and the duke, in de- 
 Bpair, knew ii(»i whal unlucky star to curse 
 which had caused him to befriend this inex 
 haustible fount of the complaints of the realm. . 
 
 "Sire, blood is not a blessed dew — it does 
 not fall from heaven but only from the scaf- 
 fold! nothing good wiil grow on the Execu- 
 tion Place! II' you people the heights of Mon- 
 faucon with the hanged, the populace will flock 
 there to pay derisive court, or genuine adora- 
 tion, while shunning the windows that look out 
 of the Louvre Palace! 
 
 "If the dying voice of the courtiers must en- 
 liven you, while they are being put to death, 
 let them go! but loud as may be the flatterer's 
 chants, saying 'All is well, and that you are 
 a Bourbon and son of Henry the Great!' still 
 their clamor will not drown the sound of a 
 human head dropping on the boards! My ad- 
 vice is, do not play at such a game! 
 
 "King, who must one day go before the King 
 of Kings, I tell you that a duel is better than 
 an execution; that there is no joy and honor 
 in that kingdom where the deathsman is busier 
 than the soldier; that a hard pastorship is 
 France where the priest receives his tithe in 
 heads! that the statesman, who is mostly illus- 
 •trious among the inhuman, has blood on those 
 hands with which he lilts your sceptre!" 
 
 The King kept his true sentiments veiled as 
 much as possible. He did not display the irri- 
 tation Bellegarde expected but, eyeing the lat- 
 ter with a sidelong glance, replied with empha- 
 sis: 
 
 "My Lord Cardinal is my friend! Who loves 
 me. should love him '.' , 
 
 "That is a hint for me, 1 suppose," muttered 
 the duke. "But, woe to me! this Xangis will 
 
434 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 never have done! Marion is a pattern courtier 
 to him; she says nought but only weeps — but, 
 at the same time, what eloquence in those tear- 
 quenched diamonds!" 
 
 Nangis was indeed about to continue, but the 
 King cried: 
 
 ''Enough! Richelieu is but another Louis! 
 close this harangue which merely ruffles one's 
 mind! It is such speeches that have made me 
 grey before my time!" 
 
 The head of the Thirteenth Louis had in- 
 deed showed white while he was yet young. 
 
 "May not an old man and a weeping woman 
 speak of a matter of life and death!" persisted 
 the marquis. 
 
 "In brief, what do you desire?" 
 
 "The pardon of Nazaire, my nephew! a 
 scapegrace, but who nobly surrendered him- 
 self, and made himself a scapegoat in the hope 
 to save his adversary!" 
 
 "Pardon for Didier, sire!" said Marion in her 
 exquisite voice. 
 
 "All that a monarch does to pardon is so 
 much robbery to justice," said the King, coldly. 
 
 Nangis had drawn back and went the farther 
 as Bellegarde hastened to take him by the 
 sleeve, reproaching him with furious looks. 
 
 Marion rose and threw back her veil, saying, 
 with a tone which finally pierced her sorrow 
 and was by turns, coaxing and fervent; but it 
 was lofty and above the earth throughout. 
 
 "Your majesty will inevitably have compas- 
 sion on our grief! And on those two mad- 
 brained young men, decreed to die on the in- 
 famous gibbet for fighting a duel! Pardon me, 
 too, that 1, a woman of no pretensions to birth 
 and rank, know not how to address a sover- 
 eign! Perhaps it is unseemly before the King 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 435 
 
 to wail and weep, but your Prime Minister is 
 a monster! why docs he hate the gallants of 
 Fiance? Ah, he may have seen this old lord's 
 son, for as much as he was a courtier, but my 
 Didier is none oi' thai — ah! he would have 
 loved him had he seen him! J Jut to slay two 
 men at l heir still tender age, for crossing 
 swords, and scarce scratching one another! 
 Think of their mothers — of their fathers, if 
 they could know! at their being cut off so un- 
 timely! 
 
 '•Heaven will not allow this enormity! and 
 the King will countersign the higher decree 
 of heaven! Oh, that we women could speak as 
 men do, without trembling of the lip, without 
 moistening of the eye, with something better 
 than sob and tear as we bend the knee under 
 your dread Grace's imperious glance!" 
 
 "Artful jade!" muttered Bellegarde; for 
 Louis could not face the appealing eyes; it is 
 true that he had long since quailed under the 
 glances of his Spanish wife. "Faith, she will 
 speak more to the purpose than Xangis!" 
 
 "Granted that they did wrong!" continued 
 Marion, judging that her hearer's silence, since 
 he had peremptorily checked the marquis, 
 boded rather good than ill; "it will make your 
 kindness in overlooking it, the grander! Such 
 is their youth — such their quickness to draw 
 and cross steel, that they couHd not have known 
 what grave offence they did! Who has not seen 
 such striplings jostle, exchange high words 
 and whip out their blades upon a trifle! they 
 gash one another; they are carried into th > 
 apothecary's — both are sound in a week, and 
 they are better friends than before! 
 
 "But in these hands — Cod bless them! is the 
 power to save two young heads which may be 
 
436 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 those of famous soldiers or statesmen here- 
 after — surely to your Majesty's renown, and in 
 your service. If you speak the one blessed 
 word, I shall admire — worship you! Mercy! 
 pardon! O Lord, who hath given us women 
 strong hearts but weak tongues, hadst Thou 
 endowed me with eloquence, how plainly Thou 
 wouldst see the King saying: 'This Didier may 
 not be considerable, vet he is the soul for this 
 pleader, and she should be comforted' — Oh!" 
 
 Stifling, while trying to regain coolness with 
 her respiration, she made a sign of beseeching, 
 from seeing which Bellegarde turned aside, 
 deeply affected, muttering: 
 
 "A feeble tongue? no eloquence? Ha! you 
 will see that Marion with her feeble tongue 
 will do more for her client than Nangis, albeit 
 the latter had brought all the warsmen of his 
 four baronies to back his lost suit!" 
 
 But the duke was wrong; Louis was strange- 
 ly troubled but not relenting; it seemed won- 
 der and curiosity moving him, concerning this 
 enchanting creature in distress. Not often 
 were solicitors before him allowed to shed tears 
 so genuine and unrestricted. 
 
 "How named you this dame?" he inquired of 
 his Master of Ceremonies. 
 
 Marion had dreaded this inquiry, for she 
 hastily interrupted : 
 
 "A sister of the man in duress, under the 
 scaffold's shadow, whose only advocate is 
 trembling at your feet. Oh, sire, you owe the 
 deed of mercv to your subjects!" 
 
 "Sooth! T owe justice to all," the King re- 
 sponded, a lump in his throat making it hard 
 to speak — one which his infallible elixir did 
 not remove. "The duello is making more bar 
 
Oii, 1UC1IELIEU DEFIED. 13? 
 
 rowing ravages in my realm than the pesti- 
 lence!" 
 
 "Pity is called for," persisted Marion. 
 
 "Examples are called for!" retorted the mon- 
 arch, seeming to find pleasure in showing stern- 
 ness to one who visibly impressed him. 
 
 So severe was this sentence that the woman 
 was momentarily silenced, which seeing, Nan- 
 gis struck in with his quavering voice: 
 
 "My lord, consider that they are boys of 
 twenty — why, their ages united would not 
 make half mine own!" 
 
 Louis was regarding the kneeling suppliant 
 as though unable to take away the glance. 
 
 "Your Majesty should have pity for a sister 
 — that unfortunate's only relative. He never 
 knew parents or family! You have a 
 mother — " 
 
 Spite of his schooling, Louis made a grimace, 
 reflected by the duke. 
 
 "You are wedded!" 
 
 This time, the hearers were on their guard; 
 they did not wince at the continued awkward 
 allusions. 
 
 "In your breast there is some one to love — 
 a brother! Oh, have pity on a sorrowing sis- 
 ter:" 
 
 "A brother," replied the King, perhaps not 
 regretting this opportunity to thrust at the 
 rebellious Gaston through his adherent, the 
 duke, while he frowned. "Why, no — stop! 
 Yes!" he added, with a cruel smile, "we have a 
 brother!*' So Abel might recall Cain. 
 
 It was the worst argumenl the poor appli- 
 cant had offered; for the Duke of Orleans was 
 all his life type of the sovereign's brother who 
 . ovets the birthright. 
 
 Louis glanced round to find a dog to tlirov 
 
438 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 a stone at, so to say. Jester Langely, by means 
 of his master-key, had stolen in, but was muf- 
 fled up in a window curtain; Bellegarde was a 
 painted statue; the irate ruler's eyes fell on 
 Nangis, who, in despair at all failing, had 
 clapped his hand with a war-like gesture upon 
 his sword-hilt. 
 
 "How now!" vociferated the King, "are we 
 besieged? are you a peer of the realm — the 
 Lord High Constable re-instated? that you 
 carry a deadly weapon in our presence? Who 
 committed this oversight to the regulations? 
 Because we are in our brother's castle, is that 
 a reason for license ordering things as he does 
 when at home?" 
 
 "My poor old friend," thought the duke; "his 
 pride has undone all that beauty gained!" 
 
 Luckily, Nangis said nothing and let his 
 hand fall respectfully. 
 
 But it was not so easy to appease the en- 
 raged monarch, who sought any pretext to re- 
 sist the beauty's plea — acquiescence in which, 
 he imagined, would be set down to an instan- 
 taneous infatuation — so oddly constituted was 
 Louis the Chaste! 
 
 "Enough! again, enough!" his voice strong- 
 ly speaking as ire overcame the chronic cough. 
 "Get you home on your manor to enjoy your 
 peculiar rights! But leave us to deal out jus- 
 tice on our ground, where we are the Justice!" 
 
 He spoke with majesty, but Nangis did not 
 quail because of him; it was Marion's eyes he 
 was afraid to meet; shivering as in a cold 
 wind, he turned very red but instantly blanched 
 alarmingly, saying in a tone which was touch- 
 ing though haughty still: 
 
 "Sire, in your father's name, bear in mind 
 thrir youth, and how much they have already 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 439 
 
 suffered for their deed! Remark the old sol- 
 dier's pride, broken at your feet! Mercy!'' 
 
 The King made so choleric a gesture in re- 
 fusal that the marquis sprang up as though 
 impaled. But again remembering his errand, 
 he said in a slow and well-contained tone: 
 
 "I was the brother-inarms of your father, 
 the Father of all of us in the realm. I rode 
 beside the coach when that monster drove his 
 knife home in his heart. God 'a' mercy!" 
 Stopping, his convulsed countenance was hid 
 in his wrinkled hands, and while the King 
 shuddered, the Duke of Bellegarde closed his 
 fists as if, too, in his eyes, the regicide was 
 re-enacted. 
 
 "As was my duty, I stood on guard over my 
 dead liege in the night. Sire, I have seen my 
 own father, alas! and my brothers, six, go 
 down in the dust, in the shock of clashing fac- 
 tions ! I have moreover lost the wife who loved 
 me. Thus, the old man whom you behold is 
 like the culprit bound to the wheel, whose 
 limbs are broken by the executioner during a 
 whole day. One by one, the Lord hath broken 
 my limbs as with an iron bar, and, lo! the 
 end of the torture-time is coming!" 
 
 He laid his tremulous hand on his heart as 
 though the monarch's repeated refusals had 
 struck it fatally. He made a low bow, and as 
 though addressing the Crown and not its tem- 
 porary wearer, he added mournfully but with 
 perfect sincerity: 
 
 "God save your dread Grace!" 
 
 Slowly he went forth and with stateliness, 
 smoothing his features so thai the most acute 
 courtier in the outer chamber could not discern 
 the outcome of his mission. 
 
 "A bad day!" said the wise ones, scenting 
 
440 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 mischief, for misfortune has its aroma like 
 all deadly things, even if they could not draw 
 an augury, "a bad day for seeking favor. Be- 
 ginning with signing death-warrants, and with 
 this shower damping the prospects of hunting, 
 'ware to rouse the sullen hound!" 
 
 In Nangis' rear, these prudently withdrew. 
 
 In this interval, Marion, seeing her cham- 
 pion depart, forgetting her, hastened to forgive 
 him, judging what his grief must be. She rose 
 to make her own retreat good, but her powers 
 failed her. She thought of Didier in his dun- 
 geon, although perhaps more than ever averse 
 to receiving the unobtainable pardon, and she 
 sank like a dying one, in a recess, where the 
 curtains draped her almost from view. 
 
 Louis dashed away a tear furtively as he 
 watched the disconsolate marquis go out. He 
 turned to his Master of Ceremonies and said: 
 
 "A monarch must rein himself tightly not 
 to show weakness. That old warrior smote me 
 to the heart, believe me! A figure from Mon- 
 strelet! believe me shaken, but — no pardons 
 will be granted this day!'" 
 
 He stared into vacancy as though enrapt by 
 a lovely vision, and after a silence, while a 
 faint smile flitted over the blistered lips, he 
 continued, in the unusual confidence inspiring 
 him this morning: 
 
 "I have committed a sin to-day'/' 
 
 "Bless us!" thought Bellegarde. "Marion has 
 made him break the Commandment! Had she 
 persisted, she would have plucked the golden 
 fruit which the dotard failed to grasp!" 
 
 King Louis rose and drew the duke into a 
 nook, with his mania for precaution. 
 
 "You must take heed, my lord, since yon 
 .spoke such audaClQUS matters to me just now 
 
OR, RlCHELlEO DEFIED ' I I 
 
 rt may do you an injury on the < )ardinal's pari . 
 after I slmll repeat onr conversation to him 
 i his evening. 1 am sorry for you!" 
 
 "Is this his mode of punishing me for wink- 
 ing at his brother's faulty schemes?" sus- 
 piciously muttered the uneasy confidant. 
 "Pshaw! he is too much an Italian to warn me 
 it' he intended to sting! he may repeat my 
 words, but he will not give a name to the ut- 
 terer!" 
 
 He looked warily at the King, but the latter 
 was yawning, and saying to himself: "What a 
 had night I had! and what a restless one I 
 am doomed to!" 
 
 He beckoned to Langely to approach, and 
 said to the Master of the Household: 
 
 ••Send all away! I wish to be alone the rest 
 of the day!" 
 
 Although Langely had seen Marion fall with- 
 in the recess, he had said nothing, and tin' 
 King was unaware that she had not gone out 
 with Lord Nangis. But Bellegarde noticed her 
 black gown jarring with the curtains' gold and 
 purple, and went to her, stooping and whisper 
 ing: 
 
 "What are you doing here, still, clinging to 
 that pilaster like a statue? You must not lin- 
 ger, after the King's order to be left alone! 
 fin- the fool does not count! My mateless dove, 
 you must go and mourn elsewhere!" 
 
 "lam waiting for my death-stroke!" returned 
 the woman, in a voice the more pitiful as it was 
 without animation. 
 
 Bellegarde would have insisted, but Langeh 
 touched his arm and said in a tone which the 
 peer had never heard from him before: 
 
 "Let her be. duke:" 
 
442 Red robe and grey robe-. 
 
 The noble frowned, but Langely was a gen- 
 tleman born, and he appeared in his senses. 
 
 "Stay!" continued the jester to the woman, 
 in as lordly an accent. 
 
 The courtier looked to see what the King 
 would do on perceiving this discussion, but 
 the master had returned to his easy chair in 
 which he had settled down so as to be almost 
 lost to sight; from time to time, he heaved a 
 sigh or coughed. 
 
 "I salve my conscience of it!" said the of- 
 ficial; "to mv mind, she had best haste to mv 
 Lord Cardinal!" 
 
 Taking his arm with familiarity, Langely 
 pushed him to the door, and by tapping with 
 his lean forefinger on his forehead, high and 
 bald, intimated that he had trust in his wit. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 443 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 TIIE JESTER'S RUSE. 
 
 Moved by curiosity not unmixed with hope, 
 the idol of Didier, rising but still veiling her- 
 self by the tapestry, fastened her eyes on the 
 intervener at this junction of two scenes: one 
 of grief and despair — the other she did not 
 dare to forecast. 
 
 Out of the luxurious cushions came the 
 King's whining voice, calling for his jester. 
 
 The summoned one strode to him and looked 
 down on the collapsed figure, frothing at the 
 mouth from a lozenge for which he had aban- 
 doned Dr. Letellier's elixir. 
 
 "Hither, boy!" said he in a lachrymose voice. 
 "My heart is sick with the bitterness overflow- 
 ing it! These walls seem to exude, with their 
 damp, some of that evil spirit with which Gas- 
 ton impregnates wheresoever he abides, even 
 as the toad swelters its cavity with venom. 
 1 would have liked tears to flow, upon that old 
 man's sorrow, but they would not come, any 
 more than smiles upon my arid mouth. EV11 
 at your gibes, and they are fine ones, smiles 
 come not." 
 
 Langely made a prolonged bow, saying: 
 
 "Oho! somewhiles, 1 make Louis, bight the 
 Saturnine, unwrinkle, is it so?" 
 
 "You are never daunted by my majesty! 
 Send into my soul a sparkle of yonr gaiety!" 
 
 The fool seemed to be torturing his brain for 
 a witticism, but to his hearer's astonishment, 
 
444 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 when he spoke, it was in a lugubrious key, and 
 his words were: 
 
 "Is not life a bitter thing?" 
 
 "Alack!" sighed the King, in sympathy, and 
 pleased after all that his merry-maker had not 
 indulged in mirth counter to his dejection. 
 
 "And man is but an ephemeral breath!'' 
 
 "Nothing more!" 
 
 "I prithee, tell me, is not man a doubly un- 
 fortunate creature when a monarch, to boot?" 
 
 "It is, certainly, a double burden!" 
 
 "Rather than vainly busy oneself with this 
 empty life, it were better to lie in the tomb 
 where the stillness is unbroken?" 
 
 "I have often said the same!" said the young 
 misanthrope, with a martyr-like air. 
 
 "There is no happiness, therefore, but to the 
 unborn and the dead! Man alive is condemned 
 to misery?" 
 
 In her ambush, Marion feared that she had 
 made a mistake. If she closed her eyes, she 
 could imagine that she was hearing the ruler 
 with his confessor, not buffoon. She began 
 to be alarmed, for the consequences might be 
 serious of overhearing the King in his rare 
 moments of unbosoming himself. As with 
 Queen Elizabeth, the next step to enjoying the 
 royal expansion of soul was upon the scaffold! 
 
 "How you please me, talking in this strain, 
 to-day," observed the rueful monarch, with a 
 misanthrope's relish on seeing a funeral pass 
 when he expected a wedding procession. 
 
 "Tell me, gossip," went on Langely, sit ting- 
 on one arm of the chair, and swinging his long 
 foot as if to point his periods, "think yon there 
 is any getting out of the grave, once one is 
 cold cased within it ?" 
 
 "We are to learn that hereafter," rejoined 
 
again : 
 
 OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 445 
 
 the royal philosopher, becoming more and more 
 gruesome. ""I would 1 were there!" 
 
 "Phew!" said Langely, "how you gallop! You 
 arc downright unhappy! any fool can sec that! 
 
 Look at your looks! eye those hollow eyes of 
 thine! ink would leave a whitish mark on your 
 suit of sables! and your thin face — a model for 
 a war-hatchet, in case you forge novel weapons 
 
 I shall do so no more! How invent — how 
 work when all is so dreary? Be off, Langely, 
 and seek a new master, for your labor is en- 
 tirely lost on me! There must be a more lively 
 livelihood than to wear my colors, craped as 
 they are, and jest without fruit ! a pretty craft, 
 to be the King's Fool! Your bells jangle out 
 of tune; you are merely a puppet, cast down 
 and taken up as the humor goeth! your laugh 
 has grown so stale that it resembles a grin! 
 What are you doing down there, on the floor? 
 your playing is over! Why do you exist V 
 
 "Pooh! 1 live out of curiosity — to view wis<- 
 men committing greater follies than dreamt 
 under my cap-and -bells! Come to this point, 1 " 
 spoke Langely with professional boldness, ad- 
 dressing crowned heads more candidly than 
 the late Dame Rose's "Well of Truth;" "why 
 do you care to live? Marry! I am compassion- 
 ate towards you, with all my heart! I would 
 sooner be a puppet than such a ruler! 1 grant 
 mvself to be a doll of which you hold the string. 
 but your royal robe conceals — imperfectly — a 
 finer string, held by a mightier hand! For my 
 part, I prefer being a puppet in a king's hand 
 to one in a priest's!" 
 
 Tacitly acknowledging the scorn in the al- 
 lusion, although common to him and his no- 
 bles, the hearer let a pause pass before he 
 
446 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 spoke. Langely had prolonged a laugh at his 
 own pleasantry, since his auditor had not 
 helped him therewith. 
 
 "You are mocking, but you speak truly! he 
 is an infernal character! Does not the tale run 
 that Satan came on earth and reigned some- 
 where as a king?" 
 
 The melancholy Louis revelled in stories of 
 diablerie. 
 
 "Almost a king, Majesty! he reigned in Man- 
 tua as the duke paramount, which is gravely 
 set forth in the archives of that duchy, saith 
 Father Carre, who lives as much in Italy as 
 France." 
 
 "Carre, the Cardinal's confessor?" 
 
 "And mine," replied Langely, without a 
 smile. "Such is fame! Verily, he is prouder 
 to be cited at court as my confessor, than the 
 Cardinal's." 
 
 Louis did not hear; he was considering, and 
 said : 
 
 "If Satan could be a duke, why not a pre- 
 mier?" 
 
 "A cardinal!" and Langelv shook his head at 
 
 CD %J 
 
 a surmise beyond his folly. 
 
 "All the same, I would rather be your Min- 
 ister's fool than his confessor." 
 
 "May he not be the demon possessing me?" 
 queried the other, not only crossing himself 
 but making the sign against the Evil Eye, he- 
 reditary in the Medici family. 
 
 "Mine own idea! on second thoughts!" cried 
 the jester. 
 
 "But, peace! it must be a sin to talk so 
 lightly of our Arch-Enemy!" 
 
 "On the contrary, we must jeer at him and 
 show that we do not hold him in fear." 
 
 Distant thunder rumbled under the earth 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 447 
 
 and ;i gusl of wind sent a puff in at some 
 chinks so that the tapestry waved and its lit" 
 sized figures appeared imbued with life. 
 
 "Very true was tliat astrologer, La Riviere, 
 who prophesied thai the Thirteenth Louis 
 would have miseries beaded upon him as pearls 
 upon a Lady's bertha! A man — a youth of but 
 thirty-live — and all fails me. as though I had 
 the untenacious, palsied hand of the aged! 
 Spain presented me with trained cormorants, 
 from Cathay—" 
 
 "Cormorants?" queried the jester. "Me- 
 thought, by their prodigious swallow, they 
 were mere courtiers." 
 
 "They are highly esteemed there," con- 
 tinued Louis; "I brought them here to see 
 them catch tisli — and the gorged carp will not 
 rise near the surface! The chase? That de- 
 mon Gaston, my kill-joy, my spoil-sport! in- 
 vited a band of madcaps from town who have 
 so beaten the Forest bushes that — behold! not 
 a heron stands in a quiet pool — not a bittern 
 booms on the sedge! Hunting, where the rain 
 converts the plain into a sea! Fishing, where 
 the waters run bank-high, and turbid to excess! 
 By the bones of St. Gris — oh, saint, you have 
 clothed all the landscape with grey indeed!" 
 
 "With grease rather!" corrected Langely, 
 at the window; "see, the guards are changing, 
 though up to the fetlock in mud!" 
 
 "Truly, my horoscope was undeniable! I am 
 doomed to unhappiness!" 
 
 "Aye, our life-web is a black cloth, sparsely 
 sprinkled with spangles!" added the jester. 
 
 "Is there to be no alleviation — no consola- 
 tion?" stammering and faltering for a word, 
 as occurred to Louis in his dark moods. 
 
 "I d-d-doubt it! - ' replied the other, not fear- 
 
448 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 ing to mock him. "One by one go the con- 
 solers! With Baradas went the finest hunting- 
 horn player of the day! With Chalais, Master 
 of your Wardrobe — by my fay! he was its mas- 
 ter, for he wore more of the habits than your- 
 self! with him, disappeared the finest hand at 
 setting a plume or matching colors! And what 
 a marvel in training dogs was poor Haran!" 
 
 Louis sighed at each name, favorites, whom 
 he had allowed to be sacrificed, after the man- 
 ner of Charles L, surrendering his Straffords. 
 
 "And now," said the congenial Jeremiah, 
 with emphasis showing that he had arrived at 
 his point, "we are going to lose the last ex- 
 perts in the noble art of hawking!" 
 
 "Eh?" cried the King, rising in his chair, 
 with his eye suddenly sparkling. 
 
 "I know that you rate it a virtue that a fel- 
 low should track ground birds, but, St. Hubert 
 hear me! what is all your butchery of quail 
 and partridge to following the heron, on a swift 
 and sure-footed steed, over the plain, with your 
 gaze on clear sky where the Long-legs streaks 
 it, like the swan's wake in the pool ! Huzza for 
 hawking, say I!" 
 
 Hurling etiquette to the winds, Langely gave 
 out, full-lunged, the falconer's exultant shout 
 on seeing his hawk sight the prey and direct 
 himself towards it. 
 
 Louis echoed the cry. resting his arms on the 
 chair-arms. Color flew to his sallow cheeks, 
 and his lips seemed to plump out with a rare 
 smile. 
 
 "Right, boy, a falconer is a demigod!" said 
 he, quivering with rapture. 
 
 "By my halidom, this twain will be made 
 wholly immortals in a short stretch!" said the 
 jester with a doleful mien. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 449 
 
 "What twain?" 
 
 -The falconers!" 
 
 "Two falconers to lose their life?" continued 
 the interested King. 
 
 "Two most famous!" 
 
 "For mercy's sake, of what are you prating?" 
 
 "Why, those two springalds for whom the 
 old noble and the passably-good-looking sister 
 pleaded — uselessly!" 
 
 "Say, beautiful! but that was Saverny?" 
 
 "One is Saverny, your page who evaded his 
 duties when he found you did not value fal- 
 conry — ■" 
 
 "1! who dote on it! And this other, Didier 
 of Blois?" 
 
 "Arcades ambo — falconers both!" 
 
 "Falconers?" 
 
 "I say it! Saverny learnt the art of glorious 
 Troussegaine." 
 
 "Alias, le Falconet?" 
 
 "Precisely, than whom never breathed a bet- 
 ter adept at flying: the long-distance hawk!" 
 
 "I hear you, and agree!" said the King, lis- 
 tening spellbound. 
 
 "As for the devotee of the gentle art from 
 Blois, his instructor was the renowned Mat- 
 thew, of Xovicastruni — " 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "A town of England, where falconers have 
 been reared from time out of mind — who drive 
 amateurs out of their mind!" went on Langely, 
 more and more impressively. "I have read that 
 King Henry the Eighth of that realm, before 
 he waxed portentous in girth, would have no 
 other birds in his collection save from Xovi- 
 castruni, and that his daughter Elizabeth, 
 though not warmly addicted to the sport, so 
 beloved their successor that she would chase 
 
450 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the herons in Roniney Marshes, and created 
 her chief -falconer governor of Tilbury Fort! 1 ' 
 
 "Our King, of her times, lost a treasure in 
 not marrying her when he proposed!" ex- 
 claimed Louis, but relapsing, he wailed: "What 
 a calamity! my kingdom to lose two such fly- 
 ers of the gallant bird, and the art with them! 
 Out on that vexatious duel ! When I shall have 
 crossed the Styx, I may meet them hunting the 
 Stygian birds! Meanwhile, all will go before 
 me, arts and delights! What did the hotheads 
 fight a duel about?" 
 
 Langely glanced over towards the peeping 
 Marion, who made him a sign of caution. But 
 his reassuring nod bespoke he had his reply 
 ready. 
 
 "Oh, one sustained that the Peruvian Alet 
 is finer for chasing the ganet than the gavi- 
 lan!" 
 
 "He was wrong," gravely pronounced the 
 sovereign, "but it was in no case a hanging 
 matter!" 
 
 Marion faintly smiled and Langely repeated 
 the encouraging nod. 
 
 "But," proceeded the King, after a pause, 
 "my right to pardon was relinquished in these 
 cases. The Cardinal says I am always too 
 lenient!" 
 
 Langely smiled to himself, as Tacitus might 
 on hearing Nero boast of humanity. 
 
 "It is my Lord Cardinal who determines that 
 duellists shall die." 
 
 "Sire, what say you?" demanded the fool 
 point-blank, raising his voice to cover a sigh 
 within the window bay. 
 
 "Duellists must die!" returned the King, af- 
 ter some reflection, in which regret struggled 
 slightly with terror of the Prime Minister. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 451 
 
 "That being so," summed up Langely, "good- 
 bye to hawking!" 
 
 As if his suit were over, he wandered to the 
 window farthest from that where the weeping 
 woman was ensconced, and looking out, sud- 
 denly interjected: 
 
 "Gossip, what is this?" 
 
 "Has it stopped raining?" counter-queried 
 the other, rousing from a return to reverie. 
 
 "No, but I beg you to come and look at this 
 sight." 
 
 "What, what! have they caught that poacher 
 whom I saw stealing along beneath the 
 1 iceches?'' Louis paced with dragging foot to 
 the caller. "Still pouring, on my royal word!" 
 grumbled he. "For constancy of rule, Aqua- 
 rius outrates Jupiter. What is it? I do not 
 like the 1-1-lightning!" 
 
