Part 17 (1/2)

'But just for a little while we must be separated.'

He nodded.

'Darling son, never attend ma.s.s. No matter what they do ... always refuse. If you did not refuse, you could not be my son.'

'I know,' he said.

'Then you will be true and strong, my dearest boy?'

'Yes, Mother, I will be true and strong. I am a Huguenot. I will never forget it, no matter what they do to me. I will never forget you and that one day I shall be with you.'

It was so sad to leave him. Again and again they kissed each other. Antoine watched them with some emotion. He had no wish to hurt either of them. He did not forget for a moment his relations.h.i.+p to them both. This was all Jeanne's fault. Why could she not become a good Catholic and set everything to rights?

He rang for the boy's tutor, and Henry, now weeping bitterly, was led away.

Antoine then spoke to Jeanne: 'Do not waste more time here, I beg of you. They are about to arrest you. Fly, I implore you. I beg of you. Your safest way is to make for Bearn via Vendome. You can rest awhile at my chateau at Vendome ... but do not stay too long. It is your only hope of safety.'

Jeanne stared at him in amazement. 'But you are on their side. Should you not detain me ... arrest me?'

'Go!' cried Antoine. 'Go before you drive me to it ... as you have driven me to so much. Your sharp tongue is intolerable. Do not let it drive me to this.'

She said: 'Poor Antoine! That is your great failing. You are never able to make up your mind whose side you are on.'

She took a last look at him, so elegant, so glittering in his fas.h.i.+onable garments. What bitterness was hers that she should still love him ... even now that he had betrayed her!

She hurried away from Saint-Germain, and at the Paris hotel in which she stayed the night while preparations for her flight went on, the Huguenots gathered under her window, so that those who had been sent to arrest her dared do nothing, with the result that she was able to leave the capital.

But it was not intended that she should reach safety. The Guises, noting the hesitancy of Antoine, suggested that he should be the one to give orders to the citizens of Vendome to arrest Jeanne when she arrived in their town, for it had not taken them long to draw from him the fact that Jeanne had arranged to call at his chateau in that town before making the rigorous journey south.

After many days of hards.h.i.+p, tired out with the journey, Jeanne came to Vendome. In the great chateau which had belonged to her husband's ancestors, she rested and made plans for continuing the journey as soon as possible.

Her little daughter Catherine was a great comfort to her. The child was only four years of age, but old for her years, able to understand that her mother was unhappy and to try to comfort her. Jeanne felt that if only she could have had young Henry with her, she would not have cared very much about anything else. How could she go on loving a husband who had so betrayed her? This was not just a momentary infidelity with La Belle Rouet, not just a pa.s.sing love affair. That she supposed she could, in time, have forgiven. But that he could make himself a party to this plan to destroy her, to take her kingdom, and worse still subject her to the possibility of an agonising death, seemed to her so wantonly cruel that she would always remember this against him.

It was while she was resting in her bed with her daughter beside her that one of her attendants asked for a word with her. He was admitted to her presence a hardy Gascon, a faithful Huguenot, ready to defend her with his sword against any number of the enemy.

He showed great agitation and without formality addressed her. 'Madame, forgive the intrusion, but we are in acute danger. We have walked into a trap. The King of Navarre has given orders to the citizens that we are not to leave the town, but are to be held captive until forces arrive to take us back to Paris.'

Jeanne closed her eyes. Here was the final betrayal. The trap had been set by the man she had loved, and she had walked blindly into it perhaps because at that last interview at Saint-Germain she had believed there was still some good in him, that he really meant to help her escape from his friends.

But the truth was that he had lacked the courage to detain her then; he had hesitated once more and as soon as she was out of his sight, he had given himself wholeheartedly to the plan to destroy her.

'What are your orders, Madame?' asked the Gascon.

She shook her head. 'We can do nothing but wait.'

'The streets are full of guards, Madame. But we could mayhap fight our way through.'

'We are not prepared to fight guards. All my followers would be cut to pieces in ten minutes.'

'But, Madame, shall we be taken without a blow?'

'They will take me,' she said. 'The rest of you will doubtless go free. Take my daughter back to Bearn if that be possible.'

'Mother, I wish to go with you,' said little Catherine. 'I wish to face the Inquisition if you do.'

