Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 362, December 1845

"Yes, the matter presses," replied the astrologer; "for I have read the stars, and I have calculated the chances of your destinies."

The smaller personage pressed forward at these words, as if full of eager curiosity. The other maintained the same easy bearing that seemed his usual habit.

The astrologer turned over a variety of mysterious papers, as if searching among them for the ciphers that he needed; then, consulting the pages of a book, he again traced several figures upon a parchment; and at length, after the seeming calculation of some minutes, he raised his head, and addressing himself to the smaller man, said —

"You have an enterprise in hand, young man, upon which not only your own destinies and those of your companion, but of many thousands of your fellow creatures depend! Your enterprise is grand, your destiny is noble."

The young men turned to look at each other; and he, who had as yet not broken silence, said, with an eager palpitating curiosity, although the tones of his voice were ill assured —

"And what say the stars? Will it succeed?"

"Go on, and prosper!" replied the astrologer. "A noble course lies before you. Go on, and success the most brilliant and the most prompt attends you."

"Ha! there is, after all, some truth in your astrology, I am inclined to think!" said the first speaker gaily.

"Why have you doubted, young man?" pursued the astrologer severely. "The stars err not – cannot err."

"Pardon me, father," said the young man with his usual careless air. "I will doubt no further. And we shall succeed?"

"Beyond your utmost hopes. Upon your brow, young man," continued the astrologer, addressing again the smaller person, "descends a circlet of glory, the brilliancy of which shall dazzle every eye. But stay, all is not yet done. The stars thus declare the will of destiny; but yet, in these inscrutable mysteries of fate, it is man's own will that must direct the course of events – it is his own hand must strike the blow. Fatality and human will are bound together as incomprehensibly as soul and body. You must still lend your hand to secure the accomplishment of your own destiny. But our mighty science shall procure for you so powerful a charm, that no earthly power can resist its influence. Stay, I will return shortly." So saying, Ruggieri rose and left the room by the door through which the young men had entered.

"What does he mean?" said the shorter of the young men.

"What matter, Monseigneur!" replied the other. "Does he not promise us unbounded success? I little thought myself, when I accompanied you hither, that my belief in this astrology would grow up so rapidly. Long live the dark science, and the black old gentleman who professes it, when they lighten our path so brilliantly!"

"Let us breathe a little at our ease, until he returns," said he who appeared the more important personage of the two; and throwing himself into a chair, and removing his mask, he discovered the pale face of a young man, who might have been said to possess some beauty, in spite of the irregularity of his features, had not the expression of that face been marred by a pinched and peevish look of weakness and indecision.

His companion followed his example in removing his mask, and the face thus revealed formed a striking contrast to that of the other young man. His complexion was of a clear pale brown, relieved by a flush of animated colour; his brow was fair and noble; his features were finely but not too strongly chiselled. A small dark mustache curled boldly upwards above a beautifully traced and smiling mouth, the character of which was at once resolute and gay, and strangely at variance with the expression of the dark grey eyes, which was more that of tenderness and melancholy. He remained standing before the other personage, with one hand on his hip, in an attitude at once full of ease and deference.

"Did I not right, then, to counsel you as I have done in this matter, my lord duke," he said to the other young man, "since the astrologer, in whom you have all confidence, promises us so unbounded a success: and you give full credence to the announcement of the stars?"

"Yes – yes, Philip," answered the Duke, reclining back in his chair, and rubbing his hands with a sort of internal satisfaction.

"Then let us act at once," continued the young man called Philip. "The King cannot live many days – perhaps not many hours. There is no time to be lost. Henry of Anjou, your elder brother, is far away; the crown of Poland weighs upon his brow. You are present. The troops have been taught to love you. The Huguenot party have confidence in you. The pretensions of Henry of Navarre to the regency must give way before yours. All parties will combine to look upon you as the heir of Charles; and now the very heavens, the very stars above, seem to conspire to make you that which I would you should be. Your fortune, then, is in your own hands."

"Yes. So it is!" replied the Duke.

"Assemble, then, all those attached to your service or your person!"

"I will."