 "They are relieving the footguards now," 
 said the jester, pointing out of the cloudy 
 glass which diverted the King's wandering, 
 frightened glance from Marion perdu. 
 
 "Well, is that all you dragged me hither 
 for?" snarled the King, blinking as another 
 Hash striped the heavens. 
 
 Langely coolly wiped the steam off the pane 
 with the costly curtains. 
 
 "Who is that tall rogue with gold galloon 
 stripes on his sleeves?" asked he. 
 
 "His name is the best of him — he is a Mont- 
 hardi — but he is no more than the guards cor- 
 poral." 
 
 "Monthardi is taking a man off the board 
 and putting another in his stead. What is he 
 whispering to the new pawn?" 
 
 "The password: 'Melrose,' with 'Met ops' as 
 countersign — I invented them! This is an old 
 story. Buffoon, why do you pester us with such 
 
452 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 worn-out stuff? What are you shooting at?" 
 
 "Just to this," solemnty responded the fool, 
 in that deep tone often making churchmen say 
 that an excellent sermoniser was lost under his 
 cap. "Over this earth, kings are posted as sen- 
 tinels. Instead of a pike, they are weaponed 
 with a sceptre. When they have walked up 
 and down so many times on their weary round, 
 the Corporal of the Guard of Monarchs, Death, 
 to wit, he puts another sceptre-bearer in the 
 place of each, and to the new-comer he whis- 
 pers the word: — " 
 
 "It is—" 
 
 "Clemency!" returned the jester, still more 
 solemnly. 
 
 "Your account is correct, saving the word, 
 which is wrong: it is 'Justice,' my poor dul- 
 lard! That makes it hard on those two poor 
 falcaeers; for they must die, though — ah, me! 
 it is a grievous loss!" 
 
 "They must die, certes! like your Majesty 
 and I myself! Mighty or mean, Death calls 
 away all with equal strictness, and consigns 
 them to the black-hole. But however packed 
 away, the dead rest at their ease. But in this 
 life, how the Cardinal-duke chafes you and 
 weighs upon you! Stay a moment, my lord! 
 One of these days, in the month of the year 
 fore-written, we shall all be sleeping, I, the 
 fool, you, the King, he, the master! Proud 
 though one may be, great as man may swell 
 himself upon the stupidity, cowardice, and 
 slavishness of others, none occupies more than 
 six feet in the grave. Does not Richelieu seem 
 already to be in the hearse, in that grim litter 
 in which he is carried about, shoulder high, by 
 a dozen men, all the same as a bier is borne on 
 its barrow?" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 4 53 
 
 The silent listener shuddered a1 this dismal 
 dialogue, the sun of merry Benry the Fourth 
 deriving sombre satisfaction from dilating on 
 death and its trappings; bis tone was light 
 with warped relict' as he made answer, stroking 
 his broad lace collar as though decorating him- 
 self for lying in state: 
 
 "Yea, ' life is darksome, and the grave 
 breatheth an air serene. I should not long lin- 
 ger before its portals if I had not thee to en- 
 liven me a little!" 
 
 "Do not let me detain your Majesty!" quick- 
 ly observed Langely, with burlesque politeness. 
 "I looked in merely to bid you farewell!" 
 
 "What fare welling are you talking about?" 
 cried the King, vexed and puzzled. 
 
 "Only that I am going to leave you for a long 
 while, I trust." 
 
 "Leave me! for a long time?'' reiterated 
 Louis, with an acute pang like a seaman's, 
 when a wave sweeps bis last companion in 
 wreck off the spar. "What folly!" he grasped 
 his onlv friend bv the sleeve. "Nothing but 
 death unlooses the servant of a king!" 
 
 "You have buried the arrow-head in the 
 bull's-eye, gossip! I am about to die." 
 
 A peal of thunder shook the great elms and 
 their dripping leaves cast off in a mass their 
 load of wet. Out of a hundred fantastic 
 mouths of the gutters the deluge poured with a 
 monstrous reverberation. Louis turned more 
 pale and shivered to the core, drawing Langely 
 to him as one sheep huddles up to another in 
 the fold. 
 
 "Are yon a crack-brain, in earnest?" whined 
 he. "Speak out, withoul a wretched quip!" 
 
 "I am condemned to death by the King of 
 France ami Navarre." 
 
454 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "If you rail at my death-decrees, fool, noth- 
 ing can be sacred to you!'' 
 
 "Sire, I lent my hand to that duel between 
 those two gent — that is gentlemen-falconers. 
 At least, I lent my sword, which fought in the 
 grip of one of them and wounded the other! 
 Here it is! I surrender it to your Grace," and 
 Langely presented the blade by the point, as if 
 he expected to be knighted or beheaded, the 
 action suiting either result. 
 
 The King took the weapon with curiosity. 
 
 "So now, you have been wearing a real sword 
 in our presence, the attendants letting it pass 
 as one of lath! F faith!" he made a few passes 
 over the kneeling jester's head, "it is a good 
 one. How doth my merry-man come to carry 
 such a weapon?" 
 
 "Sire, being a gentleman, I aided those two 
 of my sort to settle their difference. Do not 
 make any difference in my doom. I was of the 
 party and must pay my scot." 
 
 "You lent your sword? Verily you have 
 bound yourself to the penalty, as the vervel 
 (hawk's label) is tied to the bird. My poor 
 Truepenny, before the rope is put round your 
 neck, let me clasp it with my arm once more!" 
 
 While he affectionately embraced Langely, 
 the latter muttered against his taking the sub- 
 terfuge so literally, and made a grimace over 
 the royal shoulder so grotesquely that at anoth- 
 er time Marion must have laughed. But she 
 was too depressed by the apparent failure of 
 this new friend's scheme. 
 
 "A true monarch never is opposed to justice," 
 reasoned Louis, releasing the companion of his 
 privacy and laying the sword on a cushion, 
 and musing. "But it is very harsh that the 
 Cardinal's wholesale edict should impose death 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 455 
 
 on two falconers and my own Mirth-dies 
 laughing!" Be walked ap and down the large 
 room, agitated deeply, for he ran his flacoid 
 hand over his wrinkling forehead, 
 
 "For merely a duel," resumed he, turning an 
 anxious eye upon his confidant. "But, come, 
 come, console yourself, jolly soul! Life is a 
 sarcasm at which the grave's open mouth 
 grins; and man is but a breath!" 
 
 "Deuce take his moralising," grumbled 
 Langely, watching the King stalk up and down 
 in agitation belying that his conclusion was 
 definite. 
 
 "How dumfounded you are!" cried the lat- 
 ter testily, wheeling round; "you can be in no 
 doubt that you will be hanged!" 
 
 The victim of his own plot was frozen with 
 the icy perspiration on his brow, for his feint 
 was answered by a severe lunge. 
 
 'it looks so, unless you speak the barring 
 word," stammered he. 
 
 "You gone, who will make me laugh?" He 
 laughed indeed at remembrance of some prank 
 of his sworn humorist, but the notes grated on 
 the hitter's ear. "But hark ye! jocund one! if 
 sobeit one is allowed to return from the grave, 
 come you to me, and tell us what you ex- 
 perienced. This will be a chance for you to 
 oblige me, and haply the w r oiid — aye — agape 
 for this secret of secrets!" 
 
 "The idea of bearing such a unique message 
 is simply delightful!" sneered Langely, shak- 
 ing his head. 
 
 "But your loss will be such a triumph for 
 Cardinal Armand!" pursued the sovereign, 
 still perambulating, with side-glancing at his 
 tormented prey. "Red Stocking will have 
 walked over the Blue-striped one! - ' 
 
456 < RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 He alluded to the hose the jester wore in for- 
 mal livery of his office. The other allusiou was 
 to Richelieu, whose limbs, clothed in cardinal 
 red, it was said, capered in the ballets at court, 
 or even once performed a saraband before 
 Queen Anna, as lively as Louis', before the 
 one had shortness of breath and the other the 
 gout. 
 
 Langely's countenance had settled down in 
 so reproachful a cast that the observer was 
 touched in his pride. Color came to his sunk 
 cheeks, and he cried with an imperious air, 
 while a wild and fitful light danced in his hol- 
 low eyes: 
 
 "How now! do vou doubt, that I mav not — 
 an' I would! be the master!" 
 
 "Rabelais would have replied: 'Perhaps!' 
 and Montaigne: 'What should I know about 
 that?'" answered Langely. 
 
 Still piqued, seized by some freakish spirit of 
 generosity, the King sat down at the table 
 where, that same morning, he had appended 
 his signature to the formal writ of execution 
 against Marquis Nazaire de Saverny and the 
 Sire Didier,. to the gratification of Judge Laf- 
 femas. With rare determination, he took up a 
 quill, and trying it on his gnawed nail, said 
 peremptorily: 
 
 "Fool, hand me a sheet of parchment!" 
 
 Langely dropped his anxiety and apathy; he 
 sprang to the table end, drew a clean skin for 
 writing from a drawer, and placed it flat on the 
 board before his master, whose hand rested on 
 it, tremulous with a novel emotion. 
 
 "Am I going to be ill?" said he, gasping. 
 
 "No, you are going to do good!" retorted the 
 jester, his face a mask of the Comic Muse. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 457 
 
 The King scribbled a few lines and added a 
 tall and sprawling "LOUI8," all in capitals. 
 
 The fool had the wax ready at the lighted 
 taper, and dropped a blob on the vellum. The 
 writer pressed on it the stamp dangling at his 
 belt, and the pardon for the two duellists, and 
 their aiders and abettors, was there, good as 
 ever the royal mandate was. 
 
 "I pardon the trio!'' said Louis, leaning back 
 as to admire himself. 
 
 But instantly he curled up out of his grand 
 attitude: a dazzling flash of electricity illu- 
 minated the innumerable tree-tops, and was fol- 
 lowed by a crash of a struck tree and the thun- 
 der. Langely was not a jot staggered: he ran 
 across the room, and plucking Marion out of 
 her ambush, he said to her: 
 
 "Lady fair, hasten! go down on your knees 
 to his tender Majesty, and thank him for having 
 forgiven us three!" 
 
 Marion, from whom the King flinched more 
 than he had from the lightning — and seeming 
 to be as much dazzled — dropped, kneeling, be- 
 fore the royal chair, muttering thanks, no 
 doubt, but her tongue was not freely unlocked, 
 as doubts still lingered, though she had closely 
 watched this singular game. 
 
 "The Fool swept the board," remarked 
 Langely, chuckling, "where the Knight failed 
 to check the King!" 
 
 "Whose hands am I to kiss for the boon?" 
 demanded she, a little roguishly; "yours or my 
 gracious lord's?" 
 
 Louis regarded the new-comer with less as- 
 tonishment and more apprehension now. He 
 regretted his act, fearing that he had fallen in- 
 to a trap. 
 
 Langely meant to be on the safe side, seeing 
 
458 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 his frown. The donor might demand the par- 
 don back; so he handed it to the woman, who 
 kissed it, to solve the dilemma stated by her, 
 and thrust it within her stomacher. 
 
 Angry at having been a jester's dupe, all in 
 the presence of a young woman, Louis recov- 
 ered some coolness or at least his ill-nature. 
 He thrust out his hand and said in a vexed 
 tone: 
 
 "Hold, madam, one instant! I require that 
 paper — " 
 
 "Good heavens!" ejaculated Marion, in dis- 
 may; but immediately, with a return of her 
 gay spirits as she felt the valuable document 
 on her heart, she said with archness: 
 
 "The King must be obeyed, but never will 
 hand of mine undo a good action of his Majesty! 
 none but your royal hand shall touch it! Come, 
 take it, but with it, take my life! it is dearer 
 than life itself!" 
 
 The King, who had risen as she had done, 
 recoiled, embarrassed. 
 
 Langely clapped his hands together, without 
 making a sound, and whispered: 
 
 "Hold your prize! Do not be alarmed! Louis 
 the Chaste will not attack that fort!" 
 
 "G-g-give!" stammered the monarch, lower- 
 ing his eyes, which happened to be caught by 
 Marion's. 
 
 "T-t-take it!" cried Marion, mocking, feeling 
 impelled to out-brave everything at this mo- 
 ment. 
 
 Louis rubbed his eyes as one seeing a super- 
 natural vision; then he uttered an execration 
 against the lightning, as if that blinded him; 
 knitting his brows, he woudered what siren 
 was conspiring with Langely to set free the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 459 
 
 duellists and also, he reflected, to embroil him 
 with Ins Minister? 
 
 He had seen pictures of the famous beauty of 
 his reign, but all was hazy; he was sure thai 
 she had never been presented at court, and this 
 added to his perplexity. 
 
 "It was months," whispered Langely, in the 
 meantime, "before he ventured to kiss the 
 Queen!" 
 
 Without raising his eyes again upon his vis- 
 itress, Louis made a wave of the hand, im- 
 perious but not unkind, and bade her "Be- 
 
 gone 
 
 r 
 
 The Mistress of Deportment to royal prin- 
 cesses could not have outdone her elaborate 
 eourtesy; Mondori would say it was worthy of 
 Ximena; and she replied with noble and dulcet 
 accent: 
 
 "The King has right royally done his part; 
 let me properly do mine! I haste to liberate 
 the prisoners!" At the door, she tottered and 
 turned pale, "If M. Laffemas — but no! heaven 
 will not play toss with our suffering hearts! 
 Saints and Graces! wing me to outstrip that 
 hellhound!" 
 
 She flew out as though the parchment buoyed 
 her; so different from her manner of entrance, 
 that the guards smiled and sympathetically 
 wished her "Goodspeed!" 
 
 "Who is she?*' marvelled the King, closing 
 his eyes as though to retain the vision. 
 
 "A sister of one of those falconers," Langely 
 replied. "Not Saverny but t- other's! ah, he is, 
 after her likeness, a handsome blade, who 
 would make you a splendid page! and a fal- 
 coner, too!" 
 
 The fool did nothing by halves; after secur- 
 
460 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 ing Didier's life, lie was trying to secure his 
 future. 
 
 "He must be handsome — his sister is lovely!" 
 muttered Louis. "She is one accustomed to 
 have her way! Strange! she almost made me 
 cower! I could no more gaze on her, steadily, 
 you know, than on the ethereal fire!" 
 
 Langely smiled, waiting, not at ease over the 
 final result of his deception. 
 
 "Buffoon, you have tricked me!" 
 
 "I am paid to do that!" 
 
 "You stand in sore need of a special pardon!" 
 
 "Grant it, sire!" said the jester kneeling. 
 "Every pardon is so much weight that a king 
 relieves himself of by giving it!" 
 
 "You speak truly, boy," said Louis solemnly. 
 "You know that it grieves me to see the Mont- 
 faucon execution-place. For old Nangis truth- 
 fully spoke: by peopling the cemetery where 
 the executed repose, with their severed heads 
 between their knees, I make mv palace a des- 
 ert!" 
 
 Again he betrayed the fever of his mind by 
 walking the floor as in insomnia. 
 
 "My Minister committed treason in wresting 
 from us our right to pardon and making us pub- 
 licly relinquish it. Harry the Fourth's son 
 ought to be merciful, for God was merciful to 
 him and many times in stress saved his dear 
 life. My people wail to see me shut up — en- 
 tombed by this man, who rolls me up in his 
 rosy robe as in swaddling-clothes or a winding- 
 sheet! I am no better than a king dethroned, 
 cast down, disarmed! No, no!" he cried with 
 vigor, "I could not suffer those two gallants to 
 meet an ignominious death! Life is too lovely 
 for them, and visibly a gift of heaven to be 
 rashly dashed out of its casket! God can open 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 461 
 
 the grave, for Be knoweth what this life is — 
 hut do kin u can: They shall live and their fam 
 ilies will bless me for having re-stored them. I 
 yearn for the blessing at' that old hero and that 
 beautiful young woman!" 
 
 "Do no1 forget mine, gossip!" 
 
 "Al all events, what is written, is written! 
 especially when by the King's hand. You 
 smirk, deceiver!" said he, turning sharply up- 
 on the jester keeping pace with him, like a dog, 
 a step in the rear, "you know as I do that the 
 Cardinal-dnke will be furious!" 
 
 "Ferocious! his wrath may kill him!" 
 
 "But I shall have given you pleasure foi 
 once, who so many times has exhilarated this 
 aching, melancholy heart!" 
 
 "The sky is clearing," broke in Langely, to 
 hide his emotion at the King showing gratitude. 
 "In half an hour, we may go and fish." 
 
 "Pish, after a rain like that? the swirling 
 waters will render fishing-gear useless." 
 
 "Well, I am already hand-in-glove with old 
 Nezenlair, the poacher whom you saw sneaking 
 through the woods. He possesses an infallible 
 bait for the carp, which would lure the Fiend 
 himself from his hottest fire on a February 
 night! Come out, for I promise your Majesty 
 a carp a la — a la — \Vatering-mouth, of my own 
 concoction, which would appease Qaragantua!" 
 
 The weather brightened up as if sympathetic 
 with him. Louis bade Langely call for his valet 
 to dress him for the outing. 
 
 "Good!" soliloquised Langely, as he donned 
 high boots to wade in the mud. "I mean to 
 keep the King out of his Eminence's way until 
 a revocation of the pardon is impossible. His- 
 tory will cite one instance when our Louis, 
 
4G2 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Thirteenth of that name, behaved royally — 
 though by mistake!" 
 
 As he returned through the ante-room there 
 was an uproar. The courtiers had abandoned 
 it, but a small group filled a corner, servants 
 and petty nobles wearing a serious air. 
 
 In the midst were two ecclesiastical digni- 
 taries, one of whom the jester immediately 
 recognised. 
 
 "The Cardinal in Grey, and the Bishop of 
 Autun," he cried out. 
 
 "Say, the Bishop in grey," corrected Joseph, 
 owning at least to this degree, "and the Cardi- 
 nal! I humbly come to present my father of 
 Autun, hastening to thank his Majesty on his 
 reception of the Bed Hat." 
 
 While the courtiers hurried to salute his 
 Grace of Autun, Langely unceremoniously de- 
 tached the introductor from his protege, and 
 drew him into a recess, saying in a low voice: 
 
 "Marion Delorme was here but now! she 
 procured the pardon of Marquis Saverny and 
 his fellow-offender — " 
 
 "Of Didier?" exclaimed Joseph, showing in 
 which of the two he w r as the more interested. 
 
 "She hopes to outspeed that rogue Laffe- 
 mas!" 
 
 "Too late! the latter is off post-haste to re- 
 move the culprits to Bueil." 
 
 At the horrifying word, Langely let his hands 
 drop in despair. 
 
 "All is lost, then," groaned he. "What Vil- 
 lany always thrusts his baleful spoon into 
 peaceful porridge!" 
 
 "Patience! it shall be withdrawn!" said Jos- 
 eph who had recovered his calmness. 
 
 But the assurance did not remove the jester's 
 expression of hopelessness. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 463 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE MYSTERIES OF RUEIL. 
 
 Langely yielded to the popular belief that 
 Rueil, spite of having been decorated and em- 
 bellished into splendor, was the Cardinal's fav- 
 orite residence for satiating an extremely vin- 
 dictive nature, which age and ails exacerbated. 
 Far from its vicinity, tattlers detailed how su- 
 perb tapestries muffled perfidious sliding pan- 
 els, soft carpets covered traps of ingenious 
 construction and supernatural facility, and the 
 solid walls were pierced with Judas traps and 
 Dionysius' ears for the use of spies. 
 
 Everybody knew how the private executions 
 took place. 
 
 The Eminent host would have a silent com- 
 panion at his table, together with the fated 
 guest. This dumb feaster was the executioner. 
 After the repast, sumptuous and provided with 
 exquisite wines, spite of prelatical vows, the 
 host would point out an inner room as where 
 the important confabulation should be held. 
 He would pass out through a door; the victim 
 would follow at his gown's hem, with the heads- 
 man bringing up the rear. At a certain point, 
 the last would press his foot on a spring and a 
 trap would gape at the feet — under the feet, 
 in fact, of the dupe, who would be precipitated 
 into an abyss, where horrors, outdoing those in 
 the embrace of the Virgin of Nuremberg, clus- 
 tered upon him till he perished. 
 
 Absurd as these tales were, we see that even 
 
464 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 a royal jester did not mock at them when told 
 of the modern Bluebeard and his castle. 
 
 To this den of terrors Laffemas had spared 
 no expense — out of the State purse — to remove 
 his prisoners straightway from Nangis. 
 
 Having sent them into secure lodgings, he 
 ordered workmen to open a breach in the walls. 
 He did not state the reason but the chief do- 
 mestics guessed. 
 
 "That gap," said they, their pride in ability 
 to solve one enigma outdoing their discretion, 
 "it is for the entrance, without his alighting, of 
 my Lord Cardinal, for he comes in a litter since 
 his gout cripples him — he will be carried 
 straight into the court-yard where the scaffold 
 will be erected." 
 
 Others, who had been to Paris, described the 
 construction: a huge catafalque-looking bar- 
 row, carried by a score or two of men ; draped 
 with red curtains, it suggested, said a facetious 
 butler: "Leviathan wading in the Red Sea." 
 
 With a view of frustrating attempts on his 
 patron's life, the Lieutenant of Internal Police 
 perambulated the town, cloaked and covered 
 with a broad-brimmed Spanish hat. 
 
 It was filling with curious idlers, expecting to 
 see the Cardinal enter, even though they might 
 not witness the double execution, within the 
 chateau walls. 
 
 He caught scraps of conversation at inn 
 doors, but even this chatter was guarded as 
 though the proximity of the dread abode in- 
 spired caution. 
 
 "These lords commit queer crimes," said one 
 more loquacious haranguer to his fellows, at 
 ihc Cross-keys Inn; "they come to blows now 
 and then, and as they are adepts at fencing, 
 marry! they have to cast dice to decide who 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 465 
 
 Khali be scratched! rarely do they kill, bin 
 when they do, if the dying is spun out, why, 
 they prove the deed is heinous by slaying the 
 pair of them officially!" 
 
 The audience acquiesced but could not ex- 
 plain the matter. 
 
 In the lower resorts, wine-shops, where gen- 
 try's servants and rustics gathered, Laffemas 
 heard uglier mutterings, undying echoes of the 
 Jacquerie, and forebodings of the chaos to fol- 
 low the removal of Richelieu's iron hand from 
 the controlling rod. 
 
 "Suppose, mates," said one of the workmen 
 Laffemas had seen tunnelling the wall, "sup- 
 pose, some fine day, we should fell a tradesman 
 with a bludgeon, or do a finer deed — " 
 
 "Opened the Revenue cashbox without the 
 proper key?" 
 
 "Or made meat for the wife and young ones 
 of a buck out of the Royal Forest?" proceeded 
 another incipient rebel. 
 
 "Whatever we did," resumed the first speak- 
 er, "I wager you should want plaguey good 
 eyes, masters all, to see any handsome head- 
 high sea if old built up and hung with black 
 cloth from Ypres, fairer than my master wears 
 for a holiday coat — for the likes of us!" 
 
 But this was far from the kind of treasonable 
 utterance for which Laifemas, in his ill-savored 
 career, had arrested hundreds. 
 
 Disappointed, like a hunter without cause to 
 fire a shot, he retraced his steps to the castle, 
 where he had the satisfaction of seeing one of 
 his acquaintance alight from a vehicle at the 
 wicket and rap up the warder. 
 
 "Marion Delorme!" ejaculated he, with joy, 
 hurrying up. "I am sure that she has arrived 
 with a respite, if not a pardon. Luckily," he 
 
466 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 went on, repressing a diabolical chuckle, "I 
 am provided against her captivating the Chaste 
 Susannah who masquerades in breeches as our 
 King!" 
 
 Indeed, the gatekeeper, only peering through 
 the little trap in the great gate, answered Mar- 
 ion, who claimed passage on a royal order: 
 
 "Entrance is forbid!" 
 
 "The King's own hand refused!" faltered the 
 woman, staggered after so lately seeing at 
 Chambord how the royal power was reverently 
 bowed to. 
 
 "The King's own head would be squeezed in 
 the gate an' he ventured it," replied the surly 
 Cerberus, proud of serving a greater than the 
 great. 
 
 While she was mustering courage to ask to 
 see a captain of the ward, Laffemas ap- 
 proached. Nodding to her familiarly, which 
 made her lower lip curl in scorn, he said in a 
 jeering voice to hide his wish to win and coax: 
 
 "The Cardinal's order is paramount here, 
 where he is suzerain lord! I can go in with 
 it," flourishing a folded paper as if to cross 
 hers, after the manner of opposing a sword, 
 "w T hen I like, and it will carry another with it. 
 Will you accompany me?" 
 
 The warder, accustomed to obey Laffemas, 
 ruling next under his master, and concluding 
 that he had met an acquaintance from his tone, 
 shut the trap to leave them in privacy, and re- 
 took his occupation of cleaning a petronel, al- 
 tered to shoot leaden bullets instead of stone. 
 
 "I bear better than an order to enter here.'' 
 said Marion, unable to lose her exultation al- 
 together from a subordinate's rebuff. "I bring 
 those two young gentlemen's pardon!" 
 
 "But I cover that card, too," returned the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 467 
 
 official quite :is triumphantly. "1 am promised, 
 and 1 await hourly, the Minister's order re- 
 voking all anterior relating to thai precious 
 pair, and directing their execution, under mine 
 own eyes — perhaps under my Lord Cardinal's. 
 List! that hammer is knocking the nails in up- 
 on their bier! literally, it is fastening up the 
 last festoon of mourning cloth upon their scaf- 
 fold." 
 
 "Oh, is hope altogether fled!" gasped the wo- 
 man, drawing her hand over her eyes not to let 
 the wretch see the tears again gathering. 
 
 "Hope is a transitory light! The King's 
 clemency is a fragile thing, coming God know- 
 eth how slowly and flitting with a swallow's 
 wing!" 
 
 "But the King was stirred unto the heart 
 on hearing how they stood in peril and that he 
 might rescue them!" 
 
 "Pooh!" sneered the Chief of the Royal Po- 
 lice, "what can the King do athwart the Cardi- 
 nal-duke's will?" 
 
 Marion wrung her hands, crushing that pa- 
 per which had warmed her on the journey but 
 now cooled like a dead reptile. 
 
 "Oh, Didier," she murmured as though her 
 tongue were benumbed, fixing her eyes on the 
 newly-pointed wall, "the last hope is extin- 
 guished! I have done my utmost!" 
 
 "l'.ut, talking of hope," insinuated Laffemas, 
 smiling encouragingly, "the last flicker is not 
 out! Far from that! Understand that I am in 
 power here! within that palace-fort, as with- 
 out, and remotely around about too! Your war- 
 rant is worthless, or soon self-cancelled, but 
 this is one which would enable that man — 
 those men, inside the dismal cells down there, 
 to quit the prison, and the country, and reach 
 
468 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the golden Ind, where a princedom may await 
 a bold adventurer! Meanwhile, accept niy hand! 
 we will return to Paris, and the Lieutenant 
 CiviPs bride may rest assured that no one will 
 recall with unmeet gibes that she was Marion 
 Delorme!" 
 
 "Heavens," said she, still clasping her hands, 
 one of which the tempter strove to clutch but 
 could not disentangle. "Be off, sir!" 
 
 "Is this your last word to the offer of hi& 
 life? with safety afar, and a prospect of a pet- 
 ty prince's reign? And you love him?" 
 
 "Will you please to be silent!" said she 
 haughtily, like an insulted princess. "Let 
 those ravens overhead croak at scenting blood- 
 shed, but do not join your voice to their cry, as 
 long as you wear mortal shape!" 
 
 Laffemas was startled. More lawyer than 
 Lothario, feminine caprice, much more resolu- 
 tion, was a gulf which he could not fathom 
 and its breadth dazed him. 
 
 "What is the meaning of this?" he asked, 
 keeping himself between her and the gate, in 
 case she purposed another appeal there. "You 
 were wont to be much more human, not to say 
 womanly! By the Sword of Justice! now that 
 your latest conquest is in our net and you might 
 release him, provide him with immunity and 
 riches, to say nothing of winning yourself a re- 
 spectable position, nay, a lofty one, for I have 
 not yet done climbing! you will not pay the 
 price! A life for a hand! a light return, I 
 estimate! Who would not give his hand with 
 his head at stake? who would not put a ring 
 round his mid-finger instead of a halter round 
 his jugular! And here, it is, not his hand — 
 for he will emerge from the kingdom intact — 
 but vour hand which delivers him. You have 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 469 
 
 sheerly to put on this single ring, and he — all 
 his rings, manacles, fetters, drop and dissolve, 
 like snowfiakes in the chimney-smoke!" 
 
 Without a glance for him, a curl of the 
 thinned lips alone denoting that she heard him 
 more or less dreamily, Marion rivetted her at- 
 tention on the gates, behind which was all she 
 held endeared. 
 
