CHAPTER XXI

The following day De Beaurepaire rode into the great courtyard of Versailles, while, as he did so, the sentries of the Garde de Corps du Roi saluted him, the guard turned out, and the drummers sitting outside in the morning sun sprang to their drums and hastily beat them in honour of him who commanded all the various regiments of the King's Guards. He wore now the superb justaucorps of gold cloth and lace to which, by virtue of his charge and office, he was entitled; across it, under his scarlet coat, ran his white satin sash stamped with golden suns: his three-cornered hat was laced with galloon, his sword was ivory-hilted, with, surmounting its handle, a gold sun.

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 homage and deference, and, as before, his thoughts were terribly poignant while tinged also with self-contempt.

"And I had all this," he murmured as, mechanically he acknowledged the salutes; "and have thrown it away for a shadow; a chimera. Never more will drums roll to salute me nor shall I hold high command. Instead, there is nought for me but a strange land where all who dwell therein will know why I am an exile, a fugitive; and I shall know that I am a traitor. A man false to his King, false to the master who was his friend in childhood, false to the oath of fidelity he has sworn. Fool, doubly-accursed fool and knave that I am!"

Dismounting from his horse and throwing the reins 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 Lodge, 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 condescending while De Brissac's was coldly respectful, the former said:--

"De Brissac, I have ridden here specially 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."

"Nay! 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 spoke 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 sufficiently 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 utterly 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 sneer, he added, "is he so high that even it is too low for him. Cadédis! he must be high indeed." Then, rapping the table irritably, 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 instinctively sought his sword-hilt. "What? Is this insolence? 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 immediate 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 den. 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 veins upon his forehead looked as though they were about to burst. Yet this transformation was not due to any of those sudden gusts of passion to which he was known to be so often subject when thwarted, 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 garrison or fortress 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 tremor 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, humble 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 bosom. "Nay, surely there is no thought of dying for you or--for--her!"

"Alas! 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 hacked to death or mangled 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 untied, unsealed, so that all the world might read, could that be done. D'Hautefeuille is in supreme 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 misery 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 fixedly 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 sobriquet 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 astonishment, 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 proceeding to Rouen there to arrest the Captain la Truaumont, the Lieutenant of Police, La Reynie, having received undoubted evidence that the conspirator was now in the city preparing to levy war against both the King's throne and his person.