Jeanne embraced her daughter. Sweet Catherine! What did she know of the torture chambers, of the horrors inflicted by the Catholic Inquisition on those whom they considered to be heretics? What did she know of the chevalet and the autos-dafe, of agony and death, the cries of men and women in torment, the odour of burning flesh?

'That,' said Jeanne firmly, 'you shall never do, my love.' She turned to the Gascon. 'Stand on guard. Forget not my instructions, and remember ... my daughter.'

He bowed in obedience, but his eyes were fierce. He wanted to fight for his Queen.

All through the long hours of the night, Jeanne lay awake, waiting for the sound of marching feet, the shouts of the troops who would come to storm the chateau and take her prisoner. They would be her husband's men, she did not doubt; the Guises and de Chantonnay would wish it to be her husband's guards who put the chains upon her and carried her on the first stage of her journey to the stake.

Her daughter had fallen asleep beside her. Jeanne kissed her tenderly. She was so young to be left; she was only four years old. So it was only four years then since she and Antoine had been so happy together over the birth of their child.

And, during that long night, she suddenly became aware of strange noises in the town. She went to her window; the sky was beginning to be red, not with the streaks of dawn but with the reflection of fire. She could smell the smoke; and as she stood there, apprehensively peering out into the gloom, she heard the shouts of men.

She dressed in great haste and, before she had completed this, her Gascon was at her door.

'Madame,' he cried, 'the town is being looted. A band of mercenaries has come into it. The news has just been brought to the chateau by one who wishes you well. The townsfolk are busy protecting their lives and their property. Now is the time for us to slip away unnoticed ... for no one will care now whether we go or stay. But there is not a moment to lose ...'

Jeanne was exultant. All her old energy came back to her.

'Our prayers are answered,' she cried. 'Come, we must leave here as fast as we can. We must thank G.o.d ... but later. Now, there is no time to think of thanksgiving. First we must be sure that we make the most of this heaven-sent opportunity. We must slip quietly out of Vendome before the dawn ...'

She turned to her daughter. 'Catherine, wake up, my darling. We are going now.'

'To the Inquisition?' asked Catherine sleepily. 'No, my love, to freedom.'

Riding south from Vendome, Jeanne's party were saying that what they had just witnessed was a miracle. G.o.d had sent the band of looting mercenaries to Vendome that the Queen might make her escape. Jeanne smiled tranquilly. She guessed that the Prince of Conde had been warned of her danger, for those mercenaries were Huguenot mercenaries, and their orders had evidently been: 'Occupy Vendome. Create a diversion all through the night, and keep it up until the Queen of Navarre is too far for pursuit.'

Bravo Conde! He was as wayward as his brother, but he was true to the cause which he believed to be right. She must thank G.o.d for her brother-in-law while she wept bitter tears for her husband.

Farther south they went, at the end of each day tired out with hours of riding, each night sleeping deeply from exhaustion; and then on again towards that border which they must cross before they reached safety.

When they reached the town of Caumont it was to discover that the Catholic army under Montluc was only a few miles in their rear. The long and tedious journey, made in such trying circ.u.mstances, resting at castles where Jeanne believed she had friends and how could she trust any, now that he whom she had thought she might trust above all others had failed her? all this had taxed her strength and she was suffering acutely, not only from physical but from mental exhaustion.

But she must push on without delay, and this she did, reaching her frontiers with only an hour or so to spare; but there she had the joy of finding her loyal subjects a.s.sembled in full force to receive and protect her.

The flight was over, and Jeanne had won. Yet, thinking of all she had left behind the husband to whom she was trying in vain to be indifferent, the son whom she adored it was an empty, bitter triumph.

CHAPTER III.

Catherine was filled with rage and terror. Francis of Guise, with the King of Navarre and the Marechal de Saint-Andre, had come to Fontainebleau and compelled her and the King to return to Paris, whence they had then been removed to Melun; and, although they were treated according to their rank, it was made clear that they would not be allowed to leave Melun unescorted.

Catherine was exposed in all her dissembling. The student of Machiavelli was unmasked. Letters which she had sent to Conde had been captured and read by the last people who should have seen them, for in these letters Catherine had explained how intolerable was her position and that of little King Charles under the Triumvirate, and begged Conde to rescue her. She had promised him support and, taking her at her word, Conde had plunged the country into civil war a civil war which, the Duke of Guise continually pointed out to Catherine, had been set in motion by her own duplicity.