 "Vermin," said she suddenly, without look- 
 ing at him as he offered to kneel to her, though 
 it was the open street, "I have made a great 
 stride from the place where you saw me. I 
 have risen, my lord — but such as you would 
 not understand these transformations! Even 
 to save a beloved one, the beloved, I would not 
 become infamous again. Indeed, I could not! 
 Do not think the lost lamb strays again, and 
 again, after being carried back, in arms, to the 
 fold? that the fallen angel, permitted to weep 
 in at the gates once more on the realm of the 
 snowv-white, would turn awav from that en- 
 trance forever, whoever beckoned without? Oh, 
 my darling," continued she, as if her voice 
 low but earnest, could be heard by Didier in 
 his cell, "vour breath has re-infused mv soul. 
 Of the former Marion, nothing clings to the 
 present Marie, and it is my love for you which 
 has restored the virginal purity!" 
 
 "But it is you who cannot have understood," 
 persisted Laffemas, fearing that she had gone 
 mad with grief, "I offer to make you my lady!" 
 He followed her, step for step. "I stand next 
 to the Minister in power, as I do in kindred, 
 you know! I will stifle all calumny, imprison, 
 rack, do away with all villifiers! To begin with, 
 while we release this Didier, we will banish 
 this Saverny so far that never will he scribble 
 doggerel about Parisian revelries to reach a 
 
470 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 French eye or ear! Marry me, adored one! 
 You do not love me? pah! Love comes after 
 wedlock as appetite comes upon eating!" 
 
 "Monster!" cried Marion, slashing the pardon 
 across his face, heated and reddened, as it was 
 held up to hers, his hat having fallen off in his 
 excitement. "You rise from crime to vice! 
 Let me repent and die holv, since he must also 
 die." 
 
 "Methinks," pursued the unintimidated 
 judge, changing his accent, "you have still a 
 favor to sue of me. I am the Cardinal's sole 
 representative here; to me open all these doors! 
 If you would, I can let you within, to see him 
 for the last time! He dies in the morning, or 
 even earlier, this depending on how soon the 
 Cardinal arrives. He is due to witness the 
 double execution." 
 
 "The Cardinal," she repeated, remembering 
 vaguely that Langely and the Duke of Belle- 
 garde had suggested her applying to Richelieu. 
 
 "He comes this evening!" proceeded Laffe- 
 mas in his ordinary, passionless voice. 
 
 "But he is ill, bedridden with the gout!" 
 protested she, eager to catch this man in a 
 lie. 
 
 "True, but he would not lose this distraction! 
 A bath of blood restores health, in some cases 
 — see the medical tractates! so, the sight of 
 bloodshed regales some natures! he will come, 
 borne in his great litter, for which, see, a 
 breach has been cleft in yonder wall! The 
 gates would not admit that roomy conveyance, 
 carrying my lord, sometimes a secretary, his 
 doctor, the deathsman, at a pinch!" 
 
 The turn in the situation had plunged poor 
 Marion into profound reverie. It was not the 
 first time, to her knowledge, that a royal de- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 471 
 
 cree had been annulled by the Prime Minister's 
 later one. She shuddered, too, at conscious- 
 ness that all this coincided with the Court's 
 fable and popular impression of the statesman's 
 longing to glut himself with bloodspilling. 
 
 ( 'emulsions shook her and the final one lifted 
 her out of her dismay. She drew her hands, 
 pale and thin to what they were when models 
 to Parisian connoisseurs, across her eyes and 
 forehead as if to clear her sight, and fastened 
 it, wild and fierce, on the Lieutenant-Criminal, 
 who recoiled in fright. 
 
 "I contrived their escape; his escape from 
 Blois," said she without apparent connection, 
 but her hearer was sharpened by his passion 
 and he comprehended. Out of the question that 
 any but Marion was interested in this un- 
 known! 
 
 "You could not repeat the trick here," re- 
 plied he with quickness. "But the Cardinal's 
 trusted lieutenant can! I would, too, bring 
 about their escape if — " 
 
 "Tell me how!" she demanded, resolutely, 
 as if come to a fresh and novel determination. 
 
 This looked like accepting him as an accom- 
 plice, at least. 
 
 "Be it your will," gallantly said he, "and I 
 can have this gap, intended for the host's en- 
 try, guarded by soldiers in my privy pay. But 
 be quick, if you mean alliance, for I hear a 
 stir within. It is some evolution of the watch, 
 for the guard is mounted doubly!" 
 
 Going over to the gateway, he listened so 
 intently that the observer believed that his 
 ears pricked up, pointedly, like a satyr's. 
 
 She wrung her hands again in anguish. A 
 searching gaze appealed to heaven, but the 
 
472 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 skies were lurid, and not a single gleam ir- 
 radiated the smoky expanse. 
 
 "Anything to save you, Didier!" she mur- 
 mured. "Then, to balk this villain of his ran- 
 som! I will stoop to perfidy upon this demon 
 of guile, to begin with, before I bow to such an 
 odious sacrifice as he exacts." 
 
 "If she cheats me, I forgive her!" muttered 
 he, puzzled. 
 
 Then he became gloomy; after having inti- 
 mated his willingness to betray his master and 
 benefactor, and to foil him, he might well be 
 timorous. He listened to the soldiery perform- 
 ing mysterious marches behind the walls as 
 though they might be coming instinctively to 
 arrest him. 
 
 "This place is fashioned to repeat the 
 echoes," said he nervously. "And the town is 
 full of spies. Look! under that dragon-head, 
 spitting the dew from the gutters, is a little 
 door, dissimulated in the flying buttress. It 
 leads to the chapel of St. John the Decol- 
 lated—" 
 
 He emphasized the word, but she listened 
 unmoved. 
 
 "The chapel—" 
 
 "Where the prisoners will receive the 
 Church's last attentions?" caught up the wo- 
 man, following out his idea. 
 
 "Nothing more exact. But the priest will 
 not come yet. Not till I appoint. Be you there 
 at eleven, and I will admit you." 
 
 "You!" 
 
 "Can you not trust your future bridegroom?" 
 said Laffemas, making the sign of the cross. 
 "In church, a priest at hand — my deadliest foe 
 were safe-guarded! we are not a cardinal's 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 173 
 
 nephew for nothing — and still more, you — my 
 dearest friend!" 
 
 This sudden assumption of piety backed by 
 the claim to be Richelieu's relative did not de- 
 ceive Marion, but she had not a doubt on his 
 desire to fulfill his part of the bargain. 
 
 "I come!" said she. Then, with a strange 
 confidence, not to be shown had she not wished 
 to convey her menace, she added: 
 
 "To that Spanish dress in which you saw me 
 belonged a dagger. I threw off the dress, but 
 I still hold the steel." 
 
 At this, Laflfemas refrained from trying to 
 snatch a kiss, even on her hand, and sighing 
 noisily, let her go her way, watching her like 
 a mariner, on the verge of storm, fixing his 
 gaze on the pilot's star, as if to retain it longer 
 in sight. 
 
 "All goes well," said he, returning to the 
 castle. "So, I must cross my protector!" He 
 trembled, but a sudden warmth succeeded th<' 
 chill, and he continued his thought: ''For such 
 a prize, Papa Armand's displeasure is a trifle!" 
 
474 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 OF TWO PRISONERS, ONE WILL WEEP, THE 
 OTHER SING. 
 
 Whisked from Nangis, without clear idea of 
 what would ensue, Didier and the Marquis of 
 Saverny passed the time on the journey in 
 very diverse attitudes. The latter was the ad- 
 miration of the Red Arquebusiers for his ease, 
 merriness and a petulance alien to the char- 
 acter of a man under the bitterest doom. 
 
 After the fashion of wealthy culprits whose 
 last dress should enrich the headsman, he had 
 arrayed himself for the death-march as for a 
 wedding one. When, as the King's page, he 
 tricked himself out to attend his Majesty at a 
 Queen's ball, he never wore finer feathers. 
 
 The other, saddened and shamed to the heart 
 by discovery of his idol's true standing, still 
 clung to his funereal black, having dashed off 
 the last trace of theatrical frippery chafing him 
 while under the Mondorian wing. 
 
 Saverny laughed, drank, threw dice, and 
 joked along the road, retailed adventures to 
 amuse the soldiers, let the captain win of him 
 over the drumhead, in short, delighted all 
 around him; but Didier remained taciturn and 
 sober. 
 
 "They will take him for the ghostly confessor 
 waiting on the wretch to be hanged and the 
 lord as a jester who cheered him at his other 
 elbow!" said the captain. 
 
 Thus, the escort were glad to be relieved ol* 
 one charge at Rueil gates, but sorry to wish a 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 475 
 
 "Good deliverance!" to the ooble, whom they 
 never expected to see alive again, so dread 
 even to martial men was the reputation of Rioh- 
 elieu's country seat. 
 
 In the sombre cell selected for them by the 
 malicious Laffemas, who had not forgot his 
 ducking at Nangis, the pair preserved the same 
 behavior. 
 
 On the afternoon when the last-named made 
 his proposition to Mdlle. Delorme, the jailer 
 came as usual to lead them into the garden, 
 enclosed by a high wall, to take the air. 
 
 Saverny followed gaily, humming a satire, 
 for decidedly his success with his (?) lampoon 
 had turned him tow T ards Pasquinade, and Did 
 ier pacing behind, wrapped in his black medi- 
 tations as in a pall. 
 
 The man went the inside rounds of the wall, 
 yet seemed loth to depart, which seeing, Sa- 
 verny, on the alert with his perennial hopeful- 
 ness for any diversion, called out: 
 
 "My saint be thanked! what delicious air! 
 how balmy is the breeze on the other side of 
 these bricks and spikes!" 
 
 "My lord," said the turnkey, turning round 
 as if to seize an opportunity, "your shoe-latchet 
 is loose — you will trip up and — " 
 
 "By breaking my neck, cheat the deathsman? 
 Tie it, prithee, good fellow! here is a gold 
 crown, to repay you for this and other petty 
 attentions." 
 
 The man pocketed the piece so quickly that 
 it seemed juggled out of sight, and stooped as 
 though for the imaginary task. In this pos- 
 ture, without lifting his head and in a voice 
 too low for Didier to overhear, had he been 
 listening, he said: 
 
476 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "Listen, my lord marquis, to a couple of 
 words, if you please." 
 
 "Make it four," returned Saverny, lightly 
 but at once interested. 
 
 "Would you like to breathe that balmy air 
 without?" in a still lower voice. 
 
 The marquis flushed but he tossed a pebble 
 playfully toward a marten flitting in and out 
 of the chevaux-de-frise, and replied as cau- 
 tiously: 
 
 "How the deuce can one walk so easily out 
 of Rueil?" 
 
 "That is my business." 
 
 "Is it? I should have thought it quite the 
 otherwise: to keep us in! But go on with the 
 tale!" 
 
 "I can liberate you." 
 
 "The mischief you can! Ha, ha! The Car- 
 dinal wants to stop a cavalier from returning 
 to the ballroom of the world, namely, Society, 
 but we may dance in spite of him withal!" He 
 thrilled with hope and his eyes sparkled. 
 "Verily, I shall be glad to change my partner 
 — grim Death! Be the wall-flower, thou! I 
 choose Dame Life!" 
 
 Stooping to pat the man on the shoulder, as 
 he rose, his pretended service accomplished, 
 he continued: 
 
 "When is it to come off?" 
 
 "After dark, this evening!" 
 
 Saverny clapped his hands and took a danc- 
 ing position, waiting for the signal to advance. 
 
 "It is no compliment to Rueil, but from the 
 little I have seen of it, I am not sorry to quit 
 it. Tell me, whence this succor?" 
 
 "I was bid to say 'Nangis!' " 
 
 "My dear old uncle in the saddle again? Ah, 
 the King's rebuff has spurred him. Between 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 477 
 
 the King and me, his truant page, we have 
 rejuvenated the old gentleman! Is our ever- 
 green grey-beard on the spot?" 
 
 "The only gentleman 1 have seen in the mat- 
 ter is one called by his varlets the Banneret — " 
 
 "Oh, Brichanteau, my cousin? good! All 
 will go as if on oiled ways! But this drawing 
 up of Joseph from the pit, includes my fellow- 
 captive, does it not?" 
 
 With a flirt of the finger he indicated Didier, 
 who sat on a stone bench in the shade, brood- 
 ing in perfect unconsciousness of w 7 hat was go- 
 ing on. 
 
 "My lord, as I understand my instructions, I 
 am to save but one! and 1 fear I can smuggle 
 out but one," returned the jailer, puzzled. 
 
 "Not if the reward be doubled?" 
 
 "I can manage only one," repeated the man, 
 shaking his head reluctantly. 
 
 "Only one," muttered Saverny; "this is un- 
 gentlemanly of my cousin, who saw Didier fight 
 so valiantly. If it were Marion managing this 
 escape, I do her the fairness to suppose that 
 she would have both of us out, or none — 
 though she does not harbor much good will 
 toward me!" 
 
 In fact, the man was acting to the letter. 
 The plot was Marion's but she had allowed 
 Brichanteau to negotiate with the warder. 
 She had insisted on Didier being given the 
 choice if but one could be passed out, but the 
 cousin of Saverny, having no affection for the 
 stranger, had reversed the scheme and imposed 
 on the intermediary the proviso which he reit- 
 erated to the marquis. 
 
 The latter, like one drowning, reviewed his 
 life. Impressed salutarily and profoundly dur- 
 ing their journey and in their previous prison- 
 
478 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 stay by his companion's excellence, valor, lofti- 
 ness, constancy, purity of morals and uncon- 
 cealable fitness for a great future, he resumed, 
 drawing the man under cover of a coping-stone: 
 "Hearken! The one to save is that one!" 
 
 "The glum gentleman !" said the turnkey, re- 
 peating the nickname under which the escort 
 had presented Didier to the garrison ; "you are 
 jesting!" 
 
 "I have done jesting. He is your file-leader 
 if we break out." 
 
 "What funny ideas you have, my lord ! Your 
 uncle, vice your cousin, since such is this Ban- 
 neret of Brichanteau, does this — risking more 
 than I do, which is but my post and my back, 
 while he and they risk estate and head! He 
 does this for his nephew, mark! not a stranger!" 
 
 "If that is the settled matter, go, get the 
 two coffins ready!" and Saverny firmly spun 
 round on his heel and went over to Didier, 
 around whose bent neck he affectionately 
 passed his arm. 
 
 The jailer hesitated, shook his head, seemed 
 to reflect on another solution to the problem, 
 smiled as if slightly hoping one, and abruptly 
 went out, visibly astonished at such nobility on 
 the frivolous courtier's part. 
 
 Saverny laughed at this complimentary won- 
 der, but his laugh for once was grating. 
 
 "Arouse thee, brother," said he; "yet I know 
 not why I should arouse thee from a brown 
 study to a black look-out! To be only twenty 
 and, in September, not to see October! It is 
 discomforting!" 
 
 Didier stood up. From his doublet he drew 
 the miniature of Marion which Saverny gave 
 him, and contemplated it with intensity and 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 479 
 
 concentration making him oblivious to the mar 
 quis' presence. 
 
 The portrait was exquisitely executed, a 
 jewel, without regard to the likeness, which 
 was close. The artist had caught the expres- 
 sion of eternally young beauty iu those like 
 Marion amalgamating the blonde and the bru- 
 nette types, adding 1 lit- gloss which ultra re- 
 finement gives an impressionable woman. The 
 loveliness and incomparable grace appeared 
 above one human being's portion; the forehead 
 might have been copied from a martyr's; out 
 of the open, angelic-frank eyes shone candor, 
 and modesty tempered the lustre. The lips 
 were as a child's, and innocence still lingered, 
 struggling prettily with caprice. 
 
 The Court Beauty loved the obscure gentle- 
 man; but being the Court Beauty, his triumph 
 was emptiness. The fruit was of the Dead 
 Sea species. 
 
 He dropped the portrait as though the case 
 scorched him. 
 
 How slow was this doom in coming to break 
 the bonds binding him to her? Often before had 
 he wished that his nurse — mother he was not 
 to recall! had dashed him down and crushed 
 his head on the stones! What evil had his 
 nascent spirit wrought that ever he was born? 
 He would have forgiven his mother if she had 
 stifled him! 
 
 Saverny watched his brow corrugating, with 
 bewilderment that men could suffer such deep 
 ♦•motions and survive. 
 
 "Look, friend," interrupted he, "see how low 
 the swallows skim! We'll have rain to-night! 
 good to cover an escape!" 
 
 Didier did not hear a word. 
 
 "How fickle, foolish, inscrutable a thing is 
 
480 BED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 woman!" mused he. "Deep and stormy as old 
 Ocean! Alas! that ever on that expanse I 
 ventured my sail! Marion was the star by 
 which I guided my bark, my only guide, and 
 lo! I have wrecked myself on the sterile shore, 
 where the wrecks abound that followed that 
 same decoy-light! Yes, I am a-thinking, that 
 I was born good at heart! The future shone 
 out so fair and serene that I might accept it 
 as a celestial beacon. Unhappy woman! would 
 that you had not dared to deceive me so thor- 
 oughly when I confided my soul utterly to 
 yours!" 
 
 "You are dwelling upon 'Marie,'" said Sa- 
 verny softly. "You try but cannot succeed in 
 anchoring on that quicksand!" 
 
 He picked up the portrait, without looking 
 at it, so absorbed was he in admiration of Free- 
 dom, peeping a-tiptoe over the rampart, and 
 handed it to his companion. 
 
 "But can I fling you among degraded 
 things?" said Didier, his eyes fastening them- 
 selves on the miniature, to the exclusion of all 
 else, "although you have deluded me! Demon, 
 how came you by those cerulean wings?" 
 
 "I am not partial to guessing riddles," said 
 Saverny, "excepting one, to- wit: how to get 
 astride that wall, with or without cerulean 
 wings! If we had a mattress, somewhat thick- 
 er than ours, to lay upon those spikes — " 
 
 Didier started as if only now aware he had 
 a bystander; he thrust the miniature, without 
 looking at it, within his breast. He went over 
 to the marquis, who was staring at a part of 
 the wall where the house-leek had a hold. 
 
 "Singular prodigy," said he; "you know that 
 miniature you gave me? Well, it is alive!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 481 
 
 "Yea, it is allowed to be a living likeness, 
 ha, ha!" 
 
 '•1 tell you it is alive!" persisted Didier, with 
 something like maniacal irritation at any 
 check; "while you were sleeping, in the dark 
 and silence, it gnawed at my heart!" 
 
 "Poor fellow! I have heard of victims hav- 
 ing an attack of Marion-cry to that degree, but 
 it nips you keenly!" 
 
 "From that case emanated the image — it 
 filled the cell, and sought to exclude another 
 and a sweeter one — " 
 
 "Another love? zounds, my Cato!" 
 
 "My mother, I think," softly said Didier. 
 
 "Your mother," echoed Saverny, with no 
 lightness now. "I have heard of such admoni- 
 tions to foundlings! Listen, friend, you will 
 see your parents before you die! It is certain 
 after heaven so warns." 
 
 A rattle of keys at a door disturbed them, 
 as Didier leaned on his friend's arm. 
 
 "Malice of Evil!"" cried Saverny, "are we 
 never to enjoy any privacy — in a prison, too! 
 What have we now?" 
 
 Another jailer than the bribed one appeared 
 at the door in the wall, and without entering 
 the enclosure, said: 
 
 "Previous to the Lord Cardinal's visit, gen- 
 tlemen, a royal commissioner is expected to 
 pay you one." 
 
 "Honor upon honor!" sarcastically returned 
 the noble. "What is he commissioned to bring 
 us? Supper, with the latest comestibles from 
 Paris? A turkey stuffed with Vincennes 
 mushrooms, or wine of the Borgias' vintage, 
 fresh from Rome — if Kueil has it not already 
 in its cellars!" 
 
 "Please you, merry gentlemen,! forecast that 
 
482 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 he will read the sentence at length as the tid- 
 bit!" smilingly rejoined the warder, for all ap- 
 peared of good cheer to Saverny, whether from 
 native affability, his contagious good humor or 
 bribery. 
 
 "A royal commissioner! Are we to be 
 branded, too, with the lily-flower?" cried Sa- 
 verny, but the door banged and the key grated 
 as it was relocked. 
 
 The two relapsed into moodiness, growing in 
 degree alike. Didier's supreme melancholy 
 extracted the other's undue gaiety without his 
 being ameliorated. 
 
 "Friend," said Saverny at last, giving way to 
 a feeling not often known to him, but which 
 had begun on finding that his uncle's affection 
 and cousin's attachment were not of the fad- 
 ing kind, "preach to me, since you will not 
 sing love-songs! It will sadden me but it may 
 console!" 
 
 Not a word did he say of the boon rejected 
 because it could not be transferred or shared. 
 
 "What are you asking me?" inquired Didier, 
 remaining in stupor since his endeared one's 
 name had been pronounced. His spirits were 
 weakened by captivity, and forgetfulness was 
 stealing over him, so that he remembered little 
 and knew less. 
 
 "Speak to me of death," continued the mar- 
 quis, taking him by the arm, and remarking 
 that the word strangely brought color to the 
 pale cheek. "You have studied — what is it, 
 after all?" 
 
 "Evervthing after all! Did vou sleep well 
 last night?" 
 
 "Not up to my usual mark. The fatigue of 
 the journey, the change of bed, not for the bet- 
 ter! my couch seemed stuffed with shuttle- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 483 
 
 cocks! If I had ever had the time to do any- 
 thing reprehensible, 1 should way that my con- 
 science had stepped outside of me and thrashed 
 me with nettles!" 
 
 "Well, when you are dead, friend, your bed 
 will be still harder, but, on our faith! you will 
 sleep soundly! That is all!" 
 
 "But the Infernal Regions?" went on the mor- 
 alist's pupil, shuddering like a child urging an 
 elder to tell ghost stories which it shrank from. 
 
 "The Inferno! It is nothing beside w T hat 
 some lives pass through here!" answered the 
 other with a terrible smile. "Have ambition 
 and fall in love, and in both courses be baf- 
 fled! ah!" 
 
 "You speak with a confidence that banishes 
 my dread, but I still cannot say that I relish 
 the idea of being hanged. It gives me a stiff 
 neck to think of that!" and the speaker moved 
 his hand up and down his nape furtively as 
 when one suddenly expects a crick to demon- 
 strate itself. 
 
 "It is still death, so do not look on it too 
 narrowly!" 
 
 "You may take it easily, but be dashed to it! 
 if I do. I am not bragging when I say I fear 
 mere dying very little, but death is just death 
 and I do not like it served up in a chain of 
 hemp sausages!" 
 
 The shadow thickened around the young 
 preacher and the young novice. 
 
 "Death," proceeded the former, "wears a 
 thousand aspects. The gibbet is one. With- 
 out a doubt (here is a disagreeable shock when 
 the kuot extinguishes our vital spark as the 
 snufling fingers put out the candle light — a 
 pressure on the gorge, and out goes the flam- 
 ing soul! Whither? To be lost, or to unite 
 
484 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 with another mass of fiery essence? But what 
 does it matter after all? Provided that on 
 the earth was nothing but blackness, what con- 
 cerns us that we lie beneath a mossy stone 
 which praises our virtues while crushing us, or 
 whether we dangle in an iron cage, high in 
 lonely air, while the ravens tear gobbets of our 
 dwindling flesh? what odds!" 
 
 Saverny shuddered, but he tried to say with 
 admiration: 
 
 "Youthful as you are, the Cynic of Sinope 
 never thumped his tub to a finer dissertation! 
 As for Socrates, his hemlock draft were a 
 sweet posset to this!" 
 
 "Let the body look to itself," went on the 
 other, warming with his theme and at having 
 as an auditor the representative of the class 
 most opposed to him in fate and tastes, "wheth- 
 er the vulture's beak rips off my outer case 
 or the worm devour it, as it would a king's — 
 that need not trouble the spirit within it. 
 Look you ! it is my belief that though it takes 
 a dozen strong shoulders to adjust the grave- 
 stone over the body as its final coverlet, one 
 touch of the ghostlv finger will lift it off to 
 let it take its flight—" 
 
 "To heaven, brother?" asked Saverny. 
 
 "To heaven," answered Didier. "And it will 
 be heaven, for it is furthermore said that there 
 we shall be as the angels — neither wedding 
 nor parting as happens to mortals." 
 
 He sank into abstraction from which Sa- 
 verny, also grave, did not stir him, up the time 
 of their being taken back to the cell. The 
 jailers on the way seemed a little surprised to 
 see them. It was clear that they doubted that 
 even Rueil would long hold the heir to Nangis 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 485 
 
 and thi.s stranger, who stalked like a prince 
 
 in plain clothes. 
 
 The friendly jailer slaved with them, osten- 
 sibly to arrange their accommodation for the 
 night. 
 
 "Any news?'' asked the marquis. 
 
 "The offer still stands," returned the man, 
 evasively. 
 
 "If he cannot go?" 
 
 The man shook his forelock and then pulled 
 at it. 
 
 "Hem! there might be opening enough for 
 two, but — in fact, the Lieutenant-Criminal is 
 here, in person," he pursued in a most cautious 
 voice, looking round as if the walls were trans- 
 parent. "And it is plain to us officers that he 
 has a special animosity against your compan- 
 ion." 
 
 "Laffemas, is it? And he hates Didier more 
 than me? Humph!" 
 
 "They say that he is vexed because of a ru- 
 mor spread none know from what quarter, but 
 probably from the inn, where all fables origi- 
 nate, that, by reason of your rank and this gen- 
 tleman's undoubted gentility, a boon will be 
 accorded by my Lord Cardinal — " 
 
 "The Red Eminence and a boon to the con- 
 demned, in harness! What an odd team! what 
 means this?" 
 
 "Oh, they say that, while a pardon is im- 
 possible, the penalty is to be softened — " 
 
 "Use a silver axe on a block of green cheese, 
 perhaps!" railed Saverny. 
 
 "The penalty will be' softened into that of 
 head-cutting oil!" 
 
 "St. John the Decollated who is patron over 
 what is holy here, be thanked!" exclaimed the 
 noble. "You will behold a miracle; I shall 
 
486 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 die, blessing the name of Armand Duplessis, 
 Duke of Richelieu!" 
 
 Didier had not heard. 
 
 "On second thoughts, I suppose," said the 
 man, garrulous at meeting with so lively a 
 ward, "his Eminence has thought that while 
 a decapitation will regale him, sick as he is, 
 a hanging is a low and vulgar sight — puh!" 
 
 "The lowness depends on the height of the 
 gibbet," said the young man in good spirits. 
 
 "Faith! You can estimate the height, for it 
 will be peeping over the shoulder of the bastion 
 to—" 
 
 "Wish us good night?" 
 
 Hammering and sawing interrupted him. 
 
 "Is that IT?" he called : "Didier, they are at 
 work at our throne!" 
 
 "Guardroom talk has it that the change is 
 owing to a lady, who pleaded, with your cause 
 in hand, to the King!" 
 
 "A lady! then I am not to thank my unc — 
 that is, a lady! My coronet on it, Didier, this 
 is our good Marion!" 
 
 "Then, you will not try, alone, to escape the 
 axe, either?" said the warder, evidently bent 
 on gaining his recompense. 
 
 "For the last time, an' vou cannot make the 
 
 « 
 
 hole large enough for two, none go!" and the 
 marquis gently pushed him toward the door. 
 
 Oscillating between greed and terror, the 
 traitor stopped this side of the sill and almost 
 in the noble's ear breathed these words: 
 
 "My lord, a secret! If I dare not conduct 
 more than one of you by my way — you two 
 may make a break for it by another way. if 
 you dare — ■" 
 
 "We were put here for over-daring," replied 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 181 
 
 Saverny. "We will dare more to show this 
 prison a wide space!" 
 
 The man reached out his bundle of keys and 
 grazed the greasy wall. "By bearing your 
 united weigh! on that inserted ring, thai rock- 
 will shift from iis place. The others within 
 may become detached and you could enter our 
 chapel there by a bay. The workmen are 
 building it up as a receptacle for a new shrine 
 in honor of his Eminence's recovery here from 
 a seizure of the gout, last June. Plenty of 
 mason's tools, therefore — it will look fore- 
 stalled for a breaking-out! planks, a ladder or 
 two, ropes! God helping, you may issue from 
 the west windows and lower yourselves to the 
 street. As the Cardinal enters at the other end 
 and draws all the rabble to him, you may walk 
 out without a challenge!" 
 
 As the man took breath after this long 
 speech, but of which Saverny found no word 
 superfluous, he could have embraced him for 
 
 j<»y. 
 
 "Neither halter nor hatchet!" said he. "I 
 will leave my purse for you at the inn; its 
 host is an ancient retainer of Nangis. Come 
 you any hour to Nangis Castle, and you will 
 find platter heaped, beaker foaming, and a 
 softer bed than you furnished us! Worth v fel- 
 low, may you be deputy to St. Peter anon!" 
 
 "I am in no hurry for my promotion!" said 
 the man, beaming with smiles as he w T ent out. 
 
 They saw that, by the lamp which he had 
 lighted. 
 
 "They have lit the candle to enable us to 
 write our wills," said the marquis jocularly, 
 and taking up the earthen-ware lamp he held 
 it so as to cast a ray where the faithless turn- 
 key had scratched the stone block with his keys. 
 
488 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE: 
 
 When he set it down on the table, Didier, 
 unconscious of the plot, took up his sermon 
 where it was broken off in the exercise-ground, 
 and said: 
 
 "I was saving that, of a suretv, after the 
 death, albeit the limbs are fractured, the veins 
 tapped, the body sullied by impure rivulets of 
 blood, out of this mangled, bruised, and en- 
 sanguined pulp — lo! the immortal soul will as- 
 cend, stainless and without a wound!" 
 
