A human shambles with blood-reeking floor.
MISS SWANWICK, Esch. Agamemnon
The door was opened at last, but not till full daylight. It found
Eustacie as ready to rush forth, past all resistance, as she had
been the night before, and she was already in the doorway when her
maid Veronique, her face swollen with weeping, caught her by the
hands and implored her to turn back and listen.
And words about a rising of the Huguenots, a general destruction,
corpses lying in the court, were already passing between the other
maidens and the CONCIERGE. Eustacie turned upon her servant:
'Veronique, what means it? Where is he?'
'Alas! alas! Ah! Mademoiselle, do but lie down! Woe is me! I
saw it all! Lie down, and I will tell you.'
'Tell! I will not move till you have told me where my husband is,'
said Eustacie, gazing with eyes that seemed to Veronique turned to
stone.
'Ah! my lady--my dear lady! I was on the turn of the stairs, and
saw all. The traitor--the Chevalier Narcisse--came on him, cloaked
like you--and--shot him dead--with, oh, such cruel words of
mockery! Oh! woe the day! Stay, stay, dear lady, the place is
all blood--they are slaying them all--all the Huguenots! Will no
one stop her?--Mademoiselle--ma'm'selle!--'
For Eustacie no sooner gathered the sense of Veronique's words than
she darted suddenly forwards, and was in a few seconds more at the
foot of the stairs. There, indeed, lay a pool of dark gore, and
almost in it Berenger's black velvet cap, with the heron plume.
Eustacie, with a low cry, snatched it up, continued her headlong
course along the corridor, swiftly as a bird, Veronique following,
and vainly shrieking to her to stop. Diane, appearing at the other
end of the gallery, saw but for a moment the little figure, with
the cloak gathered round her neck, and floating behind her,
understood Veronique's cry and joined in the chase across hall and
gallery, where more stains were to be seen, even down to the marble
stairs, every step slippery with blood.
Others there were who saw
and stood aghast, not understanding the apparition that flitted on
so swiftly, never pausing till at the great door at the foot of the
stairs she encountered a gigantic Scottish archer, armed to the
teeth. She touched his arm, and standing with folder arms, looked
up and said, 'Good soldier, kill me! I am a Huguenots!'
'Stop her! bring her back!' cried Diane from behind. 'It is Mdlle.
De Nil-de-Merle!'
'No, no! My husband is Huguenot! I am a Huguenot! Let them kill
me, I say!'--struggling with Diane, who had now come up with her,
and was trying to draw her back.
'Puir lassie!' muttered the stout Scotsman to himself, 'this
fearsome night has driven her demented.'
But, like a true sentinel, he moved neither hand nor foot to
interfere, as shaking herself loose from Diane, she was springing
down the steps into the court, when at that moment the young Abbe
de Mericour was seen advancing, pale, breathless, horrorstruck, and
to him Diane shrieked to arrest the headlong course. He obeyed,
seeing the wild distraction of the white face and widely glaring
eyes, took her by both hands, and held her in a firm grasp, saying,
'Alas, lady, you cannot go out. It is no sight for any one.'
'They are killing the Protestants,' she said; 'I am one! Let me
find them and die.'
A strong effort to free herself ensued, but it was so suddenly
succeeded by a swoon that the Abbe could scarcely save her from
dropping on the steps. Diane begged him to carry her in, since
they were in full view of men-at-arms in the court, and, frightful
to say, of some of the ladies of the palace, who, in the frenzy of
that dreadful time, had actually come down to examine the half-
stripped corpses of the men with whom they had jested not twelve
hours before.
'Ah! it is no wonder,' said the youthful Abbe, as he tenderly
lifted the inanimate figure. 'This has been a night of horrors.
I was coming in haste to know whether the King knows of this
frightful plot of M. de Guise, and the bloody work that is passing
in Paris.'
