Part 54 (2/2)
”And no one else spoke of me?” inquired the master of the horse.
”No one,” said the Abbe.
”If she had but written to me!” murmured Henri.
”Remember, my father, that you were sent here as a confessor,” said De Thou.
Here old Grandchamp, who had been kneeling before Cinq-Mars, and dragging him by his clothes to the other side of the terrace, exclaimed in a broken voice:
”Monseigneur--my master--my good master--do you see them? Look there--'tis they! 'tis they--all of them!”
”Who, my old friend?” asked his master.
”Who? Great Heaven! look at that window! Do you not recognize them? Your mother, your sisters, and your brother.”
And the day, now fairly broken, showed him in the distance several women waving their handkerchiefs; and there, dressed all in black, stretching out her arms toward the prison, sustained by those about her, Cinq-Mars recognized his mother, with his family, and his strength failed him for a moment. He leaned his head upon his friend's breast and wept.
”How many times must I, then, die?” he murmured; then, with a gesture, returning from the top of the tower the salutations of his family, ”Let us descend quickly, my father!” he said to the old Abbe. ”You will tell me at the tribunal of penitence, and before G.o.d, whether the remainder of my life is worth my shedding more blood to preserve it.”
It was there that Cinq-Mars confessed to G.o.d what he alone and Marie de Mantua knew of their secret and unfortunate love. ”He gave to his confessor,” says Father Daniel, ”a portrait of a n.o.ble lady, set in diamonds, which were to be sold, and the money employed in pious works.”
M. de Thou, after having confessed, wrote a letter;--[See the copy of this letter to Madame la Princesse de Guemenee, in the notes at the end of the volume.]--after which (according to the account given by his confessor) he said, ”This is the last thought I will bestow upon this world; let us depart for heaven!” and walking up and down the room with long strides, he recited aloud the psalm, 'Miserere mei, Deus', with an incredible ardor of spirit, his whole frame trembling so violently it seemed as if he did not touch the earth, and that the soul was about to make its exit from his body. The guards were mute at this spectacle, which made them all shudder with respect and horror.
Meanwhile, all was calm in the city of Lyons, when to the great astonishment of its inhabitants, they beheld the entrance through all its gates of troops of infantry and cavalry, which they knew were encamped at a great distance. The French and the Swiss guards, the regiment of Pompadours, the men-at-arms of Maurevert, and the carabineers of La Roque, all defiled in silence. The cavalry, with their muskets on the pommel of the saddle, silently drew up round the chateau of Pierre-Encise; the infantry formed a line upon the banks of the Saone from the gate of the fortress to the Place des Terreaux. It was the usual spot for execution.
”Four companies of the bourgeois of Lyons, called 'pennonage', of which about eleven or twelve hundred men, were ranged [says the journal of Montresor] in the midst of the Place des Terreaux, so as to enclose a s.p.a.ce of about eighty paces each way, into which they admitted no one but those who were absolutely necessary.
”In the centre of this s.p.a.ce was raised a scaffold about seven feet high and nine feet square, in the midst of which, somewhat forward, was placed a stake three feet in height, in front of which was a block half a foot high, so that the princ.i.p.al face of the scaffold looked toward the shambles of the Terreaux, by the side of the Saone. Against the scaffold was placed a short ladder of eight rounds, in the direction of the Dames de St. Pierre.”
Nothing had transpired in the town as to the name of the prisoners. The inaccessible walls of the fortress let none enter or leave but at night, and the deep dungeons had sometimes confined father and son for years together, four feet apart from each other, without their even being aware of the vicinity. The surprise was extreme at these striking preparations, and the crowd collected, not knowing whether for a fete or for an execution.
This same secrecy which the agents of the minister had strictly preserved was also carefully adhered to by the conspirators, for their heads depended on it.
Montresor, Fontrailles, the Baron de Beauvau, Olivier d'Entraigues, Gondi, the Comte du Lude, and the Advocate Fournier, disguised as soldiers, workmen, and morris-dancers, armed with poniards under their clothes, had dispersed amid the crowd more than five hundred gentlemen and domestics, disguised like themselves. Horses were ready on the road to Italy, and boats upon the Rhone had been previously engaged. The young Marquis d'Effiat, elder brother of Cinq-Mars, dressed as a Carthusian, traversed the crowd, without ceasing, between the Place des Terreaux and the little house in which his mother and sister were concealed with the Presidente de Pontac, the sister of the unfortunate De Thou. He rea.s.sured them, gave them from time to time a ray of hope, and returned to the conspirators to satisfy himself that each was prepared for action.
Each soldier forming the line had at his side a man ready to poniard him.
The vast crowd, heaped together behind the line of guards, pushed them forward, pa.s.sed their lines, and made them lose ground. Ambrosio, the Spanish servant whom Cinq-Mars had saved, had taken charge of the captain of the pikemen, and, disguised as a Catalonian musician, had commenced a dispute with him, pretending to be determined not to cease playing the hurdy-gurdy.
Every one was at his post.
The Abbe de Gondi, Olivier d'Entraigues, and the Marquis d'Effiat were in the midst of a group of fish-women and oyster-wenches, who were disputing and bawling, abusing one of their number younger and more timid than her masculine companions. The brother of Cinq-Mars approached to listen to their quarrel.
”And why,” said she to the others, ”would you have Jean le Roux, who is an honest man, cut off the heads of two Christians, because he is a butcher by trade? So long as I am his wife, I'll not allow it. I'd rather--”
”Well, you are wrong!” replied her companions. ”What is't to thee whether the meat he cuts is eaten or not eaten? Why, thou'lt have a hundred crowns to dress thy three children all in new clothes. Thou'rt lucky to be the wife of a butcher. Profit, then, 'ma mignonne', by what G.o.d sends thee by the favor of his Eminence.”
”Let me alone!” answered the first speaker. ”I'll not accept it. I've seen these fine young gentlemen at the windows. They look as mild as lambs.”
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