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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/39216-8.txt b/39216-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e28d020 --- /dev/null +++ b/39216-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1246 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Snowball, by Stanley J. Weyman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Snowball + +Author: Stanley J. Weyman + +Release Date: March 20, 2012 [EBook #39216] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SNOWBALL *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the +Web Archive (New York Public Library) + + + + + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + 1. Page scan source: + http://www.archive.org/details/snowball00weymgoog + (New York Public Library) + + + + + + +[Illustration: FLUNG A SNOWBALL AT ME. _Page 11_.] + + + + + + + THE SNOWBALL + + + + + BY + + STANLEY J. WEYMAN + + AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER + THE RED ROBE," "MY LADY ROTHA," + ETC. ETC. + + + + + ILLUSTRATED + + + + + + + NEW YORK + THE MERRIAM COMPANY + 67 Fifth Avenue + + + + + + + Copyright, 1895, by + THE MERRIAM COMPANY + + + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + * * * + + + Flung a snowball at me. _Frontispiece_. + + He dropped his napkin. + + "Your scribe might do for me." + + She sprang forward. + + It was the king. + + "Are you coming out there?" + + + + + + + MERRIAM'S + + VIOLET SERIES. + + * * * + + Illustrated, Square 32mo, Cloth, 40c. + + * * * + + + No. 6 + + I.--A Man and His Model. By Anthony Hope. + + II.--The Body-Snatcher. By Robert Louis Stevenson. + + III.--The Silence of the Maharajah. By Marie Corelli. + + IV.--Some Good Intentions and a Blunder. + + V.--After To-Morrow. By the Author of "The Green Carnation." + + VI.--The Snowball. By Stanley J. Weyman. + + + * * * + OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. + * * * + + _For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid + upon receipt of price by_ + + THE MERRIAM COMPANY + + _Publishers and Booksellers_ + + 67 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK + + + + + + + THE SNOWBALL. + + +The slight indisposition from which the Queen suffered in the spring +of 1602, and which was occasioned by a cold caught during her +lying-in, by diverting the King's attention from matters of State, had +the effect of doubling the burden cast on my shoulders. Though the +main threads of M. de Biron's conspiracy were in our hands as early as +the month of November of the preceding year, and steps had been +immediately taken to sound the chief associates by summoning them to +court, an interval necessarily followed during which we had everything +to fear; and this not only from the despair of the guilty, but from +the timidity of the innocent who, in a court filled with cabals and +rumors of intrigues, might see no way to clear themselves. Even the +shows and interludes which followed the Dauphin's birth, and made that +Christmas remarkable, served only to amuse the idle; they could not +disperse the cloud which hung over the Louvre, nor divert those who, +on the one side or the other, had aught to fear. + +In connection with this period of suspense I recall an episode, both +characteristic in itself, and worthy, I think, by reason of its +oddity, to be set down here; where it may serve for a preface to those +more serious events, attending the trial and execution of M. de Biron, +which I shall have presently to relate. + +I had occasion, about the end of the month of January, to see M. du +Hallot. The weather was cold, and partly for that reason, partly from +a desire to keep my visit, which had to do with La Fin's disclosures, +from the general eye, I chose to go on foot. For the same reason I +took with me only two armed servants, and a confidential page, the son +of my friend Arnaud. M. du Hallot, who lived at this time in a house +in the Faubourg St. Germain, not far from the College of France, +detained me long, and when I rose to leave insisted that I should take +his coach, as snow had begun to fall and already lay an inch deep in +the streets. At first I was unwilling to do this, but reflecting that +such small services are highly appreciated by those who render them, +and attach men more surely and subtly than the greatest bribes, I +finally consented, and, taking my place with some becoming +expressions, bade young Arnaud find his way home on foot. + +The coach had nearly reached the south end of the Pont au Change, when +a number of youths ran by me, pelting one another with snowballs, and +shouting so lustily that I was at a loss which to admire more--the +silence of their feet or the loudness of their voices. Aware that lads +of that age are small respecters of persons, I was not surprised to +see two or three of them rush on to the bridge before us, and even +continue their Parthian warfare under the very feet of the horses. The +result was, however, that the latter presently took fright at that +part of the bridge where the houses encroach most boldly on the +roadway; and, but for the care of the running footman, who hastened to +their heads, might have done some harm either to the coach or the +passersby. + +As it was, we were brought to a stop while one of the wheels was +extricated from the kennel, into which it had become wedged. Smiling +to think what the King--for he, strangely warned by Providence, was +all his life long timid in a coach--would have said to this, I went to +open the curtains, and had just effected this to a certain extent, +when one of a crowd of idlers who stood on the raised pavement beside +us deliberately lifted up his arm and flung a snowball at me. + +The missile flew wide of its mark by an inch or two only. That I was +amazed at such audacity goes without saying, but in my doubt of what +it might be the prelude--for the breakdown of the coach in that narrow +place, the haunt of the rufflers and vagrants of every kind, might be +a part of a concerted plan--I fell back into my place. The coach, as +it happened, moved on with a jerk at the same moment; and before I had +well digested the matter, or had time to mark the demeanor of the +crowd, we were clear of the bridge and rolling past the Chatelet. + +A smaller man might have stopped to revenge, and to cook a sprat have +passed all Paris through the net. But remembering my own youthful +days, when I attended the College of Burgundy, I set down the freak to +the insolence of some young student, and, shrugging my shoulders, +dismissed it from my thoughts. An instant later, however, observing +that the fragments of the snowball were melting on the seat by my side +and wetting the cushion, I raised my hand to brush them away. In the +act I saw, to my surprise, a piece of paper lying among the _debris_. + +"Ho, ho!" said I to myself. "This is a strange snowball! I have heard +that the apprentices put stones in theirs. But paper! Let me see what +this means." + +The morsel, though moistened by contact with the snow, remained +intact. Unfolding it with the greatest care--for already I began to +discern that here was something out of the common--I found written on +the inner side, in a clear, clerkly hand, the words, "_Beware of +Nicholas!_" + +It will be remembered that Simon Nicholas was at this time secretary +to the King, and so high in his favor as to be admitted to the +knowledge of all but his most private affairs. Gay, and of a very +jovial wit, he was able to commend himself to Henry by amusing him; +while his years, for he was over sixty, seemed some warranty for his +discretion, and at the same time gave younger sinners a feeling of +superior worth, since they might repent and he had not. Often in +contact with him, I had always found him equal to his duties, and +though too fond of the table and of all the good things of this life, +neither given to babbling nor boasting. In a word, one for whom I had +more liking than respect. + +A man in his position, however, possesses such stupendous +opportunities for evil that, as I read the warning so cunningly +conveyed to me, I sat aghast. His office gave him at all times that +ready access to the King's person which is the aim of conspirators +against the lives of sovereigns; and, short of this supreme treachery, +he was master of secrets which Biron's associates would give all to +gain. When I add that I knew Nicholas to be a man of extravagant +habits and careless life, and one, moreover, who, if rumor did not +wrong him, had lost much in that rearrangement of the finances which I +had lately effected without even the King's privity, it will be seen +that those words, "Beware of Nicholas," were calculated to occasion me +the most profound thought. + +Of the person who had conveyed the missive to me I had unfortunately +seen nothing; though I believed him to be a man, and young. But the +circumstances, which seemed to indicate the extreme need of secrecy, +gave me a hint as to my own conduct. Accordingly, I smoothed my brow, +and on the coach stopping at the Arsenal descended with my usual face +of preoccupation. + +At the foot of the staircase my _maître-d'-hôtel_ met me. + +"M. Nicholas, the King's secretary, is here," he said. "He has been +waiting your return an hour and more, Monseigneur." + +"Lay another cover," I answered, repressing the surprise I could not +but feel on hearing of this visit, so strangely _à propos_. "Doubtless +he has come to dine with me." + +Barely staying to take off my cloak, I went upstairs with an air as +gay as possible, and, making my visitor a hundred apologies for the +inconvenience I had caused him, insisted he should sit down with me. +This he was nothing loth to do; though, as presently appeared, his +errand was only to submit to me some papers connected with the new tax +of a penny in the shilling, which it was his duty to lay before me. + +I scolded him gayly for the long period which had elapsed since his +last visit, and succeeded so well in setting him at his ease that he +presently began to rally me on my slackness; for I could touch nothing +but a little game and a glass of water. Excusing myself as well as I +could, I encouraged him to continue the attack; and certainly, if a +good conscience waits on appetite, I had soon abundant evidence on his +behalf. He grew merry and talkative, and, telling me some free tales, +bore himself altogether so naturally that I had begun to deem my +suspicions baseless, when a chance word gave me new grounds for +entertaining them. + +I was on the subject of my morning's employment. Knowing how easily +confidence begets confidence, and that in his position the matter +could not be long kept from him, I told him as a secret where I had +been. + +"I do not wish all the world to know, my friend," I said; "but you are +a discreet man, and it will go no farther. I am just from Du +Hallot's." + + +[Illustration: HE DROPPED HIS NAPKIN. _Page 20_.] + + +He dropped his napkin and stooped to pick it up again with a gesture +so hasty that it caught my attention and led me to watch him. +Moreover, although my words seemed to call for an answer, he did not +speak until he had taken a deep draught of wine; and then he said +only, "Indeed!" in a tone of such indifference as might at another +time have deceived me, but now was perfectly patent. + +"Yes," I replied, affecting to be engaged with my own plate (we were +eating nuts). "Doubtless you will be able to guess on what subject." + +"I?" he said, as quick to answer as he had before been slow. "No, I +think not." + +"La Fin," I said; "and his statements respecting M. de Biron's +friends." + +"Ah!" he replied, shrugging his shoulders. He had contrived to regain +his composure, but I noticed that his hand shook, and I saw him put a +nut into his mouth with so much salt upon it that he had no choice but +to make a grimace. "They tell me he accuses everybody," he grumbled, +his eyes on his plate. "Even the King is scarcely safe from him. But I +have heard no particulars." + +"They will be known by and by," I answered prudently. And after that I +did not think it wise to speak farther, lest I should give more than I +got; but as soon as he had finished, and we had washed our hands, I +led him to the closet looking on the river, where I was in the habit +of working with my secretaries. I sent them away and sat down with him +to his accounts; but in the position in which I found myself, between +suspicion and perplexity, I could so little command my attention that +I gathered nothing from their items; and had I found another doing the +King's service as negligently I had certainly sent him about his +business. Nevertheless I made some show of auditing them, and had +reached the last roll when something in the fairly written summary, +which closed the account, caught my eye. I bent more closely over it, +and presently making an occasion to carry the parchment into the next +room, compared it with the handwriting on the scrap of paper I had +found in the snowball. A brief scrutiny showed me that they were the +work of the same person! + + +[Illustration: "YOUR SCRIBE MIGHT DO FOR ME." _Page 23_.] + + +I went back to M. Nicholas, and after attesting the accounts, and +making one or two notes, remarked in a careless way on the clearness +of the hand. "I am badly in need of a fourth secretary," I added. +"Your scribe might do for me." + +It did not escape me that once again M. Nicholas looked uncomfortable, +his red face taking a deeper tinge and his hand going nervously to his +pointed gray beard, "I do not think he would do for you," he answered. + +"What is his name?" I asked, purposely bending over the papers and +avoiding his eyes. + +"I have dismissed him," he rejoined curtly. "I do not know where he +could now be found." + +"That is a pity--he writes well," I answered, as if it were nothing +but a whim that led me to pursue the subject. "And good clerks are +scarce. What was his name?" + +"Felix," he said reluctantly. + +I had now all I wanted. Accordingly I spoke of another matter and +shortly afterward Nicholas rose and went. But he left me in a fever of +doubt and suspicion; so that for nearly half an hour I walked up and +down the room, unable to decide whether I should treat the warning of +the snowball with contempt, as the work of a discharged servant, or on +that very account attach the more credit to it. By and by I remembered +that the last sheet of the roll I had audited bore date the previous +day; whence it was clear that Felix had been dismissed within the last +twenty-four hours, and perhaps after the delivery of his note to me. +Such a coincidence, which seemed no less pertinent than strange, +opened a wide field for conjecture; and the possibility that Nicholas +had really called on me to sound me and learn what I knew presently +occurring to my mind, brought me to a final determination to seek out +this Felix, and without the delay of an hour sift the matter to the +bottom. + +Doubtless I shall seem to some to have acted precipitately, and built +much on small foundations. I answer that I had the life of the King my +master to guard, and in that cause dared neglect no precaution, +however trivial, nor any indication, however remote. Would that all my +care and vigilance had longer sufficed to preserve for France the life +of that great man! But God willed otherwise. + +I sent word at once to La Font, my _valet-de-chambre_, the same who +advised me at the time of my first marriage, to come to me; and +directing him to make instant and secret inquiry where Felix, a clerk +in the Chamber of Accounts, lodged, bade