 "Amen!" ferventlv said Savernv, "but I — " 
 Here the vesper bell tinkled, and he knelt down 
 beside his companion, joining in his prayer. 
 
 While still kneeling, their faces close, he 
 whispered: 
 
 "There is a flaw in the trap! a movable stone! 
 Noel! we shall leave an empty nest for the 
 Cardinal to stare at! it will give him a final 
 stroke! and may he fall on that reptile Laffe- 
 mas and crush his life out!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 189 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 T1IE SUCCESSOR TO TIIE HELMSMAN. 
 
 The Palais-Cardinal, or Richelieu Mansion, 
 in St. Honore Street, was sufficiently finished 
 for the Prime Minister's residence and carry- 
 in*; on of official business. 
 
 The Arabs are right who say that, before 
 the master enters his new house, Death pre- 
 cedes him: he went in far from a hale man. 
 
 While all was tribulation around Didier and 
 his companion, constantly under the shadow of 
 ignominious doom, the Ruler of France seemed 
 to be passing away placidly, in his cabinet. 
 
 The room was sumptuous, as all the decora- 
 tions were new. 
 
 This untarnished splendor accentuated the 
 contrast w T ith the declining host. 
 
 Deep in green velvet cushions, heaped on a 
 vast easy chair, Richelieu's pale face loomed 
 up from the soft depths like a mariner's, part- 
 smothered in seaweed. 
 
 His eyes were closed, in coma baffling the 
 stimulants of the best physicians, and the only 
 signs of life were in the attenuated hands car- 
 essing a kitten on each knee, mechanically 
 done, while two others frisked, in a subdued 
 manner (instinct telling them it was a dying 
 master) upon his sharp shoulders under the 
 violet cape. It was a season when the Cardi- 
 nals changed their red to iliis shade, and not 
 because ho had promised Laffemas he should 
 attend the execution of Didier and Ids fellow- 
 duellist. 
 
490 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 Behind him looked down a set of marble 
 busts, the Roman Emperors, a present from 
 Cardinal Bentivoglio, from niches in a magnifi- 
 cent oak bookcase; but its contents were more 
 valuable: the library at which Malargue had 
 mocked; the binding was of fawn-color and 
 creamy vellum. Most of the books were 
 stamped with emblems of Francis I. and him 
 of Anjou, several Henries, and musty tall fo- 
 lios, scenting of noxious drugs, belonging to 
 the sport-loving Charles IX. A few, rarer 
 still, came from Charles V.'s collection. Pre- 
 cious stones mounted to guard the corners 
 beamed softly, they were uncut; gilding in all 
 stages of brightness glittered on the edges, 
 backs and exposed sides; arabesques, miracles 
 of "tooling," presented puzzles to the ingen- 
 ious. 
 
 Publications of the time, presentations from 
 grateful monasteries and convents, or bribes 
 to avert persecution, glowed and sparkled with 
 newness like the room ornamentation. 
 
 Between lofty windows, glazed with large 
 blown-glass panes, two long tables, with their 
 angles rounded and bound with polished brass 
 to prevent accidents where the master was apt 
 to lose his footing through dizziness, were 
 heaped with writing materials and registers; 
 more of the latter were piled against the legs 
 on Turkish rugs on the waxed floor. An enor- 
 mous fire of sweet-scented wood blazed in a 
 capacious mantel-place, of Faenza and blue- 
 veined marble, representing a combat of Cen- 
 taurs and Mermen. The Richelieu arms, enam- 
 elled on bronze, showed in the rosette in the 
 centre. This warmth was for the invalid, 
 since the autumn was not cold. 
 
 Upwards of ten or twelve secretaries toasted 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 491 
 
 back or shin, as the case might be, seated 
 around these tables, their quills squeaking and 
 the linen paper crackling in the heat under 
 their nimble hands. They were copying de- 
 spatches, transcribing scarcely decipherable re- 
 ports by useful but illiterate news-gatherers, 
 and recording important articles, marked in 
 the original with red lead, in the huge regis- 
 ters. 
 
 Between them and the ruler, another table 
 rose, smaller, fitted with drawers having locks, 
 where live or six superior writers worked at 
 making cipher messages and transcribing them 
 intelligibly, or carefully framing letters to be 
 commended for elegance at foreign courts. 
 
 Still another table, supplied with a cush- 
 ioned stool and an elevating top which enabled 
 the writer at it to stand or to sit as he pre- 
 ferred, stood a little aloof; instead of diplo- 
 matic documents, map or plan, it showed a 
 miniature stage with appliances complete, to- 
 gether with tiny puppets which rolled to and 
 fro in grooves on balls; it was partly obscured 
 by piles of the handbooks sold at theatre-doors 
 at the period, manuscripts, and particularly a 
 collection of sheets, dreadfully scribbled over 
 with corrections, marginal suggestions, and 
 sketches of costume; this one had every page 
 headed, as though the author felt pride in the 
 word: "MIRAME (Tragedy)." 
 
 The secretaries smiled at their master find- 
 ing solace in play-writing, but none of them 
 were ever to know what Father Joseph alone 
 was in the secret of: "Mirame" was the ana- 
 gram of Bamire, and the great Cardinal's first 
 love was its heroine. Alas! one may love in 
 later years, but the love of fortv is far fi\ 
 that of twenty year! 
 
492 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 In the south corner, where a port-hole-like 
 window gave a peep of the old part of the 
 Louvre, buildings between having been demol- 
 ished, upon cushioned seats, sat kittens of all 
 colors and variety of fur, but the Persian pre- 
 dominated; one cat from southern England was 
 noticeable for having no tail; these feline curi- 
 osities were presents to the great Minister, 
 whose favorites were cats. He liked them for 
 their independence and asserted, none ever 
 knew whether in belief or to hoax the credu- 
 lous, that their superabundant electricity ben- 
 efited the person stroking them. If true, he 
 was a forerunner of "the Stroker" of a subse- 
 quent date. 
 
 Others of the pets slept in padded baskets; 
 some were beribboned, some wore collars and 
 chafed at them, inscribed with a clue to the 
 donors; others sat around a china saucer of 
 sop and drew out portions to eat, while growl- 
 ing. 
 
 A pretty page, with rosy cheeks, golden hair 
 down on his shoulders, and in a fantastic suit 
 trimmed with miniver, kept the entire menag- 
 erie in order with commands in a musical 
 voice and a whip, more ornamental than ter- 
 rible. 
 
 So young and hale, he seemed to be a pleas- 
 ant Memento Mori for the sufferer. 
 
 Without straw being down in the ill-paved 
 street, the word was passed to drive slow: all 
 vehicles passed as if going to a funeral. All 
 noise that did escape the wheels failed to pene- 
 trate the tapestry, from Utrecht and the fac- 
 tory just set up in the Louvre. 
 
 Four or five years back, the Minister had 
 been stricken with fever, which left a deposit 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 493 
 
 in the veins, said the doctors, fostering the 
 settlement of gout. 
 
 Gradually, he had lost through its inroads 
 the cavalier elasticity which had astonished 
 veterans at La Rochelle Siege. He had also 
 lost most of his early friends and comrades, 
 and like the prematurely aged, regarded these 
 removals as so many indications that his join- 
 ing-time would not long be deferred. 
 
 Yet there was so much to do which he had 
 planned! 
 
 The thinness and greyness of his locks made 
 him look older; a reminder of the lovelock was 
 in the scanty twists at side of the high fore- 
 head, reflected in his portrait, representing full 
 and side faces, hanging at the back of his 
 chair, by Philippe; around it w 7 ere Italian land- 
 scapes and religious scenes, from ecclesiasti- 
 cal friends. 
 
 One landscape, a botch compared with them, 
 cherished none knew why, except that it was of 
 his bourg Richelieu, to him recalled the woods 
 where he had roamed with Joseph and with 
 Ramire; it hung over the way, where his eyes, 
 upward stealing, could perceive it and, as his 
 sight failed, enrich the colors and define the 
 outlines by memory's enhancing brush. 
 
 On a trophy of arms of the times of Pa via 
 and Ivry, a sword of the latter date was slung 
 as if carelessly ; it had belonged to his father 
 the Captain Duplessis; it was treasured as a 
 talisman, and on the baldric was inscribed in 
 Latin the legend which Voltaire translated as: 
 "The First King was a successful Soldier." 
 
 Richelieu's high brows were pointedly arched 
 over cavities where at rare intervals that eagle 
 glance shot forth before which the boldest 
 quailed, as on "the Day of Dupes." 
 
'494: RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 His prominent nose stood out the more sal- 
 ient as sickness had sharpened it while sinking 
 and creasing the cheeks. His face was length- 
 ened by the chin-tuft to which he adhered, 
 spite of ridicule, and his mustache was too 
 thin to widen it. 
 
 In sum, in this decrepit, ailing patient, little 
 revived memory of the youth who had quitted 
 fame to push through the woodland to offer 
 his hand to the Hermit's grandchild. 
 
 He was not so old that he should feel that 
 recurrence of boyhood's dreams which rejoice 
 while saddening the aged, but often of late he 
 thought of youthful hours, as distraction from 
 the ceaseless conflict with the Court, the 
 Queens, the King's brother, the King, from be- 
 ing so difficult to fix and hold, the nobles who 
 hated him, the officials who feared him, the 
 classes which misunderstood him, and the 
 masses who followed the cue of their superiors 
 in receiving him. 
 
 There, too, was the financial hydra to wrestle 
 with, coped with ever since he had undertaken 
 the great wars of the era, costly because militia 
 were not and mercenaries had to be hired 
 when the people could not be trusted with 
 arms. 
 
 These and his ailment, never relaxing in its 
 assaults, had worn even a Richelieu to the 
 bone. 
 
 Incessantly he was haunted by the regret 
 that he had no heir, particularly political, for 
 Father Joseph, admirable as a helper, seemed 
 to have no liking to lead; as for Laffemas, he 
 showed no capacity but for bloodshed and ra- 
 pine, controlled by a caution which unfitted 
 him as a free-lance captain but adapted him 
 for the law. Without a lieutenant, Richelieu 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 495 
 
 sighed on his sick bed like an Alexander who 
 saw the realm lie had wearily bound together, 
 scattered among strangers and enemies. He 
 fancied that around him circled human jackals, 
 the parasites and sycophants of the Royal Fam- 
 ily, their confessors, confidants, favorites and 
 duennas, prowling and casting sidelong glances 
 on the rich quarry on which perched the sick 
 eagle, soon to release his grip upon it. 
 
 Recurring to the earliest days, Ramire's im- 
 age held the foremost place; he strove in vain 
 to perceive her reflected in Laffemas; all was a 
 void where affection should rest; Europe ridi- 
 culed the great ruler who consoled himself 
 with — kittens! 
 
 "Tiger, he should play with cubs!" had said 
 a satirist. 
 
 "This is the twilight," he admitted, in- 
 wardly; "it may not be long before night closes 
 in! Poor King! Poor France! 'There is none 
 to guide her among all her sons that she has 
 brought forth!' Poor Brother Joseph!" 
 
 lie considered the Capnchin the head of his 
 auxiliaries. With all his acumen, his gener- 
 ally accurate summing-up of his employees' 
 constituents, he had not truly gauged Le-Clerc 
 du Tremblay's ambition; he saw but the satrap 
 who did not covet the sultan's diadem. 
 
 All at once, Richelieu started and it would 
 seem that the vague thrill pervaded the en- 
 tire apartment as the least electrical distur- 
 bance affects the contents of the Leyden jar. 
 The scribes wrote more hurriedly and the 
 registrars buried themselves more deeply in 
 their volumes. An attendant, replenishing the 
 fire with billets, stirred it with a steel bar, 
 and a clerk, who happened to be in the line 
 
wing 
 
 496 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 of the Minister and the flames, stepped aside 
 as though flung from a catapult. 
 
 "Death is nigh!" said every one to himself; 
 "he has felt the icy current from its heavy 
 
 They esteemed their superior; these chosen 
 ones were not the sort who worked for bare 
 wages or for terror; their admiration for the 
 genius was fanatical and their devotion that 
 of disciples for a saint. They had insight into 
 his policy and they worshiped the sun which 
 dazzled them — while warming and fructifying 
 France; his word, in an age when mendacity 
 was applauded, was to be relied on. 
 
 But his shivering was mental; he murmured: 
 
 "A son! An heir! Oh, that I had that con- 
 solation — that staff in the supreme hour when 
 one reels and gropes!" 
 
 His eyes opened! feeling them upon them, the 
 scribes bowed the head. 
 
 This glance warmed them with fresh hope; 
 how many times recently had they seen him 
 resuscitated! At periods when the Court in- 
 decently rejoiced over the imminent removal 
 of its incubus, these had seen those bloodless 
 lips part to dictate sentences disrupting coun- 
 tries, bidding a Wallenstein change his march 
 or a Tilly spare a city; tenants of thrones were 
 shifted; a son of Henry the Great would be 
 sent into exile, or a mean fugitive recalled to 
 fill a seat at the Royal Council; the plebeian 
 Marion Delorme would be maintained in her 
 little region at Paris while the aristocratic 
 beauty, friend of the young Queen, the Duchess 
 of Chevreuse, would flee in a humble disguise, 
 foiled in every intensely subtile intrigue. 
 
 For half an hour, without faltering — on the 
 contrary, seeming to gain force by renewing 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 197 
 
 his favorite occupation, the Premier proceeded 
 with his correspondence, receiving messengers 
 and despatching them, dilating on several sub- 
 jects al the same time, like Caesar, showing 
 incredible lucidity and the well-known tenacity 
 in grasping details. 
 
 Then he abruptly fell back, but he finished 
 clear to the last letter and appended the period 
 to his signature like a conscientious writing- 
 master. 
 
 "Ange! Father Auge!" he called faintly. 
 
 Out of a side-door slipped a page under the 
 hangings, immediately to return with a priest. 
 the second father-confessor, as Carre was the 
 first, with Joseph over all. 
 
 Ange had taken a misnomer; he was inele- 
 gant, short, thick; his physiognomy betrayed a 
 traitor, gleaner, self-lover — nevertheless, Rich- 
 elieu had never been betrayed by him, never 
 lost a secret through his chubby fingers, never 
 found his selfishness injure him. Such is the 
 power of genius that even evil spirits obey 
 them; that is what they are on earth for; the 
 good shun them. 
 
 "Your uncle," said Richelieu abruptly, "was 
 in the late King Henry's household. He used 
 to sav that the King had a foreboding of his 
 death?" 
 
 Ange had often told the tale, since it did 
 not commit him ; he rubbed his thick but long 
 nose, betokening wariness and acuteness, at a 
 loss what reply to make, now. 
 
 ''Your Eminence," said he, "there are inner 
 voices which we cannot stifle. Perhaps. John 
 the Baptist heard such while in the desert, 
 yet they were not on the desert." Richelieu 
 said nothing, so he talked on. trusting to pleas- 
 but regretting that he had no peg ottered to 
 
498 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 hang his address upon. "The lamented 
 King — " with a grimace ill-concealed for, in 
 his eves, Henry was a heretic, "on the fatal 
 morning rose, saying he felt a pain as though 
 stabbed to the vitals. He even asked his valet 
 — that Jean Laiiemas, whose son is in your 
 Eminence's service, our new Lieutenant of In- 
 ternal Police, to- wit — the King said to him that 
 the poniard-hilt's impression ought to be vis- 
 ible on his side. This is what made him rest- 
 less and caused the order for the coach to be 
 brought round to the Louvre gates for him to 
 change his palace." 
 
 "Give me the potion," said the Cardinal, 
 without commenting. 
 
 On a tripod-table, capped with a mosaic of 
 the Vatican artificers' choicest work, stood a 
 crystal flagon and a filagree cup, silver around 
 "unicorn" horn; the preparation which the 
 priest poured out was flavored with Naffe, oth- 
 erwise, orange-flowers, an odor showing that 
 it was compounded by the royal physician 
 whose weakness was in this direction. On 
 hearing the master slowly sip, the kittens 
 thrust their heads to partake with him, and he 
 did not impatiently push their whiskers away, 
 although his skin was abnormally sensitive. 
 
 "Did my lord feel any such pang?" anxiously 
 inquired the confessor. 
 
 "No! calm yourself. But I have had an odd 
 dream, in the incalculably brief interval be- 
 tween dictating two letters. It seemed to me 
 that from the Papal tiara fell one of its pre 
 cious stones — " 
 
 "111 omen!" exclaimed the priest, crossing 
 himself and adding the sign against the evil 
 eye, which denoted he had an education in 
 Rome. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 499 
 
 "This gem blazed like a meteor, with the 
 reddish-angry hue of Mars, and, traversing the 
 heavens so as to pass into France, narrowly 
 missed striking me, but my broad-brimmed ; 
 rebuffed it and il felled somebody close to me, 
 who, muffled in the crepuscular grey of night, 
 which the star blaze deepened, could not be 
 distinguished before I woke." 
 
 "My lord," said Ange, coolly, "you are simply 
 fretting during arrival of tidings from the Eter- 
 nal City. But Father Carre has but just 
 started with inquiries, we know, and he will 
 arrive before the informal assemblage of the 
 dignitaries who will make up the Conclave and 
 pre-arrange its decision — " 
 
 At the door came a tapping such as etiquette 
 prescribes for royal nerves, and which the 
 Minister's failing health substituted for knock- 
 ing. 
 
 "Father Carre!" proclaimed an usher in 
 guarded tones, but in the silence they were ade- 
 quate. 
 
 On overhearing that their strong-minded 
 master had visions, like an ecstatic nun, all the 
 clerks were listening. This return of the 
 freshly sent courier was ominous of a bar to 
 the wheels of some important piece of diplo- 
 matic machinery. 
 
 "Carre, so soon? What mishap? Never was 
 he set back on my errand!" muttered Richelieu, 
 resting his arms on the chair so as to lean for- 
 ward. 
 
 Father Carre entered rapidly, with a stride 
 unlike the priest's slippered step He was clad 
 as a rider, and his boots were filled to the 
 wrinkles with dust and blood from the spur- 
 wounds. 
 
500 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 He went straight up to the Minister and 
 whispered for his ear alone: 
 
 "Your Eminence will please overlook niy re- 
 tracing steps! I met counter-orders for, on the 
 road, was the Pope's deputy! he will present 
 the person whom you expected to see come 
 from Rome!" 
 
 "My successor to be named," thought the 
 Minister, sighing; "I fear me it will not be a 
 Frenchman! Misery to my country! A young 
 prince, a fickle Queen, a confirmed intriguer, 
 and — no statesmen! A foreigner over all!" 
 
 Not a trace of his repining showed on his 
 face. But he frowned a little; it was the first 
 time, perhaps, when another power, even that 
 to which he was but a sacerdotal subordinate, 
 had blown back in his teeth so much as a 
 feather he had launched on the breeze. 
 
 "A Pontifical agent, coming to Paris, in what 
 end?" 
 
 "Please your Eminence, he is travelling to 
 Belgium to receive the lace made at the con- 
 vents for the wedding garments of a niece of 
 Aldobrandini." 
 
 "To Brussels, whither Prince Gaston has 
 fled! that Demon of Rebellion?" 
 
 "The legate is certainly travelling to Brus- 
 sels," repeated Carre, toying with his whip, 
 "for I have acquaintances along the road. I 
 heard before I met him that the relays had 
 been prepared for his passage North." 
 
 "Who is this envoy to Brussels?" 
 
 "His name is Mazarini — one Signor Giulio — " 
 
 Richelieu's countenance, despite himself, was 
 irradiated with intelligence. A good player in 
 that great game of chess called Diplomacy, he 
 remembered the least of the pawns, still more 
 the pieces which now and then came forward 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 501 
 
 and displayed their possible power. He re- 
 called an agent of the Nuncio who had pui 
 an end to the Siege of Casale, in the teeth of 
 two great armies, whose clashing he stayed. 
 It was the outset of the good fortune which 
 ended in Mazarin, as he Frenchified his name, 
 occupying that chair which Richelieu was 
 about to vacate. 
 
 "The lackey of Cardinal Bentivoglio, our cor- 
 respondent, his secretary after, his protege! 
 an upstart," said Richelieu, too aristocratic to 
 forgive this intruder, whatever his ability. 
 "Well, this Signor Mazarini is coming here — " 
 
 "He is here! Though his orders direct ex- 
 treme haste, for the marriage is fixed, and the 
 roads in winter will be heavy, he did not need 
 my suggestion that he should grasp the op- 
 portunity to pay his homage to your Eminence. 
 Meeting me, recognising me, I know not how," 
 continued the priest, glancing at his horse- 
 man's attire, "he begged me to return and in- 
 troduce him." 
 
 Richelieu was a thorough ecclesiastic, thanks 
 to Tutor Joseph; as politician, he understood 
 how little the priest's suggestoin would have 
 moved a Papal representative. In a moment 
 he had taken his course. 
 
 "This legate to neutral parts," thought he, 
 "comes to announce to me whom the Vatican 
 wishes to see in my stead. Besides, he wants 
 a hint how to deal with this brood of conspir- 
 ators at Brussels. We will be mutually grate- 
 ful — he for what arms 1 furnish him, I for a 
 glimpse at my successor! Oh, that Laffemas 
 had been — " 
 
 Carre was exchanging a glance, meaning 
 much in the sign-language, with his brother 
 priest. 
 
502 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "But your own errand?" demanded Richelieu 
 of Carre. 
 
 "In the envoy's retinue was the person to 
 whom I was to deliver the message at Rome. 
 He had the advice already in answer, which 
 M. Sublet des Noyers, there, is putting into 
 French out of the cipher." 
 
 He had met his master's gaze tranquilly. 
 
 The latter nodded with satisfaction. 
 
 Thus emboldened Carre concluded: 
 
 "This messenger went on to Father Joseph, 
 who is at his monastery — " 
 
 "I know." 
 
 The Minister left the occult plotters in his 
 friend's hands, assured his interests were safe. 
 Again he nodded and this time spoke: 
 
 "Take this other letter with it. To him!" 
 
 Carre fidgeted a moment while the secretary 
 finished the translation, took it and hurried 
 out, as if happy at not receiving a castigation 
 or being further delayed. 
 
 On his way out he passed the extraordinary 
 envoy of the Vatican, without either appear- 
 ing to notice the other within the Palais Car- 
 dinal. Stranger still, Carre did not appear to 
 look for the letter-bearer from whom he re- 
 ceived the cipher-despatch, but who had prob- 
 ably gone on to Father Joseph's residence at 
 his convent in St. Honore Street. 
 
 The young Italian representing the Holy See, 
 in little resembled a churchman but this was 
 nothing in a day when religion was a cloak for 
 diplomats and swordsmen at need. It was 
 understood at home that Mazarini had left him- 
 self a loophole or two in the vows. In the 
 same manner as Father Carre equipped him- 
 self to avoid trouble on the highway, Signor 
 Giulio had donned the semi-military costume 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 503 
 
 authorising weapon-bearing. His suit was 
 blue and white, not conspicuous under the vol- 
 uminous horseman's cloak, which he had Hung 
 on the saddle-pommel when he dismounted to 
 follow his introductor indoors. 
 
 He wore silver spurs, and his baldric, to 
 which hung a fine but no doubt serviceable ra- 
 pier, was fringed with the same metal. 
 
 His complexion was dark and his slight mus- 
 tache jet black; if he were tonsured, removal 
 of his blue hat with a white plume did not 
 show it, as his raven hair was so arranged as 
 to hide any loss. His eves were excellent, and 
 no diamond shot lustre more trying to those 
 on whom the glances fell. He w T as small of 
 stature, but graceful as a southron; perfectly 
 trained in the gentlemanly accomplishments, 
 not unusual in one born to be a playfellow 
 and servitor to the noble. His features sug- 
 gested luxury; as later they indicated avarice; 
 luxury he adored now like one brought up in 
 poverty; in no other way did he betray his 
 reigning vice. 
 
 The French Premier's whetted glance stud- 
 ied this visitor whose tendency to foppery he 
 disliked; too fine were those gloves on plump 
 hands, as too finnikin the suspension of his 
 sword; too fluffy the blue and snow r y plumes 
 and the Morocco leather boots, suppled ex- 
 tremely, might have pleased a princess accus- 
 tomed to velvet. 
 
 But Richelieu owned that the eyes were in- 
 telligent in no petty degree. He judged that 
 Bentivoglio's footboy must have merited pro- 
 motion to become that erudite's correspondent, 
 and read and answer his confidential communi- 
 cations to the brother Cardinal. Besides, the 
 Holy See would not select a mere minion to 
 
504 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 deal with that serpent in the bag of eels, oth- 
 erwise called Gaston of Orleans, amid his 
 cronies at Brussels. 
 
 The kittens, playing upon their master, had 
 started and arched the back upon Father 
 Carre's alarming entrance, but they were not 
 frightened by the foreigner's approach, so light 
 was his step, spite of riding boots and spurs 
 which compelled him to walk tiptoe not to 
 tear the rugs. On the contrary, they purred 
 as he gracefully took a seat — without fencing 
 as to the excess of honor done him — for an 
 armchair was wheeled by Father Ange, at a 
 sign, nearer the master. 
 
 But the dullest of the sharp clerks little 
 doubted that His Holiness's carrier-dove, for 
 all his pure cerulean hues and innocent white 
 plumage, did not make a break on his journey 
 to the royal plotter's haunt, merely to repeat 
 formal good wishes and express admiration for 
 the great statesman. 
 
 With the speed of statecraft's chosen, know- 
 ing when to drop periphrases, the two glided 
 almost instantly into conversation, questions 
 and answers flying across like two duellists' 
 blades, so low in tone though perfect in accent, 
 for the new-comer was glib at French as if 
 long destined to use it, that Ange, if he lis- 
 tened, had his pains for nothing. The only 
 interruption was when the priest offered the 
 cough-elixir to anticipate a fit of coughing, or 
 the kittens, charmed by Mazarin's voice and 
 manner, leaped on him, and allowed his gloved 
 fingers to trace cabalistic figures on their 
 supple backs — those tangible letters in feline 
 language which delight such pets. 
 
 One in particular, noticeable for a black 
 patch extending regularly down across its eyes 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 50S 
 
 upon immaculate snow, opened and shut its 
 fine claws and whirred out its pleasure, like a 
 locust. 
 
 "How now. .Master Harlequin!" exclaimed 
 the Italian, stopping in an important phrase, 
 without impatience and without apology, 
 "think you we are in carnival time because, like 
 you, everybody wears a mask?" 
 
 "Except us," said the Cardinal; then to Ange 
 he observed : "Here is a good character — lie 
 likes cats." 
 
 "He has an enviable disposition," subjoined 
 the priest, who might have had a cue to laud 
 the visitor; "they like him!" 
 
 "He who pleases cats, will please women!" 
 added the Minister. "Handle him tenderly," 
 continued he to Mazarin, around whose hand 
 the masked kitten was curling. "Beauseant, 
 as we call him, in remembrance of the Knight 
 Templars' black-and-white banner, is an illus- 
 trious feline — " 
 
 "Indeed?'' said the other, in no way resent- 
 ing this inconsequential interlude. 
 
 "A lineal descendant of Piallion, the cele- 
 brated cat of Mdlle. de Gournay — " 
 
 "Ah, the heroine of the hoaxes which amused 
 Taris," interposed the stranger, to show he was 
 conversant with minor celebrities, if not with 
 their domestic pets, through the Chroniques. 
 
 "Exactly; and entertained our King, who is 
 not easily entertained — like his brother is!" 
 
 "He suffers with the true King's-ovil, I hear, 
 listlessness," returned Mazarin. "Hence, since 
 he stands in need of a zest, I snatch at this 
 chance to implore your Eminence," drawing a 
 case out of an inner pocket, "to present # his 
 Majesty with this piece of mechanism, unique 
 in idea." 
 
506 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 The Minister opened the ease. 
 
 "Travelling incognito, as I do," went on the 
 Papal legate, "and fresh from corning out of 
 this honorable reception by your Eminence, 1 
 may not further delay my mission to appear 
 before their Majesties the King and Queen." 
 
 "Quite right. A bride intended must not 
 have her happy day retarded," said the old 
 statesman with an ambiguous smile. 
 
 He watched the envoy as a commander of 
 an army watches that specially appointed staff- 
 officer whom he suspects to carry sealed orders 
 to supersede him in a certain event. 
 
 "I would never oppose or impede union," 
 said Ma.zarin. 
 
 Richelieu dropped his eyes, as if satisfied, on 
 the object within the case. 
 
 "It is a pear, carved right cunningly in box- 
 wood, and the stem is of iron." 
 
 "The stem is the key, my lord," continued 
 the foreigner as sweetly as if he were present- 
 ing a real fruit; "it is the work of a distin- 
 guished artificer of Brescia, named Adriano, 
 and he calls it the 'Fruit of Silence.' Inserted 
 within the mouth of a noisy prisoner, and ex- 
 panded by a turn or two of the key, it distends 
 the toughest jaws, and while, gently applied, 
 stifling clamor, it will, on a less lenient scale, 
 stifle the prisoner!" 
 
 The Minister caressed the small but potent 
 engine (which was, in a later reign, to make 
 the robber band using "the pear of anguish" 
 the terror of Paris). 
 