'The King!' exclaimed Diane. 'M. l'Abbe, do you know where he is
now? In the balcony overlooking the river, taking aim at the
fugitives! Take care! Even your soutane would not save you if
M. d'O and his crew heard you. But I must pray you to aid me with
this poor child! I dread that her wild cries should be heard.'
The Abbe, struck dumb with horror, silently obeyed Mdlle. De
Ribaumont, and brought the still insensible Eustacie to the
chamber, now deserted by all the young ladies. He laid her on her
bed, and finding he could do no more, left her to her cousin and
her maid.
The poor child had been unwell and feverish ever since the masque,
and the suspense of these few days with the tension of that
horrible night had prostrated her. She only awoke from her swoon
to turn her head from the light and refuse to be spoken to.
'But, Eustacie, child, listen; this is all in vain--he lives,' said
Diane.
'Weary me not with falsehoods,' faintly said Eustacie.
'No! no! no! They meant to hinder your flight, but---'
'They knew of it?' cried Eustacie, sitting up suddenly. 'Then you
told them. Go--go; let me never see you more! You have been his
death!'
'Listen! I am sure he lives! What! would they injure one whom my
father loved? I heard my father say he would not have him hurt.
Depend upon it, he is safe on his way to England.'
Eustacie gave a short but frightful hysterical laugh, and pointed
to Veronique. 'She saw it,' she said; 'ask her.'
'Saw what?' said Diane, turning fiercely on Veronique. 'What vile
deceit have you half killed your lady with?'
'Alas! Mademoiselle, I did but tell her what I had seen,' sighed
Veronique, trembling.
'Tell me!' said Diane, passionately.
'Yes, everything,' said Eustacie, sitting up.
'Ah! Mademoiselle, it will make you ill again.'
'I WILL be ill--I WILL die! Heaven's slaying is better than man's.
Tell her how you saw Narcisse.'
'False girl!' burst out Diane.
'No, no,' cried Veronique. 'Oh, pardon me, Mademoiselle, I could
not help it.'
In spite of her reluctance, she was forced to tell that she had
found herself locked out of her mistress's room, and after losing
much time in searching for the CONCIERGE, learnt that the ladies
were locked up by order of the Queen-mother, and was strongly
advised not to be running about the passages. After a time,
however, while sitting with the CONCIERGE'S wife, she heard such
frightful whispers from men with white badges, who were admitted
one by one by the porter, and all led silently to a small lower
room, that she resolved on seeking out the Baron's servant, and
sending him to warn his master, while she would take up her station
at her lady's door. She found Osbert, and with him was ascending a
narrow spiral leading from the offices--she, unfortunately, the
foremost. As she came to the top, a scuffle was going on--four men
had thrown themselves upon one, and a torch distinctly showed her
the younger Chevalier holding a pistol to the cheek of the fallen
man, and she heard the worlds, 'Le baiser d'Eustacie! Jet e
barbouillerai ce chien de visage,' and at the same moment the
pistol was discharged. She sprang back, oversetting, as she
believed, Osbert, and fled shrieking to the room of the CONCIERGE,
who shut her in till morning.
'And how--how,' stammered Diane, 'should you know it was the
Baron?'
Eustacie, with a death-like look, showed for a moment what even in
her swoon she had held clenched to her bosom, the velvet cap soaked
with blood.
'Besides,' added Veronique, resolved to defend her assertion, 'whom
else would the words suit? Besides, are not all the heretic
gentlemen dead? Why, as I sat there in the porter's room, I heard
M. d'O call each one of them by name, one after the other, into the
court, and there the white-sleeves cut them down or pistolled them
like sheep for the slaughter. They lie all out there on the
terrace like so many carcases at market ready for winter salting.'
'All slain?' said Eustacie, dreamily.
'All, except those that the King called into his own garde robe.'
'Then, I slew him!' Eustacie sank back.
'I tell you, child,' said Diane, almost angrily, 'he lives. Not a
hair of his head was to be hurt! The girl deceives you.'