him report to me on my return +from the Great Hall, where, it will be remembered, it was my custom to +give audience after dinner to all who had business with me. As it +happened, I was detained long that day, and found him awaiting me. +Being a man of few words, he said, as soon as the door was shut, "At +the 'Three Half Moons,' in the Faubourg St. Honoré, Monseigneur." + +"That is near the Louvre," I answered. "Get me my cloak, and your own +also; and bring your pistols. I am going for a walk. You will +accompany me." + +He was a good man, La Font, and devoted to my interests. "It will be +night in half an hour, Monseigneur," he answered respectfully. "You +will take some of the Swiss?" + +"In one word, no!" I rejoined. "We will go out by the stable entrance. +In the mean time, and until we return, I will bid Maignan keep the +door, and admit no one." + +The crowd of those who daily left the Arsenal before nightfall +happened to be augmented on this occasion by a troop of my clients +from Mantes; tenants on the lands of Rosny, who had lingered after the +hour of audience to see the courts and garden. By mingling with these +we had no difficulty in passing out unobserved; nor, once in the +streets, where a thaw had set in, that filled the kennel with water +and the pavement with slush, was La Font long in bringing me to the +house I sought. It stood on the outskirts of the St. Honoré Faubourg, +in a quarter sufficiently respectable, and a street marked neither by +extreme squalor nor extravagant ostentation--from one or other of +which all desperate enterprises, in my opinion, take their rise. The +house, which was high and narrow, presented only two windows to the +street, but the staircase was sweet and clean, and it was impossible +to cross the threshold without feeling a prepossession in Felix's +favor. Already I began to think I had come on a fool's errand. + +"Which floor?" I asked La Font. + +"The highest. Monsieur," he answered. + +I went up softly and he followed me. Under the tiles I found a door, +and heard some one moving beyond it. Bidding La Font remain on guard +outside, and come to my aid only if I called him, I knocked boldly. A +gentle voice bade me enter, and I did so. + +There was only one person in the room, a young woman with fair, waving +hair, a pale face, and blue eyes, who, seeing a cloaked stranger +instead of the friend or neighbor she anticipated, stared at me in the +utmost wonder and some alarm. The room, though poorly furnished, was +particularly neat and clean; which, taken with the woman's complexion, +left me in no doubt as to her native province. On the floor near the +fire stood a cradle; and in the window a cage with a singing bird +completed the homely and pleasant aspect of this interior, which was +such as, if I could, I would multiply by thousands in every town of +France. + +A small lamp, which the woman was in the act of lighting, enabled me +to see those details, and also discovered me to her. I asked politely +if I spoke to Madame Felix, the wife of M. Felix of the Chamber of +Accounts. + +"I am Madame Felix," she answered, advancing slowly toward me. "My +husband is late. Do you come from him? It is not bad news, Monsieur?" + +The tone of anxiety in which she uttered her last question, and the +quickness with which she raised her lamp to scan my face, went to my +heart, already softened by this young mother in her home. I hastened +to answer that I had no bad news, and wished merely to see her husband +on business connected with his employment. + +"He is very late," she said, a shade of perplexity crossing her face. +"I have never known him so late before. Monsieur is unfortunate." + +I replied that with her leave I would wait; on which she very readily +placed a stool for me, and sat down herself by the cradle, I ventured +to remark that perhaps M. Nicholas had detained her husband: she +answered simply that it might be so, but that she had never known it +happen before. + +"M. Felix has evening employment?" I asked after a moment's +reflection. + +She looked at me in some wonder. "No," she said. "He spends his +evenings with me, Monsieur. It is not much, for he is at work all +day." + +I bowed, and was preparing another question, when the sound of +footsteps ascending the stairs in haste reached my ears, and led me to +pause. Madame heard the noise at the same moment and rose. "It is my +husband," she said, looking toward the door with such a light in +her eyes as betrayed the sweetheart lingering in the wife. "I was +afraid--I do not know what I feared," she muttered to herself. + + +[Illustration: SHE SPRANG FORWARD. _Page 37_.] + + +Proposing to myself the advantage of seeing Felix before he saw me, I +pushed back my stool into the shadow, contriving to do this so +discreetly that the young woman noticed nothing. A moment later it +appeared I might have spared my pains; for at sight of her husband, a +comely young man who came in with lack-lustre eye and drooping head, +she sprang forward with a cry of dismay, and, utterly forgetting my +presence, appealed to him to know what was the matter. + +He threw himself on to a stool, the first he reached, and, leaning his +elbows on the table in an attitude of extreme dejection, covered his +face with his hands. "What is it?" he said in a hollow tone. "We are +ruined, Margot. I have no more work. I am dismissed." + +"Dismissed?" she ejaculated. + +He nodded. "Nicholas discharged me this morning," he said, almost in a +whisper. He dared not speak louder, for he could not command his +voice. + +"Why?" she asked gently, as she leant over him. "What had you done?" + +"Nothing!" he answered with bitterness. "He said clerks were +plentiful, and the King or I must starve." + +Hitherto I had witnessed the scene in silence, a prey to emotions so +various I will not attempt to describe them. But hearing the King's +name thus prostituted and put to base uses, I started forward with a +violence which in a moment made my presence known. Felix, confounded +by the sight of a stranger at his elbow, rose hurriedly from his seat, +and retreating before me with vivid alarm painted on his countenance, +asked with a faltering tongue who I was. + +I replied in as soothing a manner as possible, that I was a friend, +anxious to assist him. Nevertheless, seeing that I kept my cloak about +my face--for I was not willing to be recognized--he continued to look +at me with distrust and terror. "What do you want?" he said, raising +the lamp much as his wife had done, to see me the better. + +"The answers to one or two questions," I replied firmly. "Answer them +truly, and I promise you your troubles are at an end." So saying, I +drew from my pouch the scrap of paper which had come to me so +strangely. "When did you write this, my friend?" I continued, placing +it before him. + +He drew a deep breath at sight of it, and a look of comprehension and +dismay crossed his face. For a moment he hesitated. Then in a hurried +manner he said that he had never seen the paper. + +"Come," I rejoined sternly, "look at it again. Let there be no +mistake. When did you write that, and why?" + +But still he shook his head; and, though I pressed him hard, continued +so stubborn in his denial that, but for the look I had seen on his +face when I first produced the paper, and the strange coincidence of +his dismissal, I might have believed him. As it was, I saw nothing for +it but to have him arrested and brought to my house, where I did not +doubt he would tell the truth; and I was about to retire to give the +necessary orders, when something in the sidelong glance I saw him cast +at his wife caught my eye and furnished me with a new idea. Acting on +this, I affected to be satisfied. I apologized for my intrusion on the +ground of mistake, and gradually withdrawing to the door asked him at +the last moment to light me downstairs. + +Complying with a shaking hand, he went out before me, and had nearly +reached the foot of the staircase when I touched him on the shoulder. + +"Now," I said bluntly, fixing him with my eyes, "your wife is no +longer listening, and you can tell me the truth. Who employed you to +write these words?" + +Trembling so violently he had to lean on the balustrade for support, +he answered me. + +"Madame Nicholas," he whispered. + +"What?" I cried, recoiling. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth +now. + +"The secretary's wife, do you mean? Be careful, man." + +He nodded. + +"When?" I asked suspiciously. + +"Yesterday," he answered. "She is an old cat!" he continued, almost +fiercely. "I hate her! But my wife is jealous." + +"And did you throw it into my coach," I said, "on the Pont du Change, +to-day?" + +"God forbid!" he replied, shrinking into himself again. "I wrote it +for her, and she took it away. She said it was a jest she was playing. +That is all I know." + +I saw it was, and after a few more words was content to dismiss him, +bidding him keep silence on the matter, and remain at home in case I +needed him. At the last, he plucked up spirit to ask me who I was; but +preferring to keep that discovery for a day still to come, when I +might appear as the benefactor of this little family, I told him +sharply that I was one of the King's servants, and so left him. + +It will be believed, however, that I found the information I had +received little to my mind. The longer I dwelt on it, the more serious +seemed the matter. While I could scarcely conceive any circumstances +in which a woman would be likely to inform against her husband without +cause, I could recall more than one dangerous conspiracy which had +been frustrated by informers of that class--sometimes out of regard +for the very persons against whom they informed. Viewed in this light +only, the warning seemed to my mind sufficiently alarming, but when I +came also to consider the secrecy with which Madame Nicholas had both +prepared it--so that her hand might not be known--and conveyed it to +me, the aspect of the case grew yet more formidable. In the result, I +had not passed through two streets before my mind was made up to lay +the case before the King, and the sagacity and penetration which were +never wanting to my gracious master. + +An unexpected rencontre which awaited me on my return to the Arsenal +both confirmed me in this resolution and enabled me to carry it into +effect. We succeeded in slipping in without difficulty, and duly found +Maignan on guard at the door of my apartments. But a single glance at +his face sufficed to show that something was wrong; nor did it need +the look of penitence which he assumed on seeing us--a look so piteous +that at another time it must have diverted me--to convince me that he +had infringed my orders. + +"How now, sirrah?" I said angrily, without waiting for him to speak. +"What have you been doing?" + +"They would take no refusal, Monseigneur," he answered plaintively, +waving his hand toward the door. + +"What!" I cried sternly, astonished; for this was an instance of such +direct disobedience as I could scarce understand. "Did I not give you +the strictest orders to deny me to everybody?" + +"They would take no refusal, Monseigneur," he answered penitently, +edging away from me as he spoke. + +"Who are they?" I asked sternly, leaving the question of his +punishment for another season. "Speak, rascal, though it shall not +save you." + +"There are M. le Marquis de la Varenne, and M. de Vitry," he said +slowly, "and M. de Vic, and M. Erard, the engineer, and M. de +Fontange, and----" + +"_Pardieu!_" I cried, cutting him short in a rage; for he was going on +counting on his fingers in a manner the most provoking. "Have you let +in all Paris, dolt? Grace! that I should be served by a fool! Open the +door, and let me see them!" + +With that I was about to enter; when the door, which I had not +perceived to be ajar, was suddenly thrown open, and a laughing face +thrust out. It was the King's. + + +[Illustration: IT WAS THE KING. _Page 48_.] + + +"Ha, ha! Grand-master!" he cried, vastly diverted by the success of +his jest and the abrupt change which doubtless came over my +countenance. "Never was such graceful hospitality, I'll be sworn! But +come, pardon this varlet. And now embrace me, and tell me where you +have been playing truant." + +Saying these words with the charm which never failed him, and in his +time won to his side more foes than his sword ever conquered, the King +drew me into my room, where I found De Vic, Vitry, Roquelaure, and the +rest. They all laughed heartily at my surprise, nor was Maignan, who +had a pretty fancy, and was the author, it will be remembered, of that +whimsical procession to Rosny after the battle of Ivry, which I have +elsewhere described, far behind them; the rascal knowing well that the +king's presence covered all, and that in my gratification at the honor +done me I should be certain to overlook his impertinence. + +Perceiving that this impromptu visit had no other object than to +divert Henry--though he was kind enough to say that he felt uneasy +when he did not see me often--I begged to know if he would honor me by +staying to sup; but this he would not do, though he consented to drink +a cup of my Arbois wine, and praised it highly. I thought I saw by and +by that he was willing to be alone with me; and as I had every reason +to desire this myself, I made an opportunity. Sending for Arnaud and +some of my gentlemen, I committed my other guests to their care, and +led the King into my closet, where, after requesting his leave to +speak on business, I proceeded to unfold to him the adventure of the +snowball, with all the particulars which I have here set down. + +He listened very attentively, drumming on the table with his fingers; +nor did he move or speak when I had done but still continued in the +same attitude of deep thought. At last: "Grand-master," he said, +touching with his hand the mark of the wound which still remained on +his lip, "how long is it since Chalet's attempt--when I got this?" + +"Seven years last Christmas, Sire," I answered. + +"And Barrière's?" + +"That was the year before. Avenious' plot was that year too." + +"And the Italian, from Milan, of whom the Capuchin Honorio warned us?" + +"That was two years ago, Sire." + +"And how many more attempts have there been against my person?" he +went on, much moved. Then falling into a tone of extreme sadness, he +continued, "Rosny, my friend, they must succeed at last. No man can +fight against his fate. The end is sure, notwithstanding all your +fidelity and vigilance, and the love you bear me, for which I love you +too. But Nicholas? Nicholas? Yet he has been careless and distraught +of late. I have noticed it; and a month back I refused to give him an +appointment, of which he wished to have the sale." + +I did not dare to speak, and for a time Henry, too, remained silent. +At length he rose with an air of resolution. + +"We will clear this matter up within the hour!" he said firmly. "I +will send my people back to the Louvre, and do you, Grand-master, +order half-a-dozen Swiss to be ready to conduct us to this woman's +house. When we have heard her we shall know what to do." + +I tried my utmost to dissuade him, pleading that his presence could +not be necessary, and might prove a hindrance; besides exposing his +person to a certain amount of risk. But he would not listen. When I +saw, therefore, that his mind was made up to go, and that as his +spirits rose he was inclined to welcome this little expedition as a +relief from the _ennui_ which at times troubled him, I reluctantly +withdrew my opposition and gave the necessary