 "The Fruit of Silence! Hum! It will inter- 
 est the King, who likes silence and mechani- 
 cal toys. But," said Richelieu witli a cold 
 accent which froze Father Ange and caused 
 the glib Italian to hem and haw, "it is my duty, 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. SOU 
 
 as his Minister, to test the engine before I 
 lay it before him!" 
 
 Thereupon, without transition, he returned 
 to their colloquy, and heaven only knows what 
 plots were debated which involved the over- 
 turning (»f thrones and snapping rods of the 
 Powers. Mazarin seemed astounded at meet- 
 ing the embodiment of true political genius. 
 
 "He is the helmsman to steer the Ship of 
 State in all weathers," concluded the visitor, 
 "and better, he will preserve her for the suc- 
 ceeding pilot. He is too ill, and has no self- 
 deception on this point — to leave the kingdom; 
 it is not for himself that the French contingent 
 would sway the Conclave to elect a French 
 Tope. It is our grim Father Joseph! and They 
 must be warned rather against him — not his 
 master, on my return." 
 
 Enthralled by each other, both as talker and 
 listener, so rare are great men with this dual 
 gift — long was their discussion, far from a pass- 
 ing chat. 
 
 Richelieu had divined that here was his se- 
 lected successor, and though he chafed at hav- 
 ing the right of appointment thus taken from 
 him. he had to admit that he knew of nobody 
 worthier. Mazarin was fortified at every point 
 where he "felt" him, as fencers say. 
 
508 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE KISS OF PEACE. 
 
 Most unexpectedly, in that palace where the 
 death-like silence almost proclaimed the ten- 
 ant's sickness, unusual confusion started at 
 the gates and soon pervaded the mansion. It 
 was as unpardonable as a clashing of swords 
 in a royal park. The main doors opened with 
 violence and — surrounded by guards and ush- 
 ers, too closely intermixed to use their staves 
 and rods — Father Carre again appeared, as if 
 borne on the front of a tempest. He was more 
 disconcerted than when buffeted back from 
 his mission. 
 
 "Oh, my lord!" he broke forth in grief. "Oh, 
 oh, my good lord!" His consternation was 
 overcome abruptly and he had the supernat- 
 ural power to overcome the guards. "Come, 
 come away! Father Joseph! the Capuchin 
 Father is ill — very bad — dying!" 
 
 "Joseph, dying!" 
 
 The Prime Minister sat up like a Pharaoh 
 to whom in his sarcophagus the high-priest had 
 at last administered the reviving draught 
 which made man of the mummy, while Mazarin 
 sprang to his feet and clapped his hand to 
 his sword-side as though expecting to be fal- 
 len upon and cut to pieces. It was the act, 
 not of a guilty man, perhaps, to whom the de- 
 lightful reception was a snare, but of one who 
 believed he was innocently entangled in a 
 crime. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 509 
 
 "My best friend ! Joseph ! Did you say, dying! 
 My poor, dearest, truest friend and counsellor!" 
 stammered Richelieu, shaking with an im- 
 mense struggle to overrule the clinging fetters 
 
 of disease. 
 
 The alarm and distress gave him heart — did 
 not dispirit him. He stood up, unassisted, like 
 a captain in a siege, after a monstrous explo- 
 sion, who hears that his first officer has been 
 slain and all the defence centres on himself. 
 
 He stepped outwards three paces, stopping, 
 without resting a hand on the table or on the 
 secretary, Chavigny, who rushed to support 
 him. 
 
 "My valet, to dress me!" cried he, with the 
 sonorous voice not heard in that volume for 
 years. "My litter to be ready! Let the two 
 mounted musketeers at the portals be replaced 
 while they ride to bring Dr. Herouard and 
 Dr. Letellier — any great doctor — to the Ca- 
 puchin Convent in St. Honore Street. Let all 
 succor be speeded thereto as to me!" 
 
 Mazarini had quietly withdrawn into a cor- 
 ner; then, to the door; beckoned to Ange and 
 Carre, and they went out with him, all in a 
 rush of servants obeying the orders. Perhaps, 
 as a foreigner, he desired their conduct to 
 convey him out of the Cardinal's Palace. 
 
 The ante-room buzzed like a hive: it was 
 crammed with gentlemen, Richelieu's pension- 
 ers, soldiers, servants; all turmoil, bewilder- 
 ment and a little sorrow — not for Joseph, but 
 in sympathy with him who lost his colleague. 
 
 "What does this mean?" inquired the envoy 
 of the priests. 
 
 Ange shook his head. 
 
 "I ought rather to ask you, sir!" said Carre, 
 roughly, as if his dress gave him a cavalier'^ 
 
510 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 license. "His Eminence in Grey was left with 
 the message, coming in your train, and he is 
 dying — may be, is dead by this speaking — like 
 one on whom a heaven-stone drops!" 
 
 "Apoplexy," said Mazarini. 
 
 "A man who drinks water!" 
 
 "Nevertheless, he has had a stroke or two!" 
 
 Decidedly, this foreigner was too well in- 
 formed on doings and persons in Paris. 
 
 "The Cardinal! the Cardinal!" cried a man, 
 in a black suit but not clerical, wearing a 
 smile of joy which strongly crossed the gener- 
 al expression donned as the news spread. 
 
 "Who are you? I am the Cardinal's confes- 
 sor," said Ange, throwing himself before the 
 intruder. 
 
 "I am Dr. Themines, come to receive his final 
 instructions before my departure to Africa to 
 study the Black Plague!" 
 
 "Per Bacclio!" interjected Mazarini, show- 
 ing his fine teeth, "go with his Eminence a 
 little nearer home! vou mav studv his Prince- 
 
 « * «, 
 
 ship of Darkness without that journey! Acldio, 
 brothers," continued he to the priests with a 
 fillip of his fingers, "I spy the outer doors! I 
 will repeat your compliments to the fathers at 
 Douai, Arras and Brussels!" At the gateway, 
 where he mounted his rested horse, he saw 
 the great litter forge up for the Cardinal's 
 transportation. He crossed himself as though 
 it were a hearse, and rapidly rode off, followed 
 by his equerry and grooms, not unlike a mili- 
 tary escort. 
 
 Not so much as five minutes subsequently, 
 the litter, containing the Minister, was steadily 
 proceeding upon the broad shoulders of por- 
 ters, picked from the "Strong Men" of the Mar- 
 kets, to the Capuchin Monastery. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 511 
 
 When all their speed brought Richelieu with- 
 in its told entrance, he seemed t<> have arrived 
 too late. His beloved and devoted adherent 
 lay inert on the abbot's large but coarse bed, 
 no better than the Craters' pallets, to which in 
 his austerity lie had inured himself. 
 
 lie had fallen down in his room, study and 
 parlor in one, as Carre reported, and they had 
 placed him where he passed his last sleep to 
 sleep his last. 
 
 At the Minister's entrance, the monk-surgeon 
 went out, feeling his presence was doubly su- 
 perfluous. 
 
 But Themiues had taken Mazarini's hint. He 
 accompanied the Minister who approved (as. he 
 stood by, panting after the ascent up one flight 
 of broad stairs, on his arm) the volunteer's try- 
 ing the Capuchin's pulse at wrist and breast. 
 
 At the door, Carre shook his head ominously 
 for enlightenment of the followers who lined 
 the passage and steps. 
 
 "His heart beats," said Themines, "but the 
 side is dead to the right. I call this apoplexy," 
 in a loud voice, "and the third stroke!" 
 
 As if reassured by this dictum, which was 
 overheard by many without, Carre went away 
 and closed the door. 
 
 The letter in Joseph's hand when he fell 
 stricken, lay on a desk-table. Unable to help 
 since the Breton delivered this sentence and 
 attended to the patient with imperturbable 
 concern, the visitor examined this paper. Noth- 
 ing more innocuous — even ext raucous to a 
 shock. Just one of those gossipy letters ex- 
 changed between priests when correspondents 
 from an early age after being fellow-seminar- 
 ists. The monk of St. Maria del Monte sent his 
 patroness's blessing to his brother of St. Dom- 
 
512 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 inick and recited the Roman quidnuncs' prat- 
 tlings. A battered torso had been unearthed, a 
 noted painter had finished a painting yet to be 
 famed, this shrine had a new lamp, that was 
 heaped with votive offerings for a miracle, in 
 short, all that beguiled ''the Mistress of the 
 World'' was mentioned, but of politics not a 
 word. 
 
 It was not a cryptogram; in vain did the 
 Premier, proficient in secret writing, endeavor 
 to see a meaning in words picked out and pe- 
 culiarly rearranged. 
 
 "Then, why a special messenger to bear this 
 nonsense, in the Papal agent's train?" he puz- 
 zled, terribly frowning. 
 
 If the letter were unassuming and non-mys- 
 terious, its seal was massive for its simplicity; 
 out of the broken wax projected a familiar em- 
 blem, a lamb in lead. But the churchman took 
 it out carefully and scrutinised it as though 
 it were the key to the dark problem. He had 
 become too interested to heed the apparent 
 corpse which Dr. Themines was resolutely try- 
 ing to resuscitate. 
 
 From the cold lips came a sigh. 
 
 Richelieu turned round as though a serpent 
 had stung him. 
 
 "The veins are turning blue," remarked the 
 doctor; "this is a vegetable poison." 
 
 He said this in a low tone, with a kind of 
 professional enthusiasm, totally different from 
 the matter-of-fact one in which he had publicly 
 announced "Apoplexy." 
 
 Richelieu bit his lip, leaned on the head- 
 board of the bed, and with the other hand 
 silently extended the letter with its broken 
 seal and the metal image. 
 
 Themines examined both, seemed to collect 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 513 
 
 memories bearing OD such an incident, referred 
 to the dying man with a look, and pronounced: 
 
 "My lord, this man is slain by an alkaloid of 
 the poppy plant, very subtle and concentrated. 
 This Agnus Dei is in some way impregnated 
 with it, or haply it is the minute phial which 
 contained the quintessence. He has pressed it 
 to his lips and so imbibed the deadliness. Sci- 
 ence provides no remedy." 
 
 A cry without: "The doctors! room for the 
 Cardinal's physician! room for the royal phy- 
 sician!" made Joseph stir. 
 
 His lips seemed turned to lead, in color and 
 solidity, but he spoke intelligibly if with dif- 
 flculty: 
 
 "Armand! good! let us be alone, my son!" 
 
 Themines did not immediately obey the kind 
 of order: Joseph's desire always was a com- 
 mand. He had opened a leather case in which 
 were surgical instruments and sundry tiny 
 phials. One of the latter he held out to Rich- 
 elieu, saying: 
 
 "Not a counter-poison, but it may give a 
 short renewal of the lease of life." 
 
 The Cardinal in Red took it, and allowed the 
 doctor to retire. At the door the latter ob- 
 served coolly: 
 
 "I shall keep my brother-ravens at bay! They 
 are useless here. Enough for my head to be at 
 stake over this secret." 
 
 "This is a man!" said the Minister. "Do so!" 
 The door shut. "This Themines will efface the 
 blood-blot from my brother's death- wound! 
 inflicted by his father." 
 
 Father Joseph approved of the isolation with 
 a sparkle of the eye; he said in a voice some- 
 thing stronger: 
 
 "My dear Armand, your pardon! Give it with 
 
514 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the same promptitude you showed in hasten- 
 ing here." 
 
 "Anything!" 
 
 "You know how, long, long since, I deter- 
 mined that nothing should trammel vou in your 
 elevation to the chair of State. Love of any 
 kind would have hampered King Henry the 
 Fourth's project — paternal love no less strong- 
 ly than others." 
 
 "Paternal love!" 
 
 "Have no doubt on one thing! Ramire bore 
 you a child — a son — " 
 
 "Yes! but it is— " 
 
 "Laffemas be accurst as an impostor and a 
 murderer!" vociferated the Capuchin with in- 
 credible force, but the doors are solid in con- 
 ventual buildings. 
 
 After this outburst of un-Christian feeling, 
 he writhed as if remorse had gripped him and 
 tormented him. 
 
 "Norbert, an impostor — Norbert has mur- 
 dered you, my sole adviser and firmest friend!" 
 furiously began Richelieu. 
 
 The moribund thrust out his lips in con- 
 tempt. 
 
 The other feared a relapse. It was apparent, 
 besides, that the poison was mastering the un- 
 fortunate man in all life's channels. The Min- 
 ister held out the phial Themines had ready, in 
 times when odd diseases were freely ascribed 
 to drugs, but Joseph hesitated. 
 
 "Whence comes it? what doctor, you ask? 
 By name Themines, his father slew Henri in 
 that duel ; but, since, I have been generous to 
 the family. I foster this man, by your intro- 
 duction, to carry out a noble project. A Bre- 
 ton's brain is not a soil in which ingratitude 
 flourishes." 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 515 
 
 Joseph took the counter-poison in a long 
 draught, without further cavilling. He had 
 studied Thymines. If not relieved, he was re- 
 freshed to continue his relation. 
 
 "dean Laffemas dared not aim at my life," 
 said he in a faint hut steady voice. "This is 
 work of a more audacious hand. Yet he may 
 have suggested this attack through Cheret, 
 who might tell him to whom to write at Rome. 
 Cheret must have pierced the mystery of my 
 correspondence. But Laffemas has murdered, 
 with a poison little less deadly and insidious 
 than this — oh, what anguish! but I must say 
 on. Laffemas, at Blois, murdered one he be- 
 lieved to be his grandam, a second mother to 
 him. The recital is in writing — all that the 
 seal of confession allows. There, in the press 
 in the north wall. Here is the key. Take the 
 account and use it as a scourge. Well, you can 
 punish him; surely heaven was never so untrue 
 in its teachings as to make your heart throb 
 paternally towards that villain. No; Ramire's 
 son is an obscure gentleman whom no one has 
 patronised, save myself, and I durst not let 
 his prospects be guessed at by him ! The eaglet 
 would have soared straight to the sun! It is 
 the antagonist of Saverny's lord, in that com- 
 bat bringing their necks to the halter." 
 
 "Didier!" cried the hearer, who had ran 
 sacked the clothespress in the wall and scanned 
 the documents relating to Didier's birth, bring- 
 ing up at Blois, Joseph's attention to him, and 
 his duel. "My son is this Didier. whom I seem 
 to have particularly persecuted?" 
 
 Joseph twisted and turned, gasping like one 
 whose heart is a source of torture and pressed 
 his side like an African juggler-doctor manipu- 
 lating the haunt of a demon. 
 
516 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "And it is Laffemas who is charged with his 
 execution! By me, too!" 
 
 He turned as though to dart out of the room. 
 
 "Armand, forgive me! I thought of nothing 
 but the welfare of France and your glory!" 
 
 "But my son, condemned by me, after the 
 King would have spared him — relenting for an 
 old man's tears and a woman's prayers! Oh, 
 Joseph, the patriarch felt no keener pang when 
 he bared Isaac's bosom for the sacrificial 
 knife!" 
 
 The dying one saw that rarity: a tear in 
 Richelieu's eye. 
 
 "Blind one, that son would have been a 
 power the more to me! And, at my death, a 
 consolation! Now I leave neither name nor 
 remainder on earth!" 
 
 "Mayhap I advised you badly," sighed the 
 monk, but obstinately as if unbelieving. "But 
 forgive my error, and all else. I am thus pun- 
 ished for keeping a secret from you in which 
 we should have co-operated. But I doubted 
 that you would wish well to a rival ambition! 
 I planned to become Pope that I might aid 
 you with your temporal kingdom, while I ruled 
 the universal spiritual one. They have annihi- 
 lated the hope, and made me carrion! but I 
 forgive! Armand, no more secret executions! 
 fewer still of the public ones without public 
 benefit! Preserve life — so dear, so impossible 
 for man to lengthen! France will need every 
 son of hers in the approaching epoch of dis- 
 rupture! A child king, a minister who will ally 
 himself rather with the Queen than the virile 
 parties! I foresee such miseries! O God save 
 France in the chaotic time at hand!"' 
 
 "No more revenge, say you?" said the Pre- 
 mier, "not upon the asp warmed in my breast 
 
OR. RICHELIEU DEFIED. 5 1 7 
 
 and who springs upon my son for his dear life! 
 My son! oh, my s»m! No more revenge when 
 you arc brought low, cut short in your mighty 
 ambition, which I misprised, by perhaps the 
 same ingrate? Bui what engine slew you?" 
 
 "My own lips! my foolish gratitude to the 
 demon of Ambition ! In my joy at receiving the 
 news apparently crowning my operations, I 
 gave the Kiss of Peace upon that Agnus Dei, 
 token I had won my last opponents over! The 
 script meant nothing, but that was token that 
 1 could name the candidate sure to be success- 
 ful at the next Conclave!" 
 
 "The blessed lamb was poisoned!" groaned 
 Richelieu, crushing up the leaden toy in his 
 grasp with vigor of repugnance; "sacrilege! 
 They shall burn at the stake for this!" 
 
 "And I," moaned the Capuchin, "who for 
 years have drunk water of my own drawing, 
 eaten eggs of my own boiling, culled greens 
 from my own gardens! I, fool, fool, triple fool! 
 I kissed the image, and I die, my poor Armand, 
 like a rat in a cranny," 
 
 His self-blame at his single oversight seemed 
 to redouble his sufferings. 
 
 "Hark! the doctors are wrangling for en- 
 trance!" 
 
 "Go! leave me, to save your son! he is a 
 noble fellow! who has borne his miseries man- 
 fully! but do not balk his love! remember your 
 unhappiness from my banishing Raniire! save 
 him and on the confession of Dame Laffemas, 
 convict that monster!" 
 
 "lint you have lingered long — that doctor 
 said this was a counter-bane!" 
 
 "If so, he was deceived! I was doomed! They 
 reckoned on my taking off!" 
 
 "Define the 'They!' " cried Richelieu, with 
 
518 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 fury, "and by all my hopes, based on that re- 
 stored son, if heaven spares him, I will — " 
 
 "No, forgive Them, as I do. 1 ' 
 
 " 'Shall not Zimri die who slew his master's 
 son?' " said the Cardinal, in Latin. 
 
 "Memento, Domine!" sighed Joseph du Trein- 
 bla} r , as if the ecclesiastical language prompted 
 him in prayer. " 'Princes have persecuted me 
 and wounded the heart within me,' but I ran 
 the furrow that the harvest should be Thine, 
 Lord! Deliver me, O my God!" 
 
 "And He hath said: 'The Gates shall not 
 prevail against thee!'" muttered the Minister 
 bitterly, wringing his thin hands as he con- 
 templated the statue whose blue lips scarcely 
 parted. 
 
 Feeling his weakness, he, called almost the 
 Omnipotent among men, felt his wrath like his 
 sorrow abruptly fade; he joined involuntarily 
 in the dying one's prayer, when, suddenly, as 
 though their united supplications brought on a 
 miracle, the supposed corpse gained color on 
 the blanched cheek, the lips ceased to be swol- 
 len, and a shivering, not horrible but like a 
 healthy thrill, pervaded the wasted frame. 
 
 The Capuchin flung off the bedclothes, rose 
 around, upon his sharp knees, and moved on 
 them along the bed to the headboard. There 
 he drew himself upright by his hands, steadied 
 himself with one of them, for he began to turn 
 rigid, and extended his right hand with the 
 fingers partly open. As if he were at a win- 
 dow, gazing on a multitude beneath the ledge 
 — the window of the Benedizione Loggia — he 
 made widely the sign of the cross and cried in a 
 voice so loud that it echoed down the corridor 
 almost to the street doors: 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. SI 9 
 
 "May the blessings of the Trinity befall ye 
 and dwell among ye till everlasting!" 
 
 "Amen!" cried Richelieu in a voice almost as 
 lusty. 
 
 He reached forward, but the stiffening frame 
 fell without the least animation in his em- 
 brace. The shock overpowered him for he, too, 
 lav motionless on the couch, beside his precep- 
 tor. Slowly, he disengaged himself of the 
 weight. 
 
 "Happy man!'- sighed he. "For a space, he 
 believed himself Spiritual Lord of the World!" 
 
 He tottered towards the entrance, but at ran- 
 dom, not remembering where he w T as, or what 
 had passed. He was merely endeavoring to 
 elude this spectre which had torn his Right 
 Hand from him and darted a rankling arrow in- 
 to his breast. Suddenly a prodigious senti- 
 ment overcame the paralysis. 
 
 "My son! he assured me that this Didier is 
 my son! that Laffemas is deceiver and mur- 
 derer!" 
 
 Instanth 7 he recovered not his natural cool- 
 ness but preternatural condition. Abnormal 
 strength became his. 
 
 With cleared eye, steady step and a nimble 
 hand, he felt in his bosom where he had placed 
 tiie papers telling Ramire's sad story, blessed 
 that name as if a saint's, and muttered: 
 
 "This dog Laffemas knows his fraud. How 
 he must hate the true heir! And I persisted 
 in trying to overrule Providence that softened 
 the King — it is I who sent Joab to Absalom 
 and said: 'Deal not gently with him!' How- 
 ever greatly I have sinned, on this earth, in 
 fulness has come my punishment. But the 
 pride of my heart is humbled. Lord, be merci- 
 ful to the meanest of Thy servants!" 
 
520 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 He opened the door. On the other side, the 
 gathering was devoured with anxiety, since 
 they heard Joseph's tremendous outcry. 
 
 All were astonished to see their master so 
 firm, strong and calm, for they knew how deep- 
 ly he loved him who certainly was no more. 
 
 "I have lost my main support," said he with 
 fortitude. "To the lamented dead let all the 
 honors be shown, due a prince of the Church! 
 
 Joseph was, it appears, a Cardinal. 
 
 "My litter!" he called in his astonishingly 
 strengthened voice. "Send couriers along the 
 route to Rueil! to relay the bearers. I must 
 arrive there as though I rode on the morning's 
 wings!" 
 
 The monks were amazed that the more ro- 
 bust of the two Cardinals should have suc- 
 cumbed; they obeyed their part of the instruc- 
 tions. Meanwhile, Richelieu walked out to his 
 litter and entered with Themines, whose arm 
 assisted him. He dismissed the other physi- 
 cians, with thanks for their promptness. 
 
 Inside the curtains, he whispered to the Bre- 
 ton: 
 
 "Make your report on the lines which in- 
 criminate no one. Do not let us besmirch the 
 Church's garments by crushing a reptile on 
 them." 
 
 At a mansion, the litter was halted. On 
 hearing that it was the residence of the Chief 
 Judge of the Supreme Tribunal, Themines be- 
 lieved that the Minister had reconsidered his 
 clemency. The order was sent in for Laubarde- 
 mont to come out. He was an epicure; he was 
 called from a banquet, for he was wiping his 
 mouth on a silver-fringed napkin as he ap- 
 peared in gala costume on the front steps. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 521 
 
 Feasting while his master was thought on 
 the brink of death! 
 
 Richelieu did not comment on this appear- 
 ance of unconcern to a patron. 
 
 "Go, prepare your report," said the statesman 
 to the doctor. "Give your place to the judge." 
 
 Laubardemont, quaking, stepped within the 
 litter. 
 
 This looked much like an arrest of the digni- 
 tary and his removal to a prison. But only 
 one of his guests, up at the windows and at 
 the doorway, dared to advance as if to inquire, 
 scarcely to protest. 
 
 It was a gaily dressed man whom the Cardi- 
 nal recognised. 
 
 "Abbe de Gondi," said he; "mount a horse, 
 for I know you can ride well. Accompanv us 
 to Rueil." 
 
 The judge shuddered so as almost to shake 
 the litter; but the Coadjutor of the Archbishop 
 of Paris was of sterner metal. He mounted a 
 horse from the saddle of which an arquebusier 
 descended. 
 
 "My dress," he protested. 
 
 "Will, I hope, suit the occasion! Ange or 
 Carre will conduct the graver ceremony — you, 
 I require for a wedding!" 
 
 "The graver occasion!" muttered Laubarde- 
 mont, more dead than alive. "At Rueil, there 
 is to be an execution, then! Oh, that 1 had 
 finished that ortolan pasty and washed it down 
 with that incomparable Chambertin!" 
 
 Litter, guards and cavalcade, all resumed the 
 march. 
 
 In the litter was lamp, writing materials, and 
 legal forms. 
 
 "Make out this blank for the arrest and exe- 
 
522 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 cution of a traitor," said Richelieu to the 
 judge, who became his secretary. 
 
 While he wrote, relieved at it not being 
 aimed at him, the captain of the escort was 
 called to the doorway. 
 
 "Cavoye," said the Premier, "take the judge 
 on a good horse between yourself and a trooper. 
 Make the arrest he has the warrant for. Stay 
 that double execution! I shall be with you 
 soon. Let me not tread on your heels before 
 you carry out the mandate!" 
 
 Laubardemont had completed the writing; 
 sighing, he was lifted upon a strong horse, 
 partly supported by the soldier on his left, and 
 away flew the three, the central figure more 
 like a prisoner than like a judge. 
 
 The monster palanquin followed in the wake 
 of dust they threw up. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 523 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 A DUEL OF LAWYERS. 
 
 It was several hours after sunset before Lau- 
 bardemont rode into Rueil. He was consoled 
 for the loss of his feast, and the badness of the 
 roads over which he had shown he was no 
 horseman, bj his prospect of destroying Laft'e- 
 mas whose position he coveted. 
 
 The tramp of his escort and the uniforms had 
 started an impression that it was the Cardinal 
 and little would have caused the garrison to 
 tender him a salute. 
 
 Showing his powers to the governor, who 
 knew Captain Cavoye better than the great law 
 lord, Laubardemont listened to the account of 
 the way the two prisoners were bearing their 
 captivity, and reservedly let it rest, only saying 
 that nothing was to be done before the superior 
 arbiter arrived. 
 
 Then he set upon the highly personal course 
 he had cogitated upon during his ride. 
 
 It was to recompense him for his lost ca- 
 rouse. 
 
 "I shall not be able to sit at ease, even upon 
 the woolsack, for a fortnight," groaned he; "so 
 some one must line the cushion. My colleague, 
 of course, poor dear Xorbert, whose vulgar 
 Mean' is used very freely in his indictment! 
 Tut, tut! to think of his falling from grace! 
 Condemned by the sire who — hush! these are 
 topsy-turvy times!" 
 
 lb- was rather embarrassed bv Cavove, ac 
 
524 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 cording to private instructions, keeping him 
 at hand as though he were a prisoner, and by 
 Gondi who watched him cynically; but present- 
 ly he was left to his own devices as both joined 
 the governor at supper. 
 
 He declared an interrupted meal always up- 
 set him for a week, and cautiously inquired for 
 the Lieutenant-Civil. The latter was not trum- 
 peting his whereabouts, but a valet, with a 
 menial's scent for disaster and instinct to cling 
 to the rising meteor, imparted the secret that 
 the great functionary was in the chapel, wait- 
 ing for a priest, probably to officiate over the 
 execution of the two culprits. 
 
 "But, my lord," went on this communicative 
 domestic, seeing he pleased, "he also expects 
 another visitor. A lady, who is stopping at 
 the Cross-Keys." 
 
 "A lady!" and Laubardemont pricked up his 
 ears. 
 
 "A beautiful lady! from town, one can see 
 that! I have a shrewd suspicion that he in- 
 tends to economise on the priest, making the 
 father perform his marriage ceremony under 
 the head of the mass and shrift! After all, it 
 is only another kind of halter!" 
 
 "Ha, ha!" laughed the judge. "Eh! what 
 under-work is Messire Laffemas planning? mar- 
 riage! who would commit that false step with 
 this ungainly, treacherous fellow, and one who 
 is about to lose his rank, his fortune, and, I be- 
 gin to believe, his head? Would Richelieu slay 
 his own son? marry, he would! a brood of 
 them if they hampered his advance!" 
 
 Calling for a description of the supposed 
 bride, he recognised the famous Marion. 
 
 He also knew that Laffemas had dangled 
 about her, in Paris, and that, since, he had 
 
OR. RICHELIEU DEFIED. 525 
 
 oscillated between Chambord ;mi<1 I >lois, where 
 it was rumored she had been seen. 
 
 "Can you show me, quietly, into t liis chapel?" 
 he asked of the useful lackey. 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "Then do so, and announce me as the priest 
 — no! do not announce me, at all! I will pre- 
 sent myself! Under the Law, we are brothers! 
 d'ye sec:" 
 
 "My lord, it is arranged that his own hand 
 will open a little secret door to the new shrine 
 of St. John on a peculiar mode of knocking." 
 
 "My scheme is going on swimmingly — it will 
 be Laffemas who drowns!" thought Laubarde- 
 mont, rewarding the guide beforehand hand- 
 somely with gold. 
 
 The castle clock was vibrating on the first 
 stroke of eleven when the servant knocked at 
 the chapel postern in the understood manner 
 and silently crossed the yard to go and add his 
 louis to his hoard. 
 
 In the meantime, as once before, but at Nan- 
 gis, Laffemas had been waiting with nerves on 
 the strain for Marion's coming, with a favorable 
 answer to his suit. He could not doubt it, this 
 time. He stood, so to say, in the shadow of 
 the gallows, betw r een her and the rival whose 
 life could not be purchased but at the cost of 
 her liberty. Did he intend to keep faith with 
 her? Hardly, for he was not the man to be- 
 lieve in the oath of one whose removal much 
 farther than India would alone ensure his se- 
 curity. 
 