"Let your intention be known among the guards."

"It shall."

"As soon as the King shall have ceased to breathe, seize upon all the gates of the Louvre."

"Yes," continued the Duke, although his voice, so eager the moment before, seemed to tremble at the thought of so much decision of action.

"Declare yourself the Master of the kingdom in full parliament."

"Yes," again replied the young Duke, more weakly. "But" —

"But what – Monseigneur!" exclaimed his companion.

"But," continued the Duke again, with hesitation, "if Henry, my brother, should return – if he should come to claim his crown. You may be sure that our mother, who cares for him alone, will have already sent off messengers to advertise him of Charles's danger, and bid him come!"

"I know she has," replied Philip coolly. "But I have already taken upon myself, without Monseigneur's instructions, for which I could not wait, to send off a sure agent to intercept her courier, to detain him at any price, to destroy his despatches."

"Philip! what have you done?" exclaimed the young Duke, in evident alarm. "Intercept my mother's courier! Dare to disobey my mother! My Mother! You do not know her then."

"Not know her?" answered his companion. "Who in this troubled land of France does not know Catherine of Medicis, her artful wiles, her deadly traits of vengeance? Shake not your head, Monseigneur! You know her too. But, Charles no more, you will have the crown upon your brow – it will be yours to give orders: those who will dare to disobey you will be your rebel subjects. Act, then, as king. If she resist, give orders for her arrest!"

"Arrest my Mother! Who would dare to do it?" said the Duke with agitation.

"I."

"Oh, no – no – La Mole! Never would I take upon myself" —

"Take upon yourself to be a King, if you would be one," said the Duke's confidant, with energy.

"We will speak more of this," hastily interposed the wavering Duke. "Hush! some one comes. It is this Ruggieri!"

In truth the astrologer re-entered the room. In his hand he bore a small object wrapped in a white cloth, which he laid down upon the table; and then, turning to the young men, who had hastily reassumed their masks before he appeared, and who now stood before him, he said —

"The sole great charm that can complete the will of destiny, and assure the success of your great enterprise, lies there before you. Have you no enemy whose death you most earnestly desire, to forward that intent?"

The young men looked at each other; but they both answered, after the hesitation of a moment —

"None!"

"None, upon whose death depends that turn in the wheel of fate that should place you on its summit?"

Both the young men were silent.

"At all events," continued the cunning astrologer, "your destiny depends upon the action of your own hands. This action we must symbol forth in mystery, in order that your destiny be accomplished. Here – take this instrument," he pursued, producing a long gold pin of curious workmanship, which at need might have done the task of a dagger, "and pierce the white cloth that lies before you on the table."

The Duke drew back, and refused the instrument thus offered to him.

"Do I not tell you that the accomplishment of your brilliant destiny depends upon this act?" resumed Ruggieri.

"I know not what this incantation may be," said the timid Duke. "Take it, Philip."

But La Mole, little as he was inclined to the superstitious credulity of the times, seemed not more disposed than his master to lend his hand to an act which had the appearance of being connected with the rites of sorcery, and he also refused. On the reiterated assurances of the astrologer, however, that upon that harmless blow hung the accomplishment of their enterprise, and at the command of the Duke, he took the instrument into his hand, and approached it over the cloth. Again, however, he would have hesitated, and would have withdrawn; but the astrologer seized his hand before he was aware, and, giving it a sharp direction downwards, caused him to plunge the instrument into the object beneath the cloth. La Mole shuddered as he felt it penetrate into a soft substance, that, small as it was, gave him the idea of a human body; and that shudder ran through his whole frame as a presentiment of evil.

"It is done," said the astrologer. "Go! and let the work of fate be accomplished."

The pale foreheads of both the young men, visible above their masks, showed that they felt they had been led further in the work of witchcraft than was their intention; but they did not expostulate. It was the Duke who now first rallied, and throwing down a heavy purse of coin on the table before the astrologer, he called to his companion to follow him.

Scarcely had the young men left the apartment, when the pannel by which Catherine of Medicis had disappeared, again opened, and she entered the room. Her face was pale, cold, and calm as usual.