orders. The King +dismissed his suite with a few kind words, and in a very short space +we were on our way, under cover of darkness, to the secretary's house. + +He lived at this time in a court off the Rue St. Jacques, not far from +the church of that name; and the house being remote from the eyes and +observations of the street, seemed not unfit for secret and desperate +uses. + +Although we found lights shining behind several of the barred windows, +the wintry night, the darkness of the court, and perhaps the errand on +which we came, imparted so gloomy an aspect to the place that the King +hitched his sword forward, while I begged him to permit the Swiss who +accompanied us to go on with us. This, however, he would not allow, +and accordingly they were left at the entrance to the court with +orders to follow at a given signal. + +On the steps, the King, who, to disguise himself the better, had +borrowed one of my cloaks, stumbled and almost fell. This threw him +into a fit of laughter; for no sooner was he engaged in an adventure +which promised to be dangerous than his spirits invariably rose to +such a degree as to make him the most charming companion in peril man +ever had. He was still shaking, and pulling me to and fro in one of +those boyish frolics which sometimes swayed him, when a sudden outcry +inside the house startled us into sobriety, and reminded us all too +soon of the business which brought us thither. + +Wondering what it might mean, I was about to rap on the door with my +hilt when the King put me aside, and, by a happy instinct, tried the +latch. The door yielded to his hands, and, slowly opening, gave us +admittance. + +We found ourselves in a gloomy hall, ill-lit, and hung with patched +arras. In one corner stood a group of servants. Of these some looked +scared and some amused, but all were so much taken up with the +movements of a harsh-faced woman, who was pacing the opposite side of +the hall, that they did not heed our entrance. A momentary glance at +this strange state of things showed me that the woman was Madame +Nicholas; but I was still at a loss to guess what she was doing or +what was happening in the house. + +I stood a moment, but finding she still took no notice of us, I +beckoned to one of the servants, and bade him tell his mistress a +gentleman would speak with her. The man went with the message; but she +sent him off with a flea in his ear, and screamed at him so violently +that for a moment I thought she was mad. Then it appeared that the +object of her attention was a door at the side of the hall; for, +stopping suddenly in her walk, she went up to it, and struck it +passionately with her hands. + +"Come out!" she cried. "Come out, you villain!" + +Restraining the King, I went forward myself, and, saluting her +politely, begged a word with her apart, thinking she would recognize +me. + +Her answer, however, showed that she did not. "No!" she cried, waving +me off, in the utmost excitement. "No; you will not get me away--I +know you. You are as bad one as the other." Then turning again to the +door, she continued, "Come out! Do you hear! Come out! I'll have no +more of your intrigues and your Hallots!" + +I pricked up my ears at the name "But, Madame," I said, "one moment." + +"Begone!" she retorted, turning on me so wrathfully that I fairly +recoiled before her. "I shall stay here till I drop; but I will have +him out and expose him. There shall be an end of his precious plots +and his Hallots if I have to go to the King!" + +Words so curiously _à propos_ could not but recall to my mind the +confusion into which my mention of Du Hallot had thrown the secretary +earlier in the day. And since they seemed also to be consistent with +the warning conveyed to me, and indeed to explain it, they should have +corroborated my worst suspicions. But a sense of something unreal and +fantastic, with which I could not grapple, continued to puzzle me in +the presence of this angry woman; and it was with no great assurance +that I said, "Do I understand then, Madame, that M. du Hallot is in +that room?" + + +[Illustration: "ARE YOU COMING OUT THERE?" _Page 61_.] + + +"M. du Hallot?" she replied, in a tone that was almost a scream. "No; +but he would be if he had taken the hint I sent him! He would be! I +will have no more secrecy, however, and no more plots. I have suffered +enough already, and now Madame shall suffer if she has not forgotten +how to blush. Are you coming out there?" she continued, once more +applying herself to the door, her face inflamed with passion. "I shall +stay! Oh, I shall stay, I assure you. Until morning if necessary!" + +"But, Madame," I said, beginning to see daylight, and finding words +with difficulty--for I already heard in fancy the King's laughter and +could conjure up the endless quips and cranks with which he would +pursue me--"your warning did not perhaps reach M. du Hallot!" + +"It reached his coach, at any rate," the scold retorted. "Another time +I will have no half-measures. But as for that," she continued, turning +on me suddenly with her arms akimbo, and the fiercest of airs, "I +would like to know what business it is of yours, Monsieur, whether it +reached him or not! I know you--you are in league with my husband! You +are here to shelter him, and this Madame du Hallot! But----" + +At that moment, however, the door at last opened; and M. Nicholas, +wearing an aspect so meek and crestfallen that I hardly knew him, came +out. He was followed by a young woman plainly dressed, and looking +almost as much frightened as himself; in whom I had no difficulty in +recognizing Felix's wife. + +"Why!" Madame Nicholas cried, her face falling. "This is not--who is +this? Who--" with increased vehemence--"is this baggage, I would like +to know?" + +"My dear," the secretary protested earnestly, spreading out his +hands--fortunately he had eyes only for his wife, and did not see +us--"this is one of your ridiculous mistakes! It is, I assure you. +This is the wife of a clerk whom I dismissed to-day, and she has been +with me begging me to reinstate her husband. That is all. That is all, +my dear. You have made this----" + +I heard no more, for, taking advantage of the obscurity of the hall, +and the preoccupation of the couple, I made hurriedly for the door, +and passing out into the darkness, found myself at once in the embrace +of the King, who, seizing me round the neck, laughed on my shoulder +till he cried, continually adjuring me to laugh also, and ejaculating +between the paroxysms, "Poor Du Hallot! Poor Du Hallot!" with many +things of the same nature, which any one acquainted with court life +may supply for himself. + +I confess I did not on my part find it so easy to laugh: partly +because I am not of so gay a disposition as that great prince, and +partly because I cannot always see the ludicrous side of events in +which I myself take part. But on the King at last assuring me that he +would not betray the secret even to La Varenne, I took comfort and +gradually reconciled myself to an episode which, unlike the more +serious events it now becomes my duty to relate, had only one result, +and that unimportant; I mean the introduction to my service of the +clerk Felix, who, proving worthy of confidence, remained with me after +the lamentable death of the King my master, and is to-day one of those +to whom I entrust the preparation of these Memoirs. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Snowball, by Stanley J. 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Weyman"> + +<meta name="Publisher" content="The Merriam Company"> +<meta name="Date" content="1895"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<style type="text/css"> +body {margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; background-color:#FFFFFF;} + + +p.normal {text-indent:.25in; text-align: justify;} +.center {margin: auto; text-align:center; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt} + + + +p.right {text-align:right; margin-right:25%;} + +p.continue {text-indent: 0in; margin-top:9pt;} +.text10 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:10%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;} +.text20 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:20%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;} + + +.poem0 { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 0%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + +.poem1 { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 2em; + margin-right: 10%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + +.poem2 { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + +.poem3 { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 30%; + margin-right: 30%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + + + + + +figcenter {margin:auto; text-align:center; margin-top:9pt;} + +.t0 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0px;} +.t1 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:1em; margin-right:0px;} +.t2 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0px;} +.t3 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:3em; margin-right:0px;} +.t4 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:4em; margin-right:0px;} +.t5 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:5em; margin-right:0px;} +.t6 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:6em; margin-right:0px;} +.t7 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:7em; margin-right:0px;} +.t8 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:8em; margin-right:0px;} +.t9 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:9em; margin-right:0px;} +.t10 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:10em; margin-right:0px;} +.t11 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:11em; margin-right:0px;} +.t12 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:12em; margin-right:0px;} +.t13 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:13em; margin-right:0px;} +.t14 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:14em; margin-right:0px;} +.t15 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:15em; margin-right:0px;} +.t16 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:16em; margin-right:0px;} + + +.quote {text-indent:.25in; text-align: justify; font-size:90%; margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:36pt} +.ctrquote {text-align: center; font-size:90%; margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:36pt} + +.dateline {text-align:right; font-size:90%; margin-right:10%; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 {text-align: center;} + +span.sc {font-variant: small-caps; font-size:110%;} +span.sc2 {font-variant: small-caps; font-size:90%;} + +hr.W10 {width:10%; color:black; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt} + +hr.W20 {width:20%; color:black; margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt} + +hr.W50 {width:50%; color:black;} +hr.W90 {width:90%; color:black;} + +p.hang1 {margin-left:3em; text-indent:-3em;} +p.hang2 {margin-left:3em; text-indent:0em;} + + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Snowball, by Stanley J. Weyman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Snowball + +Author: Stanley J. Weyman + +Release Date: March 20, 2012 [EBook #39216] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SNOWBALL *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the +Web Archive (New York Public Library) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br> +<br> +1. Page scan source:<br> +http://www.archive.org/details/snowball00weymgoog<br> +(New York Public Library)</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><a name="div1_01"><img src="images/front.png" alt="front"></a><br> +FLUNG A SNOWBALL AT ME. <i>Page 11</i>.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>THE SNOWBALL</h1> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h5>BY</h5> + +<h2>STANLEY J. WEYMAN</h2> + +<h5>AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER<br> +THE RED ROBE," "MY LADY ROTHA,"<br> +ETC. ETC.</h5> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h4>ILLUSTRATED</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h4>NEW YORK</h4> +<h3>THE MERRIAM COMPANY</h3> +<h4>67 Fifth Avenue</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h4><span class="sc2">Copyright, 1895, by</span><br> +THE MERRIAM COMPANY</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> + +<hr class="W10"> +<div style="margin-left:25%"> + +<p class="continue"><a href="#div1_01">Flung a snowball at me</a>. <i>Frontispiece</i>.</p> + +<p class="continue"><a href="#div1_20">He dropped his napkin.</a></p> + +<p class="continue"><a href="#div1_23">"Your scribe might do for me."</a></p> + +<p class="continue"><a href="#div1_37">She sprang forward.</a></p> + +<p class="continue"><a href="#div1_48">It was the king.</a></p> + +<p class="continue"><a href="#div1_61">"Are you coming out there?"</a></p> +</div> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>MERRIAM'S</h3> + +<h1>VIOLET SERIES.</h1> + +<hr class="W10"> + +<h4>Illustrated, Square 32mo, Cloth, 40c.</h4> + +<hr class="W10"> +<br> +<div style="margin-left:25%"> +<p class="continue">No. 6</p> + +<p class="normal">I.--A Man and His Model.</p> +<p class="right">By <span class="sc">Anthony Hope</span>.</p> + +<p class="normal">II.--The Body-Snatcher.</p> +<p class="right">By <span class="sc">By Robert Louis Stevenson</span>.</p> + +<p class="normal">III.--The Silence of the Maharajah.</p> +<p class="right">By <span class="sc">By Marie Corelli</span>.</p> + +<p class="normal">IV.--Some Good Intentions and a Blunder.</p> + +<p class="normal">V.--After To-Morrow.</p> +<p class="right">By <span class="sc">By the Author of "The Green Carnation."</span></p> + +<p class="normal">VI.--The Snowball.</p> +<p class="right">By <span class="sc">By Stanley J. Weyman</span>.</p> +</div> +<br> + +<hr class="W10"> +<h4>OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION.</h4> +<hr class="W10"> + +<h5><i>For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid<br> +upon receipt of price by</i></h5> + +<h3>THE MERRIAM COMPANY</h3> + +<h5><i>Publishers and Booksellers</i></h5> + +<h4>67 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK</h4> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THE SNOWBALL.</h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The slight indisposition from which the Queen suffered in the spring +of 1602, and which was occasioned by a cold caught during her +lying-in, by diverting the King's attention from matters of State, had +the effect of doubling the burden cast on my shoulders. Though the +main threads of M. de Biron's conspiracy were in our hands as early as +the month of November of the preceding year, and steps had been +immediately taken to sound the chief associates by summoning them to +court, an interval necessarily followed during which we had everything +to fear; and this not only from the despair of the guilty, but from +the timidity of the innocent who, in a court filled with cabals and +rumors of intrigues, might see no way to clear themselves. Even the +shows and interludes which followed the Dauphin's birth, and made that +Christmas remarkable, served only to amuse the idle; they could not +disperse the cloud which hung over the Louvre, nor divert those who, +on the one side or the other, had aught to fear.</p> + +<p class="normal">In connection with this period of suspense I recall an episode, both +characteristic in itself, and worthy, I think, by reason of its +oddity, to be set down here; where it may serve for a preface to those +more serious events, attending the trial and execution of M. de Biron, +which I shall have presently to relate.