Part 26 (1/2)
”Yes, I saw him yesterday at Saint-Germain. The old cat is very ill at Narbonne; he is going 'ad patres'. But we must manage our affairs shrewdly, for it is not the first time that he has played the torpid.
Have you people enough for this evening, my dear Fontrailles?”
”Be easy; Montresor is coming with a hundred of Monsieur's gentlemen.
You will recognize him; he will be disguised as a master-mason, with a rule in his hand. But, above all, do not forget the pa.s.swords. Do you know them all well, you and your friends?”
”Yes, all except the Abbe de Gondi, who has not yet arrived; but 'Dieu me pardonne', I think he is there himself! Who the devil would have known him?”
And here a little man without a ca.s.sock, dressed as a soldier of the French guards, and wearing a very black false moustache, slipped between them. He danced about with a joyous air, and rubbed his hands.
”Vive Dieu! all goes on well, my friend. Fiesco could not do better;”
and rising upon his toes to tap Olivier upon the shoulder, he continued:
”Do you know that for a man who has just quitted the rank of pages, you don't manage badly, Sire Olivier d'Entraigues? and you will be among our ill.u.s.trious men if we find a Plutarch. All is well organized; you arrive at the very moment, neither too soon nor too late, like a true party chief. Fontrailles, this young man will get on, I prophesy. But we must make haste; in two hours we shall have some of the archbishops of Paris, my uncle's paris.h.i.+oners. I have instructed them well; and they will cry, 'Long live Monsieur! Long live the Regency! No more of the Cardinal!' like madmen. They are good devotees, thanks to me, who have stirred them up. The King is very ill. Oh, all goes well, very well! I come from Saint-Germain. I have seen our friend Cinq-Mars; he is good, very good, still firm as a rock. Ah, that is what I call a man! How he has played with them with his careless and melancholy air! He is master of the court at present. The King, they say, is going to make him duke and peer. It is much talked of; but he still hesitates. We must decide that by our movement this evening. The will of the people! He must do the will of the people; we will make him hear it. It will be the death of Richelieu, you'll see. It is, above all, hatred of him which is to predominate in the cries, for that is the essential thing. That will at last decide our Gaston, who is still uncertain, is he not?”
”And how can he be anything else?” said Fontrailles. ”If he were to take a resolution to-day in our favor it would be unfortunate.”
”Why so?”
”Because we should be sure that to-morrow morning he would be against us.”
”Never mind,” replied the Abbe; ”the Queen is firm.”
”And she has heart also,” said Olivier; ”that gives me some hope for Cinq-Mars, who, it seems to me, has sometimes dared to frown when he looked at her.”
”Child that you are, how little do you yet know of the court! Nothing can sustain him but the hand of the King, who loves him as a son; and as for the Queen, if her heart beats, it is for the past and not for the future. But these trifles are not to the purpose. Tell me, dear friend, are you sure of your young Advocate whom I see roaming about there? Is he all right?”
”Perfectly; he is an excellent Royalist. He would throw the Cardinal into the river in an instant. Besides, it is Fournier of Loudun; that is saying everything.”
”Well, well, this is the kind of men we like. But take care of yourselves, Messieurs; some one comes from the Rue Saint-Honore.”
”Who goes there?” cried the foremost of the troop to some men who were advancing. ”Royalists or Cardinalists?”
”Gaston and Le Grand,” replied the newcomers, in low tones.
”It is Montresor and Monsieur's people,” said Fontrailles. ”We may soon begin.”
”Yes, 'par la corbleu'!” said the newcomer, ”for the Cardinalists will pa.s.s at three o'clock. Some one told us so just now.”
”Where are they going?” said Fontrailles.
”There are more than two hundred of them to escort Monsieur de Chavigny, who is going to see the old cat at Narbonne, they say. They thought it safer to pa.s.s by the Louvre.”
”Well, we will give him a velvet paw!” said the Abbe.
As he finished saying this, a noise of carriages and horses was heard.
Several men in cloaks rolled an enormous stone into the middle of the street. The foremost cavaliers pa.s.sed rapidly through the crowd, pistols in hand, suspecting that something unusual was going on; but the postilion, who drove the horses of the first carriage, ran upon the stone and fell.
”Whose carriage is this which thus crushes foot-pa.s.sengers?” cried the cloakmen, all at once. ”It is tyrannical. It can be no other than a friend of the Cardinal de la Roch.e.l.le.”