But Eustacie had again become insensible, and awoke delirious,
entreating to have the door opened, and fancying herself still on
the revolving elysium, 'Oh, demons, have pity!' was her cry.
Diane's soothings were like speaking to the winds; and at last she
saw the necessity of calling in further aid; but afraid of the
scandal that the poor girl's raving accusations might create, she
would not send for the Huguenots surgeon, Ambroise Pare, whom the
King had carefully secured in his own apartments, but employed one
of the barber valets of the Queen-mother's household. Poor
Eustacie was well pleased to see her blood flowing, and sank back
on her pillow murmuring that she had confessed her husband's faith,
and would soon be one with him, and Diane feared for a moment lest
the swoon should indeed be death.
The bleeding was so far effectual that it diminished the fever, and
Eustacie became rational again when she had dozed and wakened, but
she was little able or willing to speak, and would not so much as
listen to Diane's asseverations that Veronique had made a frightful
error, and that the Baron would prove to be alive. Whether it were
that the admission that Diane had known of the project for
preventing the elopement that invalidated her words, or whether the
sufferer's instinct made her believe Veronique's testimony rather
than her cousin's assurances, it was all 'cramming words into her
ear against the stomach of her sense,' and she turned away from
them with a piteous, petulant hopelessness: 'Could they not even
let her alone to die in peace!'
Diane was almost angered at this little silly child being in such
an agony of sorrow--she, who could never have known how to love
him. And after all this persistent grief was willfully thrown
away. For Diane spoke in perfect sincerity when she taxed
Veronique with an injurious, barbarous mistake. She knew her
father's strong aversion to violence, and the real predilection
that Berenger's good mien, respectful manners, and liberal usage
had won from him, and she believed he had much rather the youth
lived, provided he were inoffensive. No doubt a little force had
been necessary to kidnap one so tall, active, and determined, and
Veronique had made up her horrible tale after the usual custom of
waiting-maids.
Nothing else SHOULD be true. Did she think otherwise, she should
be even more frantic than Eustacie! Why, it would be her own
doing! She had betrayed the day of the escape--she had held aloof
from warning. There was pleasure in securing Nid-de-Merle for her
brother, pleasure in balking the foolish child who had won the
heart that disregarded her. Nay, there might have been even
pleasure in the destruction of the scorner of her charms--the foe
of her house--there might have been pride in receiving Queen
Catherine's dexterous hint that she had been an apt pupil, if the
young Baron had only been something different--something less fair,
gracious, bright, and pure. One bright angel seemed to have
flitted across her path, and nothing should induce her to believe
she had destroyed him.
The stripped corpses of the murdered Huguenots of the palace had
been laid in a line on the terrace, and the ladies who had laughed
with them the night before went to inspect them in death. A few
remnants of Soeur Monique's influence would have withheld Diane,
but that a frenzy of suspense was growing on her. She must see for
herself. If it were so, she must secure a fragment of the shining
flaxen hair, if only as a token that anything so pure and bright
had walked the earth.
She went on the horrible quest, shrinking where others stared. For
it was a pitiless time, and the squadron of the Queen-mother were
as lost to womanhood as the fishwomen of two centuries later. But
Diane saw no corpse at once so tall, so young, and so fair, though
blond Normans and blue-blooded Franks, lads scarce sixteen and
stalwart warriors, lay in one melancholy rank. She at least bore
away the certainly that the English Ribaumont was not there; and if
not, he MUST be safe! She could obtain no further certainty, for
she knew that she must not expect to see either her father or
brother. There was a panic throughout the city. All Paris
imagined that the Huguenots were on the point of rising and slaying
all the Catholics, and, with the savagery of alarmed cowardice, the
citizens and the mob were assisting the armed bands of the Dukes of
Anjou and Guise to complete the slaughter, dragging their lodgers
from their hiding-places, and denouncing all whom they suspected of
reluctance to mass and confession. But on the Monday, Diane was
able to send an urgent message to her father that he must come to
speak with her, for Mdlle. De Nid-de-Merle was extremely ill. She
would meet him in the garden after morning mass.
