Part 8

— Farewell, Monsieur le Comte; a thousand thanks, said Malicorne.

— And send Manicamp to me. By the way, is it true, sir, that Mlle de La Vallière is lame?

At the moment he uttered these words, a horse halted behind him.

He turned and saw Bragelonne turn pale, who was just then entering the courtyard.

The poor lover had heard. It was not the same with Malicorne, who was already beyond the reach of the voice.

"Why are they speaking of Louise here?" Raoul asked himself; "oh, may it never come to pass that this de Wardes, who is smiling yonder, should say a word of her before me!"

— Come, come, gentlemen! cried the Comte de Guiche, on your way.

At that moment, the prince, whose toilette was completed, appeared at the window.

The whole escort hailed him with acclamations, and ten minutes later, banners, scarves, and plumes floated to the undulation of the gallop of the steeds.

Chapter LXXXIII — At Le Havre

That whole court, so brilliant, so gay, so animated by diverse sentiments, arrived at Le Havre four days after its departure from Paris. It was toward five o'clock in the evening; there was as yet no news of Madame. They sought lodgings; but from that moment began a great confusion among the masters, great quarrels among the lackeys. In the midst of all this conflict, the Comte de Guiche thought he recognized Manicamp. It was indeed he who had come; but as Malicorne had made off with his finest coat, he himself had been able to repurchase only a suit of violet velvet embroidered with silver.

De Guiche recognized him as much by his coat as by his face.

He had very often seen that violet coat on Manicamp, his last resource. Manicamp presented himself to the count beneath a vault of torches that set fire to rather than illuminated the porch by which one entered Le Havre, and which was situated near the tower of François I. The count, seeing Manicamp's sorrowful face, could not help laughing.

— Eh! my poor Manicamp, said he, how violet you are; are you then in mourning?

— I am in mourning, yes, answered Manicamp.

— For whom or for what?

— For my blue-and-gold coat, which has disappeared, and in place of which I found nothing but this one; and moreover I had to economize severely to buy it back.

— Indeed?

— Pardieu! marvel at that; you leave me without money.

— At last, here you are, that is the main thing.

— By execrable roads.

— Where are you lodged?

— Lodged?

— Yes.

— But I am not lodged.

De Guiche began to laugh.

— Then where will you lodge?

— Where you lodge.

— Then I do not know.

— How, you do not know?

— Doubtless; how would you have me know where I shall lodge?

— You have not then engaged a hotel?

— I?

— You or Monsieur?

— We thought of it neither one nor the other. Le Havre is large, I suppose, and provided there is a stable for twelve horses and a clean house in a good quarter.

— Oh! there are very clean houses.

— Well then...

— But not for us.

— How, not for us? And for whom?

— For the English, parbleu!

— For the English?

— Yes, they are all rented.

— By whom?

— By M. de Buckingham.

— What's that? said de Guiche, at whom this word made the ear prick up.

— Eh! yes, my dear, by M. de Buckingham. His Grace had himself preceded by a courier; that courier arrived three days ago, and engaged all the habitable lodgings to be found in the town.

— Come, come, Manicamp, let us understand one another.

— Why! what I tell you there is clear, it seems to me.

— But M. de Buckingham does not occupy all Le Havre, the devil!

— He does not occupy it, it is true, since he is not yet landed; but, once landed, he will occupy it.

— Oh! oh!

— One sees plainly that you do not know the English, you; they have a rage for monopolizing.

— Pooh! a man who has a whole house is content with it and takes not two.

— Yes, but two men?

— Granted, two houses; four, six, ten, if you will; but there are a hundred houses at Le Havre?

— Well then, they are all rented, the hundred of them.

— Impossible!

— But, obstinate as you are, when I tell you that M. de Buckingham has rented all the houses which surround that where Her Majesty the dowager Queen of England and the princess her daughter are to alight.

— Ah! for example, that is peculiar, said de Wardes, caressing the neck of his horse.