 On hearing, for all their caution, the two 
 men's steps in the cobble-stone paved yard, he 
 distinguished that it was not a woman ami 
 supposed it the priest and his clerk. 
 
 Disappointed, taking a lamp impiously from 
 
526 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBEjj 
 
 a shrine where the beheaded saint held out his 
 head on a salver, he rapidly crossed the chapel 
 floor and opened the small door, as promised 
 by the valet. 
 
 On the threshold, advancing to prevent be- 
 ing shut out, a form in black clothes, for Lau- 
 bardemont had donned a cloak for his adven- 
 ture, might be for a time mistaken for the ex- 
 pected churchman. But continuing his forward 
 movement, the judge drove the light-bearer be- 
 fore him and flung down the mantle. 
 
 "Laub — " began Laffemas, and the lamp 
 would have fallen in his fright but for the other 
 catching it. 
 
 By its flare, as he held it now, the blandest 
 of smiles was to be seen on his broad mouth 
 and long face, while his costume, reminiscent 
 rather of the revelry than the bench, almost 
 encouraged his enforced host. 
 
 "My dear brother," said the other, "I am 
 charmed to see you looking so blithe!" 
 
 He looked round: the fittings were more in 
 harmony with the execution than the marriage. 
 
 "Granted, however, that the decorations 
 scarcely accord with a feast of the Church." 
 
 "Come back into this recess," grumbled Laf- 
 femas, beginning to lose some regained assur- 
 ance at the singularity of this call. Perhaps 
 the crocodile-like amiability of his brother 
 judge helped to restore his apprehension. 
 
 The bay in course of building, not 3 7 et pro- 
 vided with image and altar, afforded a nook, 
 with oaken stalls at the sides, and the plas- 
 terers' table, on the latter of which Laubarde- 
 mont placed the lamp. 
 
 The rest of the large hall was plunged into 
 darkness. 
 
OK, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 
 
 - 
 
 As the new-comer obstinately preserved sil- 
 ence, Laffemas broke it by inquiring: 
 
 "From Iho city? what news? what of his 
 Eminence? is our patron not coming to see the 
 execution? There is no delay, no respite, no 
 reprieve?" 
 
 "I should hope not," responded the other, sit- 
 ting in a stall, with a grin. "We are not of the 
 kind that see a prey escape without a pang. 
 'Old Malice" becomes more inflexible as his ill- 
 ness ameliorates. He is less gouty! and the 
 Queen, who was to give a regale to coincide 
 with his parting throes — what excellent Span 
 ish malignity! has put it off. She is biting 
 her thick lower lip with disappointment. Our 
 patron has entered on a new lease since the 
 King went to hunt at Chambord, where Lange- 
 ly devises new T sports, and so leaves the coast 
 clear for our own craft! Well, no one can be 
 happier at news of our lord's recovery than you 
 who hear me, with such avidity,'' concluded 
 Laubardeniont, with a suggestive leer. "You 
 always professed an esteem quite filial for his 
 Eminence." 
 
 As the hearer had no grounds for suspect- 
 ing his collocutor of more than his usual sar- 
 casm and was ignorant of the true state of 
 a Hairs, he let the quip pass. 
 
 "How is the other?" demanded he, sud- 
 denly. 
 
 "The Grey Eminence? oh. Father Joseph 
 was, as I left, on the point of going on a jour- 
 ney." 
 
 Laffemas seemed pleased; but he said with 
 surprise: 
 
 "lb-, the Stay-at-home, who wears the boots 
 off Carre's feet with his message s? But 1 sup- 
 
528 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 pose you mean he is going to bis diocese, for 
 he is bishop of some fat see?"' 
 
 "Better than that — it is published that he is 
 a Cardinal!" 
 
 "Ah! then he may be going to his installa- 
 tion — to fill his red hat with offerings of his 
 faithful flock!" 
 
 "I do not know where. I know little out of my 
 jurisdiction," replied Laubardemont, affecting 
 not to be inquisitive. 
 
 "Which comprises all France! hum! Might 
 he not be going to — to — Rome?" 
 
 "Why not?" said the judge, smiling approv- 
 ingly. "His couriers do not seem to accomplish 
 much by their eternal cantering. Perhaps a 
 principal must accomplish the end in view." 
 
 The Lieutenant of Internal Police was re- 
 flecting. On the intimation of Cheret, he had 
 written to a confidential hand near the chief 
 conspirators at St. Peter's, notifying him whom 
 Joseph du Tremblay would appoint against the 
 "native" Cardinals' choice. He had expected 
 the answer would be an arrow shot from afar, 
 but, perhaps, to make sure, the victim would 
 be decoyed within reach of a bravo. 
 
 "His grey mantle will be dyed red, a la Car- 
 dinal, indeed!" he mused. "I cannot doubt that 
 he is in safe hands, for I know to whom I 
 denounced him." 
 
 His companion was crumbling a bit of plas- 
 ter between his fingers, with simple curiosity. 
 
 "Has this resort made you pious — are you 
 mumbling prayers for his safe journey?" said 
 he, with his sneering tone. 
 
 "A lig for Father Joseph!" 
 
 "With all my heart! never was I a piaster 
 the richer for him! But, one question, broth- 
 er! with Pater Joseph gone, no matter whith- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 529 
 
 er; the King eclipsed in some chase; his broth- 
 er wandering in search of an ally to assist his 
 usurping the throne; and — " in a lower voice, 
 bending over to him until their eyebrows al- 
 most brushed, "our patron dying, how shall we 
 fare?" 
 
 The Chief of Royal Police laughed in his 
 lace. 
 
 "I am going, too, before Prance is left with- 
 out a helm or a hand at it. Immediately on 
 the execution of these two men, who eluded me 
 at Blois, so that my professional pride is at 
 stake — vou, a hanging judge will understand — 
 I shall—" 
 
 "Would I could leave as readilv, but my fam- 
 ily—" 
 
 Laffemas continued to laugh, insulting. 
 
 "Truth, I am married! Well, it is for your- 
 self, then, that the passport to the sea and au- 
 thorisation for the ocean voyage on a royal ship 
 were procured?" 
 
 "If you know that?" began Laffemas, show T - 
 ing a heated cheek. 
 
 "A clerk in the Tw t o Indies Company, who is 
 a member of the family I have married into, 
 and thought he ought to evince confidence, in- 
 formed me of a powerful letter of favor which 
 you carried. It covers the transportation of a 
 man and a — another man — but why not a wo- 
 man? over the Indian Ocean. Do not mock at 
 my simplicity, my dear friend, at my jumping 
 rashly to conclusions — wretched quality in a 
 judge! but I did you the compliment to sup- 
 pose that vou intended a great and generous 
 act!" 
 
 "I do a great and generous act!" Certainly, 
 this exclamation was genuine. 
 
 "I thought, for once — I imagined — listen to 
 
530 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 me! that you, who had been down to Nangis 
 and conferred with the old marquis, who is rich 
 and influential, meant to contrive the escape 
 of the Marquis of Saverny — " 
 
 "Faugh!" 
 
 "Still, as you have a soul above lucre! you 
 might be farther impressed by the wiles and 
 entreaties of Mdlle. Delorme — " 
 
 "Ha!" 
 
 "She busies herself for his release!" 
 
 "May Tollard (the executioner) twist your 
 neck, beloved colleague, for having that idea! 
 I favor that vapid fop! I assist Marion to es- 
 cape to the seas with him — or any other! I 
 wink at the escape of one, or two, condemned 
 to death! Since you know so much but con- 
 jecture so wide of the mark, know that it is I 
 who intend to go to Calcutta, and the com- 
 panion will be my bride — " 
 
 "Another married and happy man! excellent! 
 out there, who would hash up the ridiculous 
 tales which spring up like weeds upon a fair 
 woman's path of roses! How wise you are, 
 and how blissful you will be! But," added 
 Laubardemont, very seriously, laying both 
 hands on the other's shoulders so that he could 
 not move away, "while you are at a distance, 
 who will receive your revenues?" 
 
 "I have converted all that was realisable in- 
 to gold — " 
 
 "Oh, that accounts for the draft of Davidet 
 Brothers on their Bombay house, on the 
 amount of which Finance Minister Bullion re- 
 marked!" 
 
 "What tattlers these heads of departments 
 are!" and Laffemas ground the plaster balls 
 under his foot. 
 
 "You are frank with me, as we always are! 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 531 
 
 I admire yon. man of prudence! Ah, if I were 
 not tied here! Bui you could not cash all your 
 real estate?" 
 
 "My friend, it is that immovable balance 
 which distresses me, and gives me that ab- 
 sence of mind making me such poor company!" 
 
 "Not at all — you speak gold!" 
 
 "Do you not think that on the ship I shall 
 be tossed more mentally than physically — who 
 will be safe in France if the possibilities you 
 name are realised? What official may not have 
 his papers seized and all, including his friend's 
 investment, put under the great Red Seal?" 
 
 "Any of them, except those who, by a far- 
 seeing marriage, have powerful allies in the 
 enemy's camp! I have married Mdlle. de Lo- 
 zere, whose aunt is a lady paramount of Cala- 
 horra, that is to say, she is allied to the Queen 
 and Spain by the latter connection, and to 
 Prince Gaston by her other claim. Come what 
 may, I am safe!" and he leaned back compla- 
 cently in the hard stall as though it were cush- 
 ioned for a prior. 
 
 "My good angel sent you!" 
 
 Laffemas grasped the other's hand across 
 the board, looked him in the eye, unusual 
 course for him, and continued with the same 
 rare frankness. 
 
 "You are the man I prayed for! I accept 
 your offer! I appoint you my steward." 
 
 "Ah!" sighed the judge, in relief and with 
 gladness of lust. 
 
 "Time pr< sses, and I have an appoint- 
 ment — " 
 
 "I guess! will vou have me, to give away the 
 bride?" 
 
 "Perhaps, but she and I must have a private 
 
532 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 conference first. Can we not abridge the for- 
 malities?" 
 
 "Between lawyers? certainly. I carry writ- 
 ing materials — " 
 
 "And I!" 
 
 They cleared the rough boards and laid on 
 them paper and ink; each had a supply. 
 
 Laffemas laid a long list by his side. 
 
 "My catalogue of immovable property in 
 France!" 
 
 Laubardemont's look of curiosity changed to 
 one of avarice. 
 
 "Formidable!" cried he, and began to read: 
 "Item: a parcel of four farms in Cher, with 
 vineyards — " 
 
 "I held it in trust for the Prince of Marillac's 
 four sons; they fell into disfavor at his execu- 
 tion, and as they are dead, legally speaking, I 
 regard it all as mine own!" 
 
 "Naturally!" 
 
 "Poor Marillae! I presided at his execution, 
 on the Strand, at Paris. They are promising 
 boys, and will get along without clogging land 
 under their feet. It makes galliard spirits to 
 start them in want!" 
 
 "They will bless you! 'The Nitre Caves/ at 
 Savonier — " 
 
 "Always wanted at a stiff price, for gun- 
 powder," explained Laffemas, who seemed not 
 to be eager for his colleague to get away. "Ah, 
 Bassompierre was foresighted when he pur- 
 chased those bat-haunts. Foor dear Marshal! 
 I conducted him to the Bastile, and consigned 
 him to Governor du Treniblaj^s cares. Ah! 
 another tender reminiscence! Those thirty 
 acres of roses at Provins, on the Montmorency 
 Estate; I arranged all the ceremony from an- 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 533 
 
 cient precedents for the fil decollation of the 
 second Henry, Duke of that name." 
 
 "A quarry, from Souvre; farms, Lansee; the 
 Forest of Champmaillard, with right to cut 
 timber of twenty years' growth in perpetuity! 
 Delicious!" 
 
 "I arrested every one of those donors and 
 by my kindness secured their regard — and this 
 property, which otherwise would be clutched 
 by the insatiable Richelieu." 
 
 "True, some men are sordid! Happy inter- 
 mediary, and disinterested!" sighed Laubarde- 
 mont, rubbing his eyes while the other rubbed 
 his hands. 
 
 "Good gentlemen!" replied the susceptible 
 Police Official. "None of those I took into cus- 
 tody or marched to scaffold or prison, bore me 
 any grudge. I except M. Jars, who obtained a 
 pardon at the gibbet's foot and, by the mass! 
 cut me dead the next time we met, at a for- 
 tune-teller's in Paris! but I prompted her to 
 assure him that he would be taken off abomi- 
 nably and he has never slept a wink since!" 
 
 "Hum! this glass factory at Manche is valu- 
 able! your own purchase?" 
 
 "For a peppercorn, of Bouteville. I weep to 
 recall him! He lost his head, for a duel! Then, 
 the penalty was decapitation — now, we leave 
 the head on to prevent the halter slipping off!" 
 
 "The world is getting civilised," remarked 
 the other seriously. 
 
 "I read all their sentences, with clear articu- 
 lation and proper emphasis, so they know quite 
 clearly why they died. I do not hold with those 
 conscienceless clerks who gabble a death order 
 BO that a culprit is launched into eternity in 
 doubt why he was despatched thither!" 
 
534 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "I applaud! Oh, more vineyards — and in 
 Champagne!" 
 
 "I owe them to Montmorency, too, who sug- 
 gested to the Cardinal, before they fell out, 
 that the Stewardship there would fit me. I 
 never forgave Langely, who jested that he pre- 
 ferred the wine of my province to my ivhine!" 
 
 "Scurrilous knave! We have no time to jest. 
 Make me holder over all this property, and I 
 will transmit the income, apart from my 
 dues — •" 
 
 "Thirty per cent., my friend !" 
 
 "How liberal! I should be content with 
 twenty-five!" 
 
 Expert in drafting legal documents, the 
 transfer was speedily made. Laubardemont 
 seemed overcome by the honor! 
 
 "One good turn deserves another," said he, 
 sprinkling the ink with crumbled plaster in de- 
 fault of sand. "Are you sure you can pass out 
 of bounds, with your — companion?" 
 
 "The chief under his Eminence is master of 
 Kueil." 
 
 "In ordinary times," returned the judge, fold- 
 ing up the paper which, he considered, made 
 him sole owner of what it enumerated. 
 
 "What extraordinary times are these?" in 
 alarm. 
 
 "I do not know. Eueil is not in my jurisdic — 
 that is, the sentinels are doubled, and Cavoye 
 has come down from town with a reinforce- 
 ment. It was not merely because I am a royal 
 commissioner." 
 
 "I never rated Cavoye friend of mine." Laf- 
 femas looked perplexed and doubting. 
 
 "But he is of mine. He belongs distantly to 
 the family I married into! Anyway — " seeing 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 53S 
 
 Laffemas force a smile, he added: ''Say the 
 word and I will lend you the ring." 
 
 "Your signet-ring! what good j s that, out of 
 your jurisdiction? eh, it is Richelieu's!— the 
 rail ling-stone!" 
 
 "Ergo, it will pass any one through!" 
 
 "I believe it would pass a lost soul back 
 through Hades. Have you robbed your dying 
 master?" 
 
 "I, rob the eagle! I, the harmless, jovial, 
 table-loving Laubardemont, whom the King 
 talked of substituting for Langely, whose jokes 
 grow more trite and tedious?" 
 
 "Heigho! you may joke, since I must leave 
 so much to you, and go among pagans!" 
 
 "Pooh! Marion will console you! many an 
 envied duke in Paris would gladly change his 
 future for yours." *He slapped him on the 
 shoulder, chuckling. 
 
 "By the bye, steward of mine," said Laffe- 
 mas, apparently at ease, and slipping the token 
 of power upon his finger, while ceasing any 
 longer to listen to sounds without; "what com- 
 mission brings you to secluded Rueil? out of 
 your circuit?" 
 
 Still laughingly, Laubardemont responded: 
 "To make an arrest, of course." 
 
 "Who is here? have they decoyed Bellegarde 
 from Chambord?" 
 
 "Oh, no! neither duke nor prince! none such 
 have the cunning to choose the Cardinal's own 
 haunt for secrecy!" 
 
 "Oh, a pretended Cardinalist?" 
 
 "In plain words, a traitor." 
 
 "Do you anticipate difficulty, that you brin# 
 Cavoye along?" 
 
 "I told you it was rather he who brought me, 
 along! No, not with Rueil at my back." 
 
536 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 ''Nevertheless, if it be a personage of conse- 
 quence — " 
 
 "He is, and he is a rich one, to boot!" 
 
 "Then let me tell you that the town swarms 
 with strangers — " 
 
 "But all Cardinalistic?" 
 
 "These old feudal barons have tenants and 
 retainers who follow their lords against King 
 or governors. Ostensibly these bludgeon-bear- 
 ers come to see the execution — one to be car- 
 ried out within the walls! To my mind, Sa- 
 verny's yeomen contemplate a rescue! and they 
 would, being full of tide? and mead, join in any 
 attempt, provided they have the fighting they 
 pant for!" 
 
 "Though all Brittany came to the beck of 
 Nangis, and he made head against me, I should 
 make my arrest," said Laubardemont with a 
 mixture of the heroic and martyr's airs. 
 
 "But you will be smothered by the mob; torn 
 to rags when Saverny raises his war cry!" 
 
 "Oh, if that is all, friend, he will raise no cry 
 in peace or war!" 
 
 "All these nobles have a call: 'To the rescue 
 of Such-a-one!' Would you gag him? it looks 
 bad — my experience teaches, to lead a prisoner 
 about with a kerchief over his mouth! When I 
 took Montague, the English agent, though a 
 palpable foreigner, the rabble resented his be- 
 ing hoodwinked." 
 
 "It is clear you have been absent from town 
 lately! gagging is vulgar and obselete." The 
 commissioner drew a singular object from the 
 folds of his rich doublet. "You see here the 
 latest and genteelist novelty for hushing ob- 
 streperous prisoners." 
 
 Laffemas stared at the wooden pear which 
 Mazarini had presented to Richelieu for the 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 537 
 
 King, and which the ( Cardinal must have passed 
 to his chief judge for an experiment, as In* 
 promised to do. 
 
 "My friend, you sec the Pear of Silence, made 
 by an ingenious Brescian; placed in the cap 
 five's mouth, it prevents any noise, any inciting 
 spectators to riot and rescue!" 
 
 "Placed in the mouth!" returned the other, 
 with exquisite simplicity in a torturer pretty 
 well familiar with the arsenal of torment of 
 the period, "why, that is too large — at least for 
 France! the Brescians must have mouths like 
 that of Le Havre! that would never go into a 
 native mouth!"' 
 
 "But thus, when collapsed, see! by the key — 
 this pretended stem is the key — " 
 
 "That is different. How marvellous! It is 
 lessened in bulk; but, never will you prevail 
 on me to believe that it would enter a mouth 
 like — yours, for example!" 
 
 "It would slip into a princess's — Doubting 
 Thomas, see!" 
 
 At the moment when Laubardemont, carried 
 too far by his enthusiasm as a demonstrator, 
 lifted the pear near his parting lips, the audi- 
 tor raised his arms in admiration, and with a 
 blundering jog of the elbow drove the instru- 
 ment into the somewhat capacious orifice. 
 
 While the victim spluttered and tried to 
 expel the obstacle, the Lieutenant-Criminal 
 gave an expanding turn to the key, though af- 
 fecting to be trying to disengage it by this stem. 
 In mock horror he drew out the key, saying, al- 
 most with tears — they might be of satirical 
 laughter — in his eyes: 
 
 "I crave pardon! It will go in! by the Heart, 
 it has gone in!" 
 
 The dupe made an extraordinary but unin- 
 
538 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 telligible noise, while clawing at the gag with 
 both hands. 
 
 "What do you say? yes, it does render words 
 
 xJ V Xi 
 
 unmeaning! Oh, the key? you make the sign 
 for the key? Allow me! Thunder! I have, 
 again, turned it the wrong way!" 
 
 Nothing was more perfect than the distress- 
 ful air upon Laffemas' countenance; brief as 
 was his association with Mondori's troupe, he 
 had profited histrionically; but, somehow, 
 Laubardemont did not believe in his sincerity. 
 Still less was his belief when Laffemas profited 
 by his discomfiture to smooth his arms down 
 by his sides, and bind them thus with his scarf 
 of office. With unsuspected strength the slight- 
 er man threw him down on the stones, secured 
 his ankles with an end of rope, and tightened 
 the bonds on his arms. In spite of an evident 
 disposition to save time, he methodically 
 searched his prize. 
 
 The judge moaned as the document empow- 
 ering him to manage Laffemas' real estate was 
 taken from him, and other papers came to light. 
 
 "Warrant, 'Executed in my litter on the lii«li- 
 
 x/ <—> 
 
 way between Chantillv and — ' What have we 
 
 xJ x 
 
 here, scoundrel? Richelieu supersedes me as 
 Lieutenant-Civil and appointed the bearer in my 
 stead? What farther is this? Warrant: 'Ar- 
 rest and try Jean, alias Norbert Laffemas, pre- 
 tended son of the royal valet Laffemas, for 
 m-m-murder!' I, commit murder?" 
 
 Laubardemont shuddered — for if ever mur- 
 der was in a man's eye, it was plain in those 
 contemplating him with surprise and partly 
 glutted malice. 
 
 "Never till now did I feel that way incli — 
 eh? 'The Murder of one Dame Laffemas, alias, 
 The Sorceress of Blanchapelle Lane, Paris.' 
 
OR. RICHELIEU DEFIED. 539 
 
 Ho, ho! 'Formerly, spouse of the woodman Laf 
 femas, of Richelieu bourg.' Zounds, how pal 
 you have it all! 1 am lost! but, no — I may 
 escape! thanks to the eaglestone 2 You villain! 
 1 was right to suspect you and be on my guard! 
 You had these adders' tongues to sting me, and 
 von slavered me to gain my store! It is you 
 'shall die!" 
 
 He took up one of the stylets used to erase 
 mistakes on parchment, and felt the point with 
 a coolness which certainty of revenge gave him. 
 
 The helpless one saw the blow descending as 
 he heard a knocking at the little door by which 
 he had been admitted. He hoped, for it might 
 be Cavoye! 
 
 "Joy! 'tis Marion! at last!" said Laffemas, 
 merely for that instant poising the weapon, 
 and bringing it down into the unresisting heart. 
 
 Made calmer still by the crisis, he stood up, 
 laid the steel quietly on the board, and wiping 
 his hand on the cloak, for a few 7 drops had 
 spirted, crossed the slabs to admit his expected, 
 and more desirable visitor. 
 
 The mantle dragged over Laubardemont's 
 staring eyes, half under the plasterers' table. 
 
 Laffemas was doubly delighted; he had rid 
 himself of a dangerous rival and fortified him- 
 self in his powerful position. He was to re- 
 ceive the ideal reward of his perfidy and pas 
 sion. He turned a deaf ear to all behind him. 
 Xevertheless, although the Chief Judge was 
 assuredly lifeless, a sound arose there, slight 
 but perceptible — perhaps, merely a stone 
 creaked in the drying mortar, or a green plank 
 cracked. 
 
 Laffemas gleefully opened to Mdlle. Delorme 
 and extended his homicidal hand with eager- 
 ness. 
 
540 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 "WAS EVER WOMAN IN THIS HUMOR WOOED?" 
 
 Long since, the sun had ceased to glide down 
 into the courtyard where the two prisoners ex- 
 ercised. From their heavily barred window, 
 they saw a point glitter now and then until all 
 the outlook became dark. It was the tip of the 
 sentries' halberds as one or another passed 
 along the wall. 
 
 They had vainly waited for the commissioner 
 to come, and announce the happy change in the 
 mode of their execution. But as Laubarde- 
 mont was busy on his own errand to Laffeinas, 
 it devolved on Captain Cavoye, or rather he 
 took it upon himself to afford the captives — 
 men of the sword whose fate he deplored — a 
 lightening of their burden. 
 
 After the news, Saverny outdid his former 
 self in liveliness. 
 
 He ate the supper as though it were the 
 feast from which Laubardemont had been un- 
 luckily called. 
 
 "Did you hear? 1 ' said he: "the Cardinal may 
 arrive at any nick between this and midnight?" 
 
 "It is a supreme instant," replied Didier; "it 
 is meet we should ponder over the sole issue of 
 our doom." 
 
 "I am pondering over the issue, indeed!" 
 
 "We are about the same age, and yet, grant- 
 ing you have seen most of the world, I reckon 
 myself older in wisdom than you." 
 
 The young noble bowed, with his eyes fixed 
 on the scratched stone. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 541 
 
 ''I accept you as guide. Since von will no1 
 try the means of escape alone, or to break out 
 in company, I resign myself, and my comfort is 
 in hearing you exhort." 
 
 "I ought to comfort you as, at every step 
 when you might have departed, I have barred 
 you. I challenged you! You were living mer- 
 rily when I crossed your path. By simple con- 
 tact, my life thread corrupted yours as a stick 
 of caustic rots the silk. Under my fate yours 
 has warped and snapped. We twain enter in- 
 to the vale of darkness together." 
 
 "I would rather we entered into the gallery 
 of light together! but in any direction we shall 
 march, shoulder to shoulder, like soldiers! It 
 will irritate his Eminence to hear that we 
 died fraternally; for he is shunned by the 
 world, saving his Father Joseph, his Daemon! 
 one who leads him by the nose as that other 
 scoundrel. Judge Laffemas, does by the sleeve!" 
 
 "This Laffemas is peculiarly abhorrent to 
 me," remarked Didier. "To think a great man 
 should be cursed with such a progeny!" 1 
 
 "It is the rule: my father was a miser — I am 
 a spendthrift. Marion was probably child of 
 an ordinary peasant. The son of a great man 
 is usually a pigmy! But hark! voices in there, 
 in the chapel!" 
 
 "I hear! probably the priest rehearsing the 
 service over us, with his clerk!" 
 
 "Go on, you, with your sermon! I prefer 
 it to that voice!" 
 
 They heard the rattle of arms; by the tread 
 they judged that the watch was doubled. 
 
 "This and the priest between, would have 
 made it more hard to break out," commented 
 the marquis; "we should have to run the risk 
 of two shots instead of one. to say nothing of 
 
542 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the immediate servant of St. John knocking us 
 over with the holy-water-brush! Double guard! 
 we are rising in value since esteemed as gentle- 
 men, once more, who should be decapitated." 
 
 Standing up, he drummed regretfully on the 
 block, said to be a door to safety. 
 
 "Friend," continued Didier, "for the sake of 
 your race, your quality, and name, have a care 
 not to flinch — not to stumble on the sill of the 
 chamber of which the headsman holds the key 
 — in the shape of an axe. It has so low a door 
 that one who would pass through upright must 
 stand a head lower than other men. Let us 
 go with a steady step towards the blood-clotted 
 block, that pillow, in this reign, of many a good 
 spirit. Let the scaffold quake under us, not we 
 upon the boards. Our heads are called for! 
 carry them loftily, as Herodias carried the 
 saintly one! Courage!" 
 
 Leaning against the wall, ceasing to drum 
 the tattoo, Saverny succumbed to his fatigue. 
 Besides, a strange calm had come over him, a 
 kind of contentment after the confirmation by 
 the Cardinal's Guardsman that they would suf- 
 fer the nobler doom. Escape, Didier had 
 haughtily spurned the idea. 
 
 The latter paused on seeing that his hearer 
 had become unconscious. 
 
 "What waste to preach courage to him! 
 what is my eagerness to end my misery, beside 
 his cheerful resignation?" 
 
 He walked up and down a few turns and took 
 his seat on the stone bench. 
 
 "Sleep on, brother! my time will soon come 
 to sleep as soundly, I trust! Oh, that all may 
 become dead within me! that not a fibre of my 
 heart outlasts, to hate what it so fondly 
 loved!" 
 
OR. RICHELIEU DEFIED. 543 
 
 He, too, seemed to have sunk into slumber, 
 so quiet was he, although, without thinking of 
 it, his eyes were fastened, in their diving into 
 vacancy, on that very stone which the jailer 
 had indicated to the Marquis of Saverny as the 
 only block to their exit. 
 
 Could it be true such a stronghold offered 
 such a flaw? was it not well-grounded popular 
 rumor that Rueil was tunnelled and channelled 
 deviously? If secret assassins might creep in- 
 to dungeons, why not captives steal forth, pos- 
 sessing knowledge of the egress? 
 
 Escape! the word had no magic for the 
 wretch whose prison had been the world all his 
 young life. Escape, to where Marion would 
 soon be the town talk anew, the subject of 
 ballad and satire! 
 
 Still staring, the wall became transparent. 
 By a freak of the imagination, or is it power 
 making solidity itself melt? he perceived the 
 chapel interior on which he had never really 
 cast a glance! Two figures were in earnest 
 conversation, not far from him. One he recog- 
 nised and the other he guessed ; he thrilled like 
 the bearer of a divining rod treading on a seam 
 of gold, at the voice, ever memorable, of the 
 woman ! 
 
 "Marie!" 
 
 He started up and pressed to the wall, be- 
 come again tangible. "What is she doing where 
 the priests should stand, repeating prayers for 
 the dead by violence?" 
 
 He glued his ear to the stone; no words 
 could he hear distinctly, though a vehement 
 dialogue was held. His weight bore on the 
 granite — it moved! He laid fingers on it at 
 the edge — he clawed it out as a wild beast 
 mijrht at its den. What if his nails broke and 
 
544 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 left the flesh bleeding! Other stones still 
 barred the way, but a chink was there. He 
 could peer into the chapel. 
 