There accordingly, when she stepped forth pale, rigid, but stately,
with her large fan in her hand to serve as a parasol, she met both
him and her brother. She was for a moment sorry, for she had much
power over her father, while she was afraid of her brother's
sarcastic tongue and eye; she knew he never scrupled to sting her
wherever she was most sensitive, and she would have been able to
extract much more from her father in his absence. France has never
been without a tendency to produce the tiger-monkey, or ferocious
fop; and the GENUS was in its full ascendancy under the sons of
Catherine de Medicis, when the dregs of Francois the First's
PSEUDO-chivalry were not extinct--when horrible, retaliating civil
wars of extermination had made life cheap; nefarious persecutions
had hardened the heart and steeled the eye, and the licentiousness
promoted by the shifty Queen as one of her instruments of
government had darkened the whole understanding. The most hateful
heights of perfidy, effeminacy, and hypocrisy were not reached till
poor Charles IX., who only committed crimes on compulsion, was in
his grave, and Henry III. on the throne; but Narcisse de Ribaumont
was one of the choice companions of the latter, and after the night
and day of murder now stood before his sister with scented hair and
handkerchief--the last, laced, delicately held by a hand in an
embroidered glove--emerald pendants in his ears, a moustache
twisted into sharp points and turned up like an eternal sardonic
smile, and he led a little white poodle by a rose-coloured ribbon.
'Well, sister,' he said, as he went, through the motions of kissing
her hand, and she embraced her father; 'so you don't know how to
deal with megrims and transports?'
'Father,' said Diane, not vouchsafing any attention, 'unless you
can send her some assurance of his life, I will not answer for the
consequences.'
Narcisse laughed: 'Take her this dog, with my compliments. That is
the way to deal with such a child as that.'
'You do not know what you say, brother,' answered Diane with
dignity. 'It goes deeper than that.'
'The deeper it goes, child,' said the elder Chevalier, 'the better
it is that she should be undeceived as soon as possible. She will
recover, and be amenable the sooner.'
'Then he lives, father?' exclaimed Diane. 'He lives, though she is
not to hear it--say----'
'What know I?' said the old man, evasively. 'On a night of
confusion many mischances are sure to occur! Lurking in the palace
at the very moment when there was a search for the conspirators, it
would have been a miracle had the poor young man escaped.'
Diane turned still whiter. 'Then,' she said, 'that was why you
made Monsieur put Eustacie into the ballet, that they might not go
on Wednesday!'
'It was well hinted by you, daughter. We could not have
effectually stopped them on Wednesday without making a scandal.'
'Once more,' said Diane, gasping, though still resolute; 'is not
the story told by Eustacie's woman false--that she saw him--
pistolled--by you, brother?'
'Peste!' cried Narcisse. 'Was the prying wench there? I thought
the little one might be satisfied that he had neighbour's fare. No
matter; what is done for one's beaux yeux is easily pardoned--and
if not, why, I have her all the same!'
'Nevertheless, daughter,' said the Chevalier, gravely, 'the woman
must be silenced. Either she must be sent home, or taught so to
swear to having been mistaken, that la petite may acquit your
brother! But what now, my daughter?'
'She is livid!' exclaimed Narcisse, with his sneer. 'What, sir,
did not you know she was smitten with the peach on the top of a
pole?'
'Enough, brother,' said Diane, recovering herself enough to speak
hoarsely, but with hard dignity. 'You have slain--you need not
insult, one whom you have lost the power of understanding!'
'Shallow schoolboys certainly form no part of my study, save to
kick them down-stairs when they grow impudent,' said Narcisse,
coolly. 'It is only women who think what is long must be grand.'
