Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845

The piqueur who had told the king that the boar was still in the enclosure, had spoken the truth. Hardly was the bloodhound put upon the scent, when he plunged into a thicket, and drove the animal, an enormous one of its kind, from its retreat in a cluster of thorn-bushes. The boar made straight across the road, at about fifty paces from the king. The leashes of a score of dogs were immediately slipped, and the eager hounds rushed headlong in pursuit.

The chase was Charles's strongest passion. Scarcely had the boar crossed the road, when he spurred after him, sounding the view upon his horn, and followed by the Duke of Alençon, and by Henry of Navarre. All the other chasseurs followed.

The royal forests, at the period referred to, were not, as at present, extensive parks intersected by carriage roads. Kings had not yet had the happy idea of becoming timber-merchants, and of dividing their woods into tailles and futaies. The trees, planted, not by scientific foresters but by the hand of God, who let the seed fall where the wind chose to bear it, were not arranged in quincunxes, but sprang up without order, and as they now do in the virgin forests of America. Consequently a forest at that period was a place in which boars and stags, wolves and robbers, were to be found in abundance.

The wood of Bondy was surrounded by a circular road, like the tire of a wheel and crossed by a dozen paths which might be called the spokes. To complete the comparison, the axle, was represented by carrefour, or open space, in the centre of the wood, whence all these paths diverged, and whither any of the sportsmen who might be thrown out were in the habit of repairing, till some sight or sound of the chase enabled them to rejoin it.

At the end of a quarter of an hour, it happened, as it usually did at these hunts, that insurmountable obstacles had opposed themselves to the progress of the hunters, the baying of the hounds had become inaudible in the distance, and the king himself had returned to the carrefour, swearing and cursing according to his custom.

"Well, D'Alençon! Well, Henriot!" cried he – "here you are, mordieu! as calm and quiet as nuns following their abbess. That is not hunting. You, D'Alençon – you look as if you had just come out of a band-box; and you are so perfumed, that if you got between the boar and my dogs, you would make them lose the scent. And you, Henriot – where is your boar-spear? Where your arquebuss?"

"Sire," replied Henry, "an arquebuss would be useless to me. I know that your majesty likes to shoot the boar himself when it is brought to bay. As to the spear, I handle it very clumsily. We are not used to it in our mountains, where we hunt the bear with nothing but a dagger."

"By the mordieu, Henry, when you return to your Pyrenees you shall send me a cart-load of bears. It must be noble sport to contend with an animal that can stifle you with a hug. But hark! I hear the dogs! No, I was mistaken."

The king put his horn to his mouth and sounded fanfare. Several horns replied to him. Suddenly a piqueur appeared, sounding a different call.

"The view! the view!" cried the king; and he galloped off, followed by the other sportsmen.

The piqueur was not mistaken. As the king advanced he heard the baying of the pack, which was now composed of more than sixty dogs, fresh relays having been slipped at different places near which the boar had passed. At last Charles caught a second glimpse of the animal, and, profiting by the height of the adjacent trees, which enabled him to ride beneath their branches, he turned into the wood, sounding his horn with all his strength. The princes followed him for some time, but the king had so vigorous a horse, and, carried away by his eagerness, he dashed over such steep and broken ground, and through such dense thickets, that first the ladies, then the Duke of Guise and his gentlemen, and at last the two princes, were forced to abandon him. All the hunters therefore, with the exception of Charles and a few piqueurs, found themselves reassembled at the carrefour. D'Alençon and Henry were standing near each other in a long alley. At about a hundred paces from them the Duke of Guise had halted, with his retinue of twenty or thirty gentlemen, who were armed, it might have been thought, rather for the battle-field than the hunting-ground. The ladies were in the carrefour itself.

"Would it not seem," said the Duke of Alençon to Henry, glancing at the Duke of Guise with the corner of his eye, "that yonder man with his steel-clad escort is the true king? He does not even vouchsafe a glance to us poor princes."

"Why should he treat us better than our own relations do?" replied Henry. "Are we not, you and I, prisoners at the court of France, hostages for our party?"

The Duke Francis started, and looked at Henry as if to provoke a further explanation; but Henry had gone further than was his wont, and he remained silent.

"What do you mean, Henry?" enquired the duke, evidently vexed that his brother-in-law, by his taciturnity, compelled him to put the question.

"I mean, brother," answered Henry, "that those armed men who seem so careful not to lose sight of us, have quite the appearance of guards charged to prevent us from escaping."

"Escaping! Why? How?" cried D'Alençon, with a well-feigned air of surprise and simplicity.

"You have a magnificent jennet there, Francis," said Henry, following up the subject, whilst appearing to change the conversation. "I am sure he would get over seven leagues in an hour, and twenty from now till noon. It is a fine day for a ride. Look at that cross-road – how level and pleasant it is! Are you not tempted, Francis? For my part, my spurs are burning my heels."

Francis made no answer. He turned red and pale alternately, and appeared to be straining his hearing to catch some sound of the chase.