 At his feet, too close to the wall to be visible, 
 lay Laubardemont, dead; over this space he 
 had a glimpse of Marion. Flushed with feel- 
 ing, losing her recent alabaster pallor, she was 
 beautiful as he recalled her in his earliest 
 dreams. She was speaking with a man in 
 black whose countenance was removed from his 
 for the time. 
 
 "The Judge Laffemas! Lieutenant of the 
 King!'' he muttered, aghast. "She meets her 
 latest lover here, with her discarded one in 
 earshot! Oh, she has grown viler than disgust 
 at its height could credit her!" 
 
 He noiselessly p icked out the stones until 
 all but the farthest and largest of them were at 
 his feet. Huge though they were, they had 
 been adjusted so that a child could displace 
 them. 
 
 The faithless jailer was obeying instruc- 
 tions? really the Marquis of Nangis' or Mar- 
 ion's? ah, well she knew that he would not 
 owe his life and freedom to the monev of her 
 purse or from her jewels! 
 
 It was Didier's influence over her which had 
 kept her hesitating so that she was an hour 
 late to her appointment. She detested her pow- 
 ers of intrigue and cajolery which had to be 
 exercised upon this wolf who had planted him- 
 self in the only way. 
 
 It was a horrible alternative, but never 
 could the captives break out with this enemy 
 next the wall pierced for their sortie! It was 
 her duty to lull this sentinel to inactivity, if 
 she had not the courage to slay him. 
 
 Visions of heroines rose before her, but alas! 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 545 
 
 for hero-worship, no one erects statues to Jael, 
 Judith, or Delilah! But on her tardy march, 
 she drew that Spanish dagger, thought that 
 so tine a point and trenchant edge required no 
 more force than beats a servant with a fan, 
 and went valiantly to the tryst. 
 
 Hearing voices within the holy vault, she 
 was fearful that the prisoners had burst 
 through and were detained by the Police Lieu- 
 tenant, lint almost instantly the voices were 
 stilled. In the silence she knocked again, and 
 it was only Laffemas who appeared at the pos- 
 tern. 
 
 He had left the lamp in the recess; the large 
 hall was poorly illumined; she noticed his pal- 
 lor, tremor and quivering voice, but she at- 
 tributed it all to his passion. 
 
 As he retreated, she followed him mechani- 
 cally across the pavement, thinking that it was 
 bringing her nearer to Didier! 
 
 (i Gloria! you have kept your word," cried the 
 Lieutenant, almost forgetting the last scene in 
 his gladness. "You accept the terms, eh? Well, 
 that man — those two shall be free! See, the 
 signet-ring of the Prime Minister, before which, 
 throughout France, all, high or low, will make 
 the way smooth and pleasant. They shall pass 
 to the sea, easy as the gull, driven inland by a 
 storm, ret inns to the billow! And you shall re- 
 turn to your nest, at Paris. Oh, Marion, how 
 sagely your good genius has prompted you to 
 choose me your partner in the new round of 
 the dance! Look at the field of politics, har- 
 rowed and furrowed, tumbling down over the 
 old landmarks and heaping upon the high 
 bounds. The throne — rotten wood! the King! 
 a nonentity, whom the taking of waterfowl suf- 
 ficiently entertains; Richelieu is dying by 
 
546 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 inches; Prince Gaston is ready to enrich above 
 rapacity's cold calculation those who espouse 
 his cause! You and I can rule Paris, whoever 
 the next ruler shall be!" 
 
 He spoke to overpower a voice protesting in 
 his bosom, remorse that the murder of Dame 
 Rose had not aroused. 
 
 Marion let him babble; listening and staring 
 over his head, fancying that now and then the 
 walls undulated. 
 
 "Not a word!" said he, recovering coolness 
 at certainty that she had not perceived the 
 corpse in the nook; "you might tender your 
 hand for a kiss to bind our bargain! to one 
 who risks his head for those two insignificant 
 ones!" 
 
 "Not here! not within hearing, almost, of my 
 espoused one!" 
 
 "These are not walls that have ears, in that 
 sense," confidently returned the chief Officer 
 of Justice. "A crime may be acted out to the 
 victim's last groan, with impunity! it is con- 
 structed for deeds of darkness, treacherv and 
 heinousness!" 
 
 "Do you woo by threatening?" she rejoined, 
 gaining coolness since this took the aspect of a 
 combat and, to do Marion fairness, she was 
 brave. "In a church, hung with black for im- 
 pending death, do you talk in this strain? You 
 must be one who does not believe in high, just 
 heaven!" 
 
 "Stay where you are!" He was frightened 
 lest she should step in where the corpse stif- 
 fened, or at his approach the blood should flow. 
 "Hem! I — I think the priest is coming! Now, 
 lady, is it to be the marriage or the death-ser- 
 vice he is to go through?" 
 
 "Death to all of us rather than union with a 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 547 
 
 wretch like you! Ob, you must be dull, vile, 
 and infamous to think that a woman — a Marion 
 Delorme — after having loved the purest of men 
 ever formed by heaven, and being purified out 
 of her own knowing by that chastening flame, 
 in adoration — her soul revived by his superb, 
 unworldly spirit — that such a oue should fall 
 from the height of her redemption so low as to 
 be picked up by a Laffemas! Spawn of a priest 
 — no, beggar's brat imposed upon a dotard, if 
 I can read such a craven's inner self rightly! 
 how you cower! Torturer in a judge's robe! 
 grovelling anima more fitted for a poisonous 
 worm! do you dare aspire to the hostess of 
 princes?" 
 
 He seemed to wither in such scorn, but re- 
 covering, he hissed: 
 
 "Do vou boast of vour shame, harlot!" 
 
 Circumspectly he circled round her, to pre- 
 vent her entering that cave to which his back 
 was turned. 
 
 Remembering that Marion had warned him 
 that she w r ent armed, he had cunningly picked 
 up the stylet to which the judge's blood now 
 glued his fingers. Sooner than she should live 
 to give Didier the last kiss on his road to the 
 scaffold, he would lay her to rest where he had 
 hoped to make her his bride. 
 
 "I boast of nothing but having inspired that 
 glorious love!" 
 
 "But he will die! Misguided one, this is not 
 the way to save him!" 
 
 "Nor to save him would I become shameful 
 again! he would not purchase liberty at that 
 price! but you know not such men. His breath 
 h;ts transfigured me — elevated my soul! You 
 no longer address a Marion Delorme. sir! it is 
 a repentant! nothing of the former stray re- 
 
548 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 mains, saving her beauty — heaven forgive the 
 wearer of that dubious boon! It wins and it 
 banishes the very man whose happiness it 
 seeks! The love of Didier has sublimated me 
 and I ascend out of your reach!" 
 
 He showed his steel ; she immediately bared 
 her own dagger. They looked at one another 
 for a moment, but the man quailed; he was 
 afraid of death! Might not this be the 
 avenger? 
 
 It seemed to him that one was at hand! 
 
 "Lower your weapon," said she; "let me 
 pass!" 
 
 Acting on a new impulse or imposed upon 
 by her grandeur, he put the stylet in his girdle, 
 and asked as he followed her: 
 
 "Whither do you go? to sue to the Cardinal, 
 perhaps?" 
 
 "Like master, like man! beg of your lord 
 when you are so cruel? I go, sir, to die beside 
 the man whom I cannot deliver!" 
 
 The instant she lowered her dagger and was 
 partly passing him, he dropped his mask of 
 submission and sprang upon her like a panther. 
 
 He caught her hand, holding the weapon, and 
 held it firmly. 
 
 "You have destroyed yourself! I will swear 
 that I caught you in Rueil, armed to assassi- 
 nate my lord! But, shall I let you go! Only as 
 my bride, as the saints hear me!" He wrenched 
 the dagger from her. "Now, you are power- 
 less! our marriage must be! for here comes the 
 holy man! Life to you all — you see how gen- 
 erous I am! Saverny, Didier, yourself ! and joy 
 to me! A kiss upon our pact! I believe in a 
 Marion who will not break her word, and I will 
 set them free! I will guide them both to the 
 outlet!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 549 
 
 Marion was struggling against Ins grasp; she 
 averted her fare not t<» have his lips come into 
 contact with her cheek; then, suddenly, for- 
 getting all in horror, she hoarsely screamed: 
 
 "Help! Didier, help! he has blood on his 
 hands!" 
 
 In the wrestling, they had whirled round to- 
 wards the recess. 
 
 Laffemas was shaken bv her denunciation; 
 his foot slipped on the red-black slime from 
 under the table and he staggered over the dead 
 body. Marion was still detained by his grip 
 but shrank out of the reach of the poniard. As 
 her gaze rose desperately, she saw a stone leap 
 out of its socket. Didier's flaming face ap- 
 peared in the opening as the granite block de- 
 scended, hurled by all his force, upon the Lieu- 
 tenant-Criminal. 
 
 The stylet rang on the pavement as he fell, 
 crushed, with broken wrist and skull across 
 Laubardemont's remains, their blood comming- 
 ling, as a heap of rubble, plaster and stones 
 showered upon both. Over this heap Didier 
 bounded down through the aperture. 
 
550 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 "WAS EVER WOMAN IN THIS HUMOR WON?" 
 
 "By my hopes of heaven!" sneered Didier, 
 as he alighted, "the place is fitly chosen for 
 courtship, and the groom, to boot!" 
 
 Marion rubbed her cheek where she imag- 
 ined she felt Laffemas' kiss, like a red-hot 
 brand, and retreated, appalled by this unex- 
 pected taunt. 
 
 "Did you not hear?" she faltered. 
 
 "I heard that vou were here to wed that 
 man, thanks to the same priest who was to re- 
 cite Ora Pro Nobis over me !" 
 
 She fell incontrollably at his knees and tried 
 to clasp them. 
 
 "Oh, is there ever to be this coldness — this 
 error about one who loves you so dearly? 
 Leave me here, to die! it is enough happiness 
 to have seen you again! Oh, let me kiss your 
 hands, torn by those massy stones! or were 
 they lacerated by the manacles?" 
 
 "My hands are not in pain — it is my heart," 
 responded the young man. "Have done! place 
 upon these honest hands neither tears nor 
 kisses. Why do you weep? for>t* 8 loss of the 
 brilliant prospect that man promised?" 
 
 "I am not weeping," replied Marion, spring- 
 ing to her feet. "I forgot that, now you are 
 free, I have no cause to do anything but laugh." 
 
 "Free! you may well laugh — this church is 
 but a prison within a prison!" 
 
 "Yoa are wrong! this makes you free!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 551 
 
 Tbe Cardinal's ping bad rolled into sight, not 
 far from her dagger. 
 
 "Thanks! his dagger? I am not going to 
 murder to gain useless liberty." 
 "I mean that ring! the Cardinal's!" 
 "His signet! I would as lief pick up a toad 
 for its jewel! Neither to him nor bis minion 
 would I owe anything!" 
 
 "Yes, yes, you will live! but be quick! It is 
 I alone who will remain here, to meet the priest, 
 tbe guards, tbe battled master! What can they 
 do to one whose heart is crushed, just as you 
 crushed that viper's head with that stone! 
 Pass, with that ring, out into life again!" 
 
 Her voice became clear with a superhuman 
 effort. 
 
 ''All went well. You must have been told of 
 this outlet to be so providentially on the spot. 
 At that little door is a disguise, concealed un- 
 der my mantle. I have been supplied with 
 plenteous funds — " 
 
 "Madam, your money cannot avail me!" 
 "It is not mine, but the Marquis of Nangis' — 
 Father Joseph's, too! I guessed your scruple! 
 Let the poor old noble see his nephew once 
 again! The guards are many, but not that way, 
 thanks to my accomplice's arts or this wretch's 
 machinations. You can certainly gain the road, 
 and the road is all France! 
 
 "I remember, too, that that man has a pass- 
 port to qui f he kingdom, an order to secure a 
 ship — supply yourself, for the sea is the world 
 at large!" 
 
 Between laughing and sobbing, she con- 
 tinued: 
 
 "You will preserve your dear life, and, in the 
 convent, I shall dwell so thankful! Listen: Nan- 
 gis' followers gather at the inn, armed, treason 
 
552 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 to the contrary! to hinder the soldiers! Reach 
 the little inn, where a red lamp burns all night, 
 and the farmers will stop pursuit! Let the 
 cannon thunder to tell that you have fled! the 
 country-side is opposed to farther bloodshed! 
 You will be protected on every hand! But, 
 away! God impel you! Farewell! best and 
 sole beloved!" 
 
 She tried to seize him and urge him towards 
 the postern. He did not budge. 
 
 ''Mark, you are pardoned! I went to the 
 King, who granted your pardon, but he, the 
 Man in Red, cancelled the grace! This tyrant 
 is coming whose emissary preceded him but by 
 a little! and to him who follows I wish the 
 same fate!" 
 
 Didier had no eyes for the slain ; he studied 
 the living as we gaze on a shore from which we 
 sail nevermore to return. 
 
 "All is lost if you linger, for — he comes!" 
 She shrieked, for listening on every side like a 
 hunted hare, she heard unusual movements of 
 the garrison; in the street, at a little distance, 
 a ruddy glare of light shone before the hostel, 
 where, under guise of awaiting the Cardinal's 
 coming, the band of sympathisers with Nangis 
 and Saverny, stood, with weapons covered, to 
 assist the deliverance. 
 
 "It was well-planned," said Didier, absently. 
 
 Marion expected the speech and was rejoiced 
 at it, though the tone was not encouraging. 
 
 "Quick, then! ah, this is more like yourself, 
 your noble self, which would not cause pain to 
 anyone. You are saved! Go in haste, with all 
 my love, darling Didier!" 
 
 ''You said something about the road, at the 
 end of the yard?" 
 
 "It leads to the hostelry where friends are 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 553 
 
 waiting. An easy way. You will meet no one 
 hostile, as the spies are maltreated, and can- 
 not associate with the farmers who speak an 
 unknown dialect. The word is 'Savemis and 
 Nangy!' Mark the distortion! Don the dis- 
 guise — oh! how we shall laugh by-and-bye at 
 your masquerade, thinking of where we learnt 
 such tricks, among the strollers. But, away!" 
 
 "Nothing presses,'' said Didier carelessly. 
 
 "What dulness — madness! with death at the 
 door — at all doors save that I point out!'' 
 
 "It is because you point it out that I do not 
 go!" 
 
 "Because I? oh, argue no more, but start!" 
 
 "Why have you come to disturb me?" 
 
 "To save you!" She gazed on him as on a 
 madman. "What a question to put, and to me, 
 in that chilling tone!" 
 
 "You ought to know that many a man has 
 been made mad, by woman!" retorted he with 
 a mournful smile. 
 
 "Say what you will about me, to me — but 
 afterwards. Let us go, or go, you, alone! Truly, 
 it will be better! Oh, that clamor! If 'tis the 
 Cardinal, come!" 
 
 Aroused by the demolition of the passage 
 and by the fall of the stones allowing no doubt 
 that his companion had reconsidered his re- 
 solve and was breaking out, without him, Sa- 
 verny disbelieved he could be quitted so shame- 
 fully. But hearing voices beyyud, he cautiously 
 looked through the thick wall gap and beheld 
 Marion debating in this singular mode with her 
 lover. He had the unusual delicacy to wait, 
 though each moment was vital. But as Didier 
 persisted in refusing the boon and he was not 
 himself squeamish, he decided to show his head 
 in the breach. He stopped short, horrified at 
 
554 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 seeing the two partly-shrouded and mangled 
 bodies of the dignitaries; their heads were not 
 discernible and he could only guess at their 
 identity upon his surmises. 
 
 "Has he killed the priest, and the commis- 
 sioner? pretty return for his coming to read 
 our abated sentence!" 
 
 "Who is this?" said Didier pointing over his 
 shoulder to the marquis. 
 
 Astonished at the question, fearful that she 
 was facing one whom confinement had crazed, 
 the woman replied sorrowfully: 
 
 "Do you not know your friends? not your 
 companion in captivity? Haste away with 
 him! he will be welcomed by his people, and 
 your rescue will be the surer!" 
 
 She warmly beckoned Saverny to enter the 
 chapel. 
 
 "Begone, both of you!" she added as he 
 scrambled through. "I implore it, on my 
 knees!" 
 
 "For which of us do you make this attempt?" 
 coldly demanded Didier. 
 
 For a moment stupefied, Marion speedily re- 
 covered her calm, but it was with hurt pride 
 that she rose and responded loftily: 
 
 "Is it thus you speak to your betrothed be- 
 fore a third party? What ill-will do you bear 
 me, to treat me no better?" 
 
 "I bear ill-will for no one. But look me 
 steadily in the eye!" 
 
 She met his gaze unflinchingly. At resuming 
 connection with those glorious orbs which dis- 
 tress had not impaired, he shuddered. Unfor- 
 tunately, she was too much like the portrait 
 given him by Saverny, and all the ignominious 
 memories, thronging round that likeness like 
 graces about a Venus, kept him frigid. His 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 555 
 
 searching look intimidated her. Better than 
 the Parisian witch, he seemed to read her, and 
 her story; ii counted her host of admirers, and 
 the offerings heaped on her Place Roy ale altar. 
 
 But she reassured herself, reasoning that one 
 who saw so much must also sec 1 how well she 
 loved him. 
 
 "You behave harshly towards me, Didier, 
 since you cherished some hurtful secret against 
 me. Tell me all, at this mighty instant. Often, 
 evil is dreamt of and misery flows from a con- 
 cealed cause, for which suppression one be- 
 comes grieved. It is not so long, I trow, since 
 I had a share in your thoughts. Has all that 
 passed? Do you no longer love me? Do you 
 not remember Blois — our little room where we 
 dwelt in profound peace and bliss? How well 
 we loved, far from the blatant world's remind- 
 ers! 
 
 "Yet, even there, you were ill at ease! Time 
 and again, I said to myself: 'How sad in one 
 who onght to look his happiness!' It was a 
 delightful time, but in a day — an hour, swords 
 clashed and rang the knell of our joy! 
 
 "Dear soul, how many times you said that I 
 was your love, and in what words of flame! that 
 in me nestled all your confidence, and that I 
 could make you anything I pleased. What re- 
 quests have I ever put to you? You know how 
 often I have entered into your ideas — so, this 
 night, yield to one of mine!" 
 
 Spite of his resistance, she clung to him, for- 
 getful of the marquis, who remained astride of 
 the dead bodies as if he slew them in defence 
 of the position. He listened with dread to the 
 tumult at the town bars. 
 
 "Our lives are at stake," continued she in a 
 voice that might awaken those dead and thaw 
 
556 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 the granite. "With you, come what may — 
 flight or scaffold, and all is sweet!'' 
 
 He tried to disentangle her clasped fingers 
 and detach her arms from round his neck; to 
 lift her head, with the magnificent tresses di- 
 shevelled, from resting on his breast. She re- 
 tained hold of his hands and drew him down 
 upon a stall; she pillowed her head on his knee 
 even while beseeching him to flee. 
 
 She had taken no rest lately; slept not at 
 all ; she had been scouring the town to arrange 
 the deliverance, and she was wearv. Weary al- 
 so over his unbroken resolve not to be saved by 
 her. 
 
 Saverny was a petrified witness of this com- 
 bat of love and honor; alone in him of the two 
 men, his heart ached to see her weeping whom 
 he had hitherto seen laughing; never had any- 
 one dared to refuse her lightest caprice! What 
 man was this who could repulse a Marion's 
 strenuous pleading! 
 
 She suffered more from Didier's silence than 
 from his dislike to accepting rescue from her. 
 More painful than anything she had experi- 
 enced was the inability now to extract a sylla- 
 ble from those marble lips; she had brushed 
 them with hers and they had not warmed a jot 
 — rather, they had frozen hers. 
 
 "It were more humane to stab her with one 
 of those bodkins next these murdered men," 
 thought Saverny, beginning to hate this stern 
 comrade who afflicted Marion. 
 
 Suddenly she dried her eyes as a new light 
 shone in them. 
 
 "Die, if you will," said she with ghastly play- 
 fulness, "but smile again! Let me see you 
 laugh before — Come, come, I have too long 
 acted on your will — it is my turn to be obeyed. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 557 
 
 Slmke off the bitterness with which your chains 
 have infused your soul, and speak to me — call 
 me 'Marie dearest' as of old-time!" 
 
 "Marie op .Marion!" He spoke at last. 
 
 She fell back, terrified, thunderstruck. 
 
 All was over with her deceit. Had Saverny, 
 grinning there like the demons sculptured on 
 the oaken screen, betrayed her, maligned her? 
 worse, told the truth! 
 
 "Oh, be clement, Didier!" she gasped, bow- 
 ing herself lower than she had to the King. 
 
 "Woman," said Didier, in a piercing voice, 
 "this is Kueil Castle, special prison of the 
 Prime Minister, where ingress is not easy. 
 Night as day, the walls are guarded, and the 
 approaches watched. These walls are thick; 
 these locks, miracles of forging. Your tale of 
 a Breton baron having the golden key to open 
 these fastenings is false! Under patronage of 
 what high functionary have you passed the 
 compliant sentries and found out the weak 
 points so that I should be here, and beside 
 you?" 
 
 "I vow that Nangis aided me — that Saverny's 
 men await without!" 
 
 "You were admitted by traitors, perhaps by 
 the Lieutenant-Civil himself!" He spurned the 
 mantle partly veiling the dead judges. "No- 
 body rules here save Richelieu, or his repre- 
 sentative." 
 
 "Then, you did not hear? I — even to save 
 you, to tear you out of these toils — I, stoop to a 
 Laffemas! Not yet do you know Marion De- 
 lorme, Didier!" 
 
 "I thank you, lady, for what you have done, 
 but I cannot evade the gallows on a by-way of 
 shame. Heaven's hand is in the descent of a 
 stone, who doubts? Look!" he held up her 
 
558 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 miniature and rived it — ground it to shreds in 
 his frenzied grasp, "I bruise the cockatrice! I 
 crush its head as I did that of the Judas-judge! 
 and this renegade-turnkey's, I suppose — our 
 vampire Vizier's satraps!" 
 
 "The other fellow is Laubardemont!" ex- 
 claimed the marquis, feeling his hair rise on 
 end at the enormity of the fatality his comrade 
 had wrought. 
 
 "My portrait!" sighed Marion, blushing with 
 indignation as if her face had been slapped, as 
 some of the fragments fell to be smeared with 
 the coagulated gore. 
 
 "Abide with your partner in this foul tran- 
 saction! I misread his character if he will 
 have a second mourner! I will go from here 
 solely to the gallows! In perverted justice's 
 scales themselves, my head will yet outweigh a 
 courtesan's fame!" 
 
 "Do not treat me thus unfairly!" appealed 
 Marion, rising as if more bravely to breast the 
 storm. "Your scorn makes me tremble so that 
 I fear in another instant I shall lie similarly 
 shattered at your feet. Blind wretch! If ever 
 there were a love strong, true and ardent — if 
 ever a man were singled out for perfect adora- 
 tion from among the chosen — oh! Didier, you 
 were that man!" 
 
 Saverny could hardly restrain himself from 
 applauding this outburst which should have 
 convinced the other hearer, but this one re- 
 sponded, with a wave of the hand to silence 
 her: 
 
 "Had I been born a woman, and grown up 
 idolised by the whole town, covered with gold 
 and gems, sporting with ordinary hearts as 
 boys play with flies, I would sooner have dug 
 my grave with my nails than deceived a man 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 559 
 
 who trusted me. entirely, unknowing my true 
 self. I would not have beguiled a soul full of 
 illusions; not have cheated him because he was 
 ignorant; I might glory in worsting — in con- 
 quering the wary and open-eyed, but to trick 
 a faithful spirit, to gull a confiding one, to let 
 a chaste and pure eye over-value the flawed 
 pearl — to be so very, very perfidious, false and 
 ungrateful — out upon you, Jezebel!" 
 
 Cowering under this invective, Marion made 
 as if to drop at his feet, but the dead were 
 there; she hid her face in her loosened tresses. 
 
 "My heart was a distorting mirror, which it 
 would make you laugh to behold," pursued he. 
 ''In that you were reflected as if pure, candid, 
 and perfect! Oh, woman, what monster 
 have you changed your worshiper into — one 
 who so long adored at your hem? Who knows 
 but that I should have the thanks of gallants, 
 possibly your favorites, if I spare you and do 
 not crush you on these stones?" 
 
 She dared not look Towards him; but her 
 wavering sight crossed the glances of Saverny, 
 whom it implored to kill her instead of defend- 
 ing her against his companion's threat. On the 
 rack she would undergo less anguish. 
 
 A bell ringing, not tolling, surely in joy, 
 broke the tension. She sprang up, remember- 
 ing what dread arbiter of this dear life was at 
 hand, so merrily greeted. 
 
 "Didier, time flies and the sole chance van- 
 ishes. I have no right to say a word to you, 
 Didier, but having rebuked me and cursed me, 
 you can say no more. More than your hate and 
 derision I deserve, but it shows how good you 
 are to upbraid me so lightly, and my braised 
 spirit blesses you. But I see the frightful hour 
 approach! the tyrant is near you, and his hand 
 
560 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 waves the deathsruan on to seize his prey. Do 
 not delay! Flee! You forget all, but the min- 
 ions of the law have sound memories! Recall 
 that all is prepared for your deliverance. Strike 
 me down — make me a stepping-stone to your 
 liberty! leave me in the opprobrium I merit and 
 to the repentance, my only refuge, but flee, 
 though over my aching heart!" 
 
 "Flee! what do I want to avoid but you? my 
 most welcome refuge is in the grave, which 
 happily is yawning!" 
 
 The clock struck midnight and the surround- 
 ing village churches began repeating the 
 strokes at a respectful interval, as though they 
 durst not offend the Cardinal's Castle by over- 
 haste. 
 
 "Go!" repeated Marion, approaching so that 
 his retreat in abhorrence would commence his 
 departure. 
 
 "I am not willing," he said, folding his arms. 
 
 "Oh, pity!" 
 
 "For whom?" asked he, looking round. 
 
 "Am I to see you arrested, bound, dragged to 
 the block? A thought which fills me with new 
 agony! Come, let me lead you to freedom! As 
 your servant, allow this! Take me, with all my 
 misdeeds upon me to expiate, and treat me as 
 the rug beneath your feet. Oh, do you no long- 
 er know that vou besought me to be your 
 wife?" 
 
 "Wife?" repeated Didier, incredulously. 
 
 A cannon boom was heard and shook the 
 painted glass panes. 
 
 "The Cardinal is at his gates!" said Saverny, 
 half-aloud, chafing at this long delay, yet 
 shrinking from interfering where Marion failed 
 to urge. 
 
 "This is the high priest who will not wed you 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 561 
 
 but pronounce you a widow!" drily responded 
 Didier. 
 
 Trumpets sounded and drums beat. 
 
 "It is certainly the duke," said the marquis. 
 "Well, lure goes one out of the net!" he added, 
 recovering lightness of foot and spirit at the 
 dread of facing the ogre. 
 
 He skipped over the dead men. 
 
 "Brother," he said flippantly to Didier, who 
 frowned as if only now aware of his nearness, 
 "I have had a dream, making me entertain an 
 enviable idea of life. Farewell, lady fair! I am 
 going to try to rejoice my good nunkey! Did- 
 ier, shake hands before I run the raking tire! 
 may the scarlet arquebusiers be as bad shots 
 as I am at poetry!" 
 
 Didier hesitated, but it was impossible to 
 preserve sternness towards this sprite of fri- 
 volity. He took his hand and embraced him, 
 without cavil — affectionately. 
 
 "You bid him farewell, and have no kind 
 word for me, at our parting?" jealously re- 
 buked the witness, drawing near as though to 
 separate them. 
 
 "This is a friend," said Didier, returning, as 
 the marquis disappeared by the secret door, 
 waving his hand in a gesture of farewell, com- 
 prising both. 
 
 "Sooth! you are too hard upon a woman who 
 has prayed more to all for your deliverance 
 than ever for her soul's from the Arch-Enemy," 
 persisted Marion. 
 
 Didier had paused, oscillating between the 
 last pang at parting with the marquis, the 
 black terror of rising death, and a tremendous 
 idea which suddenly overwhelmed his brain. 
 
 Marion had suggested it. 
 
 "The tyrant comes, this Moloch of France, 
 
562 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 whose eyes have gloated on our best country- 
 men's blood! He conies to see us die, as 
 though death's dart would fail to pierce his 
 sacred robe! Saverny is safe! My life is not 
 worth that jester's bauble! Let me deliver 
 France of its scarlet bugbear, and at least I 
 shall earn such thanks as are due tyranni- 
 cides!" 
 
 Rapt in this conception, he did not see the 
 poor creature melting into tears at his feet. 
 
 "Do you not follow the marquis?" said she. 
 
 This entire devotion to him affected him more 
 than before, since, in his mind, he had doubly 
 forfeited his life. 
 
 Was he to go forth to win a people's bless- 
 ings and not let this one poor heart cherish a 
 little relief after all her exertions on his be- 
 half, with so paltry a return? He could no 
 longer preserve a brazen brow after steeling 
 his broken heart to execute a murderous re- 
 solve. 
 
 He stooped, opening his arms, and spasmodi- 
 cally lifted her upon his bosom. 
 