'Come, children, no disputes,' said the Chevalier. 'Of course we
regret that so fine a youth mixed himself up with the enemies of
the kingdom, like the stork among the sparrows. Both Diane and I
are sorry for the necessity; but remember, child, that when he was
interfering between your brother and his just right of inheritance
and destined wife, he could not but draw such a fate on himself.
Now all is smooth, the estates will be united in their true head,
and you--you too, my child, will be provided for as suits your
name. All that is needed is to soothe the little one, so as to
hinder her from making an outcry--and silence the maid; my child
will do her best for her father's sake, and that of her family.'
Diane was less demonstrative than most of her countrywomen. She
had had time to recollect the uselessness of giving vent to her
indignant anguish, and her brother's derisive look held her back.
The family tactics, from force of habit, recurred to her; she made
no further objection to her father's commands; but when her father
and brother parted with her, she tottered into the now empty
chapel, threw herself down, with her burning forehead on the stone
step, and so lay for hours. It was not in prayer. It was because
it was the only place where she could be alone. To her, heaven
above and earth below seemed alike full of despair, darkness, and
cruel habitations, and she lay like one sick with misery and
repugnance to the life and world that lay before her--the hard world
that had quenched that one fair light and mocked her pity. It was
a misery of solitude, and yet no thought crossed her of going to
weep and sympathize with the other sufferer. No; rivalry and
jealousy came in there! Eustacie viewed herself as his wife, and
the very thought that she had been deliberately preferred and had
enjoyed her triumph hardened Diane's heart against her. Nay, the
open violence and abandonment of her grief seemed to the more
restrained and concentrated nature of her elder a sign of
shallowness and want of durability; and in a certain contemptuous
envy at her professing a right to mourn, Diane never even
reconsidered her own resolution to play out her father's game,
consign Eustacie to her husband's murdered, and leave her to
console herself with bridal splendours and a choice of admirers
from all the court.
However, for the present Diane would rather stay away as much as
possible from the sick-bed of the poor girl; and when an
approaching step forced her to rouse herself and hurry away by the
other door of the chapel, she did indeed mount to the ladies' bed-
chamber, but only to beckon Veronique out of hearing and ask for
her mistress.
Just the same still, only sleeping to have feverish dreams of the
revolving wheel or the demons grappling her husband, refusing all
food but a little drink, and lying silent except for a few moans,
heedless who spoke or looked at her.
Diane explained that in that case it was needless to come to her,
but added, with the vraisemblance of falsehood in which she had
graduated in Catherine's school, 'Veronique, as I told you, you
were mistaken.'
'Ah, Mademoiselle, if M. le Baron lives, she will be cured at
once.'
'Silly girl,' said Diane, giving relief to her pent-up feeling by
asperity of manner, 'how could he live when you and your intrigues
got him into the palace on such a night? Dead he is, OF COURSE;
but it was your own treacherous, mischievous fancy that laid it on
my brother. He was far away with M. de Guise at the attack on the
Admiral. It was some of Monsieur's grooms you saw. You remember
she had brought him into a scrape with Monsieur, and it was sure to
be remembered. And look you, if you repeat the other tale, and do
not drive it out of her head, you need not look to be long with
her--no, nor at home. My father will have no one there to cause a
scandal by an evil tongue.'
That threat convinced Veronique that she had been right; but she,
too, had learnt lessons at the Louvre, and she was too diplomatic
not to ask pardon for her blunder, promise to contradict it when
her mistress could listen, and express her satisfaction that it was
not the Chevalier Narcisse--for such things were not pleasant, as
she justly observed, in families.
About noon on the Tuesday the Louvre was unusually tranquil. All
the world had gone forth to a procession to Notre Dame, headed by
the King and all the royal family, to offer thanksgiving for the
deliverance of the country from the atrocious conspiracy of the
Huguenots. Eustacie's chamber was freed from the bustle of all the
maids of honour arraying themselves, and adjusting curls, feathers,
ruffs and jewels; and such relief as she was capable of
experiencing she felt in the quiet.
