The Works of Honore de Balzac Part 19

"No, sir, but an example," replied Catherine.

"Your grandfather and your father were in the habit of seeing heretics burned," said Mary Stuart.

"The kings who reigned before me went their way," said Francis, "and I mean to go mine."

"Philip II.," Catherine went on, "who is a great king lately, when he was in the Netherlands, had an _auto-da-fe_ postponed till he should have returned to Valladolid."

"What do you think about it, cousin?" said the King to the Prince de Conde.

"Sir, you cannot avoid going; the Papal Nuncio and the Amba.s.sadors must be present. For my part, I am delighted to go if the ladies are to be of the party."

The Prince, at a glance from Catherine de' Medici, had boldly taken his line.

While the Prince de Conde was being admitted to the chateau of Amboise, the furrier to the two Queens was also arriving from Paris, brought thither by the uneasiness produced by the reports of the Rebellion, not only in himself and his family, but also in the Lalliers.

At the gate of the chateau, when the old man craved admission, the captain of the Guard, at the words "Queen's furrier," answered at once:

"My good man, if you want to be hanged, you have only to set foot in the courtyard."

On hearing this, the unhappy father sat down on a rail a little way off, to wait till some attendant on either of the Queens, or some woman of the Court, should pa.s.s him, to ask for some news of his son; but he remained there the whole day without seeing anybody he knew, and was at last obliged to go down into the town, where he found a lodging, not without difficulty, in an inn on the Square where the executions were to take place. He was obliged to pay a livre a day to secure a room looking out on the Square.

On the following day, he was brave enough to look on from his window at the rebels who had been condemned to the wheel, or to be hanged, as men of minor importance; and the Syndic of the Furriers' Guild was glad enough not to find his son among the sufferers.

When it was all over, he went to place himself in the clerk's way. Having mentioned his name, and pressed a purse full of crown-pieces into the man's hand, he begged him to see whether, in the three former days of execution, the name of Christophe Lecamus had occurred. The registrar, touched by the despairing old father's manners and tone of voice, conducted him to his own house. After carefully comparing notes, he could a.s.sure the old man that the said Christophe was not among those who had hitherto been executed, nor was he named among those who were to die within the next few days.

"My dear master," said the clerk to the furrier, "the Parlement is now engaged in trying the lords and gentlemen concerned in the business, and the princ.i.p.al leaders. So, possibly, your son is imprisoned in the chateau, and will be one in the magnificent execution for which my lords the Duc de Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine are making great preparations.

Twenty-seven barons are to be beheaded, with eleven counts and seven marquises, fifty gentlemen in all, and leaders of the Reformers. As the administration of justice in Touraine has no connection with that of the Paris Parlement, if you positively must have some news of your son, go to my Lord the Chancellor Olivier, who, by the orders of the Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, has the management of the proceedings."

Three times did the poor old man go to the Chancellor's house and stand in a file of people in the courtyard, in common with an immense number of people who had come to pray for their relations' lives; but as t.i.tled folks were admitted before the middle cla.s.s, he was obliged to give up all hope of speaking with the Chancellor, though he saw him several times coming out of his house to go either to the chateau or to the Commission appointed by the Parlement, along a way cleared for him by soldiers, between two hedges of pet.i.tioners who were thrust aside.

It was a dreadful scene of misery, for among this crowd were wives, daughters, and mothers, whole families in tears. Old Lecamus gave a great deal of gold to the servants at the chateau, enjoining on them that they should deliver certain letters he wrote to la Dayelle, Queen Mary's waiting-woman, or to the Queen-mother's woman; but the lackeys took the good man's money, and then, by the Cardinal's orders, handed all letters to the Provost of the Law Court. As a consequence of their unprecedented cruelty, the Princes of Lorraine had cause to fear revenge; and they never took greater precautions than during the stay of the Count at Amboise, so that neither the most effectual bribery, that of gold, nor the most diligent inquiries brought the furrier any light as to his son's fate. He wandered about the little town in a melancholy way, watching the tremendous preparations that the Cardinal was making for the shocking spectacle at which the Prince de Conde was to be present.

Public curiosity was being stimulated, by every means in use at the time, from Paris to Nantes. The execution had been announced from the pulpit by every preacher, in a breath with the King's victory over the heretics.

Three elegant stands, the centre one apparently to be the finest of the three, were being erected against the curtain-wall of the chateau, at the foot of which the execution was to take place. All round the open s.p.a.ce raised wooden seats were being put up, after the fas.h.i.+on of an amphitheatre, to accommodate the enormous crowd attracted by the notoriety of this _auto-da-fe_. About ten thousand persons were camping out in the fields on the day before this hideous spectacle. The roofs were crowded with spectators, and windows were let for as much as ten livres, an enormous sum at that time.

