Part 22 (1/2)
”Hold your tongue!” cried La Pipe; ”let the girl speak. It is these dogs of Royalists who always disturb us in our amus.e.m.e.nts.”
”What say you?” answered Grand-Ferre. ”Do you even know what it is to be a Royalist?”
”Yes,” said La Pipe; ”I know you all very well. Go, you are for the old self-called princes of the peace, together with the wranglers against the Cardinal and the gabelle. Am I right or not?”
”No, old red-stocking. A Royalist is one who is for the King; that's what it is. And as my father was the King's valet, I am for the King, you see; and I have no liking for the red-stockings, I can tell you.”
”Ah, you call me red-stocking, eh?” answered the old soldier. ”You shall give me satisfaction to-morrow morning. If you had made war in the Valteline, you would not talk like that; and if you had seen his Eminence marching upon the dike at Roch.e.l.le, with the old Marquis de Spinola, while volleys of cannonshot were sent after him, you would have nothing to say about red-stockings.”
”Come, let us amuse ourselves, instead of quarrelling,” said the other soldiers.
The men who conversed thus were standing round a great fire, which illuminated them more than the moon, beautiful as it was; and in the centre of the group was the object of their gathering and their cries.
The Cardinal perceived a young woman arrayed in black and covered with a long, white veil. Her feet were bare; a thick cord clasped her elegant figure; a long rosary fell from her neck almost to her feet, and her hands, delicate and white as ivory, turned its beads and made them pa.s.s rapidly beneath her fingers. The soldiers, with a barbarous joy, amused themselves with laying little brands in her way to burn her naked feet.
The oldest took the smoking match of his arquebus, and, approaching it to the edge of her robe, said in a hoa.r.s.e voice:
”Come, madcap, tell me your history, or I will fill you with powder and blow you up like a mine; take care, for I have already played that trick to others besides you, in the old wars of the Huguenots. Come, sing.”
The young woman, looking at him gravely, made no reply, but lowered her veil.
”You don't manage her well,” said Grand-Ferre, with a drunken laugh; ”you will make her cry. You don't know the fine language of the court; let me speak to her.” And, touching her on the chin, ”My little heart,”
he said, ”if you will please, my sweet, to resume the little story you told just now to these gentlemen, I will pray you to travel with me upon the river Du Tendre, as the great ladies of Paris say, and to take a gla.s.s of brandy with your faithful chevalier, who met you formerly at Loudun, when you played a comedy in order to burn a poor devil.”
The young woman crossed her arms, and, looking around her with an imperious air, cried:
”Withdraw, in the name of the G.o.d of armies; withdraw, impious men!
There is nothing in common between us. I do not understand your tongue, nor you mine. Go, sell your blood to the princes of the earth at so many oboles a day, and leave me to accomplish my mission! Conduct me to the Cardinal.”
A coa.r.s.e laugh interrupted her.
”Do you think,” said a carabineer of Maurevert, ”that his Eminence the Generalissimo will receive you with your feet naked? Go and wash them.”
”The Lord has said, 'Jerusalem, lift thy robe, and pa.s.s the rivers of water,'” she answered, her arms still crossed. ”Let me be conducted to the Cardinal.”
Richelieu cried in a loud voice, ”Bring the woman to me, and let her alone!”
All were silent; they conducted her to the minister.
”Why,” said she, beholding him--”why bring me before an armed man?”
They left her alone with him without answering.
The Cardinal looked at her with a suspicious air. ”Madame,” said he, ”what are you doing in the camp at this hour? And if your mind is not disordered, why these naked feet?”
”It is a vow; it is a vow,” answered the young woman, with an air of impatience, seating herself beside him abruptly. ”I have also made a vow not to eat until I have found the man I seek.”
”My sister,” said the Cardinal, astonished and softened, looking closely at her, ”G.o.d does not exact such rigors from a weak body, and particularly from one of your age, for you seem very young.”
”Young! oh, yes, I was very young a few days ago; but I have since pa.s.sed two existences at least, so much have I thought and suffered.