The Helmet of Navarre Read online

  II

  _At the Amour de Dieu._

  When I woke in the morning, the sun was shining broadly into the room,glinting in the little pools of water on the floor. I stared at them,sleepy-eyed, till recollection came to me of the thunder-storm and theopen shutter and the three men. I jumped up and ran to the window. Theshutters opposite were closed; the house just as I had seen it first,save for the long streaks of wet down the wall. The street below was onevast puddle. At all events, the storm was no dream, as I half believedthe vision to be.

  I dressed speedily and went down-stairs. The inn-room was deserted savefor Maitre Jacques, who, with heat, demanded of me whether I took myselffor a prince, that I lay in bed till all decent folk had been hoursabout their business, and then expected breakfast. However, he broughtme a meal, and I made no complaint that it was a poor one.

  "You have strange neighbours in the house opposite," said I.

  He started, and the thin wine he was setting before me splashed over onthe table.

  "What neighbours?"

  "Why, they who close their shutters when other folks would keep themopen, and open them when others keep them shut," I said airily. "Lastnight I saw three men in the window opposite mine."

  He laughed.

  "Aha, my lad, your head is not used to our Paris wines. That is how youcame to see visions."

  "Nonsense," I cried, nettled. "Your wine is too well watered for that,let me tell you, Maitre Jacques."

  "Then you dreamed it," he said huffily. "The proof is that no one haslived in that house these twenty years."

  Now, I had plenty to trouble about without troubling my head overnight-hawks, but I was vexed with him for putting me off. So, with afine conceit of my own shrewdness, I said:

  "If it was only a dream, how came you to spill the wine?"

  He gave me a keen glance, and then, with a look round to see that no onewas by, leaned across the table, up to me.

  "You are sharp as a gimlet," said he. "I see I may as well tell youfirst as last. Marry, an you will have it, the place is haunted."

  "Holy Virgin!" I cried, crossing myself.

  "Aye. Twenty years ago, in the great massacre--you know naught of that:you were not born, I take it, and, besides, are a country boy. But I washere, and I know. A man dared not stir out of doors that dark day. Thegutters ran blood."

  "And that house--what happened in that house?"

  "Why, it was the house of a Huguenot gentleman, M. de Bethune," heanswered, bringing out the name hesitatingly in a low voice. "They wereall put to the sword--the whole household. It was Guise's work. The Ducde Guise sat on his white horse, in this very street here, while it wasgoing on. Parbleu! that was a day."

  "Mon dieu! yes."

  "Well, that is an old story now," he resumed in a different tone."One-and-twenty years ago, that was. Such things don't happen now. Butthe people, they have not forgotten; they will not go near that house.No one will live there."

  "And have others seen as well as I?"

  "So they say. But I'll not let it be talked of on my premises. Folkmight get to think them too near the haunted house. 'Tis another matterwith you, though, since you have had the vision."

  "There were three men," I said, "young men, in sombre dress--"

  "M. de Bethune and his cousins. What further? Did you hear shrieks?"

  "There was naught further," I said, shuddering. "I saw them for thespace of a lightning-flash, plain as I see you. The next minute theshutters were closed again."

  "'Tis a marvel," he answered gravely. "But I know what has disturbedthem in their graves, the heretics! It is that they have lost theirleader."

  I stared at him blankly, and he added:

  "Their Henry of Navarre."

  "But he is not lost. There has been no battle."

  "Lost to them," said Maitre Jacques, "when he turns Catholic."

  "Oh!" I cried.

  "Oh!" he mocked. "You come from the country; you don't know thesethings."

  "But the King of Navarre is too stiff-necked a heretic!"

  "Bah! Time bends the stiffest neck. Tell me this: for what do thelearned doctors sit in council at Mantes?"

  "Oh," said I, bewildered, "you tell me news, Maitre Jacques."

  "If Henry of Navarre be not a Catholic before the month is out, spit meon my own jack," he answered, eying me rather keenly as he added:

  "It should be welcome news to you."

  Welcome was it; it made plain the reason Monsieur's change of base. Yetit was my duty to be discreet.

