Chicot the Jester | Page 6

to
the Louvre. I had counted on them, and you cannot let me go alone.
You are a grave married man, and must take me back to the queen.
Come, my friend, my litter is large enough for two."
Madame de St. Luc, who had heard this, tried to speak, and to tell her
father that the king was carrying away her husband, but he, placing his
fingers on his month, motioned her to be silent.

"I am ready, sire," said he, "to follow you."
When the king took leave, the others followed, and Jeanne was left
alone. She entered her room, and knelt down before the image of a saint
to pray, then sat down to wait for her husband's return. M. de Brissac
sent six men to the Louvre to attend him back. But two hours after one
of them returned, saying, that the Louvre was closed and that before
closing, the captain of the watch had said, "It is useless to wait longer,
no one will leave the Louvre to-night; his majesty is in bed."
The marshal carried this news to his daughter.


CHAPTER II.
HOW IT IS NOT ALWAYS HE WHO OPENS THE DOOR, WHO
ENTERS THE HOUSE.
The Porte St. Antoine was a kind of vault in stone, similar to our
present Porte St. Denis, only it was attached by its left side to buildings
adjacent to the Bastile. The space at the right, between the gate and the
Hôtel des Tournelles, was large and dark, little frequented by day, and
quite solitary at night, for all passers-by took the side next to the
fortress, so as to be in some degree under the protection of the sentinel.
Of course, winter nights were still more feared than summer ones.
That on which the events which we have recounted, and are about to
recount took place, was cold and black. Before the gate on the side of
the city, was no house, but only high walls, those of the church of St.
Paul, and of the Hôtel des Tournelles. At the end of this wall was the
niche of which St. Luc had spoken to Bussy. No lamps lighted this part
of Paris at that epoch. In the nights when the moon charged herself with
the lighting of the earth, the Bastile rose somber and majestic against
the starry blue of the skies, but on dark nights, there seemed only a
thickening of the shadows where it stood. On the night in question, a

practised eye might have detected in the angle of the wall of the
Tournelles several black shades, which moved enough to show that
they belonged to poor devils of human bodies, who seemed to find it
difficult to preserve their natural warmth as they. stood there. The
sentinel from the Bastile; who could not see them on account of the
darkness, could not hear them either, for they talked almost in whispers.
However, the conversation did not want interest.
"This Bussy was right," said one; "it is a night such as we had at
Warsaw, when Henri was King of Poland, and if this continues we shall
freeze."
"Come, Maugiron, you complain like a woman," replied another: "it is
not warm, I confess; but draw your mantle over your eyes, and put your
hands in your pockets, and you will not feel it."
"Really, Schomberg," said a third, "it is easy to see you are German. As
for me, my lips bleed, and my mustachios are stiff with ice."
"It is my hands," said a fourth; "on my honor, I would not swear I had
any."
"You should have taken your mamma's muff, poor Quelus," said
Schomberg.
"Eh! mon Dieu, have patience," said a fifth voice; "you will soon be
complaining you are hot."
"I see some one coming through the Rue St. Paul," said Quelus.
"It cannot be him; he named another route."
"Might he not have suspected something, and changed it?"
"You do not know Bussy; where he said he should go, he would go, if
he knew that Satan himself were barring his passage."
"However, here are two men coming."

"Ma foi! yes."
"Let us charge," said Schomberg.
"One moment," said D'Epernon; "do not let us kill good bourgeois, or
poor women. Hold! they stop."
In fact, they had stopped, and looked as if undecided. "Oh, can they
have seen us?"
"We can hardly see ourselves!"
"See, they turn to the left; they stop before a house they are
seeking--they are trying to enter; they will escape us!"
"But it is not him, for he was going to the Faubourg St. Antoine."
"Oh! how do you know he told you right?"
At this supposition they all rushed out, sword in hand, towards the
gentlemen.
One of the men had just