 "I am going out to certain death," said he, 
 "but I go with a two-fold joy. As a patriot, I 
 rejoice at the mission charged to me, and as a 
 man, I rejoice that after all I love you. The 
 man who has not loved, even an unworthy ob- 
 ject, quits the world as incomplete as the still- 
 born. To love is the supreme gladness!" 
 
 All gloom fled from his face; a glory seemed 
 to emanate from every feature; she started 
 from him in the amazement succeeding her 
 bliss at the revulsion. 
 
 He was all she had judged, then; he could 
 not die without pity and forgiveness. What- 
 ever she had been to others, "Our good Marion" 
 — such was their favorite epithet — had been to 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 563 
 
 him ever kind, cheerful, affectionate and de- 
 voted. If she had kept back her previous ca- 
 reer, it was for love of him — from fear of pain- 
 ing him. He had placed faith in her, and, she 
 knew, she had never imperilled it. This dead 
 man at their feet, that fugitive over whose fate 
 she felt no concern, they were testimony that 
 she loved but once, and its object was here. 
 
 Another reflection softened him. Like him- 
 self, since her origin was humble, her mother, 
 like his own, had not been by to guide the in- 
 fant steps; her father had not led her in less 
 tender years, and guarded her from the tempta- 
 tions crowding on a beautiful maid. 
 
 At his last hour, the earth seemed to fade 
 from him, and speech became sincere as before 
 the August Tribunal. 
 
 "Marie, my love, my wife!" he cried, feeling 
 that her soul, become innocent anew, would 
 meet nowhere aught so exalted. "Hear me as 
 I forgive you, in the name of the Power who 
 hath alleviated dissolution's pangs by pointing 
 out how its inevitable course ends in glory." 
 
 She vainly tried to show her gratitude for 
 this pardon, for her voice was stifled in sobs. 
 
 He was kneeling to her when they heard, at 
 the main door, the musketeers ground their 
 heavy guns and the officers draw their swords. 
 
 "It is my turn now to beg your pardon," said 
 he. 
 
 She lowered both hands to lift him up, with- 
 out a word, but her recovered smile proved 
 that she would not hesitate. 
 
 "I was the wicked one. I am the scourge by 
 which heaven smote and lacerated you. Weep 
 for me, though others may laud my death! I 
 go with the huge remorse of having caused you 
 sorrow, Marie. With your lips to mine, my 
 
564 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 ever-dear Marie, say you forgive me!" con- 
 tinued he, enfolding her to his heart, no longer 
 cold. 
 
 Her rapture was beyond utterance; the 
 phrase in which she strove to exhale it was 
 unintelligible. She swooned, and sank out of 
 his arms. 
 
 A door opened, at this juncture, but it was 
 not at the main entrance. An inner one from 
 the castle admitted a stranger, accompanied by 
 Saverny — the picture of consternation. 
 
 "Forgive me, my lord," this stranger was 
 saying, "but you took the wrong turn. But 
 nothing presses! besides, I desire your com- 
 pany." 
 
 Didier had caught up a stylet; he advanced 
 but stopped, thinking that he had seen this 
 speaker before. 
 
 "The priest," said he, for the intruder wore 
 a cassock over a riding dress. 
 
 "A priest," replied the other; "do you not 
 recognize me? M. Didier, I am that Abbe de 
 Gondi who was your second in a little affair 
 on the Pont Neuf. I am come, not for the dread 
 errand that you assume — natural the error! 
 but to second you again in a happier meet- 
 ing!" 
 
 He bowed to Marion who was as much puz- 
 zled as the two men. But she well knew the 
 Coadjutor of the Archbishop of Paris. 
 
 "Let me marry you! The lady will have a 
 fresh plea for the Cardinal's mercy on behalf 
 of her husband! Monsieur will be my clerk." 
 
 "I?" ejaculated Saverny in horror. 
 
 Never had he passed such a nightmare, 
 Stopped in his wandering by Gondi, he had let 
 himself be led back, fearing the worst. To be 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 565 
 
 a priest's clerk, at a wedding, and that, Marion 
 Delorme's! 
 
 With the ease and speed of practice, Gondi 
 saw that the articles for the marriage were 
 ready, thanks to Laffemas' prevision. He lit 
 the tapers, and performed the service for the 
 astounded Didier and Marion, while the town 
 was echoing with the music, shouts and clash 
 of arms over the Cardinal's arrival into Rueil. 
 
 In their blissful amaze they seemed ob- 
 livious of the clamor. 
 
 The vaults reverberated, but the four were 
 calm, Saverny having caught the lofty con- 
 tagion. In giving the ring, Didier thought- 
 lessly handed the abbe the signet of the Prime 
 Minister, at which he smiled scarcely percepti- 
 bly in surprise. 
 
 Meanwhile the noise at the main entrance 
 continued where the soldiers had remained; 
 lights flashed; weapons ominously jangled. 
 
 Was this a device of the cruel Cardinal to 
 make death more awful! 
 
 Gondi uttered with unction: 
 
 "Those whom God hath joined, let no man 
 put asunder!" 
 
 Both the great doors were flung open. 
 
 Armed men inarched orderly within, their 
 steel flashing in rich torchlight, their match- 
 locks reeking, to form the animated back- 
 ground to Captain Cavoye, who strode upon 
 the black and grey flags and said: 
 
 "You are the person named Didier?" He 
 did not even look around for his companion in 
 captivity, and, stranger yet, appeared not to 
 feel any shock at seeing the marquis beside the 
 priest. 
 
 But he exchanged a rapid glance with Gondi, 
 who said quickly: 
 
566 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 "It is M. Didier, and this is bis wife! I pray 
 you deal gently with a newly-made wife!" 
 
 "Come," continued Cavoye, hiding any emo- 
 tion in the frowning grey brows and the still 
 black mustache. "I am to lead you before his 
 Eminence who is at home in Rueil." 
 
 Didier had let Marion sink to the floor, 
 where he drew an altar-cloth over her. 
 
 "Pardon the sacrilege," said he softly to 
 Gondi. "This is a poor martyr eager to end 
 her days in Mother Church." 
 
 The abbe came over and took up Marion, in 
 the wrapper, for which act Didier bowed to 
 him. 
 
 Saverny had profited by his being ignored to 
 slip behind the reredos and make a second at- 
 tempt at escape, in which he was more success- 
 ful. 
 
 "Captain, take me," said Didier, smiling to 
 himself at this conduct shortening his road to 
 his new goal. "I am wounded to the heart by 
 love, and I am content to die, for it is in- 
 curable!" 
 
 He placed himself beside Cavoye, who waved 
 his sword for his men to surround the pris- 
 oner. 
 
 "They make no to-do about the marquis, who 
 has slipped out," commented the last, with a 
 smile. "And they fix such undivided attention 
 upon me that they do not search and discover 
 those dead. All goes well! I, alone, am to 
 meet the oppressor!" 
 
 In the yard, the gates had been opened to 
 the townsfolk's amaze, since the castle had al- 
 ways been a sealed abode; and a multitude had 
 gathered. A greater number streamed along 
 the road to greet the Master of France; these 
 saluted Didier, with many an eye wet with 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 567 
 
 sympathy, and many a hand held up to shake 
 his, if the guards had permitted the act, while 
 the other held the cudgel. 
 
 "You are come to Bee me go to my doom," 
 said Didier firmly, "bear witness that I did 
 not flinch when eternity sounded for me!" 
 
568 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 Marion awoke from a sleep seeming very 
 long. She looked around. Didier's pardon had 
 so uplifted her that she forgot in what sombre 
 circumstances it was accorded. 
 
 She was alone in the chapel but for the 
 abbe who was praying, not for her but over the 
 corpses, which he had discovered. 
 
 Not far off the joyous music continued, 
 marred bv enthusiastic shouts. In a breath she 
 recalled all. 
 
 "The wolves are howling over the prey!" said 
 she, rising and wringing her hands distracted- 
 ly. "Those good-men will go home and tell 
 their wives and little ones of the execution, 
 and feel no shame that they let the crime be 
 consummated! Why did not the captain's 
 sword pierce me before its shadow hovered 
 over you, oh, my beloved, on your march to the 
 block!" 
 
 Gondi rose from kneeling, and sprinkled holy 
 water profusely about the corpses. 
 
 "Madam, it is never too late," said he. "Noth- 
 ing has been done yet. The Cardinal-duke slow- 
 ly draws near. There is yet time to ask grace 
 of his Eminence for your husband!" 
 
 "Husband! that was not a dream, then?" 
 
 The half-hour after midnight rang. 
 
 At all events, Didier had lived into another 
 morning! Gondi wore the ecclesiastic's and 
 
UK, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 5G9 
 
 the politician's passionless face but his speech 
 was kind enough. 
 
 "The Cardinal-duke's grace?" repeated Mar- 
 ion. "You are right! He is a man of God! 
 God's man over this kingdom, and he will hear 
 iny wifely plea, will he not? He may repent 
 that he revoked the King's pardon! He is an 
 old man — a sickly one — so near the grave, he 
 will rather drag another back than push him 
 in! say you not so? The good Cardinal, the 
 great Minister, he will overlook this offence, 
 since the young man has suffered so much al- 
 ready! Take me to him, good father." 
 
 "Go! no one will obstruct you," said the 
 Abbe of Notre Dame. "I have to stay and 
 pray here, for blood has stained the fane. This 
 is no longer a house of God. It must be con- 
 secrated anew. Go, in faith, daughter! If 
 that young man is not to lead you into the 
 home of happiness, turn you, as he said, into a 
 House of Peace!" 
 
 Marion had not listened to all his sentence. 
 Darting out of the chapel, crossing the yard, 
 and finding all issues unblocked, she rushed 
 along the street. 
 
 The black drapery was let down, after mask- 
 ing the breach for the litter's passage; the 
 gap yawned in the night like the mouth of 
 Acheron. 
 
 All the illuminations had gone to greet the 
 distinguished Lord of Bueil. 
 
 Soon Marion saw the gigantic litter lumber- 
 ing up the way and almost filling it. The gol- 
 den ornaments on the violet cloth little relieved 
 its gloom. Around the sturdy men w T ho bore 
 the long, pliant ash poles, marched foot guards, 
 with horsemen outside of them; all tramped 
 with jauntiness as if to show the rustics that 
 
570 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 they mocked at the toil with the honor of it 
 to enliven them. Torches in many hands cast 
 brilliancy on the scene. The music was so 
 gay that the Ked Robe seemed coming to nup- 
 tials. 
 
 Marion's elated heart sank on beholding the 
 retinue. He who forged that heavy diadem 
 under which Louis tottered, was advancing like 
 Alexander. Never in Paris had his might 
 struck her as so lofty and unchallengeable as 
 in this village by night. 
 
 As she stopped, a well-known voice whis- 
 pered in her ear: 
 
 ''Cheer up! Let us together accost this tiger 
 in the travelling mitre! Zounds! it will be a 
 stony heart which resists our double enfilade, 
 look you!" 
 
 It was Saverny. The generous youth had 
 not accepted his safety. He had sworn to be 
 at Didier's execution, and he was returning to 
 stand beside him, despite Brichanteau's remon- 
 strances at such folly. 
 
 Already the cumbersome vehicle was near. It 
 surged upon them like a galleon on a breaker 
 to capsize two petty skiffs. 
 
 Suddenly the curtains were parted on both 
 sides. Unlike the veiled divinities of the East, 
 Richelieu feared not to show himself to the 
 people, even though they regarded him as an 
 oppressor, like their betters. 
 
 Saverny on one side, and Marion on the 
 other, as they knelt, overpowered by the inva- 
 lid's majesty, raised their voices: 
 
 "I am the Marquis of Saverny, and out from 
 under mine own doom of death, I crave the 
 pardon of mv antagonist, the gentleman named 
 Didier!" 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 571 
 
 And Marion's cry, in a silvery voice, was 
 clear: 
 
 "In the name of our Christ All-merciful, 
 whose image glitters on your breast, and of 
 your race, my lord, pardon for the doomed to 
 die! I beg mercy for my husband!" 
 
 To the noble, denouncing himself so daunt- 
 lesslv on the border of the land of liberty which 
 he repelled, Richelieu answered: 
 
 "Await!" 
 
 To the kneeling woman, he added what so 
 few had heard from those compressed lips at 
 such junctures: 
 
 "Hope!" 
 
 The litter passed on to where it met Didier, 
 held under guard in its path. 
 
 Marion was jostled by the hurrying mob as 
 soon as the marquis raised her up. 
 
 "Wait and hope!" repeated he, as one in a 
 stupor. ''The world is turning over-heels! I 
 denounce myself in Rueil and no one offers to 
 detain me! Brichanteau and our tenants are 
 bewitched and yell 'Long live the great Cardi- 
 nal!' Let us follow and see what thunderclap 
 will befall our friend!" 
 
 Nothing so refreshes the blood as a good ac- 
 tion, and the throng, as well as the military, 
 seemed permeated by the surprise and happi- 
 ness which the unexpected, unexampled — said 
 some — graciousness of the Friine Minister dif- 
 fused. 
 
 Didier was conducted to the part of the 
 courtyard where the litter was set down. 
 
 For the nonce, it was converted into a ca- 
 pacious roofless hall. The hangings, in har- 
 mony with those of the scaffold, would have 
 been most lugubrious, but the excess of light 
 was exhilarating. The archers, watchmen, and 
 
572 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 guards had cast down the partly consumed 
 flambeaux into a heap, and this bonfire, blazing 
 with all the brightness of pitch and little of 
 its smoke, was supplemented by that of the 
 fresh torches, carried by every other man, 
 ranked along the rectangle's walls. 
 
 Though assisted to alight from his litter, 
 Richelieu dispensed with the arm Cavoye ten- 
 dered him, to the general surprise, and stepped 
 toward the prisoner with a smile, rather wel- 
 coming than masking a menace or treachery. 
 
 "Sa, ha!" exclaimed he, "so, this is our in- 
 corrigible young duellist? You begin by 
 breaking a braggart's head for insulting his 
 superiors and you end by breaking the royal 
 mandate!" 
 
 Agitation shook the bystanders. What an 
 odd, jocular reception to an offender! 
 
 His penetrative glance had scrutinised the 
 gentleman, and he seemed appeased — satisfied. 
 Indeed, snatched from the dungeon, careless 
 as to his attire under his poignant grief over 
 the discovery of Marion's true standing, wan, 
 famished, but haughty — joyed at having set 
 the seal upon Marion's redemption, and now 
 fired with the Brutus' spirit, he looked a noble 
 man. Besides, face to face with one he es- 
 teemed as his country's enemy, his eyes kindled, 
 his nostrils quivered like a war-horse's, and he 
 bore insolently the glance usually consuming. 
 
 Richelieu seemed fired by this pertness. For 
 all of his wearing a cardinal's violet-mourning, 
 he reminded the veterans who knew him at La 
 Rochelle Siege, of the Church-militant, in steel 
 breast-plate over buff coat, with sword not al- 
 together for ornament, and spurs. The pallid, 
 ailing old prelate seemed transformed by the 
 insolence of this unknown youth. 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 5T3 
 
 "Long live the great Duke!" shouted Cavoye, 
 galled by this impudence into enthusiasm, odd 
 in a martinet and old soldier. 
 
 Enthusiasm gains on all sides when sincere, 
 like the ripple spread by a stone in the water; 
 guards, castle watch, servants, villagers, yeo- 
 men of Nangis and Saverny, the curiosity-seek- 
 ers, all the assemblage, like the town without, 
 repeated the acclamation and Richelieu ap- 
 peared pleased. 
 
 Suddenly Didier bent the knee and with 
 scorn dropped under foot Laubardemont's sty- 
 let. Though the unmasked threat was now 
 clear, the Cardinal did not frown; he could 
 not have understood why he was to be assassi- 
 nated by this young man to whom he was clem- 
 ent, but he regarded the return to Christian 
 feeling as heaven-prompted. There was grati- 
 tude in his eyes. 
 
 In an awkward interval, an interruption 
 came. 
 
 Slowly and solemnly, Gondi walked through 
 the crowd, all giving way to him. The soldiers 
 themselves allowed him to reach the Cardinal's 
 side. 
 
 "In the chapel lay two dead," said he. "One 
 prisoner has fled — no, I see the Marquis of Sa- 
 verny there! The dead are Laubardemont and 
 Laffemas — " 
 
 At this name all eyes were fastened on the 
 Prime Minister to see how he bore the news. 
 
 "Our two Lieutenant-Criminals?" said he in 
 pure surprise, but with certainly no grief. 
 
 "A portion of the wall fell upon them," ex- 
 plained the abbe, in ignorance or by design 
 to shield Didier and Saverny; "but previously, 
 the Chief Judge of the Supreme Tribunal had 
 been stabbed to death. Moreover, a strange 
 
574 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 gag, of wood shaped like a pear, of which the 
 jointed portions could be expanded by mechan- 
 ism, stifled him while in the last throes!" 
 
 "The serpent swallowed his own virus," re- 
 marked Richelieu, without taking his eyes off 
 the prisoner. "Singular! Laffemas kills his 
 successor — his supplanter? or did Laubarde- 
 mont, true to his law-brother, commit suicide 
 not to take the office from him, albeit he covet- 
 ed it?" 
 
 Didier took a forward step. 
 
 "My lord," said his clear voice, "one of those 
 men slew the other. He then insulted a lone 
 woman, even in the place of sanctity. I was 
 breaking out of mv cell and hurled a stone 
 down which crushed his head. I am guilty, 
 furthermore, you see! Let my death no longer 
 be delayed." 
 
 "You omit," said the old prelate, taking a 
 forward step himself, although bringing him 
 nearer the poniard, glittering with barely a 
 bloodspot to speck the sheen, "you omit that 
 you purposed adding another death more di- 
 rectly still to the score!" 
 
 "No! It is just an indice of what may hap- 
 pen if you do not heed my last words before 
 this scaffold! Proscriptions and executions 
 call for retaliation — private executions, pri- 
 vate vengeances! Unless you cease or suc- 
 cumb, new victims will mark your path." 
 
 "My son, conspirators against the King must 
 be punished," responded Richelieu with priest- 
 ly meekness. 
 
 "A name which is red-lettered in the rubric 
 of the State must ever be accursed!" 
 
 "My son, reflect on your speech to an aged 
 royal servant!" 
 
 "Reflect on your course, stubborn prelate! 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 575 
 
 Futile will be the great deeds of your admin- 
 istration so long as they are smeared by your 
 janissaries' bloody hands. In future times, it 
 will be said: 'This was a great ruler, but a 
 tyrant, whose adherents never struck a blow 
 but the blood spurted back on his hands!' " 
 
 "My son," said Richelieu, for the third time, 
 it seeming to those near him that the Con- 
 ventional term in a churchman's mouth be- 
 came more and more tender, "no tyrant would 
 listen to such impertinence. Do what my fol- 
 lowers may, I cover their acts with my red 
 robe!" 
 
 It seemed a permission, and more than one 
 officer prepared to rush on Didier, but Cavoye 
 held up his left hand to stay and silence. 
 
 ''The headsman's livery!" retorted the 3 7 oung 
 man, furious, and spurred by the hostile move- 
 ments. 
 
 Cavoye, who had set his boot on the stylet, 
 took it up. 
 
 "Mad boy! whom even the scaffold does not 
 daunt!" said the Minister with admiration. 
 
 "I fear nothing. My heart that was sad- 
 dened, and for a moment gladdened, bounds 
 with a new delight at being made mouthpiece 
 for the nation on the rack! Upon the scaf- 
 fold I should have struck down your protege, 
 that Laffemas who proudly bore the by-word 
 of 'the Cardinal's Executioner!' I am ready 
 for my doom. Oh, how lightened would be any 
 bitterness if I could feel assured that my life 
 taken by the Man of ' Blood should be the 
 last of his rule!" 
 
 Intense emotion made the statesman quiver; 
 his eyes shone with phosphorescent glare, shift- 
 ing like the wave over molten lead when a chill 
 current momentarily checks the glow. So 
 
576 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 looked he when stifling personal motives in the 
 grip of political expediency. But this time it 
 was goodness that obtained the upper hand. 
 
 "My son," said he, with unmistakable affec- 
 tion and with complete pardon for the fresh 
 offences, for on him rushed remembrance of 
 his promise to Joseph, "it is not your hand 
 that was set in this world to stay mine in duty. 
 I forgive you, all! Like your confederate in 
 contravention of the royal decree, go in peace; 
 and dwell you happy with your beloved wife!" 
 
 He made the sign of benediction widely, 
 while repeating in Latin the accompanying for- 
 mula. 
 
 "I refuse the grace — while thanking you for 
 pardoning the marquis. I demand my pen- 
 alty!" 
 
 "I have the right to forgive you and not to 
 punish," resumed the Minister, still approach- 
 in 0- . 
 
 "The right? Oh, as 'the Father of the King- 
 dom?"" sneered Didier. 
 
 "As your own father!" whispered the lover 
 of Ramire, in his ear, having ventured his head 
 in the other's reach with a fool-hardiness ap- 
 parently insane. 
 
 "Father!" repeated Didier, but luckily his 
 voice was scarcely intelligible from the shock. 
 
 The title conveyed to the foundling more 
 meaning than to another. 
 
 "Your father," continued Armand de Riche- 
 lieu. "Pardon me for the years of neglect — 
 for all errors through ignorance. I knew not 
 until Father Joseph du Tremblay died in my 
 arms, that you were son of my first and only 
 love, my dearest Ramire, of Richelieu Bourg. 
 I would have wedded your mother, spite of all 
 opposition in my class and family, but they re- 
 
rv'y*' 
 
 OR, KICUELIEU DEFIE bTt 
 
 moved her while I was as the dead. Spirited 
 away to the Indies, you were born afar from 
 France, and all I have left of life will not suf- 
 rice to obliterate what misery you have un- 
 dergone meanwhile. But you shall no longer 
 be termed Forsaken ! It is I who ordered your 
 marriage to the woman you loved ! Not twice 
 in our line shall the mistake be made of Love 
 being sunk under Prejudice. Motherless one, 
 forgive as I forgive all — never more shall there 
 be a secret execution ! the dungeons shall be 
 filled up ! prisons shall be razed before I blush 
 under my son's reproofs ! " 
 
 To the lookers-on, hearing no words of sense, 
 unable to understand the looks of the two par- 
 ticipants in the discovery, they only saw a rev- 
 erend father lecturing a wayward youth who 
 finally let wisdom rule him. A spell seemed 
 cast over the young man who had tried to 
 provoke the ailing eagle. What was their 
 consternation when they saw Didier open his 
 arms and throw them about the old prelate's 
 neck. They feared it was to strangle him, 
 since he had rejected the dagger. 
 
 But as the soldiers pressed forward to res- 
 cue or revenge, Richelieu waved them back 
 with one hand, while he returned the embrace 
 with the other arm. 
 
 Tears were seen in his eyes, and in his voice 
 the same tearfulness made the tone unsteady. 
 
 " Gentlemen and friends, the base of my ill- 
 ness was the blank prospect concerning my 
 inheritor. I sought for a man among ye who 
 should stand in the gap before me for the Lord, 
 but I found none. That which man could not 
 obtain, the Holy Father hath provided. He 
 has come for whom my brain ached — the solace 
 is here for which my heart yearned ! Blessed 
 
578 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE ! 
 
 be the name of the Father who is ever-merciful 
 to His children !" 
 
 Still encircling Didier with his arm, and 
 leaning- trustfully upon him, he led him within 
 the castle, while all faces were weighed down 
 by woi.der. 
 
 " Faith ! captain, " said Gondi, in a loud voice, 
 taking the chief guardsman by the arm, " the 
 master has fallen into the good way since the 
 visit of the envoy from the Vatican ! ' The 
 Holy Father' there has sent him a successor, 
 you see ! It will not be long before we learn 
 of whom this Signor Mazarini was the har- 
 binger !" 
 
 " I am neither churchman nor courtier," said 
 Covoye bluntly. " I do not sharpen my sword 
 to cleave Gordian knots. All I understand is 
 that he adopts this brave young man, who once 
 defended his name — " 
 
 " Sooth! I was his second in that affair !" 
 
 " Instead of that pest Laffemas ! But who is 
 this Didier, whom Father Joseph and you 
 patronise?" 
 
 Gondi, smiled, to effect deep knowledge. 
 
 "The husband of Marion Delorme ! replied 
 he, following within the castle as the concourse 
 broke up. "Thanks to her, the secret machina- 
 tions of Prince Gaston have been foiled. It 
 is a meet recompense for the Magdalena that 
 she weds this gentleman of Blois, who will 
 take her to that part, or some other similarly 
 benighted, where her adventures are not town- 
 talk ! " 
 
 A few days after Gondi might congratulate 
 himself on his foresight, for Didier, "equipped 
 lavishly, including the past Laffemas had pro- 
 vided, sailed from Havre with his bride. All 
 things considered, fearing there would not be 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 579 
 
 f ime before his death to inculcate his true heir 
 into his polic3', loving Ramire's son too dearly 
 to pit him against the woes which he saw 
 would envelop the realm, the Cardinal bade 
 him good-by ! 
 
 He saw that he was happy with Marion, and 
 that tneir life in Paris, or even France would 
 be impossible. Her defender would have to 
 draw sword over and over again, spite of all 
 edicts. 
 
 But he was left melancholy, mourning like 
 David over Absalom. The two or three secre- 
 taries replacing Father Le-Clerc du Tremblay, 
 heard him mutter sometimes, when he smil- 
 ingly gazed off into vacancy or studied the 
 Globe : 
 
 " Blessed is the man whom Thou chasteneth, 
 and who is alone like the sparrow on the house- 
 top!" 
 
 Whereupon Chavigny would whisper to Des 
 Noyers : " Still brooding over that whelp Laf- 
 femas ! Heaven gives cardinals great luxuries 
 but also the prodigal nephew ! It is compen- 
 sation !" 
 
 Dr. The. nines was attached to the Minister's 
 household ; he soon discovered that custodians 
 of state secrets must dwell in an honorable 
 durance ; his practice in Paris was lucrative, 
 but he was often heard to sigh : " The world 
 will long suffer since circumstances prevented 
 me extinguishing the Pest !" 
 
 Being an Italian, Mondori enjoyed the favor 
 of Richelieu's successor, as long as it was a 
 desirable favor, well into the reign of Louis 
 XIV. 
 
 He brought of Louisette as an actress, and 
 many a new author, but with the garrulity of 
 
580 RED ROBE AND GREY ROBE; 
 
 old age, when early memories are the love- 
 liest, he would tell them : 
 
 " You may talk about playwrights, but there 
 are none now! In my youth, the greatest did 
 not disdain to write pieces to which your best 
 attempts are fustian ! I had the honor, with 
 my troupe, to perform for the first, and the 
 last time, alas! the famous tragedy of 'Mirame,' 
 by no less a personage than the late Cardinal, 
 Duke of Richelieu! Corpo di l)io! that was a 
 play ! Four hours' ding-dong, give-and-take ! 
 not a line less than twelve syllables ! how its 
 leagues of sonorous verse trowled along the 
 stage ! Ah, but for the loss of my two great- 
 est lions, we should have roared you a tri- 
 umph! But, 'lackaday ! I lost, through a duel, 
 the celebrated Matamore, to begin with, and 
 his substitute, an amateur of Blois, who re- 
 hearsed magnificently, was sent on a mission 
 abroad so that he never appeared on any stage! 
 And with him went my other star! the lovely 
 and witty Marion Delorme! Yes, gentlemen, 
 that dame of fame was my leading lady in 
 the good old times of the Thirteenth Louis. 
 With them 'Mirame' would have been fixed in 
 the repertoire! But the manuscript is lost! 
 Unique! given me by the illustrious author! 
 with his autograph and seal! A villainous 
 cook, who had no idea soaringhigher than orto- 
 lan-, used the pages to the last, religiously pre- 
 served as I had treasured it, to wrap up the 
 cutlets when I gave a feast to celebrate Car- 
 dinal Mazarini's re-entry into Paris, after the 
 Fronde. Ah, if not treasonable, I wish we 
 had the play-writing Cardinal re-entering in- 
 stead of the card playing one !" 
 
 Saverny closed his uncle's eyes in peace ; but 
 he did not long enjoy the addition of Nangis 
 
OR, RICHELIEU DEFIED. 581 
 
 to his titles; no longer a fop but an able sol- 
 dier, he was slain at the Battle of Clarenton ; 
 it was during- a charge made by the Frondists, 
 and in the rank cutting him down was Bri- 
 chanteau. Although his hand had not touched 
 his cousin, the Banneret was so heart-sore from 
 this result of fratricidal war that he became a 
 monk. 
 
 The veil maintained over Didier's parentage 
 enabled him to keep his office during all the 
 mutations of the Regency of Anna of Austria 
 and the rule of Mazarin ; but the distance did 
 not moderate the anxiety with which he 
 watched the travail of France. 
 
 Only once had he and Marion cause to re- 
 gret their exile ; it was when the Gazette de 
 France brought news of his father's death; but 
 it was glorious ; the arms of his country had 
 conquered on every side — he had fulfilled the 
 training of Father Joseph and the desire of 
 King Henry the Fourth. Except that grief, 
 the married lovers had peace, and solitude is 
 the Eden of the happily wedded. 
 
 THE END. 
 

  
 
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