"You heard them, Ruggieri!" she said, with her customary bland smile. "Alençon would be king, and that ambitious fool drives him to snatch his brother's crown. The Queen-mother is to be arrested, and imprisoned as a rebel to her usurping son. A notable scheme, forsooth! Her courier to recall Henry of Anjou from Poland has been intercepted also! But that mischance must be remedied immediately. Ay! and avenged. Biragne shall have instant orders. With this proof in my possession, the life of that La Mole is mine," continued she, tearing in twain the white linen cloth, and displaying beneath it a small wax figure, bearing the semblance of a king, with a crown upon its head, in which the gold pin was still left sticking, by the manner in which this operation was performed. "Little treasure of vengeance, thou art mine! Ruggieri, man, that plot was acted to the life. Verily, verily, you were right. Charles dies; and troubled and harassed will be the last hours of his reign."

CHAPTER II

"There is so hot a summer in my bosom,That all my bowels crumble up to dust;I am a scribbled form, drawn with a penUpon a parchment; and against this fireDo I shrink up."Shakspeare."Ambition is a great man's madness,That is not kept in chains and close-pent roomsBut in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girtWith the wild noise of prattling visitants,Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure."Webster.

In a room belonging to the lower apartments of the old palace of the Louvre, reclined, in one of the large but incommodious chairs of the time, a young man, whose pale, haggard face, and prematurely furrowed brow, betrayed deep suffering both from moral and physical causes. The thick lids of his heavy dark eyes closed over them with languor, as if he no longer possessed the force to open them; whilst his pale thin lips were distorted as if with pain. His whole air bore the stamp of exhaustion of mind and body.

The dress of this personage was dark and of an extreme plainness and simplicity, in times when the fashion of attire demanded so much display – it bore somewhat the appearance of a hunting costume. The room, on the contrary, betrayed a strange mixture of great richness and luxury with much confusion and disorder. The hangings of the doors were of the finest stuffs, and embroidered with gold and jewellery; tapestry of price covered the walls. A raised curtain of heavy and costly tissue discovered a small oratory, in which were visible a crucifix and other religious ornaments of great value. But in the midst of this display of wealth and greatness, were to be seen the most incongruous objects. Beneath a bench in a corner of the room was littered straw, on which lay several young puppies; in other choice nooks slept two or three great hounds. Hunting horns were hung against the tapestry, or lay scattered on the floor; an arquebuss rested against the oratory door-stall – the instrument of death beside the retreat of religious aspiration. Upon a standing desk, in the middle of the room, lay a book, the coloured designs of which showed that it treated of the "noble science of venerye," whilst around its pages hung the beads of a chaplet. Against the wall of the room opposite the reclining young man, stood one of the heavy chests used at that period for seats, as much as depositories of clothes and other objects; but the occupant of this seat was a strange one. It was a large ape, the light brown colour of whose hair bordered so much upon the green as to give the animal, in certain lights, a perfectly verdant aspect. It sat "moping and mowing" in sulky loneliness, as if its grimaces were intended to caricature the expression of pain which crossed the young man's face – a strange distorted mirror of that suffering form.

After a time the young man moved uneasily, as if he had in vain sought in sleep some repose from the torment of mind and body, and snapped his fingers. His hounds came obedient to his call; but, after patting them for a moment on the head, he again drove them from him with all the pettish ill-temper of ennui, and rose, feebly and with difficulty, from his chair. He moved languidly to the open book, looked at it for a moment, then shook his head and turned away. Again he took up one of the hunting horns and applied it to his lips; but the breath which he could fetch from his chest produced no sound but a sort of low melancholy whine from the instrument; and he flung it down. Then dealing a blow at the head of the grinning ape, who first dived to avoid it, and then snapped at its master's fingers, he returned wearily to his chair, and sunk into it with a deep groan, which told of many things – regret – bitter ennui – physical pain and mental anguish. The tears rose for a moment to his heavy languid eyes, but he checked their influence with a sneer of his thin upper-lip; then calling "Congo," to his ape, he made the animal approach and took it on his knees; and the two – the man and the beast – grinned at each other in bitter mockery.

