For a moment the man who, as he had said to Emérance had set his life upon a cast, who had murmured half-bitterly, half-sadly, after knowing that the die of Fate had gone against him, "les battus payent l'amende," looked round on those receiving him with homage10 and deference11, and, as before, his thoughts were terribly poignant12 while tinged13 also with self-contempt.
"And I had all this," he murmured as, mechanically he acknowledged the salutes14; "and have thrown it away for a shadow; a chimera15. Never more will drums roll to salute3 me nor shall I hold high command. Instead, there is nought16 for me but a strange land where all who dwell therein will know why I am an exile, a fugitive17; and I shall know that I am a traitor18. A man false to his King, false to the master who was his friend in childhood, false to the oath of fidelity19 he has sworn. Fool, doubly-accursed fool and knave20 that I am!"
Dismounting from his horse and throwing the reins21 to a soldier who advanced to take them, he bade another man summon De Brissac, who commanded the Garde du Corps, to his presence, when, entering the Lodge22, he sat down to await the coming of that person.
A moment later De Brissac had entered the room, and, after greetings had been exchanged, that of De Beaurepaire being cordially condescending23 while De Brissac's was coldly respectful, the former said:--
"De Brissac, I have ridden here specially24 to see you and speak with you----"
"Your Highness," De Brissac repeated, giving the other the most superior title by which he had the right to be addressed, "has ridden here specially to see and speak with me!" while, as he said this, there came a little nest of wrinkles outside each of his eyes that gave to his face a look of bewilderment. "To see me! Particularly me?"
"Particularly you? Yes. Why!" exclaimed De Beaurepaire, with an attempt at mirth, "is it so strange that I, who am Chief of all the Guards as you are Chief of the Garde du Corps, should have some matter on which I desire to speak with you?"
"No, no. Without doubt not strange. Yet--I am only De Brissac--le Sieur de Brissac--and you are Prince and Chevalier de Beaurepaire."
"Nay25! We--are--both--soldiers."
"Yes, we are both soldiers," the other said, yet his tone was so strange that his Chief should have observed--perhaps did observe--it. If, however, the latter was the case he made no sign of doing so. Instead, he continued:--
"You spoke26 to me not long ago of one who was eager to buy some great charge under the King."
"Yes. I so spoke. Is, then, such a charge vacant now?" De Brissac's tone being still cold and distant as he spoke.
"There is, and if he who would purchase such a charge is sufficiently27 high in rank, if the King will permit him to buy it, he may buy mine. My charge of the guards. That of Grand Veneur cannot be sold."
"Yours!" De Brissac said, and now he took a step back from where he stood as a man steps back when utterly28 astonished at what he hears. "Yours!"
"Yes, mine. I--I am not well in health. And--I have other calls on me."
For a moment De Brissac said nothing but stood looking at his superior strangely. Then he said:--
"The person of whom I spoke holds so high a position that the King would not oppose him in his desires. Only----"
"Only!"
"He will not buy your charge."
"What!" De Beaurepaire exclaimed, while, with a sneer29, he added, "is he so high that even it is too low for him. Cadédis! he must be high indeed." Then, rapping the table irritably30, he said, "Come, Monsieur de Brissac, explain yourself. Who is this man, and why should my charge be the one he will not buy?"
Still with a strange look in his eyes and with that little nest of wrinkles on either side of his face very apparent, De Brissac glanced out through the window and saw that his men were all engaged at their various occupations; some fetching water from the spring for their horses, some attending to their animals and rubbing them down, and some cleaning and polishing their accoutrements. After having done which he came nearer to De Beaurepaire than he had been before, and said:--
"I will explain myself. The man of whom I spoke will not purchase your charge because--it is no longer saleable."
"What!" exclaimed the other, rising to his feet, while his hand instinctively31 sought his sword-hilt. "What? Is this insolence32? Explain, I say."
"I will. Yet take your hand from off your sword or I may be forced to draw mine. Likewise, look through that window. Those men are under my command for the time being, not yours----"
"Explain," the Prince repeated, stamping his foot angrily. "If they are not under my immediate33 command, you are."