</p> + +<p class="normal">I had occasion, about the end of the month of January, to see M. du +Hallot. The weather was cold, and partly for that reason, partly from +a desire to keep my visit, which had to do with La Fin's disclosures, +from the general eye, I chose to go on foot. For the same reason I +took with me only two armed servants, and a confidential page, the son +of my friend Arnaud. M. du Hallot, who lived at this time in a house +in the Faubourg St. Germain, not far from the College of France, +detained me long, and when I rose to leave insisted that I should take +his coach, as snow had begun to fall and already lay an inch deep in +the streets. At first I was unwilling to do this, but reflecting that +such small services are highly appreciated by those who render them, +and attach men more surely and subtly than the greatest bribes, I +finally consented, and, taking my place with some becoming +expressions, bade young Arnaud find his way home on foot.</p> + +<p class="normal">The coach had nearly reached the south end of the Pont au Change, when +a number of youths ran by me, pelting one another with snowballs, and +shouting so lustily that I was at a loss which to admire more--the +silence of their feet or the loudness of their voices. Aware that lads +of that age are small respecters of persons, I was not surprised to +see two or three of them rush on to the bridge before us, and even +continue their Parthian warfare under the very feet of the horses. The +result was, however, that the latter presently took fright at that +part of the bridge where the houses encroach most boldly on the +roadway; and, but for the care of the running footman, who hastened to +their heads, might have done some harm either to the coach or the +passersby.</p> + +<p class="normal">As it was, we were brought to a stop while one of the wheels was +extricated from the kennel, into which it had become wedged. Smiling +to think what the King--for he, strangely warned by Providence, was +all his life long timid in a coach--would have said to this, I went to +open the curtains, and had just effected this to a certain extent, +when one of a crowd of idlers who stood on the raised pavement beside +us deliberately lifted up his arm and flung a snowball at me.</p> + +<p class="normal">The missile flew wide of its mark by an inch or two only. That I was +amazed at such audacity goes without saying, but in my doubt of what +it might be the prelude--for the breakdown of the coach in that narrow +place, the haunt of the rufflers and vagrants of every kind, might be +a part of a concerted plan--I fell back into my place. The coach, as +it happened, moved on with a jerk at the same moment; and before I had +well digested the matter, or had time to mark the demeanor of the +crowd, we were clear of the bridge and rolling past the Chatelet.</p> + +<p class="normal">A smaller man might have stopped to revenge, and to cook a sprat have +passed all Paris through the net. But remembering my own youthful +days, when I attended the College of Burgundy, I set down the freak to +the insolence of some young student, and, shrugging my shoulders, +dismissed it from my thoughts. An instant later, however, observing +that the fragments of the snowball were melting on the seat by my side +and wetting the cushion, I raised my hand to brush them away. In the +act I saw, to my surprise, a piece of paper lying among the <i>debris</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ho, ho!" said I to myself. "This is a strange snowball! I have heard +that the apprentices put stones in theirs. But paper! Let me see what +this means."</p> + +<p class="normal">The morsel, though moistened by contact with the snow, remained +intact. Unfolding it with the greatest care--for already I began to +discern that here was something out of the common--I found written on +the inner side, in a clear, clerkly hand, the words, "<i>Beware of +Nicholas!</i>"</p> + +<p class="normal">It will be remembered that Simon Nicholas was at this time secretary +to the King, and so high in his favor as to be admitted to the +knowledge of all but his most private affairs. Gay, and of a very +jovial wit, he was able to commend himself to Henry by amusing him; +while his years, for he was over sixty, seemed some warranty for his +discretion, and at the same time gave younger sinners a feeling of +superior worth, since they might repent and he had not. Often in +contact with him, I had always found him equal to his duties, and +though too fond of the table and of all the good things of this life, +neither given to babbling nor boasting. In a word, one for whom I had +more liking than respect.</p> + +<p class="normal">A man in his position, however, possesses such stupendous +opportunities for evil that, as I read the warning so cunningly +conveyed to me, I sat aghast. His office gave him at all times that +ready access to the King's person which is the aim of conspirators +against the lives of sovereigns; and, short of this supreme treachery, +he was master of secrets which Biron's associates would give all to +gain. When I add that I knew Nicholas to be a man of extravagant +habits and careless life, and one, moreover, who, if rumor did not +wrong him, had lost much in that rearrangement of the finances which I +had lately effected without even the King's privity, it will be seen +that those words, "Beware of Nicholas," were calculated to occasion me +the most profound thought.</p> + +<p class="normal">Of the person who had conveyed the missive to me I had unfortunately +seen nothing; though I believed him to be a man, and young. But the +circumstances, which seemed to indicate the extreme need of secrecy, +gave me a hint as to my own conduct. Accordingly, I smoothed my brow, +and on the coach stopping at the Arsenal descended with my usual face +of preoccupation.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the foot of the staircase my <i>maître-d'-hôtel</i> met me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"M. Nicholas, the King's secretary, is here," he said. "He has been +waiting your return an hour and more, Monseigneur."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Lay another cover," I answered, repressing the surprise I could not +but feel on hearing of this visit, so strangely <i>à propos</i>. "Doubtless +he has come to dine with me."</p> + +<p class="normal">Barely staying to take off my cloak, I went upstairs with an air as +gay as possible, and, making my visitor a hundred apologies for the +inconvenience I had caused him, insisted he should sit down with me. +This he was nothing loth to do; though, as presently appeared, his +errand was only to submit to me some papers connected with the new tax +of a penny in the shilling, which it was his duty to lay before me.</p> + +<p class="normal">I scolded him gayly for the long period which had elapsed since his +last visit, and succeeded so well in setting him at his ease that he +presently began to rally me on my slackness; for I could touch nothing +but a little game and a glass of water. Excusing myself as well as I +could, I encouraged him to continue the attack; and certainly, if a +good conscience waits on appetite, I had soon abundant evidence on his +behalf. He grew merry and talkative, and, telling me some free tales, +bore himself altogether so naturally that I had begun to deem my +suspicions baseless, when a chance word gave me new grounds for +entertaining them.</p> + +<p class="normal">I was on the subject of my morning's employment. Knowing how easily +confidence begets confidence, and that in his position the matter +could not be long kept from him, I told him as a secret where I had +been.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do not wish all the world to know, my friend," I said; "but you are +a discreet man, and it will go no farther. I am just from Du +Hallot's."</p> + + +<p class="center"><a name="div1_20"><img src="images/p20.png" alt="p20"></a><br> +HE DROPPED HIS NAPKIN. <i>Page 20</i>.</p> + + +<p class="normal">He dropped his napkin and stooped to pick it up again with a gesture +so hasty that it caught my attention and led me to watch him. +Moreover, although my words seemed to call for an answer, he did not +speak until he had taken a deep draught of wine; and then he said +only, "Indeed!" in a tone of such indifference as might at another +time have deceived me, but now was perfectly patent.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," I replied, affecting to be engaged with my own plate (we were +eating nuts). "Doubtless you will be able to guess on what subject."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I?" he said, as quick to answer as he had before been slow. "No, I +think not."</p> + +<p class="normal">"La Fin," I said; "and his statements respecting M. de Biron's +friends."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah!" he replied, shrugging his shoulders. He had contrived to regain +his composure, but I noticed that his hand shook, and I saw him put a +nut into his mouth with so much salt upon it that he had no choice but +to make a grimace. "They tell me he accuses everybody," he grumbled, +his eyes on his plate. "Even the King is scarcely safe from him. But I +have heard no particulars."</p> + +<p class="normal">"They will be known by and by," I answered prudently. And after that I +did not think it wise to speak farther, lest I should give more than I +got; but as soon as he had finished, and we had washed our hands, I +led him to the closet looking on the river, where I was in the habit +of working with my secretaries. I sent them away and sat down with him +to his accounts; but in the position in which I found myself, between +suspicion and perplexity, I could so little command my attention that +I gathered nothing from their items; and had I found another doing the +King's service as negligently I had certainly sent him about his +business. Nevertheless I made some show of auditing them, and had +reached the last roll when something in the fairly written summary, +which closed the account, caught my eye. I bent more closely over it, +and presently making an occasion to carry the parchment into the next +room, compared it with the handwriting on the scrap of paper I had +found in the snowball. A brief scrutiny showed me that they were the +work of the same person!</p> + + +<p class="center"><a name="div1_23"><img src="images/p23.png" alt="p23"></a><br> +"YOUR SCRIBE MIGHT DO FOR ME." <i>Page 23</i>.</p> + + +<p class="normal">I went back to M. Nicholas, and after attesting the accounts, and +making one or two notes, remarked in a careless way on the clearness +of the hand. "I am badly in need of a fourth secretary," I added. +"Your scribe might do for me."</p> + +<p class="normal">It did not escape me that once again M. Nicholas looked uncomfortable, +his red face taking a deeper tinge and his hand going nervously to his +pointed gray beard, "I do not think he would do for you," he answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is his name?" I asked, purposely bending over the papers and +avoiding his eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have dismissed him," he rejoined curtly. "I do not know where he +could now be found."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is a pity--he writes well," I answered, as if it were nothing +but a whim that led me to pursue the subject. "And good clerks are +scarce. What was his name?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Felix," he said reluctantly.</p> + +<p class="normal">I had now all I wanted. Accordingly I spoke of another matter and +shortly afterward Nicholas rose and went. But he left me in a fever of +doubt and suspicion; so that for nearly half an hour I walked up and +down the room, unable to decide whether I should treat the warning of +the snowball with contempt, as the work of a discharged servant, or on +that very account attach the more credit to it. By and by I remembered +that the last sheet of the roll I had audited bore date the previous +day; whence it was clear that Felix had been dismissed within the last +twenty-four hours, and perhaps after the delivery of his note to me. +Such a coincidence, which seemed no less pertinent than strange, +opened a wide field for conjecture; and the possibility that Nicholas +had really called on me to sound me and learn what I knew presently +occurring to my mind, brought me to a final determination to seek out +this Felix, and without the delay of an hour sift the matter to the +bottom.</p> + +<p class="normal">Doubtless I shall seem to some to have acted precipitately, and built +much on small foundations. I answer that I had the life of the King my +master to guard, and in that cause dared neglect no precaution, +however trivial, nor any indication, however remote. Would that all my +care and vigilance had longer sufficed to preserve for France the life +of that great man! But God willed otherwise.</p> + +<p class="normal">I sent word at once to La Font, my <i>valet-de-chambre</i>, the same who +advised me at the time of my first marriage, to come to me; and +directing him to make instant and secret inquiry where Felix, a clerk +in the Chamber of Accounts, lodged, bade him report to me on my return +from the Great Hall, where, it will be remembered, it was my custom to +give audience after dinner to all who had business with me. As it +happened, I was detained long that day, and found him awaiting me. +Being a man of few words, he said, as soon as the door was shut, "At +the 'Three Half Moons,' in the Faubourg St. Honoré, Monseigneur."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is near the Louvre," I answered. "Get me my cloak, and your own +also; and bring your pistols. I am going for a walk. You will +accompany me."</p> + +<p class="normal">He was a good man, La Font, and devoted to my interests. "It will be +night in half an hour, Monseigneur," he answered respectfully. "You +will take some of the Swiss?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"In one word, no!" I rejoined. "We will go out by the stable entrance. +In the mean time, and until we return, I will bid Maignan keep the +door, and admit no one."</p> + +<p class="normal">The crowd of those who daily left the Arsenal before nightfall +happened to be augmented on this occasion by a troop of my clients +from Mantes; tenants on the lands of Rosny, who had lingered after the +hour of audience to see the courts and garden. By mingling with these +we had no difficulty in passing out unobserved; nor, once in the +streets, where a thaw had set in, that filled the kennel with water +and the pavement with slush, was La Font long in bringing me to the +house I sought. It stood on the outskirts of the St. Honoré Faubourg, +in a quarter sufficiently respectable, and a street marked neither by +extreme squalor nor extravagant ostentation--from one or other of +which all desperate enterprises, in my opinion, take their rise. The +house, which was high and narrow, presented only two windows to the +street, but the staircase was sweet and clean, and it was impossible +to cross the threshold without feeling a prepossession in Felix's +favor. Already I began to think I had come on a fool's errand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Which floor?" I asked La Font.