In this occupation of the most grotesque despair, the young man was disturbed by another personage, who, raising the tapestry over a concealed door, entered silently and unannounced.

"My Mother!" murmured the sufferer, in a tone of impatience, as he became aware of the presence of this person; and turning away his head, he began to occupy himself in caressing his ape.

"How goes it with you, Charles? Do you feel stronger now?" said the mother, in a soft voice of the fondest cajolery, as she advanced with noiseless, gliding steps.

The son gave no reply, and continued to play with the animal upon his knee, whilst a dark frown knitted his brow.

"What say the doctors to your state to-day, my son?" resumed the female soothingly. As she approached still nearer, the ape, with a movement of that instinctive hate often observable in animals towards persons who do not like them, sprang at her with a savage grin, that displayed its sharp teeth, and would have bitten her hand had she not started back in haste. Her cold physiognomy expressed, however, neither anger nor alarm, as she quietly remarked to her son —

"Remove that horrid animal, Charles: see how savage he is?"

"And why should I remove Congo, mother?" rejoined Charles, with a sneer upon his lip; "he is the only friend you have left me."

"Sickness makes you forgetful and unjust, my son," replied the Mother.

"Yes, the only friend you have left me," pursued the son bitterly, "except my poor dogs. Have you not so acted in my name, that you have left me not one kindred soul to love me; that in the whole wide kingdom of France, there remains not a voice, much less a heart, to bless its miserable king?"

"If you say that you have no friends," responded the Queen-mother, "you may speak more truly than you would. For they are but false friends; and real enemies, who have instilled into your mind the evil thoughts of a mother, who has worked only for your glory and your good."

"No, not one," continued the young King, unheeding her, but dismissing at the same time the ape from his knee with a blow that sent him screaming and mouthing to his accustomed seat upon the chest. "Not one! Where is Perotte, my poor old nurse? She loved me – she was a real mother to me. She! And where is she now? Did not that deed of horror, to which you counselled me, to which you urged me almost by force – that order, which, on the fatal night of St Bartholomew, gave signal for the massacre of all her co-religionists, drive her from my side? Did she not curse me – me, who at your instigation caused the blood of her friends and kindred to be shed – and leave me, her nursling, her boy, her Charlot, whom she loved till then, with that curse upon her lips? And do they not say that her horror of him who has sucked her milk, and lain upon her bosom, and of his damning deed, has frenzied her brain, and rendered her witless? Poor woman!" And the miserable King buried his haggard face between his hands.

"She was a wretched Huguenot, and no fitting companion and confidant for a Catholic and a king," said the Queen, in a tone of mildness, which contrasted strangely with the harshness of her words. "You should return thanks to all the blessed Saints, that she has willingly renounced that influence about your person, which could tend only to endanger the salvation of your soul."

"My soul! Ay! who has destroyed it?" muttered Charles in a hollow tone.

The Queen-mother remained silent, but an unusual fire, in which trouble was mixed with scorn and anger, shot from her eyes.

"And have you not contrived to keep Henry of Navarre, my honest Henry, from my presence?" pursued the young King, after a pause, lifting up his heavy head from between his hands. "He was the only being you had left me still to love me; for my brothers hate me, both Anjou and Alençon – both wish me dead, and would wear my crown. And who was it, and for her own purposes, curdled the blood of the Valois in their veins until it rankled into a poison that might have befitted the Atrides of the tragedies of old? Henry of Navarre was the only creature that loved me still, and your policy and intrigues, madam, keep him from me, and so watch and harass his very steps in my own palace of the Louvre, where he is my guest, that never can I see him alone, or speak to him in confidence. He, too, deserts and neglects me now; and I am alone – alone, madam, with courtiers and creatures, who hate me too, it may be – alone, as a wretched orphan beggar by the way-side."

"My policy, as well as what you choose to call my intrigues, my son," rejoined the Queen, "have ever been directed to your interests and welfare. You are aware that Henry of Navarre has conspired against the peace of our realm, against your crown, may-be against your life. Would you condemn that care which would prevent the renewal of such misdeeds, when your own sister – when his wife – leagues herself in secret with your enemies!"