"No, I am not. A general warrant for your arrest is out this morning. You are no longer in command of the King's Guards nor any portion of his army. In coming here to-day you have walked into the lion's den8. Prince Louis de Beaurepaire, give me your sword. I arrest you on the charge of high treason against your King."
For a moment the Prince stood gazing at the man before him with so strange a look that the other--brave soldier as he was, and one who had given his proofs in many a campaign--scarce knew what might happen next. The handsome face usually so bronzed by the open-air life De Beaurepaire had always led was bloodless now, so, too, were the lips, while the veins34 upon his forehead looked as though they were about to burst. Yet this transformation35 was not due to any of those sudden gusts36 of passion to which he was known to be so often subject when thwarted37, or contradicted, or addressed familiarly and on terms of equality by those whom he considered beneath him--as, in truth, he considered most men to be.
Instead, his pallor proceeded from far different emotions that had now taken possession of him. It proceeded from the thought, the recollection which sprang swift as lightning to his mind that, with his arrest, all hope, all chance was gone of warning Emérance, of putting her on her guard and giving her time to escape. This first--above all things--was what almost stilled the beating of his heart; this and his fears for the safety of the bold, daring, reckless woman who loved him so, and who, herself, had thought only of his safety. This--to which was added in a slighter degree the thought that La Truaumont, who had served him well and faithfully while serving his own ends and those of his Norman friends, could no more be warned than she.
"You arrest me!" he said now to De Brissac who stood quietly before him, his eyes upon his face; "you arrest me, you tell me I am removed from any command. Also, you ask me for my sword and hope to obtain it--a thing never asked or hoped for by an enemy. So be it. But, first, I must see your warrant for your demand. If not, you will have----"
"My warrant! Prince Louis, do you think that I should act thus to one who was last night my superior, my commander, if I did not possess a warrant. It is here," and he went to a table covered with papers and took up one of them. After which he added, "The same thing will be in the hands of every officer commanding a garrison38 or fortress39 in France as soon as the couriers can reach them."
"I left Louis at six on the night before last," De Beaurepaire said aloud, "and--and--we parted as we have ever parted, as friends." But to himself he added, "An hour later that man might have seen Louis and told him all. An hour after that the couriers might have set out. Had I not tarried at my Lodge, had I but mounted Emérance on another horse at once, we should have been safe, or almost safe, by now."
Then he put out his hand and took the warrant from De Brissac and read it. It was brief and ran thus, after being addressed to various commanding officers, as the latter had said:--
"It is our will and pleasure that Prince Louis de Beaurepaire be removed from his charge of Colonel of our Guards, and that, wherever he may be seen, appear, or be signalised, he be arrested and detained until our further pleasure is known. The which we charge you not to fail in and to use all proper caution and expedition, subject to our displeasure if you do so. On which we pray God to have you in His holy keeping. Written at Fontainebleau this tenth day of September in the year of our Lord 1674.
"Signé. Louis R. F. et N.
"Sousigné. Louvois
(Ministre de Guerre)."
"Your highness observes?" De Brissac said; "it is the King's orders."
"I observe," De Beaurepaire answered in a low tone.
"Yet take heart," the other said. "This may be no serious thing. Louvois makes many charges now and pushes the King to many things he would not do without him at his side."
"It may be so. Ah! well. My sword! My sword! You would have that?"
"I must," De Brissac said, not without a tremor40 in his voice. For he remembered De Beaurepaire (then a young man of twenty and the handsomest of all the flower of the haute noblesse) at Arras and the Siege of Laudrécies, and recalled his bravery and reckless daring. And now it had come to this!
"Take it," his prisoner said, drawing the blade from its sheath, kissing it, and then handing it to him, "take it. I pray God that ere long I may receive it back again."
"Amen," De Brissac said solemnly.
"Now, what next?" De Beaurepaire asked.
"The next is--the Bastille."
"And after?"
"I know not."
"Ere I set out, tell me one thing. And before you answer listen, De Brissac; listen as a soldier to a soldier, a friend to a friend. There is a woman whom I have learnt to love----"
"Ah!" exclaimed the other, recalling how often this handsome patrician's name had been mixed up with the names of women and knowing, as all in Paris knew, how the hearts of those women had gone out to him.