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The highest. Monsieur," he answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">I went up softly and he followed me. Under the tiles I found a door, +and heard some one moving beyond it. Bidding La Font remain on guard +outside, and come to my aid only if I called him, I knocked boldly. A +gentle voice bade me enter, and I did so.</p> + +<p class="normal">There was only one person in the room, a young woman with fair, waving +hair, a pale face, and blue eyes, who, seeing a cloaked stranger +instead of the friend or neighbor she anticipated, stared at me in the +utmost wonder and some alarm. The room, though poorly furnished, was +particularly neat and clean; which, taken with the woman's complexion, +left me in no doubt as to her native province. On the floor near the +fire stood a cradle; and in the window a cage with a singing bird +completed the homely and pleasant aspect of this interior, which was +such as, if I could, I would multiply by thousands in every town of +France.</p> + +<p class="normal">A small lamp, which the woman was in the act of lighting, enabled me +to see those details, and also discovered me to her. I asked politely +if I spoke to Madame Felix, the wife of M. Felix of the Chamber of +Accounts.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am Madame Felix," she answered, advancing slowly toward me. "My +husband is late. Do you come from him? It is not bad news, Monsieur?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The tone of anxiety in which she uttered her last question, and the +quickness with which she raised her lamp to scan my face, went to my +heart, already softened by this young mother in her home. I hastened +to answer that I had no bad news, and wished merely to see her husband +on business connected with his employment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He is very late," she said, a shade of perplexity crossing her face. +"I have never known him so late before. Monsieur is unfortunate."</p> + +<p class="normal">I replied that with her leave I would wait; on which she very readily +placed a stool for me, and sat down herself by the cradle, I ventured +to remark that perhaps M. Nicholas had detained her husband: she +answered simply that it might be so, but that she had never known it +happen before.</p> + +<p class="normal">"M. Felix has evening employment?" I asked after a moment's +reflection.</p> + +<p class="normal">She looked at me in some wonder. "No," she said. "He spends his +evenings with me, Monsieur. It is not much, for he is at work all +day."</p> + +<p class="normal">I bowed, and was preparing another question, when the sound of +footsteps ascending the stairs in haste reached my ears, and led me to +pause. Madame heard the noise at the same moment and rose. "It is my +husband," she said, looking toward the door with such a light in +her eyes as betrayed the sweetheart lingering in the wife. "I was +afraid--I do not know what I feared," she muttered to herself.</p> + + +<p class="center"><a name="div1_37"><img src="images/p37.png" alt="p37"></a><br> +SHE SPRANG FORWARD. <i>Page 37</i>.</p> + + +<p class="normal">Proposing to myself the advantage of seeing Felix before he saw me, I +pushed back my stool into the shadow, contriving to do this so +discreetly that the young woman noticed nothing. A moment later it +appeared I might have spared my pains; for at sight of her husband, a +comely young man who came in with lack-lustre eye and drooping head, +she sprang forward with a cry of dismay, and, utterly forgetting my +presence, appealed to him to know what was the matter.</p> + +<p class="normal">He threw himself on to a stool, the first he reached, and, leaning his +elbows on the table in an attitude of extreme dejection, covered his +face with his hands. "What is it?" he said in a hollow tone. "We are +ruined, Margot. I have no more work. I am dismissed."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Dismissed?" she ejaculated.</p> + +<p class="normal">He nodded. "Nicholas discharged me this morning," he said, almost in a +whisper. He dared not speak louder, for he could not command his +voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why?" she asked gently, as she leant over him. "What had you done?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing!" he answered with bitterness. "He said clerks were +plentiful, and the King or I must starve."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hitherto I had witnessed the scene in silence, a prey to emotions so +various I will not attempt to describe them. But hearing the King's +name thus prostituted and put to base uses, I started forward with a +violence which in a moment made my presence known. Felix, confounded +by the sight of a stranger at his elbow, rose hurriedly from his seat, +and retreating before me with vivid alarm painted on his countenance, +asked with a faltering tongue who I was.</p> + +<p class="normal">I replied in as soothing a manner as possible, that I was a friend, +anxious to assist him. Nevertheless, seeing that I kept my cloak about +my face--for I was not willing to be recognized--he continued to look +at me with distrust and terror. "What do you want?" he said, raising +the lamp much as his wife had done, to see me the better.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The answers to one or two questions," I replied firmly. "Answer them +truly, and I promise you your troubles are at an end." So saying, I +drew from my pouch the scrap of paper which had come to me so +strangely. "When did you write this, my friend?" I continued, placing +it before him.</p> + +<p class="normal">He drew a deep breath at sight of it, and a look of comprehension and +dismay crossed his face. For a moment he hesitated. Then in a hurried +manner he said that he had never seen the paper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come," I rejoined sternly, "look at it again. Let there be no +mistake. When did you write that, and why?"</p> + +<p class="normal">But still he shook his head; and, though I pressed him hard, continued +so stubborn in his denial that, but for the look I had seen on his +face when I first produced the paper, and the strange coincidence of +his dismissal, I might have believed him. As it was, I saw nothing for +it but to have him arrested and brought to my house, where I did not +doubt he would tell the truth; and I was about to retire to give the +necessary orders, when something in the sidelong glance I saw him cast +at his wife caught my eye and furnished me with a new idea. Acting on +this, I affected to be satisfied. I apologized for my intrusion on the +ground of mistake, and gradually withdrawing to the door asked him at +the last moment to light me downstairs.</p> + +<p class="normal">Complying with a shaking hand, he went out before me, and had nearly +reached the foot of the staircase when I touched him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now," I said bluntly, fixing him with my eyes, "your wife is no +longer listening, and you can tell me the truth. Who employed you to +write these words?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Trembling so violently he had to lean on the balustrade for support, +he answered me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Madame Nicholas," he whispered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What?" I cried, recoiling. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth +now.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The secretary's wife, do you mean? Be careful, man."</p> + +<p class="normal">He nodded.</p> + +<p class="normal">"When?" I asked suspiciously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yesterday," he answered. "She is an old cat!" he continued, almost +fiercely. "I hate her! But my wife is jealous."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And did you throw it into my coach," I said, "on the Pont du Change, +to-day?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"God forbid!" he replied, shrinking into himself again. "I wrote it +for her, and she took it away. She said it was a jest she was playing. +That is all I know."</p> + +<p class="normal">I saw it was, and after a few more words was content to dismiss him, +bidding him keep silence on the matter, and remain at home in case I +needed him. At the last, he plucked up spirit to ask me who I was; but +preferring to keep that discovery for a day still to come, when I +might appear as the benefactor of this little family, I told him +sharply that I was one of the King's servants, and so left him.</p> + +<p class="normal">It will be believed, however, that I found the information I had +received little to my mind. The longer I dwelt on it, the more serious +seemed the matter. While I could scarcely conceive any circumstances +in which a woman would be likely to inform against her husband without +cause, I could recall more than one dangerous conspiracy which had +been frustrated by informers of that class--sometimes out of regard +for the very persons against whom they informed. Viewed in this light +only, the warning seemed to my mind sufficiently alarming, but when I +came also to consider the secrecy with which Madame Nicholas had both +prepared it--so that her hand might not be known--and conveyed it to +me, the aspect of the case grew yet more formidable. In the result, I +had not passed through two streets before my mind was made up to lay +the case before the King, and the sagacity and penetration which were +never wanting to my gracious master.</p> + +<p class="normal">An unexpected rencontre which awaited me on my return to the Arsenal +both confirmed me in this resolution and enabled me to carry it into +effect. We succeeded in slipping in without difficulty, and duly found +Maignan on guard at the door of my apartments. But a single glance at +his face sufficed to show that something was wrong; nor did it need +the look of penitence which he assumed on seeing us--a look so piteous +that at another time it must have diverted me--to convince me that he +had infringed my orders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How now, sirrah?" I said angrily, without waiting for him to speak. +"What have you been doing?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"They would take no refusal, Monseigneur," he answered plaintively, +waving his hand toward the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What!" I cried sternly, astonished; for this was an instance of such +direct disobedience as I could scarce understand. "Did I not give you +the strictest orders to deny me to everybody?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"They would take no refusal, Monseigneur," he answered penitently, +edging away from me as he spoke.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who are they?" I asked sternly, leaving the question of his +punishment for another season. "Speak, rascal, though it shall not +save you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"There are M. le Marquis de la Varenne, and M. de Vitry," he said +slowly, "and M. de Vic, and M. Erard, the engineer, and M. de +Fontange, and----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Pardieu!</i>" I cried, cutting him short in a rage; for he was going on +counting on his fingers in a manner the most provoking. "Have you let +in all Paris, dolt? Grace! that I should be served by a fool! Open the +door, and let me see them!"</p> + +<p class="normal">With that I was about to enter; when the door, which I had not +perceived to be ajar, was suddenly thrown open, and a laughing face +thrust out. It was the King's.</p> + +<p class="center"><a name="div1_48"><img src="images/p48.png" alt="p48"></a><br> +IT WAS THE KING. <i>Page 48.</i></p> + +<p class="normal">"Ha, ha! Grand-master!" he cried, vastly diverted by the success of +his jest and the abrupt change which doubtless came over my +countenance. "Never was such graceful hospitality, I'll be sworn! But +come, pardon this varlet. And now embrace me, and tell me where you +have been playing truant."</p> + +<p class="normal">Saying these words with the charm which never failed him, and in his +time won to his side more foes than his sword ever conquered, the King +drew me into my room, where I found De Vic, Vitry, Roquelaure, and the +rest. They all laughed heartily at my surprise, nor was Maignan, who +had a pretty fancy, and was the author, it will be remembered, of that +whimsical procession to Rosny after the battle of Ivry, which I have +elsewhere described, far behind them; the rascal knowing well that the +king's presence covered all, and that in my gratification at the honor +done me I should be certain to overlook his impertinence.</p> + +<p class="normal">Perceiving that this impromptu visit had no other object than to +divert Henry--though he was kind enough to say that he felt uneasy +when he did not see me often--I begged to know if he would honor me by +staying to sup; but this he would not do, though he consented to drink +a cup of my Arbois wine, and praised it highly. I thought I saw by and +by that he was willing to be alone with me; and as I had every reason +to desire this myself, I made an opportunity. Sending for Arnaud and +some of my gentlemen, I committed my other guests to their care, and +led the King into my closet, where, after requesting his leave to +speak on business, I proceeded to unfold to him the adventure of the +snowball, with all the particulars which I have here set down.</p> + +<p class="normal">He listened very attentively, drumming on the table with his fingers; +nor did he move or speak when I had done but still continued in the +same attitude of deep thought. At last: "Grand-master," he said, +touching with his hand the mark of the wound which still remained on +his lip, "how long is it since Chalet's attempt--when I got this?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Seven years last Christmas, Sire," I answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And Barrière's?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That was the year before. Avenious' plot was that year too."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And the Italian, from Milan, of whom the Capuchin Honorio warned us?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That was two years ago, Sire."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And how many more attempts have there been against my person?" he +went on, much moved. Then falling into a tone of extreme sadness, he +continued, "Rosny, my friend, they must succeed at last. No man can +fight against his fate. The end is sure, notwithstanding all your +fidelity and vigilance, and the love you bear me, for which I love you +too. But Nicholas? Nicholas? Yet he has been careless and distraught +of late. I have noticed it; and a month back I refused to give him an +appointment, of which he wished to have the sale."</p> + +<p class="normal">I did not dare to speak, and for a time Henry, too, remained silent. +At length he rose with an air of resolution.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We will clear this matter up within the hour!" he said firmly. "I +will send my people back to the Louvre, and do you, Grand-master, +order half-a-dozen Swiss to be ready to conduct us to this woman's +house. When we have heard her we shall know what to do."</p> + +<p class="normal">I tried my utmost to dissuade him, pleading that his presence could +not be necessary, and might prove a hindrance; besides exposing his +person to a certain amount of risk. But he would not listen. When I +saw, therefore, that his mind was made up to go, and that as his +spirits rose he was inclined to welcome this little expedition as a +relief from the <i>ennui</i> which at times troubled him, I reluctantly +withdrew my opposition and gave the necessary orders. The King +dismissed his suite with a few kind words, and in a very short space +we were on our way, under cover of darkness, to the secretary's house.