Veronique hoped she would sleep, and watched like a dragon to guard
against any disturbance, springing out with upraised finger when a
soft gliding step and rustling of brocade was heard. 'Does she
sleep?' said a low voice; and Veronique, in the pale thin face with
tear-swollen eyes and light yellow hair, recognized the young
Queen. 'My good girl,' said Elisabeth, with almost a beseeching
gesture, 'let me see her. I do not know when again I may be able.'
Veronique stood aside, with the lowest possible of curtseys, just
as her mistress with a feeble, weary voice murmured, 'Oh, make them
let me alone!'
'My poor, poor child,' said the Queen, bending over Eustacie, while
her brimming eyes let the tears fall fast, 'I will not disturb you
long, but I could not help it.'
'Her Majesty!' exclaimed Eustacie, opening wide her eyes in
amazement.
'My dear, suffer me here a little moment,' said the meek Elisabeth,
seating herself so as to bring her face near to Eustacie's; 'I
could not rest till I had seen how it was with you and wept with
you.'
'Ah, Madame, you can weep,' said Eustacie slowly, looking at the
Queen's heavy tearful eyes almost with wonder; 'but I do not weep
because I am dying, and that is better.'
'My dear, my dear, do not so speak!' exclaimed the gentle but
rather dull Queen.
'Is it wrong? Nay, so much the better--then I shall be with HIM,'
said Eustacie in the same feeble dreamy manner, as if she did not
understand herself, but a little roused by seeing she had shocked
her visitor. 'I would not be wicked. He was all bright goodness
and truth: but his does not seem to be goodness that brings to
heaven, and I do not want to be in the heaven of these cruel false
men--I think it would go round and round.' She shut her eyes as if
to steady herself, and that moment seemed to give her more self-
recollection, for looking at the weeping, troubled visitor, she
exclaimed, with more energy, 'Oh! Madame, it must be a dreadful
fancy! Good men like him cannot be shut into those fiery gates
with the torturing devils.'
'Heaven forbid!' exclaimed the Queen. 'My poor, poor child, grieve
not yourself thus. At my home, my Austrian home, we do not speak
in this dreadful way. My father loves and honours his loyal
Protestants, and he trusts that the good God accepts their holy
lives in His unseen Church, even though outwardly they are separate
from us. My German confessor ever said so. Oh! Child, it would be
too frightful if we deemed that all those souls as well as bodies
perished in these frightful days. Myself, I believe that they have
their reward for their truth and constancy.'
Eustacie caught the Queen's hand, and fondled it with delight, as
though those words had veritably opened the gates of heaven to her
husband. The Queen went on in her slow gentle manner, the very
tone of which was inexpressibly soothing and sympathetic: 'Yes, and
all will be clear there. No more violence. At home our good men
think so, and the King will think the same when these cruel
counselors will leave him to himself; and I pray, I pray day and
night, that God will not lay this sin to his account, but open his
eyes to repent. Forgive him, Eustacie, and pray for him too.'
'The King would have saved my husband, Madame,' returned Eustacie.
'He bade him to his room. It was I, unhappy I, who detained him,
lest our flight should have been hindered.'
The Queen in her turn kissed Eustacie's forehead with eager
gratitude. 'Oh, little one, you have brought a drop of comfort to
a heavy heart. Alas! I could sometimes feel you to be a happier
wife than I, with your perfect trust in the brave pure-spirited
youth, unwarped by these wicked cruel advisers. I loved to look at
his open brow; it was so like our bravest German Junkers. And,
child, we thought, both of us, to have brought about your
happiness; but, ah! it has but caused all this misery.'
'No, no, dearest Queen,' said Eustacie, 'this month with all its
woe has been joy--life! Oh! I had rather lie here and die for his
loss than be as I was before he came. And NOW--now, you have given
him to me for all eternity--if but I am fit to be with him!'