— It is so, monsieur.

— Are you quite sure of it, Monsieur de Manicamp?

And, in putting this question, he looked askance at de Guiche, as if to interrogate him upon the degree of confidence one might place in the reason of his friend.

During this time, night had come, and the torches, the pages, the lackeys, the equerries, the horses, and the carriages encumbered the gate and the square; the torches were reflected in the channel filled by the rising tide, while, on the other side of the jetty, one perceived a thousand curious faces of sailors and burghers who sought to lose nothing of the spectacle.

During all these hesitations, Bragelonne, as if he were a stranger to them, kept on horseback a little behind de Guiche, and watched the play of the light that rose in the water, at the same time breathing with delight the saline perfume of the wave that rolls noisily upon the shores, the pebbles, and the seaweed, and casts to the air its foam, to space its noise.

— But, finally, cried de Guiche, what reason has M. de Buckingham had for making this provision of lodgings?

— Yes, asked de Wardes, what reason?

— Oh! an excellent one, answered Manicamp.

— But finally, do you know it?

— I think I know it.

— Speak then.

— Lean down.

— The devil! that cannot be said but in a whisper?

— You will judge of it yourself.

— Good.

De Guiche leaned down.

— Love, said Manicamp.

— I understand no longer.

— Say rather that you do not yet understand.

— Explain yourself.

— Well! it passes for certain, Monsieur le Comte, that His Royal Highness Monsieur will be the most unfortunate of husbands.

— How! the Duke of Buckingham?...

— That name brings ill fortune to the princes of the house of France.

— Thus, the duke?...

— Would be madly in love with the young Madame, as they assert, and would not wish anyone to approach her, save himself.

De Guiche blushed.

— Good! good! thanks, said he, pressing Manicamp's hand. Then, straightening up:

— For the love of God! said he to Manicamp, contrive that this plan of the Duke of Buckingham reach not French ears, or else, Manicamp, he will shine in the sun of this land the swords that fear not the English temper.

— After all, said Manicamp, this love is not proven to me, and is perhaps but a tale.

— No, said de Guiche, it must be the truth.

And in spite of himself, the young man's teeth clenched.

— Well! after all, what is it to you? what is it to me, that Monsieur be what the late king was? Buckingham father, for the queen; Buckingham son, for the young Madame; nothing, for everyone.

— Manicamp! Manicamp!

— Eh! what the devil! it is a fact or at least a saying.

— Silence! said the count.

— And why silence? said de Wardes: it is a fact most honorable for the French nation. Are you not of my opinion, Monsieur de Bragelonne?

— What fact? asked Bragelonne sadly.

— That the English thus render homage to the beauty of your queens and your princesses.

— Pardon, I am not attending to what is said, and I shall ask you for an explanation.

— Doubtless, it needed that M. de Buckingham father should come to Paris for His Majesty King Louis XIII to perceive that his wife was one of the fairest persons of the French court; it needs now that M. de Buckingham son should consecrate in his turn, by the homage he renders her, the beauty of a princess of French blood. It will henceforth be a patent of beauty to have inspired an overseas love.

— Monsieur, answered Bragelonne, I do not like to hear jesting upon such matters. We gentlemen are the guardians of the honor of queens and princesses. If we laugh at them, what will the lackeys do?

— Oh! oh! monsieur, said de Wardes, whose ears reddened, how am I to take that?

— Take it as you please, monsieur, answered Bragelonne coldly.

— Bragelonne! Bragelonne! murmured de Guiche.

— Monsieur de Wardes! cried Manicamp, seeing the young man push his horse toward Raoul.

— Gentlemen! Gentlemen! said de Guiche, give not such an example in public, in the street. De Wardes, you are wrong.

— Wrong! in what? I ask you.

— Wrong in that you always speak ill of something or someone, replied Raoul with his implacable coolness.

— Indulgence, Raoul, whispered de Guiche.

— And do not fight before you have rested; you would do nothing worth while, said Manicamp.