"A woman whom I love," De Beaurepaire went on, his voice sounding broken to the other's ear. "A woman who loves me and has long loved me fondly, tenderly, as I now love her. Not a woman who is one of those giddy, heartless butterflies who circle round Louis' Court, who change their lovers as they change their robes; who love one man to-day and another to-morrow; no! not one of these. But, instead, one who is poor, unknown to our world, and of, I think, for in truth I do not know, humble41 origin--yet whose love and devotion pass aught I have ever met. One who would rather die with me, for me, than live with others."
"Die!" De Brissac said, turning away his head as he spoke, since, rude soldier as he might be, and acquainted only with camps and battlefields and sieges, there was a heart in his bosom42. "Nay, surely there is no thought of dying for you or--for--her!"
"Alas43! if, as I suspect, this sudden resolve of the King to dismiss me, to arrest me, points to one thing, the end will not be far remote from death. For myself I care not, but--ah! not death for her!" he cried. "She is, as I have said, nought in the world's eyes--nought--nought! but she is a tender, loving woman, too good to be hacked44 to death or mangled45 on the wheel."
"What would you have me do?"
"Cause a letter, permit a letter, to be conveyed to her. Either where I left her this morning in my Lodge in the Bois de Vincennes, at Saint Mandé, or where'er she may be in Paris."
"It is impossible. Not even if your letter was untied46, unsealed, so that all the world might read, could that be done. D'Hautefeuille is in supreme47 command at Versailles now; it would have to pass through his hands but it would pass no farther. It is impossible."
"Impossible," De Beaurepaire muttered. "Oh! Emérance! Emérance!"
De Brissac had spoken with his eyes turned to the floor, since he would not be witness of what, he knew, must be the other's misery48 when he learnt that no letter would be permitted to pass between him and this woman of whom he had spoken so fondly. But now, as the unhappy man uttered that woman's name, he looked up suddenly and stared fixedly49 at him.
"Who is this woman? What is she?" he asked.
"As I have told you, the woman I love."
"And her name is Emérance?" De Brissac said, endeavouring to speak as lightly as possible and as easily as the present circumstances might permit. "It is a pretty name. Of the North of France, I think. I have heard it before."
If he had not heard it before he had at least read it before. He had read it only that very morning when the courrier du Roi, after calling on La Reynie, had continued his journey to Versailles and, besides bringing one of the warrants for the arrest of De Beaurepaire if he should appear there, also brought with him the copies of the warrants issued by La Reynie for the arrest of four other persons. Four other persons, one of whom was described as Louise de Belleau de Cortonne, styling herself Emérance, Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville, another who was known as Affinius Van den Enden, which was believed to be his proper name, and another who passed under the sobriquet50 of Fleur de Mai, but whose right name was La Preaux, and who termed himself Le Chevalier de la Preaux, though unregistered in any order of knighthood. The fourth was the Sieur Georges du Hamel of La Truaumont, styled the Captain la Truaumont.
De Brissac's astonishment51, perhaps, also, his emotion, was not therefore singular, as not only had he seen the warrant with the woman's name in it, but the task had been deputed to him of proceeding52 to Rouen there to arrest the Captain la Truaumont, the Lieutenant53 of Police, La Reynie, having received undoubted evidence that the conspirator54 was now in the city preparing to levy55 war against both the King's throne and his person.
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1
sentries
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| 哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 ) | |
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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3
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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6
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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9
surmounting
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| 战胜( surmount的现在分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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10
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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12
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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13
tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
salutes
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| n.致敬，欢迎，敬礼( salute的名词复数 )v.欢迎，致敬( salute的第三人称单数 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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15
chimera
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| n.神话怪物；梦幻 | |
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16
nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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knave
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| n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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24
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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25
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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26
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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32
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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36
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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37
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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39
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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41
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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42
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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43
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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44
hacked
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| 生气 | |
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45
mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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46
untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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47
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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48
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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49
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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50
sobriquet
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| n.绰号 | |
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51
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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52
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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53
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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54
conspirator
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| n.阴谋者，谋叛者 | |
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55
levy
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| n.征收税或其他款项，征收额 | |
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