Eustacie had revived so much during the interview that the Queen
could not believe her to be in a dying state; but she continued
very ill, the low fever still hanging about her, and the faintness
continual. The close room, the turmoil of its many inhabitants,
and the impossibility of quiet also harassed her greatly, and
Elisabeth had little or no power of making any other arrangements
for her in the palace. Ladies when ill were taken home, and this
poor child had no home. The other maids of honour were a gentler,
simpler set than Catherine's squadron, and were far from unkind;
but between them and her, who had so lately been the brightest
child of them all, there now lay that great gulf. 'Ich habe
gelebt und geliebet.' That the little blackbird, as they used to
call her, should have been on the verge of running away with her
own husband was a half understood, amusing mystery discussed in
exaggerating prattle. This was hushed, indeed, in the presence of
that crushed, prostrate, silent sorrow; but there was still an
utter incapacity of true sympathy, that made the very presence of
so many oppressive, even when they were not in murmurs discussing
the ghastly tidings of massacres in other cities, and the fate of
acquaintances.
On that same day, the Queen sent for Diane to consult her about the
sufferer. Elisabeth longed to place her in her own cabinet and
attend on her herself; but she was afraid to do this, as the
unhappy King was in such a frenzied mood, and so constantly excited
by his brother and Guise, that it was possible that some half-
delirious complaint from poor Eustacie might lead to serious
consequences. Indeed, Elisabeth, though in no state to bear
agitation, was absorbed in her endeavour to prevent him from adding
blood to blood, and a few days later actually saved the lives of
the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde, by throwing herself before
him half-dressed, and tearing his weapon from his hand. Her only
hope was that if she should give him a son, her influence for mercy
would revive with his joy. Meantime she was powerless, and she
could only devise the sending the poor little sufferer to a
convent, where the nuns might tend her till she was restored to
health and composure. Diane acquiesced, but proposed sending for
her father, and he was accordingly summoned. Diane saw him first
alone, and both agreed that he had better take Eustacie to
Bellaise, where her aunt would take good care of her, and in a few
months she would no doubt be weary enough of the country to be in
raptures to return to Paris on any terms.
Yet even as Diane said this, a sort of longing for the solitude of
the woods of Nid-de-Merle came over her, a recollection of the good
Sister Monique, at whose knee she had breathed somewhat of the free
pure air that her murdered cousin had brought with him; a sense
that there she could pour forth her sorrow. She offered herself at
once to go with Eustacie.
'No, no, my daughter,' said the Chevalier, 'that is unnecessary.
There is pleasanter employment for you. I told you that your
position was secured. Here is a brilliant offer--M. de
Selinville,'
'Le bonhomme de Selinville!' exclaimed Diane, feeling rather as
if the compensation were like the little dog offered to Eustacie.
'Know ye not that his two heretic nephews perished the other night.
He is now the head of his name, the Marquis, the only one left of
his house.'
'He begins early,' said Diane.
'An old soldier, my daughter, scarce stays to count the fallen. He
has no time to lose. He is sixty, with a damaged constitution. It
will be but the affair of a few years, and then will my beautiful
Marquise be free to choose for herself. I shall go from the young
Queen to obtain permission from the Queen-mother.'
No question was asked. Diane never even thought objection
possible. It was a close to that present life which she had begun
to loathe; it gave comparative liberty. It would dull and confuse
her heart-sick pain, and give her a certain superiority to her
brother. Moreover, it would satisfy the old father, whom she
really loved. Marriage with a worn-out old man was a simple step
to full display for young ladies without fortune.
The Chevalier told Queen Elisabeth his purpose of placing his niece
in the family convent, under the care of her aunt, the Abbess, in a
foundation endowed by her own family on the borders of her own
estate. Elisabeth would have liked to keep her nearer, but could
not but own that the change to the scenes of her childhood might be
more beneficial than a residence in a nunnery at Paris, and the
Chevalier spoke of his niece with a tender solicitude that gained
the Queen's heart. She consented, only stipulating that Eustacie's
real wishes should be ascertained, and herself again made the
exertion of visiting the patient for the purpose.