— Come! come! said de Guiche, forward, gentlemen, forward!

And thereupon, parting the horses and the pages, he made himself a way to the square amid the crowd, drawing after him the whole cortege of the French. A great door opening on a courtyard was open; de Guiche entered this courtyard; Bragelonne, de Wardes, Manicamp, and three or four other gentlemen followed him there.

There was held a sort of council of war; they deliberated upon the means to be employed to save the dignity of the embassy. Bragelonne concluded that one should respect the right of priority.

De Wardes proposed to put the town to sack. This proposition appeared a little brisk to Manicamp. He proposed to sleep first: that was the wisest. Unfortunately, to follow his counsel, there lacked but two things: a house and beds.

De Guiche dreamed awhile; then, aloud:

— He who loves me, follow me, said he.

— The people too? asked a page who had approached the group.

— Everyone! cried the fiery young man. Come, Manicamp, lead us to the house that Her Highness Madame is to occupy.

Suspecting nothing of the count's designs, his friends followed him, escorted by a crowd of people whose acclamations and joy formed a happy presage for the still unknown project pursued by that ardent youth.

The wind blew noisily from the harbor and rumbled in heavy gusts.

Chapter LXXXIV — At Sea

The following day broke somewhat calmer, though the wind still blew.

However, the sun had risen in one of those red clouds cutting its blood-stained rays upon the crest of the black waves. From the tops of the lookouts, they watched impatiently. Toward eleven o'clock in the morning, a vessel was signaled: that vessel arrived under full sail, two others followed at the distance of half a knot.

They came like arrows launched by a vigorous archer, and yet the sea was so heavy, that the rapidity of their course took nothing from the motions of the roll that laid the ships now to the right, now to the left.

Soon the shape of the ships and the color of the flags made known the English fleet. At the head sailed the vessel bearing the princess, flying the admiralty pavilion.

Straightway the rumor spread that the princess was arriving.

All the French nobility ran to the port; the people poured onto the quays and jetties.

Two hours later, the vessels had rallied the flagship, and all three, daring not, no doubt, to venture into the narrow throat of the port, cast anchor between Le Havre and La Hève. As soon as the maneuver was completed, the flagship saluted France with twelve cannon shots, which were returned shot for shot by the fort of François I.

Straightway a hundred boats took to the sea; they were hung with rich stuffs; they were destined to carry the French gentlemen to the moored vessels.

But on seeing them, even in the port, rock violently, on seeing beyond the jetty the waves rise in mountains and come break upon the shore with a terrible roar, one understood well that none of those skiffs would reach a quarter of the distance that must be traversed to arrive at the vessels without having capsized.

However, a pilot boat, despite wind and sea, made ready to leave the port to place itself at the disposal of the English admiral. De Guiche had searched among all those craft for a boat a little stouter than the others, which might give him a chance of reaching the English ships, when he spied the coastal pilot weighing anchor.

— Raoul, said he, do you not find it shameful for intelligent and strong creatures like us to recoil before this brutal force of wind and water?

— It is the very reflection I was just making to myself, answered Bragelonne.

— Well! will you that we board that boat and push forward? Will you, de Wardes?

— Take care, you are going to get drowned, said Manicamp.

— And for nothing, said de Wardes, seeing that with the wind in your teeth, as you will have it, you will never reach the ships.

— Thus, you refuse?

— Yes, faith! I would willingly lose my life in a struggle against men, said he, glancing obliquely at Bragelonne; but to fight with oar-strokes against salt-water waves, I have not the slightest taste for it.

— And I, said Manicamp, though I should reach the vessels, I should little care to lose the only clean coat that remains to me; the salt water splashes, and it stains.

— You too, you refuse? cried de Guiche.

— But entirely: I pray you believe it, and rather twice than once.

— But look, cried de Guiche; look, de Wardes, look, Manicamp; yonder, on the stern of the flagship, the princesses are watching us.