"The news from Poland have produced their effect," said Henry to himself, "and my good brother-in-law has a plan of his own. He would like to see me escape, but I shall not go alone."

He had scarcely made the reflection, when several of the recently converted Huguenots, who within the last two or three months had returned to the court and the Romish church, came up at a canter, and saluted the two princes with a most engaging smile. The Duke of Alençon, already urged on by Henry's overtures, had but to utter a word or make a sign, and it was evident that his flight would be favoured by the thirty or forty cavaliers who had collected around him, as if to oppose themselves to the followers of the Duke of Guise. But that word he did not utter. He turned away his head, and, putting his horn to his mouth, sounded the rally.

Nevertheless the new-comers, as if they thought that D'Alençon's hesitation was occasioned by the vicinity of the Guisards, had gradually placed themselves between the latter and the two princes, arraying themselves in échelon with a sort of strategic skill, which implied a habit of military manœuvres. Guise and his followers would have had to ride over them to get at the Duke of Alençon and the King of Navarre; whilst, on the other side, a long and unobstructed road lay open before the brothers-in-law.

Suddenly, between the trees, at ten paces from the King of Navarre, there appeared another horseman, whom the princes had not yet seen. Henry was trying to guess who this person was, when the gentleman raised his hat and disclosed the features of the Viscount of Turenne, one of the chiefs of the Protestant party, and who was supposed to be then in Poitou. The viscount even risked a sign, which meant to say – "Are you coming?" But Henry, after consulting the inexpressive countenance and dull eyes of the Duke of Alençon, turned his head two or three times upon his shoulders, as if something in the collar of his doublet inconvenienced him. It as a reply in the negative. The viscount understood it, gave his horse the spur, and disappeared amongst the trees. At the same moment the pack was heard approaching; then, at the end of the alley, the boar was seen to pass, followed at a short distance by the dogs, whilst after them came Charles IX., like some demon-huntsman bareheaded, his horn at his mouth, sounding as though he would burst his lungs. Three or four piqueurs followed him.

"The king!" cried D'Alençon, riding off to join in the chase. Henry, encouraged by the presence of his partizans, signed to them to remain, and approached the ladies.

"Well," said Margaret, advancing to meet him.

"Well madam," said Henry, "we are hunting the boar."

"Is that all?"

"Yes, the wind has changed since yesterday morning. I think I predicted that such would be the case."

"These changes of wind are bad for hunting – are they not, sir?" enquired Margaret.

"Yes," replied her husband, "they sometimes overturn previous arrangements, and the plan has to be remade."

At this moment the baying of the pack was again heard near the carrefour. The noise and tumult rapidly approaching, warned the hunters to be on the alert. All heads were raised, every ear as strained, when suddenly the boar burst out of the wood, and, instead of plunging into the opposite thicket made straight for the carrefour. Close to the animal's heels were thirty or forty of the strongest amongst the dogs, and at less than twenty paces behind these came Charles himself, without cap or cloak, his clothes torn by the thorns, his face and hands covered with blood. Only one or two piqueurs kept up with him. Alternately sounding his horn and shouting encouragement to the dogs, the king pressed onwards, every thing but the chase forgotten. If his horse had failed him at that moment, he would have exclaimed, like Richard III., "My kingdom for a horse!" But the horse appeared as eager as his rider. His feet scarce touched the ground, and he seemed to snort fire from his blood-red nostrils. Boar, dogs, and king dashed by like a whirlwind.

"Hallali! hallali!" cried the king as he passed. And again he applied his horn to his bleeding lips. A short distance behind him came the Duke of Alençon and two more piqueurs. The horses of the others were blown or distanced.

Every body now joined in the pursuit, for it was evident that the boar would soon turn to bay. Accordingly, at the end of ten minutes, the beast left the path and entered the wood; but on reaching a neighbouring glade, he turned his tail to a rock and made head against the dogs. The most interesting moment of the hunt had arrived. The animal was evidently prepared to make a desperate defence. The dogs, fierce and foaming after their three hours' chase, precipitated themselves upon him with a fury which was redoubled by the shouts and oaths of the king. The hunters arranged themselves in a circle, Charles a little in front, having behind him the Duke of Alençon, who carried an arquebuss, and Henry of Navarre, who was armed only with a couteau-de-chasse. The duke unslung his arquebuss and lit the match; Henry loosened his hunting-knife in the scabbard. As to the Duke of Guise, who affected to despise field-sports, he kept himself a little apart with his gentlemen; and on the other side another little group was formed by the ladies. All eyes were fixed in anxious expectation upon the boar.

A little apart stood a piqueur, exerting all his strength to resist the efforts of two enormous dogs, who awaited, covered with their coats of mail, howling savagely, and struggling as though they would break their chains, the moment when they should be let loose upon the boar. The latter did wonders. Attacked at one time by forty dogs, that covered him like a living wave or many-coloured carpet, and strove on all sides to tear his wrinkled and bristling hide, he, at each blow of his formidable tusk, tossed one of his assailants ten feet into the air. The dogs fell to the ground ripped up, and threw themselves, with their bowels hanging out of their wounds, once more into the mélée; whilst Charles, with hair on end, inflamed eyes, and distended nostrils, bent forward over the neck of his foaming steed and sounded a furious hallali. In less than ten minutes twenty dogs were disabled.

