In Kings Byways | Page 8

ate it with tears: in all Paris, that day, was no more miserable outcast. What had become of my little wife I knew not; and I dared not show myself at the Bishop's to ask. My father-in-law, I feared, was hardened against me, and at the best thought me mad. I had no longer home or friend, and--this at the moment cut most sharply--the gorgeous hopes in which I had indulged a few moments before were as last year's snow! The King was not lost!
I crouched and shivered. In St. Antoine's, at the mouth of the lane, a man was beating a drum preparatory to publishing a notice; and presently his voice caught my attention in the middle of my lamentations. I listened, at first idly, then with my mind. "Oyez! Oyez!" he cried. "Whereas some evil person, having no fear of God or of the law before his eyes, has impudently, feloniously, and treasonably stolen from the Palais Royal, a spaniel, the property of the Queen-Regent's most excellent Majesty, this is to say, that any one--rumble--rumble--rumble"--here a passing coach drowned some sentences--after which I caught--"five hundred crowns, the same to be paid by Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais, President of the Council!"
"And glad to pay it," snarled a voice, quite close to me. I started and looked up. Two men were talking at a grated window above my head. I could not see their faces.
"Yet it is a high price for a dog," the other sneered.
"But low for a queen. Yet it will buy her. And this is Richelieu's France!"
"Was!" the other said pithily. "Well, you know the proverb, my friend. 'A living dog is better than a dead lion.'"
"Ay," his companion rejoined, "but I have a fancy that that dog's name is spelt neither with an F for Flore--which was the whelp's name, was it not?--nor a B for Beauvais; nor a C for Cond��; but with an M----"
"For Mazarin!" the other answered sharply. "Yes, if he find the dog. But Beauvais is in possession."
"Rocroy, a hit that counted for Cond�� shook him; you may be sure of that."
"Still he is in possession."
"So is my shoe in possession of my foot," was the keen reply. "And see--I take it off. Beauvais is tottering, I tell you; tottering. It wants but a shove, and he falls."
I heard no more, for they moved from the window into the room; but they left me a different man. It was not so much the hope of reward as the desire for vengeance that urged me; my clerk's wits returned once more, and in the very desperation of my affairs gave me the courage I sometimes lacked. I recognized that I had not to do with a King, but a dog; but that none the less that way lay revenge. And I rose up and slunk again into the main street and passed through the crowd and up the Rue St. Martin and by St. Merri, a dirty, ragged, barefoot rascal from whom people drew their skirts; yes, all that, and the light of the sun on it--all that, and yet vengeance itself in the body--the hand that should yet drag my cruel master's fauteuil from under him.
Once I halted, weighing the risks and whether I should take my knowledge direct to the Cardinal and let him make what use he pleased of it. But I knew nothing definite, and hardening my heart to do the work myself, I went on, until I found again the alley between the blind walls where I had left the dog-stealer. It was noon. The alley was empty, the neighbouring lane at the back of the Filles Dieu towards St. Martin's was empty. I looked this way and that and slowly went down to the door at which the man had halted in his despair; but to which, as soon as he knew that the game was not lost, he had been heedful not to return while I watched him.
There, seeing all so quiet, with the green of a tree showing here and there above the dead wall, I began to blench and wonder how I was to take the next step. And for half an hour, I dare say, I sneaked to and fro, now in sight of the door and now with my back to it; afraid to advance, and ashamed to retreat. At length I came once more through the alley, and, seeing how quiet and respectable it lay, with the upper part of a house visible at intervals above the wall, I took heart of grace and tried the door.
It was so firmly closed, that I despaired; and after looking to assure myself that the attempt had not been observed, I was going to move away, when I espied the edge of a