"Ay! Margaret too!" muttered Charles with bitterness. "Was the list of the Atrides not yet complete?"

"The dictates of my love and affection, of my solicitude for my son, and for his weal – such have been the main-springs of my intrigues," pursued the mother in a cajoling tone.

"The intrigues of the house of Medicis!" murmured the King, with a mocking laugh.

"What would you have me to do more, my son?" continued the Queen-mother.

"Nothing," replied Charles, "nothing but leave me – leave me, as others have done, to die alone!"

"My son, I will leave you shortly, and if it so please our Blessed Virgin, to a little repose, and a better frame of mind," said Catherine of Medicis. "But I came to speak to you of matters of weight, and of such deep importance that they brook no delay."

"I am unfitted for all matters of state – my head is weary, my limbs ache, my heart burns with a torturing fire – I cannot listen to you now, madam," pursued the King languidly; and then, seeing that his mother still stood motionless by his side, he added with more energy – "Am I then no more a king, madam, that, at my own command, I cannot even be left to die in peace?"

"It is of your health, your safety, your life, that I would speak," continued Catherine of Medicis, unmoved. "The physicians have sought in vain to discover the real sources of the cruel malady that devours you; but there is no reason to doubt of your recovery, when the cause shall be known and removed."

"And you, madam, should know, it would appear, better than my physicians the hidden origin of my sufferings!" said Charles, in a tone in which might be remarked traces of the bitterest irony. "Is it not so?" and he looked upon his mother with a deadly look of suspicion and mistrust.

The Queen-mother started slightly at these words; but, after a moment, she answered in her usual bland tone of voice —

"It is my solicitude upon this subject that now brings me hither."

"I thank you for your solicitude," replied the King, with the same marked manner; "and so, doubtless, does my brother Anjou: you love him well, madam, and he is the successor of his childish brother."

In spite of the command over herself habitually exercised by Catherine of Medicis, her pale brow grew paler still, and she slightly compressed her lips, to prevent their quivering, upon hearing the horrible insinuation conveyed in these words. The suspicions prevalent at the time, that the Queen-mother had employed the aid of a slow poison to rid herself of a son who resisted her authority, in order to make room upon the throne for another whom she loved, had reached her ears, and, guilty or guiltless, she could not but perceive that her own son himself was not devoid of these suspicions. After the struggle of a moment with herself, however, during which the drops of perspiration stood upon her pale temples, she resumed —

"I love my children all; and I would save your life, Charles. My ever-watchful affection for you, my son, has discovered the existence of a hellish plot against your life."

"More plots, more blood! – what next, madam?" interrupted, with a groan, the unhappy King.

"What the art of the physician could not discover," pursued his mother, "I have discovered. The strange nature of this unknown malady – these pains, this sleeplessness, this agony of mind and body, without a cause, excited my suspicions; and now I have the proofs in my own hands. My son, my poor son! you have been the victim of the foulest witchcraft and sorcery of your enemies."

"Enemies abroad! enemies at home!" cried Charles, turning himself uneasily in his chair. "Did I not say so, madam?"

"But the vile sorcerer has been discovered by the blessed intervention of the saints," continued Catherine; "and let him be once seized, tried, and executed for his abominable crime, your torments, my son, will cease for ever. You will live to be well, strong, happy."

"Happy!" echoed the young King with bitterness; "happy! no, there the sorcery has gone too far for remedy." He then added after a pause, "And what is this plot? who is this sorcerer of whom you speak?"

"Trouble not yourself with these details, my son; they are but of minor import," replied Catherine. "You are weak and exhausted. The horrid tale would too much move your mind. Leave every thing in my hands, and I will rid you of your enemies."

"No, no. There has been enough of ill," resumed her son. "That he should be left in peace is all the miserable King now needs."

"But your life, my son. The safety of the realm depends upon the extermination of the works of the powers of darkness. Would you, a Catholic Prince, allow the evil-doer of the works of Satan to roam about at will, and injure others as he would have destroyed his king?" pursued the Queen-mother.