— So much the more reason, dear friend, not to take a ridiculous bath before them.

— Is that your last word, Manicamp?

— Yes.

— Is that your last word, de Wardes?

— Yes.

— Then I shall go alone.

— Not so, said Raoul, I go with you: it seems to me that is a settled thing.

The fact is that Raoul, free of all passion, measuring the danger with coolness, saw the imminent danger; but he let himself be willingly drawn into doing a thing before which de Wardes recoiled. The boat was getting under way; de Guiche called to the coastal pilot.

— Ho there, the boat! said he, we need two places!

And rolling five or ten pistoles in a piece of paper, he threw them from the quay into the boat.

— It seems you are not afraid of salt water, my young masters? said the patron.

— We are afraid of nothing, answered de Guiche.

— Then come, my gentlemen.

The pilot drew near the edge, and one after the other, with like lightness, the two young men jumped into the boat.

— Come, courage, lads, said de Guiche; there are still twenty pistoles in this purse, and if we reach the flagship, they are yours.

Straightway the rowers bent upon their oars, and the skiff bounded upon the crest of the waves.

Everyone had taken interest in this so hazardous departure; the population of Le Havre pressed upon the jetties: there was not a glance that was not for the boat.

At times, the frail craft remained an instant as if suspended upon the foaming crests, then suddenly it slipped to the bottom of a roaring abyss, and seemed to be precipitated. Nevertheless, after an hour of struggle, it arrived in the waters of the flagship, from which were already detaching two boats destined to come to its aid.

Upon the stern of the flagship, sheltered by a canopy of velvet and ermine upheld by strong fastenings, Madame Henriette dowager and the young Madame, having near them the admiral Count of Norfolk, watched with terror that skiff now borne to the sky, now engulfed to the infernal regions, against the dark sail of which shone, like two luminous apparitions, the two noble faces of the two French gentlemen.

The crew, leaning on the bulwarks and climbed into the shrouds, applauded the bravery of those two intrepid men, the skill of the pilot, and the strength of the sailors.

A hurrah of triumph greeted their arrival aboard. The Count of Norfolk, a handsome young man of six-and-twenty to eight-and-twenty years, advanced to meet them.

De Guiche and Bragelonne lightly mounted the starboard ladder, and conducted by the Count of Norfolk, who resumed his place near them, they came to salute the princesses.

Respect, and above all a certain fear of which he was not aware, had till then prevented the Comte de Guiche from looking attentively at the young Madame.

She, on the contrary, had distinguished him from the first and had asked her mother:

— Is it not Monsieur that we perceive in that boat?

Madame Henriette, who knew Monsieur better than her daughter, had smiled at this error of her self-love and had answered:

— No, it is M. de Guiche, his favorite, that is all.

At this answer, the princess had been forced to contain the instinctive goodwill provoked by the count's daring. It was at the moment the princess put this question that de Guiche, daring at last to raise his eyes upon her, could compare the original with the portrait.

When he saw that pale face, those animated eyes, those adorable chestnut locks, that trembling mouth and that gesture so eminently royal which seemed at once to thank and encourage, he was seized with such emotion, that, but for Raoul, who lent him his arm, he would have staggered.

The astonished glance of his friend, the kindly gesture of the queen, recalled de Guiche to himself.

In few words, he explained his mission, said how he was the envoy of Monsieur, and saluted, according to their rank and the advances they made him, the admiral and the various English lords who grouped themselves about the princesses.

Raoul was presented in his turn and graciously received; everyone knew the part the Comte de La Fère had taken in the restoration of King Charles II; moreover, it was still the count who had been charged with the negotiation of the marriage which brought back to France the granddaughter of Henri IV.

Raoul spoke English perfectly; he constituted himself the interpreter of his friend with the young English lords to whom our tongue was not familiar.

At this moment appeared a young man of remarkable beauty and of splendid richness of costume and arms. He approached the princesses, who were conversing with the Count of Norfolk, and in a voice that ill disguised his impatience:

— Come, ladies, said he, you must land.