Eustacie had been partly dressed, and was lying as near as she
could to the narrow window. The Queen would not let her move, but
took her damp languid hand, and detailed her uncle's proposal. It
was plain that it was not utterly distasteful. 'Soeur Monique,'
she said, 'Soeur Monique would sing hymns to me, and then I should
not see the imps at night.'
'Poor child! And you would like to go? You could bear the
journey?'
'It would be in the air! And then I should not smell blood--
blood!' And her cheeks became whiter again, if possible.
'Then you would not rather be at the Carmelites, or Maubuisson,
near me?'
'Ah! Madame, there would not be Soeur Monique. If the journey
would only make me die, as soon as I came, with Soeur Monique to
hush me, and keep off dreadful images!'
'Dear child, you should put away the thought of dying. Maybe you
are to live, that your prayers may win salvation for the soul of
him you love.'
'Oh, then! I should like to go into a convent so strict--so
strict, cried Eustacie, with renewed vigour. 'Bellaise is nothing
like strict enough. Does your Majesty indeed think that my prayers
will aid him?'
'Alas! what hope could we have but in praying?' said Elisabeth,
with tears in her eyes. 'Little one, we will be joined at least in
our prayers and intercessions: thou wilt not forget in thine one
who yet lives, unhappier than all!'
'And, oh, my good, my holy Queen, will you indeed pray for him--my
husband? He was so good, his faith can surely not long be reckoned
against him. He did not believe in Purgatory! Perhaps----' Then
frowning with a difficulty far beyond a fever-clouded brain, she
concluded--'At least, orisons may aid him! It is doing something
for him! Oh, where are my beads?--I can begin at once.'
The Queen put her arm round her, and together they said the De
profundis,--the Queen understood every word far more for the
living than the dead. Again Elisabeth had given new life to
Eustacie. The intercession for her husband was something to live
for, and the severest convent was coveted, until she was assured
that she would not be allowed to enter on any rule till she had
time to recover her health, and show the constancy of her purpose
by a residence at Bellaise.
Ere parting, however, the Queen bent over her, and colouring, as if
much ashamed of what she said, whispered--'Child, not a word of the
ceremony at Montpipeau!--you understand? The King was always
averse; it would bring him and me into dreadful trouble with THOSE
OTHERS, and alas! It makes no difference now. You will be silent?'
And Eustacie signed her acquiescence, as indeed no difficulty was
made in her being regarded as the widow of the Baron de Ribaumont,
when she further insisted on procuring a widow's dress before she
quitted her room, and declared, with much dignity, that she should
esteem no person her friend who called her Mademoiselle de Nid-de-
Merle. To this the Chevalier de Ribaumont was willing to give way;
he did not care whether Narcisse married her as Berenger's widow or
as the separated maiden wife, and he thought her vehement
opposition and dislike would die away the faster the fewer
impediments were placed in her way. Both he and Diane strongly
discouraged any attempt on Narcisse's widow part at a farewell
interview; and thus unmolested, and under the constant soothing
influence of reciting her prayers, in the trust that they were
availing her husband, Eustacie rallied so much that about ten day
after the dreadful St. Batholomew, in the early morning, she was
half-led half-carried down the stairs between her uncle and
Veronique. Her face was close muffled in her thick black veil, but
when she came to the foot of the first stairs where she had found
Berenger's cap, a terrible shuddering came on her; she again
murmured something about the smell of blood, and fell into a swoon.
'Carry her on at once,' said Diane, who was following,--'there will
be not end to it if you do not remove her immediately.'
And thus shielded from the sight of Marcisse's intended passionate
gesture of farewell at the palace-door, Eustecie was laid at full
length on the seat of the great ponderous family coach, where
Veronique hardly wished to revive her till the eight horses should
have dragged her beyond the streets of Paris, with their terrible
associations, and the gibbets still hung with the limbs of the
murdered.