The unhappy father had, as may be supposed, secured one of the best places for commanding a view of the Square where so many men of family were to perish, on a huge scaffold erected in the middle, and covered with black cloth. On the morning of the fatal day, the headsman's block, on which the victim laid his head, kneeling in front of it, was placed on the scaffold, and an armchair, hung with black, for the Recorder of the Court, whose duty it was to call the condemned by name and read their sentence. The enclosure was guarded from early morning by the Scotch soldiers and the men-at-arms of the King's household, to keep the crowd out till the hour of the executions.

After a solemn ma.s.s in the chapel of the chateau and in every church in the town, the gentlemen were led forth, the last survivors of all the conspirators. These men, some of whom had been through the torture chamber, were collected round the foot of the scaffold, and exhorted by monks, who strove to persuade them to renounce the doctrines of Calvin. But not one would listen to these preachers, turned on to them by the Cardinal de Lorraine, among whom, no doubt, these gentlemen feared that there might be some spies on behalf of the Guises.

To escape being persecuted with these exhortations, they began to sing a psalm turned into French verse by Clement Marot. Calvin, as is well known, had decreed that G.o.d should be wors.h.i.+ped in the mother-tongue of every country, from motives of common sense as well as from antagonism to the Roman Church. It was a pathetic moment for all those among the throng, who felt for these gentlemen, when they heard this verse sung at the moment when the Court appeared on the scene:

Lord, help us in our need!

Lord, bless us with Thy grace!

And on the saints in sore distress Let s.h.i.+ne Thy glorious face!

The eyes of the Reformers all centered on the Prince de Conde, who was intentionally placed between Queen Mary and the Duc d'Orleans. Queen Catherine de' Medici sat next her son, with the Cardinal on her left. The Papal Nuncio stood behind the two Queens. The Lieutenant-General of the kingdom was on horseback, below the Royal stand, with two marshals of France and his captains. As soon as the Prince de Conde appeared, all the gentlemen sentenced to death, to whom he was known, bowed to him, and the brave hunchback returned the salutation.

"It is hard," said he to the Duc d'Orleans, "not to be civil to men who are about to die."

The two other grand stands were filled by invited guests, by courtiers, and the attendants on their Majesties; in short, the rank and fas.h.i.+on of the chateau from Blois, who thus rushed from festivities to executions, just as they afterwards rushed from the pleasures of Court life to the perils of war, with a readiness which to foreigners will always be one of the mainsprings of their policy in France. The poor Syndic of the Furriers'

Guild felt the keenest joy at failing to discern his son among the fifty-seven gentlemen condemned to death.

At a signal from the Duc de Guise, the clerk, from the top of the scaffold, called out at once, in a loud voice:

"Jean-Louis-Alberic, Baron de Raunay, guilty of heresy, of the crime of high treason, and of bearing arms against the King's Majesty."

A tall, handsome man mounted the scaffold with a firm step, bowed to the people and to the Court, and said:

"The indictment is false; I bore arms to deliver the King from his enemies of Lorraine!"

He laid his head on the block, and it fell.

The Reformers sang:

Thou, Lord, hast proved our faith And searched our soul's desire, And purified our froward hearts, As silver proved by fire.

"Robert-Jean-Rene Briquemaut, Comte de Villemongis, guilty of high treason and rebellion against the King," cried the Recorder.

The Count dipped his hands in the Baron de Raunay's blood, and said:

"May this blood be on the head of those who are truly guilty!"

The Reformers sang on:

Thou, Lord, hast led our feet Where foes had laid their snare; To Thee, O Lord, the glory be, Though we should perish there.

"Confess, my lord Nuncio," said the Prince de Conde, "that if French gentlemen know how to plot, they also know how to die."

"What hatred you are entailing on the heads of your children, brother,"

said the d.u.c.h.esse de Guise to the Cardinal de Lorraine.

"The sight makes me feel sick," said the young King, who had turned pale at the sight of all this bloodshed.

"Pooh! Rebels!" said Catherine de' Medici.

Still the hymn went on, still the axe was plied. At last the sublime spectacle of men who could die singing, and, above all, the impression produced on the crowd by the gradual dwindling of the voices, became stronger than the terror inspired by the Guises.

"Mercy!" cried the mob, when they heard at last only the feeble chant of a single victim, reserved till the last, as being the most important.

He was standing alone at the foot of the steps leading up to the scaffold, and sang:

Lord, help us in our need!

Lord, bless us with Thy grace!

And on the saints in sore distress Let s.h.i.+ne Thy glorious face!

"Come, Duc de Nemours," said the Prince de Conde, who was tired of his position; "you, to whom the securing of the victory is due, and who helped to entrap all these people,--do not you feel that you ought to ask the life of this one? It is Castelnau, who, as I was told, had your promise for courteous treatment when he surrendered----"

"Did I wait to see him here before trying to save him?" said the Duc de Nemours, stung by this bitter reproof.