At this invitation, the young Madame rose and was about to accept the hand the young man held out to her with a vivacity full of diverse expressions, when the admiral advanced between the young Madame and the newcomer.

— One moment, if you please, Milord de Buckingham, said he; landing is not possible at this hour for women. The sea is too heavy; but, toward four o'clock, it is probable the wind will fall; one will land therefore only this evening.

— Permit me, milord, said Buckingham with an irritation he did not even seek to disguise. You detain these ladies and you have not the right to. Of these ladies, one belongs, alas! to France, and, you see it, France claims her by the voice of her ambassadors.

And, with his hand, he pointed to de Guiche and Raoul, whom he saluted at the same time.

— I do not suppose, answered the admiral, that it enters the intentions of these gentlemen to expose the lives of the princesses?

— Milord, these gentlemen came very well despite the wind; permit me to believe the danger will be no greater for these ladies, who will go with the wind.

— These gentlemen are very brave, said the admiral. You saw that many were on the port and dared not follow them. Moreover, the desire they had to present their homages as soon as possible to Madame and to her illustrious mother bore them to brave the sea, very bad today, even for sailors. But these gentlemen, whom I shall present as example to my staff, ought not to be one for these ladies.

A stolen glance from Madame surprised the blush that covered the count's cheeks. This glance escaped Buckingham. He had eyes only to watch Norfolk. He was evidently jealous of the admiral, and seemed to burn with the desire to tear the princesses from that moving soil of the ships upon which the admiral was king.

— For the rest, resumed Buckingham, I appeal to Madame herself.

— And I, milord, answered the admiral, I appeal to my conscience and to my responsibility. I promised to render Madame safe and sound to France, I shall keep my promise.

— But, however, monsieur...

— Milord, permit me to remind you that I command alone here.

— Milord, do you know what you say? answered Buckingham haughtily.

— Perfectly, and I repeat it: I command alone here, milord, and all obeys me: the sea, the wind, the ships, and the men.

That word was great and nobly pronounced.

Raoul observed its effect upon Buckingham. The latter shuddered through all his body and leaned against one of the supports of the tent so as not to fall; his eyes became bloodshot, and the hand with which he did not support himself went to the hilt of his sword.

— Milord, said the queen, permit me to tell you that I am in all points of the opinion of the Count of Norfolk; then the weather, instead of covering itself with vapor as it does at this moment, were it perfectly pure and favorable, we owe some hours to the officer who has conducted us so happily and with such eager care to sight of the coasts of France, where he must leave us.

Buckingham, instead of answering, consulted the glance of Madame.

Madame, half hidden beneath the curtains of velvet and gold that sheltered her, listened to none of this debate, occupied as she was in looking at the Comte de Guiche who was conversing with Raoul.

It was a fresh blow for Buckingham, who believed he discovered in the glance of Madame Henriette a sentiment deeper than that of curiosity.

He withdrew quite staggering and went to strike the mainmast.

— M. de Buckingham has not the sea leg, said the queen mother in French; that is doubtless why he so strongly desires to touch firm land.

The young man heard these words, paled, let his hands fall with discouragement at his sides, and withdrew confounding in a sigh his ancient loves and his new hatreds. However, the admiral, without otherwise troubling himself at this ill humor of Buckingham, had the princesses pass into his stern cabin, where dinner had been served with a magnificence worthy of all the guests.

The admiral took place at the right of Madame and put the Comte de Guiche at his left.

It was the place ordinarily occupied by Buckingham.

Accordingly, when he entered the dining hall, it was a grief to him to see himself relegated by etiquette, that other queen to whom he owed respect, to a rank inferior to that which he had held till then. For his part, de Guiche, paler still perhaps from his happiness than his rival was from his anger, sat down trembling near the princess, whose silk robe, grazing his body, sent through his whole being shivers of a voluptuousness till then unknown.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”