</p> + +<p class="normal">He lived at this time in a court off the Rue St. Jacques, not far from +the church of that name; and the house being remote from the eyes and +observations of the street, seemed not unfit for secret and desperate +uses.</p> + +<p class="normal">Although we found lights shining behind several of the barred windows, +the wintry night, the darkness of the court, and perhaps the errand on +which we came, imparted so gloomy an aspect to the place that the King +hitched his sword forward, while I begged him to permit the Swiss who +accompanied us to go on with us. This, however, he would not allow, +and accordingly they were left at the entrance to the court with +orders to follow at a given signal.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the steps, the King, who, to disguise himself the better, had +borrowed one of my cloaks, stumbled and almost fell. This threw him +into a fit of laughter; for no sooner was he engaged in an adventure +which promised to be dangerous than his spirits invariably rose to +such a degree as to make him the most charming companion in peril man +ever had. He was still shaking, and pulling me to and fro in one of +those boyish frolics which sometimes swayed him, when a sudden outcry +inside the house startled us into sobriety, and reminded us all too +soon of the business which brought us thither.</p> + +<p class="normal">Wondering what it might mean, I was about to rap on the door with my +hilt when the King put me aside, and, by a happy instinct, tried the +latch. The door yielded to his hands, and, slowly opening, gave us +admittance.</p> + +<p class="normal">We found ourselves in a gloomy hall, ill-lit, and hung with patched +arras. In one corner stood a group of servants. Of these some looked +scared and some amused, but all were so much taken up with the +movements of a harsh-faced woman, who was pacing the opposite side of +the hall, that they did not heed our entrance. A momentary glance at +this strange state of things showed me that the woman was Madame +Nicholas; but I was still at a loss to guess what she was doing or +what was happening in the house.</p> + +<p class="normal">I stood a moment, but finding she still took no notice of us, I +beckoned to one of the servants, and bade him tell his mistress a +gentleman would speak with her. The man went with the message; but she +sent him off with a flea in his ear, and screamed at him so violently +that for a moment I thought she was mad. Then it appeared that the +object of her attention was a door at the side of the hall; for, +stopping suddenly in her walk, she went up to it, and struck it +passionately with her hands.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come out!" she cried. "Come out, you villain!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Restraining the King, I went forward myself, and, saluting her +politely, begged a word with her apart, thinking she would recognize +me.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her answer, however, showed that she did not. "No!" she cried, waving +me off, in the utmost excitement. "No; you will not get me away--I +know you. You are as bad one as the other." Then turning again to the +door, she continued, "Come out! Do you hear! Come out! I'll have no +more of your intrigues and your Hallots!"</p> + +<p class="normal">I pricked up my ears at the name "But, Madame," I said, "one moment."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Begone!" she retorted, turning on me so wrathfully that I fairly +recoiled before her. "I shall stay here till I drop; but I will have +him out and expose him. There shall be an end of his precious plots +and his Hallots if I have to go to the King!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Words so curiously <i>à propos</i> could not but recall to my mind the +confusion into which my mention of Du Hallot had thrown the secretary +earlier in the day. And since they seemed also to be consistent with +the warning conveyed to me, and indeed to explain it, they should have +corroborated my worst suspicions. But a sense of something unreal and +fantastic, with which I could not grapple, continued to puzzle me in +the presence of this angry woman; and it was with no great assurance +that I said, "Do I understand then, Madame, that M. du Hallot is in +that room?"</p> + + +<p class="center"><a name="div1_61"><img src="images/p61.png" alt="p61"></a><br> +"ARE YOU COMING OUT THERE?" <i>Page 61</i>.</p> + + +<p class="normal">"M. du Hallot?" she replied, in a tone that was almost a scream. "No; +but he would be if he had taken the hint I sent him! He would be! I +will have no more secrecy, however, and no more plots. I have suffered +enough already, and now Madame shall suffer if she has not forgotten +how to blush. Are you coming out there?" she continued, once more +applying herself to the door, her face inflamed with passion. "I shall +stay! Oh, I shall stay, I assure you. Until morning if necessary!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, Madame," I said, beginning to see daylight, and finding words +with difficulty--for I already heard in fancy the King's laughter and +could conjure up the endless quips and cranks with which he would +pursue me--"your warning did not perhaps reach M. du Hallot!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"It reached his coach, at any rate," the scold retorted. "Another time +I will have no half-measures. But as for that," she continued, turning +on me suddenly with her arms akimbo, and the fiercest of airs, "I +would like to know what business it is of yours, Monsieur, whether it +reached him or not! I know you--you are in league with my husband! You +are here to shelter him, and this Madame du Hallot! But----"</p> + +<p class="normal">At that moment, however, the door at last opened; and M. Nicholas, +wearing an aspect so meek and crestfallen that I hardly knew him, came +out. He was followed by a young woman plainly dressed, and looking +almost as much frightened as himself; in whom I had no difficulty in +recognizing Felix's wife.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why!" Madame Nicholas cried, her face falling. "This is not--who is +this? Who--" with increased vehemence--"is this baggage, I would like +to know?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"My dear," the secretary protested earnestly, spreading out his +hands--fortunately he had eyes only for his wife, and did not see +us--"this is one of your ridiculous mistakes! It is, I assure you. +This is the wife of a clerk whom I dismissed to-day, and she has been +with me begging me to reinstate her husband. That is all. That is all, +my dear. You have made this----"</p> + +<p class="normal">I heard no more, for, taking advantage of the obscurity of the hall, +and the preoccupation of the couple, I made hurriedly for the door, +and passing out into the darkness, found myself at once in the embrace +of the King, who, seizing me round the neck, laughed on my shoulder +till he cried, continually adjuring me to laugh also, and ejaculating +between the paroxysms, "Poor Du Hallot! Poor Du Hallot!" with many +things of the same nature, which any one acquainted with court life +may supply for himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">I confess I did not on my part find it so easy to laugh: partly +because I am not of so gay a disposition as that great prince, and +partly because I cannot always see the ludicrous side of events in +which I myself take part. But on the King at last assuring me that he +would not betray the secret even to La Varenne, I took comfort and +gradually reconciled myself to an episode which, unlike the more +serious events it now becomes my duty to relate, had only one result, +and that unimportant; I mean the introduction to my service of the +clerk Felix, who, proving worthy of confidence, remained with me after +the lamentable death of the King my master, and is to-day one of those +to whom I entrust the preparation of these Memoirs.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Snowball, by Stanley J. 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Weyman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Snowball + +Author: Stanley J. Weyman + +Release Date: March 20, 2012 [EBook #39216] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SNOWBALL *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the +Web Archive (New York Public Library) + + + + + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + 1. Page scan source: + http://www.archive.org/details/snowball00weymgoog + (New York Public Library) + + + + + + +[Illustration: FLUNG A SNOWBALL AT ME. _Page 11_.] + + + + + + + THE SNOWBALL + + + + + BY + + STANLEY J. WEYMAN + + AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER + THE RED ROBE," "MY LADY ROTHA," + ETC. ETC. + + + + + ILLUSTRATED + + + + + + + NEW YORK + THE MERRIAM COMPANY + 67 Fifth Avenue + + + + + + + Copyright, 1895, by + THE MERRIAM COMPANY + + + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + * * * + + + Flung a snowball at me. _Frontispiece_. + + He dropped his napkin. + + "Your scribe might do for me." + + She sprang forward. + + It was the king. + + "Are you coming out there?" + + + + + + + MERRIAM'S + + VIOLET SERIES. + + * * * + + Illustrated, Square 32mo, Cloth, 40c. + + * * * + + + No. 6 + + I.--A Man and His Model. By Anthony Hope. + + II.--The Body-Snatcher. By Robert Louis Stevenson. + + III.--The Silence of the Maharajah. By Marie Corelli. + + IV.--Some Good Intentions and a Blunder. + + V.--After To-Morrow. By the Author of "The Green Carnation." + + VI.--The Snowball. By Stanley J. Weyman. + + + * * * + OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. + * * * + + _For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid + upon receipt of price by_ + + THE MERRIAM COMPANY + + _Publishers and Booksellers_ + + 67 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK + + + + + + + THE SNOWBALL. + + +The slight indisposition from which the Queen suffered in the spring +of 1602, and which was occasioned by a cold caught during her +lying-in, by diverting the King's attention from matters of State, had +the effect of doubling the burden cast on my shoulders. Though the +main threads of M. de Biron's conspiracy were in our hands as early as +the month of November of the preceding year, and steps had been +immediately taken to sound the chief associates by summoning them to +court, an interval necessarily followed during which we had everything +to fear; and this not only from the despair of the guilty, but from +the timidity of the innocent who, in a court filled with cabals and +rumors of intrigues, might see no way to clear themselves. Even the +shows and interludes which followed the Dauphin's birth, and made that +Christmas remarkable, served only to amuse the idle; they could not +disperse the cloud which hung over the Louvre, nor divert those who, +on the one side or the other, had aught to fear. + +In connection with this period of suspense I recall an episode, both +characteristic in itself, and worthy, I think, by reason of its +oddity, to be set down here; where it may serve for a preface to those +more serious events, attending the trial and execution of M. de Biron, +which I shall have presently to relate. + +I had occasion, about the end of the month of January, to see M. du +Hallot. The weather was cold, and partly for that reason, partly from +a desire to keep my visit, which had to do with La Fin's disclosures, +from the general eye, I chose to go on foot. For the same reason I +took with me only two armed servants, and a confidential page, the son +of my friend Arnaud. M. du Hallot, who lived at this time in a house +in the Faubourg St. Germain, not far from the College of France, +detained me long, and when I rose to leave insisted that I should take +his coach, as snow had begun to fall and already lay an inch deep in +the streets. At first I was unwilling to do this, but reflecting that +such small services are highly appreciated by those who render them, +and attach men more surely and subtly than the greatest bribes, I +finally consented, and, taking my place with some becoming +expressions, bade young Arnaud find his way home on foot. + +The coach had nearly reached the south end of the Pont au Change, when +a number of youths ran by me, pelting one another with snowballs, and +shouting so lustily that I was at a loss which to admire more--the +silence of their feet or the loudness of their voices. Aware that lads +of that age are small respecters of persons, I was not surprised to +see two or three of them rush on to the bridge before us, and even +continue their Parthian warfare under the very feet of the horses. The +result was, however, that the latter presently took fright at that +part of the bridge where the houses encroach most boldly on the +roadway; and, but for the care of the running footman, who hastened to +their heads, might have done some harm either to the coach or the +passersby. + +As it was, we were brought to a stop while one of the wheels was +extricated from the kennel, into which it had become wedged. Smiling +to think what the King--for he, strangely warned by Providence, was +all his life long timid in a coach--would have said to this, I went to +open the curtains, and had just effected this to a certain extent, +when one of a crowd of idlers who stood on the raised pavement beside +us deliberately lifted up his arm and flung a snowball at me. + +The missile flew wide of its mark by an inch or two only. That I was +amazed at such audacity goes without saying, but in my doubt of what +it might be the prelude--for the breakdown of the coach in that narrow +place, the haunt of the rufflers and vagrants of every kind, might be +a part of a concerted plan--I fell back into my place. The coach, as +it happened, moved on with a jerk at the same moment; and before I had +well digested the matter, or had time to mark the demeanor of the +crowd, we were clear of the bridge and rolling past the Chatelet. + +A smaller man might have stopped to revenge, and to cook a sprat have +passed all Paris through the net. But remembering my own youthful +days, when I attended the College of Burgundy, I set down the freak to +the insolence of some young student, and, shrugging my shoulders, +dismissed it from my thoughts. An instant later, however, observing +that the fragments of the snowball were melting on the seat by my side +and wetting the cushion, I raised my hand to brush them away. In the +act I saw, to my surprise, a piece of paper lying among the _debris_. + +"Ho, ho!" said I to myself. "This is a strange snowball! I have heard +that the apprentices put stones in theirs. But paper! Let me see what +this means." + +The morsel, though moistened by contact with the snow, remained +intact. Unfolding it with the greatest care--for already I began to +discern that here was something out of the common--I found written on +the inner side, in a clear, clerkly hand, the words, "_Beware of +Nicholas!