  "I am glad to hear of any heretic coming to the faith," I said.

  "Pshaw!" he cried. "To the devil with pretences! 'Tis an open secretthat your patron has gone over to Navarre."

  "I know naught of it."

  "Well, pardieu! my Lord Mayenne does, then. If when he came to Paris M.de St. Quentin counted that the League would not know his parleyings, hewas a fool."

  "His parleyings?" I echoed feebly.

  "Aye, the boy in the street knows he has been with Navarre. For, markyou, all France has been wondering these many months where St. Quentinwas coming out. His movements do not go unnoted like a yokel's. But, i'faith, he is not dull; he understands that well enough. Nay, 'tis mybelief he came into the city in pure effrontery to show them how much hedared. He is a bold blade, your duke. And, mon dieu! it had its effect.For the Leaguers have been so agape with astonishment ever since thatthey have not raised a finger against him."

  "Yet you do not think him safe?"

  "Safe, say you? Safe! Pardieu! if you walked into a cage of lions, andthey did not in the first instant eat you, would you therefore feelsafe? He was stark mad to come to Paris. There is no man the Leaguehates more, now they know they have lost him, and no man they can affordso ill to spare to King Henry. A great Catholic noble, he would be meatand drink to the Bearnais. He was mad to come here."

  "And yet nothing has happened to him."

  "Verily, fortune favours the brave. No, nothing has happened--yet. But Itell you true, Felix, I had rather be the poor innkeeper of the Amour deDieu than stand in M. de St. Quentin's shoes."

  "I was talking with the men here last night," I said. "There was not onebut had a good word for Monsieur."

  "Aye, so they have. They like his pluck. And if the League kills him itis quite on the cards that the people will rise up and make the townlively. But that will not profit M. de St. Quentin if he is dead."

  I would not be dampened, though, by an old croaker.

  "Nay, maitre, if the people are with him, the League will not dare--"

  "There you fool yourself, my springald. If there is one thing which thenobles of the League neither know nor care about it is what the peoplethink. They sit wrangling over their French League and their SpanishLeague, their kings and their princesses, and what this lord does andthat lord threatens, and they give no heed at all to us--us, the people.But they will find out their mistake. Some day they will be taught thatthe nobles are not all of France. There will come a reckoning when moreblood will flow in Paris than ever flowed on St. Bartholomew's day. Theythink we are chained down, do they? Pardieu! there will come a day!"

  I scarcely knew the man; his face was flushed, his eyes sparkling as ifthey saw more than the common room and mean street. But as I stared theglow faded, and he said in a lower tone:

  "At least, it will happen unless Henry of Navarre comes to save us fromit. He is a good fellow, this Navarre."

  "They say he can never enter Paris."

  "They say lies. Let him but leave his heresies behind him and he canenter Paris to-morrow."

  "Mayenne does not think so."

  "No; but Mayenne knows little of what goes on. He does not keep an innin the Rue Coupejarrets."

  He stated the fact so gravely that I had to laugh.

  "Laugh if you like; but I tell you, Felix Broux, my lord'scouncil-chamber is not the only place where they make kings. We do it,too, we of the Rue Coupejarrets."

  "Well," said I, "I leave yo
u, then, to make kings. I must be off to myduke. What's the scot, maitre?"

  He dropped the politician, and was all innkeeper in a second.

  "A crown!" I cried in indignation. "Do you think I am made of crowns?Remember, I am not yet Minister of Finance."

  "No, but soon will be," he grinned. "Besides, what I ask is littleenough, God knows. Do you think food is cheap in a siege?"

  "Then I pray Navarre may come soon and end it."

  "Amen to that," said old Jacques, quite gravely. "If he comes a Catholicit cannot be too soon."

  I counted out my pennies with a last grumble.

  "They ought to call this the Rue Coupebourses."

  He laughed; he could afford to, with my silver jingling in his pouch. Heembraced me tenderly at parting, and hoped to see me again at his inn. Ismiled to myself; I had not come to Paris--I--to stay in the RueCoupejarrets!