第138章 ''TIS AN ILL WIND.'(2)

Having no other employment,I watched the street,and keeping myself well retired from the window saw knots of gay riders pass this way and that through the crowd,their corslets shining and their voices high.Monks and ladies,a cardinal and an ambassador,passed under my eyes--these and an endless procession of townsmen and beggars,soldiers and courtiers,Gascons,Normans and Picards.Never had I seen such a sight or so many people gathered together.It seemed as if half Paris had come out to make submission,so that while my gorge rose against my own imprisonment,the sight gradually diverted my mind from my private distresses,by bidding me find compensation for them in the speedy and glorious triumph of the cause.

Even when the light failed the pageant did not cease,but,torches and lanthorns springing into life,turned night into day.

From every side came sounds of revelry or strife.The crowd continued to perambulate the streets until a late hour,with cries of 'VIVE LE ROI!'and 'VIVE NAVARRE!'while now and again the passage of a great noble with his suite called forth a fresh outburst of enthusiasm.Nothing seemed more certain,more inevitable,more clearly predestinated than that twenty-four hours must see the fall of Paris.

Yet Paris did not fall.

When M.d'Agen returned a little before midnight,he found me still sitting in the dark looking from the window.I heard him call roughly for lights,and apprised by the sound of his voice that something was wrong,I rose to meet him.He stood silent awhile,twirling his small moustaches,and then broke into a passionate tirade,from which I was not slow to gather that M.de Rambouillet declined to serve me.

'Well,'I said,feeling for the young man's distress and embarrassment,'perhaps he is right.'

'He says that word respecting you came this evening,'my friend answered,his cheeks red with shame,'and that to countenance you after that would only be to court certain humiliation.I did not let him off too easily,I assure you,'M.d'Agen continued,turning away to evade my gaze;'but I got no satisfaction.He said you had his good-will,and that to help you he would risk something,but that to do so under these circumstances would be only to injure himself.'

'There is still Crillon,'I said,with as much cheerfulness as Icould assume.'Pray Heaven he be there early!Did M.de Rambouillet say anything else?'

'That your only chance was to fly as quickly and secretly as possible.'

'He thought;my situation desperate,then?'

My friend nodded;and scarcely less depressed on my account than ashamed on his own,evinced so much feeling that it was all Icould do to comfort him;which I succeeded in doing only when Idiverted the conversation to Madame de Bruhl.We passed the short night together,sharing the same room and the same bed,and talking more than we slept--of madame and mademoiselle,the castle on the hill,and the camp in the woods,of all old days in fine,but little of the future.Soon after dawn Simon,who lay on a pallet across the threshold,roused me from a fitful sleep into which I had just fallen,and a few minutes later I stood up dressed and armed,ready to try the last chance left to me.

M.d'Agen had dressed stage for stage with me,and I had kept silence.But when he took up his cap,and showed clearly that he had it in his mind to go with me,I withstood him.'No,I said,'you can do me little good,and may do yourself much harm.'

'You shall not go without one friend,'he cried fiercely.

'Tut,tut!'I said.'I shall have Simon.'

But Simon,when I turned to speak to him,was gone.Few men are at their bravest in the early hours of the day,and it did not surprise me that the lad's courage had failed him.The defection only strengthened,however,the resolution I had formed that Iwould not injure M.d'Agen;though it was some time before Icould persuade him that I was in earnest,and would go alone or not at all.In the end he had to content himself with lending me his back and breast,which I gladly put on,thinking it likely enough that I might be set upon before I reached the castle.And then,the time being about seven,I parted from him with many embraces and kindly words,and went into the street with my sword under my cloak.

The town,late in rising after its orgy,lay very still and quiet.The morning was grey and warm,with a cloudy sky.The flags,which had made so gay,a show yesterday,hung close to the poles,or flapped idly and fell dead again.I walked slowly along beneath them,keeping a sharp look-out on every side;but there were few persons moving in the streets,and I reached the Castle gates without misadventure.Here was something of life;a bustle of officers and soldiers passing in and out,of courtiers whose office made their presence necessary,of beggars who had flocked hither in the night for company.In the middle of these I recognised on a sudden and with great surprise Simon Fleix walking my horse up and down.On seeing me he handed it to a boy,and came up to speak to me with a red face,muttering that four legs were better than two.I did not say much to him,my heart being full and my thoughts occupied with the presence chamber and what I should say there;but I nodded kindly to him,and he fell in behind me as the sentries challenged me.Ianswered them that I sought M.de Crillon,and so getting by,fell into the rear of a party of three who seemed bent on the same errand as myself.

One of these was a Jacobin monk,whose black and white robes,by reminding me of Father Antoine,sent a chill to my heart.The second,whose eye I avoided,I knew to be M.la Guesle,the king's Solicitor-General.The third was a stranger to me.

Enabled by M.la Guesle's presence to pass the main guards without challenge,the party proceeded through a maze of passages and corridors,conversing together in a low tone;while I,keeping in their train with my face cunningly muffled,got as far by this means as the ante-chamber,which I found almost empty.