_" + +It will be remembered that Simon Nicholas was at this time secretary +to the King, and so high in his favor as to be admitted to the +knowledge of all but his most private affairs. Gay, and of a very +jovial wit, he was able to commend himself to Henry by amusing him; +while his years, for he was over sixty, seemed some warranty for his +discretion, and at the same time gave younger sinners a feeling of +superior worth, since they might repent and he had not. Often in +contact with him, I had always found him equal to his duties, and +though too fond of the table and of all the good things of this life, +neither given to babbling nor boasting. In a word, one for whom I had +more liking than respect. + +A man in his position, however, possesses such stupendous +opportunities for evil that, as I read the warning so cunningly +conveyed to me, I sat aghast. His office gave him at all times that +ready access to the King's person which is the aim of conspirators +against the lives of sovereigns; and, short of this supreme treachery, +he was master of secrets which Biron's associates would give all to +gain. When I add that I knew Nicholas to be a man of extravagant +habits and careless life, and one, moreover, who, if rumor did not +wrong him, had lost much in that rearrangement of the finances which I +had lately effected without even the King's privity, it will be seen +that those words, "Beware of Nicholas," were calculated to occasion me +the most profound thought. + +Of the person who had conveyed the missive to me I had unfortunately +seen nothing; though I believed him to be a man, and young. But the +circumstances, which seemed to indicate the extreme need of secrecy, +gave me a hint as to my own conduct. Accordingly, I smoothed my brow, +and on the coach stopping at the Arsenal descended with my usual face +of preoccupation. + +At the foot of the staircase my _maitre-d'-hotel_ met me. + +"M. Nicholas, the King's secretary, is here," he said. "He has been +waiting your return an hour and more, Monseigneur." + +"Lay another cover," I answered, repressing the surprise I could not +but feel on hearing of this visit, so strangely _a propos_. "Doubtless +he has come to dine with me." + +Barely staying to take off my cloak, I went upstairs with an air as +gay as possible, and, making my visitor a hundred apologies for the +inconvenience I had caused him, insisted he should sit down with me. +This he was nothing loth to do; though, as presently appeared, his +errand was only to submit to me some papers connected with the new tax +of a penny in the shilling, which it was his duty to lay before me. + +I scolded him gayly for the long period which had elapsed since his +last visit, and succeeded so well in setting him at his ease that he +presently began to rally me on my slackness; for I could touch nothing +but a little game and a glass of water. Excusing myself as well as I +could, I encouraged him to continue the attack; and certainly, if a +good conscience waits on appetite, I had soon abundant evidence on his +behalf. He grew merry and talkative, and, telling me some free tales, +bore himself altogether so naturally that I had begun to deem my +suspicions baseless, when a chance word gave me new grounds for +entertaining them. + +I was on the subject of my morning's employment. Knowing how easily +confidence begets confidence, and that in his position the matter +could not be long kept from him, I told him as a secret where I had +been. + +"I do not wish all the world to know, my friend," I said; "but you are +a discreet man, and it will go no farther. I am just from Du +Hallot's." + + +[Illustration: HE DROPPED HIS NAPKIN. _Page 20_.] + + +He dropped his napkin and stooped to pick it up again with a gesture +so hasty that it caught my attention and led me to watch him. +Moreover, although my words seemed to call for an answer, he did not +speak until he had taken a deep draught of wine; and then he said +only, "Indeed!" in a tone of such indifference as might at another +time have deceived me, but now was perfectly patent. + +"Yes," I replied, affecting to be engaged with my own plate (we were +eating nuts). "Doubtless you will be able to guess on what subject." + +"I?" he said, as quick to answer as he had before been slow. "No, I +think not." + +"La Fin," I said; "and his statements respecting M. de Biron's +friends." + +"Ah!" he replied, shrugging his shoulders. He had contrived to regain +his composure, but I noticed that his hand shook, and I saw him put a +nut into his mouth with so much salt upon it that he had no choice but +to make a grimace. "They tell me he accuses everybody," he grumbled, +his eyes on his plate. "Even the King is scarcely safe from him. But I +have heard no particulars." + +"They will be known by and by," I answered prudently. And after that I +did not think it wise to speak farther, lest I should give more than I +got; but as soon as he had finished, and we had washed our hands, I +led him to the closet looking on the river, where I was in the habit +of working with my secretaries. I sent them away and sat down with him +to his accounts; but in the position in which I found myself, between +suspicion and perplexity, I could so little command my attention that +I gathered nothing from their items; and had I found another doing the +King's service as negligently I had certainly sent him about his +business. Nevertheless I made some show of auditing them, and had +reached the last roll when something in the fairly written summary, +which closed the account, caught my eye. I bent more closely over it, +and presently making an occasion to carry the parchment into the next +room, compared it with the handwriting on the scrap of paper I had +found in the snowball. A brief scrutiny showed me that they were the +work of the same person! + + +[Illustration: "YOUR SCRIBE MIGHT DO FOR ME." _Page 23_.] + + +I went back to M. Nicholas, and after attesting the accounts, and +making one or two notes, remarked in a careless way on the clearness +of the hand. "I am badly in need of a fourth secretary," I added. +"Your scribe might do for me." + +It did not escape me that once again M. Nicholas looked uncomfortable, +his red face taking a deeper tinge and his hand going nervously to his +pointed gray beard, "I do not think he would do for you," he answered. + +"What is his name?" I asked, purposely bending over the papers and +avoiding his eyes. + +"I have dismissed him," he rejoined curtly. "I do not know where he +could now be found." + +"That is a pity--he writes well," I answered, as if it were nothing +but a whim that led me to pursue the subject. "And good clerks are +scarce. What was his name?" + +"Felix," he said reluctantly. + +I had now all I wanted. Accordingly I spoke of another matter and +shortly afterward Nicholas rose and went. But he left me in a fever of +doubt and suspicion; so that for nearly half an hour I walked up and +down the room, unable to decide whether I should treat the warning of +the snowball with contempt, as the work of a discharged servant, or on +that very account attach the more credit to it. By and by I remembered +that the last sheet of the roll I had audited bore date the previous +day; whence it was clear that Felix had been dismissed within the last +twenty-four hours, and perhaps after the delivery of his note to me. +Such a coincidence, which seemed no less pertinent than strange, +opened a wide field for conjecture; and the possibility that Nicholas +had really called on me to sound me and learn what I knew presently +occurring to my mind, brought me to a final determination to seek out +this Felix, and without the delay of an hour sift the matter to the +bottom. + +Doubtless I shall seem to some to have acted precipitately, and built +much on small foundations. I answer that I had the life of the King my +master to guard, and in that cause dared neglect no precaution, +however trivial, nor any indication, however remote. Would that all my +care and vigilance had longer sufficed to preserve for France the life +of that great man! But God willed otherwise. + +I sent word at once to La Font, my _valet-de-chambre_, the same who +advised me at the time of my first marriage, to come to me; and +directing him to make instant and secret inquiry where Felix, a clerk +in the Chamber of Accounts, lodged, bade him report to me on my return +from the Great Hall, where, it will be remembered, it was my custom to +give audience after dinner to all who had business with me. As it +happened, I was detained long that day, and found him awaiting me. +Being a man of few words, he said, as soon as the door was shut, "At +the 'Three Half Moons,' in the Faubourg St. Honore, Monseigneur." + +"That is near the Louvre," I answered. "Get me my cloak, and your own +also; and bring your pistols. I am going for a walk. You will +accompany me." + +He was a good man, La Font, and devoted to my interests. "It will be +night in half an hour, Monseigneur," he answered respectfully. "You +will take some of the Swiss?" + +"In one word, no!" I rejoined. "We will go out by the stable entrance. +In the mean time, and until we return, I will bid Maignan keep the +door, and admit no one." + +The crowd of those who daily left the Arsenal before nightfall +happened to be augmented on this occasion by a troop of my clients +from Mantes; tenants on the lands of Rosny, who had lingered after the +hour of audience to see the courts and garden. By mingling with these +we had no difficulty in passing out unobserved; nor, once in the +streets, where a thaw had set in, that filled the kennel with water +and the pavement with slush, was La Font long in bringing me to the +house I sought. It stood on the outskirts of the St. Honore Faubourg, +in a quarter sufficiently respectable, and a street marked neither by +extreme squalor nor extravagant ostentation--from one or other of +which all desperate enterprises, in my opinion, take their rise. The +house, which was high and narrow, presented only two windows to the +street, but the staircase was sweet and clean, and it was impossible +to cross the threshold without feeling a prepossession in Felix's +favor. Already I began to think I had come on a fool's errand. + +"Which floor?" I asked La Font. + +"The highest. Monsieur," he answered. + +I went up softly and he followed me. Under the tiles I found a door, +and heard some one moving beyond it. Bidding La Font remain on guard +outside, and come to my aid only if I called him, I knocked boldly. A +gentle voice bade me enter, and I did so. + +There was only one person in the room, a young woman with fair, waving +hair, a pale face, and blue eyes, who, seeing a cloaked stranger +instead of the friend or neighbor she anticipated, stared at me in the +utmost wonder and some alarm. The room, though poorly furnished, was +particularly neat and clean; which, taken with the woman's complexion, +left me in no doubt as to her native province. On the floor near the +fire stood a cradle; and in the window a cage with a singing bird +completed the homely and pleasant aspect of this interior, which was +such as, if I could, I would multiply by thousands in every town of +France. + +A small lamp, which the woman was in the act of lighting, enabled me +to see those details, and also discovered me to her. I asked politely +if I spoke to Madame Felix, the wife of M. Felix of the Chamber of +Accounts. + +"I am Madame Felix," she answered, advancing slowly toward me. "My +husband is late. Do you come from him? It is not bad news, Monsieur?" + +The tone of anxiety in which she uttered her last question, and the +quickness with which she raised her lamp to scan my face, went to my +heart, already softened by this young mother in her home. I hastened +to answer that I had no bad news, and wished merely to see her husband +on business connected with his employment. + +"He is very late," she said, a shade of perplexity crossing her face. +"I have never known him so late before. Monsieur is unfortunate." + +I replied that with her leave I would wait; on which she very readily +placed a stool for me, and sat down herself by the cradle, I ventured +to remark that perhaps M. Nicholas had detained her husband: she +answered simply that it might be so, but that she had never known it +happen before. + +"M. Felix has evening employment?" I asked after a moment's +reflection. + +She looked at me in some wonder. "No," she said. "He spends his +evenings with me, Monsieur. It is not much, for he is at work all +day." + +I bowed, and was preparing another question, when the sound of +footsteps ascending the stairs in haste reached my ears, and led me to +pause. Madame heard the noise at the same moment and rose. "It is my +husband," she said, looking toward the door with such a light in +her eyes as betrayed the sweetheart lingering in the wife. "I was +afraid--I do not know what I feared," she muttered to herself. + + +[Illustration: SHE SPRANG FORWARD. _Page 37_.] + + +Proposing to myself the advantage of seeing Felix before he saw me, I +pushed back my stool into the shadow, contriving to do this so +discreetly that the young woman noticed nothing. A moment later it +appeared I might have spared my pains; for at sight of her husband, a +comely young man who came in with lack-lustre eye and drooping head, +she sprang forward with a cry of dismay, and, utterly forgetting my +presence, appealed to him to know what was the matter. + +He threw himself on to a stool, the first he reached, and, leaning his +elbows on the table in an attitude of extreme dejection, covered his +face with his hands. "What is it?" he said in a hollow tone. "We are +ruined, Margot. I have no more work. I am dismissed." + +"Dismissed?" she ejaculated. + +He nodded. "Nicholas discharged me this morning," he said, almost in a +whisper. He dared not speak louder, for he could not command his +voice. + +"Why?" she asked gently, as she leant over him. "What had you done?" + +"Nothing!" he answered with bitterness. "He said clerks were +plentiful, and the King or I must starve." + +Hitherto I had witnessed the scene in silence, a prey to emotions so +various I will not attempt to describe them. But hearing the King's +name thus prostituted and put to base uses, I started forward with a +violence which in a moment made my presence known. Felix, confounded +by the sight of a stranger at his elbow, rose hurriedly from his seat, +and retreating before me with vivid alarm painted on his countenance, +asked with a faltering tongue who I was. + +I replied in as soothing a manner as possible, that I was a friend, +anxious to assist him. Nevertheless, seeing that I kept my cloak about +my face--for I was not willing to be recognized--he continued to look +at me with distrust and terror. "What do you want?" he said, raising +the lamp much as his wife had done, to see me the better. + +"The answers to one or two questions," I replied firmly. "Answer them +truly, and I promise you your troubles are at an end." So saying, I +drew from my pouch the scrap of paper which had come to me so +strangely. "When did you write this, my friend?" I continued, placing +it before him. + +He drew a deep breath at sight of it, and a look of comprehension and +dismay crossed his face. For a moment he hesitated. Then in a hurried +manner he said that he had never seen the paper. + +"Come," I rejoined sternly, "look at it again. Let there be no +mistake. When did you write that, and why?" + +But still he shook his head; and, though I pressed him hard, continued +so stubborn in his denial that, but for the look I had seen on his +face when I first produced the paper, and the strange coincidence of +his dismissal, I might have believed him. As it was, I saw nothing for +it but to have him arrested and brought to my house, where I did not +doubt he would tell the truth; and I was about to retire to give the +necessary orders, when something in the sidelong glance I saw him cast +at his wife caught my eye and furnished me with a new idea. Acting on +this, I affected to be satisfied. I apologized for my intrusion on the +ground of mistake, and gradually withdrawing to the door asked him at +the last moment to light me downstairs. + +Complying with a shaking hand, he went out before me, and had nearly +reached the foot of the staircase when I touched him on the shoulder. + +"Now," I said bluntly, fixing him with my eyes, "your wife is no +longer listening, and you can tell me the truth. Who employed you to +write these words?" + +Trembling so violently he had to lean on the balustrade for support, +he answered me. + +"Madame Nicholas," he whispered. + +"What?" I cried, recoiling. