第64章 COSMO RUGGIERO(2)

"Adieu, monsieur," cried the little king, crimson with anger. When he left the king's presence the prince found his way barred in the great hall by two officers of the Scottish guard. As the captain of the French guard advanced, the prince drew a letter from his doublet, and said to him in presence of the whole court:--"Can you read that paper aloud to me, Monsieur de Maille-Breze?""Willingly," said the French captain:--

"'My cousin, come in all security; I give you my royal word that you can do so. If you have need of a safe conduct, this letter will serve as one.'""Signed?" said the shrewd and courageous hunchback.

"Signed 'Francois,'" said Maille.

"No, no!" exclaimed the prince, "it is signed: 'Your good cousin and friend, Francois,'--Messieurs," he said to the Scotch guard, "I follow you to the prison to which you are ordered, on behalf of the king, to conduct me. There is enough nobility in this hall to understand the matter!"The profound silence which followed these words ought to have enlightened the Guises, but silence is that to which all princes listen least.

"Monseigneur," said the Cardinal de Tournon, who was following the prince, "you know well that since the affair at Amboise you have made certain attempts both at Lyon and at Mouvans in Dauphine against the royal authority, of which the king had no knowledge when he wrote to you in those terms.""Tricksters!" cried the prince, laughing.

"You have made a public declaration against the Mass and in favor of heresy.""We are masters in Navarre," said the prince.

"You mean to say in Bearn. But you owe homage to the Crown," replied President de Thou.

"Ha! you here, president?" cried the prince, sarcastically. "Is the whole Parliament with you?"So saying, he cast a look of contempt upon the cardinal and left the hall. He saw plainly enough that they meant to have his head. The next day, when Messieurs de Thou, de Viole, d'Espesse, the procureur-general Bourdin, and the chief clerk of the court du Tillet, entered his presence, he kept them standing, and expressed his regrets to see them charged with a duty which did not belong to them. Then he said to the clerk, "Write down what I say," and dictated as follows:--"I, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, peer of the kingdom, Marquis de Conti, Comte de Soissons, prince of the blood of France, do declare that I formally refuse to recognize any commission appointed to try me, because, in my quality and in virtue of the privilege appertaining to all members of the royal house, I can only be accused, tried, and judged by the Parliament of peers, both Chambers assembled, the king being seated on his bed of justice.""You ought to know that, gentlemen, better than others," he added;"and this reply is all that you will get from me. For the rest, Itrust in God and my right."

The magistrates continued to address him notwithstanding his obstinate silence. The king of Navarre was left at liberty, but closely watched;his prison was larger than that of the prince, and this was the only real difference in the position of the two brothers,--the intention being that their heads should fall together.

Christophe was therefore kept in the strictest solitary confinement by order of the cardinal and the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, for no other purpose than to give the judges proof of the culpability of the Prince de Conde. The letters seized on Lasagne, the prince's secretary, though intelligible to statesmen, where not sufficiently plain proof for judges. The cardinal intended to confront the prince and Christophe by accident; and it was not without intention that the young Reformer was placed in one of the lower rooms in the tower of Saint-Aignan, with a window looking on the prison yard. Each time that Christophe was brought before the magistrates, and subjected to a close examination, he sheltered himself behind a total and complete denial, which prolonged his trial until after the opening of the States-general.

Old Lecamus, who by that time had got himself elected deputy of the /tiers-etat/ by the burghers of Paris, arrived at Orleans a few days after the arrest of the Prince de Conde. This news, which reached him at Etampes, redoubled his anxiety; for he fully understood--he, who alone knew of Christophe's interview with the prince under the bridge near his own house--that his son's fate was closely bound up with that of the leader of the Reformed party. He therefore determined to study the dark tangle of interests which were struggling together at court in order to discover some means of rescuing his son. It was useless to think of Queen Catherine, who refused to see her furrier. No one about the court whom he was able to address could give him any satisfactory information about Christophe; and he fell at last into a state of such utter despair that he was on the verge of appealing to the cardinal himself, when he learned that Monsieur de Thou (and this was the great stain upon that good man's life) had consented to be one of the judges of the Prince de Conde. The old furrier went at once to see him, and learned at last that Christophe was still living, though a prisoner.