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth +now. + +"The secretary's wife, do you mean? Be careful, man." + +He nodded. + +"When?" I asked suspiciously. + +"Yesterday," he answered. "She is an old cat!" he continued, almost +fiercely. "I hate her! But my wife is jealous." + +"And did you throw it into my coach," I said, "on the Pont du Change, +to-day?" + +"God forbid!" he replied, shrinking into himself again. "I wrote it +for her, and she took it away. She said it was a jest she was playing. +That is all I know." + +I saw it was, and after a few more words was content to dismiss him, +bidding him keep silence on the matter, and remain at home in case I +needed him. At the last, he plucked up spirit to ask me who I was; but +preferring to keep that discovery for a day still to come, when I +might appear as the benefactor of this little family, I told him +sharply that I was one of the King's servants, and so left him. + +It will be believed, however, that I found the information I had +received little to my mind. The longer I dwelt on it, the more serious +seemed the matter. While I could scarcely conceive any circumstances +in which a woman would be likely to inform against her husband without +cause, I could recall more than one dangerous conspiracy which had +been frustrated by informers of that class--sometimes out of regard +for the very persons against whom they informed. Viewed in this light +only, the warning seemed to my mind sufficiently alarming, but when I +came also to consider the secrecy with which Madame Nicholas had both +prepared it--so that her hand might not be known--and conveyed it to +me, the aspect of the case grew yet more formidable. In the result, I +had not passed through two streets before my mind was made up to lay +the case before the King, and the sagacity and penetration which were +never wanting to my gracious master. + +An unexpected rencontre which awaited me on my return to the Arsenal +both confirmed me in this resolution and enabled me to carry it into +effect. We succeeded in slipping in without difficulty, and duly found +Maignan on guard at the door of my apartments. But a single glance at +his face sufficed to show that something was wrong; nor did it need +the look of penitence which he assumed on seeing us--a look so piteous +that at another time it must have diverted me--to convince me that he +had infringed my orders. + +"How now, sirrah?" I said angrily, without waiting for him to speak. +"What have you been doing?" + +"They would take no refusal, Monseigneur," he answered plaintively, +waving his hand toward the door. + +"What!" I cried sternly, astonished; for this was an instance of such +direct disobedience as I could scarce understand. "Did I not give you +the strictest orders to deny me to everybody?" + +"They would take no refusal, Monseigneur," he answered penitently, +edging away from me as he spoke. + +"Who are they?" I asked sternly, leaving the question of his +punishment for another season. "Speak, rascal, though it shall not +save you." + +"There are M. le Marquis de la Varenne, and M. de Vitry," he said +slowly, "and M. de Vic, and M. Erard, the engineer, and M. de +Fontange, and----" + +"_Pardieu!_" I cried, cutting him short in a rage; for he was going on +counting on his fingers in a manner the most provoking. "Have you let +in all Paris, dolt? Grace! that I should be served by a fool! Open the +door, and let me see them!" + +With that I was about to enter; when the door, which I had not +perceived to be ajar, was suddenly thrown open, and a laughing face +thrust out. It was the King's. + + +[Illustration: IT WAS THE KING. _Page 48_.] + + +"Ha, ha! Grand-master!" he cried, vastly diverted by the success of +his jest and the abrupt change which doubtless came over my +countenance. "Never was such graceful hospitality, I'll be sworn! But +come, pardon this varlet. And now embrace me, and tell me where you +have been playing truant." + +Saying these words with the charm which never failed him, and in his +time won to his side more foes than his sword ever conquered, the King +drew me into my room, where I found De Vic, Vitry, Roquelaure, and the +rest. They all laughed heartily at my surprise, nor was Maignan, who +had a pretty fancy, and was the author, it will be remembered, of that +whimsical procession to Rosny after the battle of Ivry, which I have +elsewhere described, far behind them; the rascal knowing well that the +king's presence covered all, and that in my gratification at the honor +done me I should be certain to overlook his impertinence. + +Perceiving that this impromptu visit had no other object than to +divert Henry--though he was kind enough to say that he felt uneasy +when he did not see me often--I begged to know if he would honor me by +staying to sup; but this he would not do, though he consented to drink +a cup of my Arbois wine, and praised it highly. I thought I saw by and +by that he was willing to be alone with me; and as I had every reason +to desire this myself, I made an opportunity. Sending for Arnaud and +some of my gentlemen, I committed my other guests to their care, and +led the King into my closet, where, after requesting his leave to +speak on business, I proceeded to unfold to him the adventure of the +snowball, with all the particulars which I have here set down. + +He listened very attentively, drumming on the table with his fingers; +nor did he move or speak when I had done but still continued in the +same attitude of deep thought. At last: "Grand-master," he said, +touching with his hand the mark of the wound which still remained on +his lip, "how long is it since Chalet's attempt--when I got this?" + +"Seven years last Christmas, Sire," I answered. + +"And Barriere's?" + +"That was the year before. Avenious' plot was that year too." + +"And the Italian, from Milan, of whom the Capuchin Honorio warned us?" + +"That was two years ago, Sire." + +"And how many more attempts have there been against my person?" he +went on, much moved. Then falling into a tone of extreme sadness, he +continued, "Rosny, my friend, they must succeed at last. No man can +fight against his fate. The end is sure, notwithstanding all your +fidelity and vigilance, and the love you bear me, for which I love you +too. But Nicholas? Nicholas? Yet he has been careless and distraught +of late. I have noticed it; and a month back I refused to give him an +appointment, of which he wished to have the sale." + +I did not dare to speak, and for a time Henry, too, remained silent. +At length he rose with an air of resolution. + +"We will clear this matter up within the hour!" he said firmly. "I +will send my people back to the Louvre, and do you, Grand-master, +order half-a-dozen Swiss to be ready to conduct us to this woman's +house. When we have heard her we shall know what to do." + +I tried my utmost to dissuade him, pleading that his presence could +not be necessary, and might prove a hindrance; besides exposing his +person to a certain amount of risk. But he would not listen. When I +saw, therefore, that his mind was made up to go, and that as his +spirits rose he was inclined to welcome this little expedition as a +relief from the _ennui_ which at times troubled him, I reluctantly +withdrew my opposition and gave the necessary orders. The King +dismissed his suite with a few kind words, and in a very short space +we were on our way, under cover of darkness, to the secretary's house. + +He lived at this time in a court off the Rue St. Jacques, not far from +the church of that name; and the house being remote from the eyes and +observations of the street, seemed not unfit for secret and desperate +uses. + +Although we found lights shining behind several of the barred windows, +the wintry night, the darkness of the court, and perhaps the errand on +which we came, imparted so gloomy an aspect to the place that the King +hitched his sword forward, while I begged him to permit the Swiss who +accompanied us to go on with us. This, however, he would not allow, +and accordingly they were left at the entrance to the court with +orders to follow at a given signal. + +On the steps, the King, who, to disguise himself the better, had +borrowed one of my cloaks, stumbled and almost fell. This threw him +into a fit of laughter; for no sooner was he engaged in an adventure +which promised to be dangerous than his spirits invariably rose to +such a degree as to make him the most charming companion in peril man +ever had. He was still shaking, and pulling me to and fro in one of +those boyish frolics which sometimes swayed him, when a sudden outcry +inside the house startled us into sobriety, and reminded us all too +soon of the business which brought us thither. + +Wondering what it might mean, I was about to rap on the door with my +hilt when the King put me aside, and, by a happy instinct, tried the +latch. The door yielded to his hands, and, slowly opening, gave us +admittance. + +We found ourselves in a gloomy hall, ill-lit, and hung with patched +arras. In one corner stood a group of servants. Of these some looked +scared and some amused, but all were so much taken up with the +movements of a harsh-faced woman, who was pacing the opposite side of +the hall, that they did not heed our entrance. A momentary glance at +this strange state of things showed me that the woman was Madame +Nicholas; but I was still at a loss to guess what she was doing or +what was happening in the house. + +I stood a moment, but finding she still took no notice of us, I +beckoned to one of the servants, and bade him tell his mistress a +gentleman would speak with her. The man went with the message; but she +sent him off with a flea in his ear, and screamed at him so violently +that for a moment I thought she was mad. Then it appeared that the +object of her attention was a door at the side of the hall; for, +stopping suddenly in her walk, she went up to it, and struck it +passionately with her hands. + +"Come out!" she cried. "Come out, you villain!" + +Restraining the King, I went forward myself, and, saluting her +politely, begged a word with her apart, thinking she would recognize +me. + +Her answer, however, showed that she did not. "No!" she cried, waving +me off, in the utmost excitement. "No; you will not get me away--I +know you. You are as bad one as the other." Then turning again to the +door, she continued, "Come out! Do you hear! Come out! I'll have no +more of your intrigues and your Hallots!" + +I pricked up my ears at the name "But, Madame," I said, "one moment." + +"Begone!" she retorted, turning on me so wrathfully that I fairly +recoiled before her. "I shall stay here till I drop; but I will have +him out and expose him. There shall be an end of his precious plots +and his Hallots if I have to go to the King!" + +Words so curiously _a propos_ could not but recall to my mind the +confusion into which my mention of Du Hallot had thrown the secretary +earlier in the day. And since they seemed also to be consistent with +the warning conveyed to me, and indeed to explain it, they should have +corroborated my worst suspicions. But a sense of something unreal and +fantastic, with which I could not grapple, continued to puzzle me in +the presence of this angry woman; and it was with no great assurance +that I said, "Do I understand then, Madame, that M. du Hallot is in +that room?" + + +[Illustration: "ARE YOU COMING OUT THERE?" _Page 61_.] + + +"M. du Hallot?" she replied, in a tone that was almost a scream. "No; +but he would be if he had taken the hint I sent him! He would be! I +will have no more secrecy, however, and no more plots. I have suffered +enough already, and now Madame shall suffer if she has not forgotten +how to blush. Are you coming out there?" she continued, once more +applying herself to the door, her face inflamed with passion. "I shall +stay! Oh, I shall stay, I assure you. Until morning if necessary!" + +"But, Madame," I said, beginning to see daylight, and finding words +with difficulty--for I already heard in fancy the King's laughter and +could conjure up the endless quips and cranks with which he would +pursue me--"your warning did not perhaps reach M. du Hallot!" + +"It reached his coach, at any rate," the scold retorted. "Another time +I will have no half-measures. But as for that," she continued, turning +on me suddenly with her arms akimbo, and the fiercest of airs, "I +would like to know what business it is of yours, Monsieur, whether it +reached him or not! I know you--you are in league with my husband! You +are here to shelter him, and this Madame du Hallot! But----" + +At that moment, however, the door at last opened; and M. Nicholas, +wearing an aspect so meek and crestfallen that I hardly knew him, came +out. He was followed by a young woman plainly dressed, and looking +almost as much frightened as himself; in whom I had no difficulty in +recognizing Felix's wife. + +"Why!" Madame Nicholas cried, her face falling. "This is not--who is +this? Who--" with increased vehemence--"is this baggage, I would like +to know?" + +"My dear," the secretary protested earnestly, spreading out his +hands--fortunately he had eyes only for his wife, and did not see +us--"this is one of your ridiculous mistakes! It is, I assure you. +This is the wife of a clerk whom I dismissed to-day, and she has been +with me begging me to reinstate her husband. That is all. That is all, +my dear. You have made this----" + +I heard no more, for, taking advantage of the obscurity of the hall, +and the preoccupation of the couple, I made hurriedly for the door, +and passing out into the darkness, found myself at once in the embrace +of the King, who, seizing me round the neck, laughed on my shoulder +till he cried, continually adjuring me to laugh also, and ejaculating +between the paroxysms, "Poor Du Hallot! Poor Du Hallot!" with many +things of the same nature, which any one acquainted with court life +may supply for himself. + +I confess I did not on my part find it so easy to laugh: partly +because I am not of so gay a disposition as that great prince, and +partly because I cannot always see the ludicrous side of events in +which I myself take part. But on the King at last assuring me that he +would not betray the secret even to La Varenne, I took comfort and +gradually reconciled myself to an episode which, unlike the more +serious events it now becomes my duty to relate, had only one result, +and that unimportant; I mean the introduction to my service of the +clerk Felix, who, proving worthy of confidence, remained with me after +the lamentable death of the King my master, and is to-day one of those +to whom I entrust the preparation of these Memoirs. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Snowball, by Stanley J. 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