"The mastiffs!" cried Charles; "the mastiffs!"

At the word, the piqueur slipped the leashes, and the two dogs dashed into the midst of the carnage, upsetting the smaller hounds, and with their iron-coated sides forcing their way to the boar, whom they seized each by an ear. The animal, feeling himself coiffé, as it is termed, gnashed his teeth with pain and fury.

"Bravo, Duredent! Bravo, Risquetout!" vociferated Charles. "Courage, my dogs! a spear! a spear!"

"Will you have my arquebuss?" said the Duke of Alençon.

"No," cried the king. "No – one does not feel the ball go in; there is no pleasure in that. One feels the spear. A spear! a spear!"

A boar-spear made of wood hardened in the fire and tipped with iron, was handed to the king. "Be cautious, brother!" exclaimed Margaret.

"Sus, sus, sire!" cried the Duchess of Nevers. "Do not miss him, sire. A good thrust to the brute!"

"You may depend on that, duchess," replied Charles. And levelling his spear, he charged the boar, who, being held down by the two dogs, could not avoid the blow. Nevertheless, at the sight of the glittering point of the weapon, the animal made a movement on one side, and the spear, instead of piercing his breast, grazed his shoulder, and struck against the rock in his rear.

"Mille noms d'un diable!" cried the king, "I have missed him. A spear! a spear!" And backing his horse, like a knight in the lists, he pitched away his weapon, of which the point had turned against the rock. A piqueur advanced to give him another. But at the same moment, as if he had foreseen the fate that awaited him, and was determined to avoid it at any cost, the boar, by a violent effort, wrenched his torn ears from the jaws of the dogs, and with bloodshot eyes, bristling and hideous, his respiration sounding like the bellows of a forge, and his teeth chattering and grinding against each other, he lowered his head and made a rush at the king's horse. Charles was too experienced a sportsman not to have anticipated this attack, and he turned his horse quickly aside. But he had pressed too hard upon the bit; the horse reared violently, and, either terrified at the boar or compelled by the pull on the bridle, fell backwards. The spectators uttered a terrible cry. The king's thigh was under the horse.

"Slack your rein!" cried Henry, "slack your rein!"

The king relinquished his hold on the bridle, seized the saddle with his left hand, and with his right tried to draw his hunting-knife; but the blade, pressed upon by the weight of his body, would not leave its sheath.

"The boar! the boar!" cried Charles. "Help, D'Alençon! help!"

Nevertheless the horse, left to himself, and as if he had understood his rider's peril, made an effort, and had already got up on three legs, when Henry saw the Duke Francis grow deadly pale, bring his arquebuss to his shoulder, and fire. The ball, instead of striking the boar, now but at two paces from the king, broke the front leg of the horse, who again fell with his nose upon the earth. At the same moment Charles's boot was torn by the tusk of the boar.

"Oh!" murmured D'Alençon between his pallid lips, "I think that the Duke of Anjou is King of France, and that I am King of Poland!"

It seemed indeed probable. The snout of the boar was rummaging Charles's thigh, when the latter felt somebody seize and raise his arm – a keen bright blade flashed before his eyes, and buried itself to the hilt in the shoulder of the brute; whilst a gauntleted hand put aside the dangerous tusks which were already disappearing under the King's garments. Charles, who had taken advantage of the horse's movement to disengage his leg, rose slowly to his feet, and, seeing himself covered with blood, became as pale as a corpse.

"Sire," said Henry, who, still on his knees, held down the boar, which he had stabbed to the heart – "Sire, there is no harm done. I put aside the tusk, and your Majesty is unhurt." Then, getting up, he let go his hold of the hunting-knife, and the boar fell, the blood flowing from his mouth even more plentifully than from the wound.

Charles, surrounded by the alarmed throng, and assailed by cries of terror that might well have bewildered the calmest courage, was for a moment on the point of falling senseless near the dying animal. But he recovered himself, and turning towards the King of Navarre, pressed his hand with a look in which was visible the first gleam of kindly feeling that he had shown during his twenty-four years of existence.

"Thanks, Henriot," said he.

"My poor brother!" cried D'Alençon, approaching the king.

"Ah! you are there, D'Alençon?" cried Charles. "Well, you famous marksman, what is become of your bullet?"

"It must have flattened upon the hide of the boar," said the duke.

"Eh! mon Dieu!" cried Henry with a surprise that was admirably acted; "see there, Francis – your ball has broken the leg of his Majesty's horse!"

"What!" said the king; "is that true?"

"It is possible," said the duke, in great confusion; "my hand trembled so violently."

"The fact is, that for an expert marksman you have made a singular shot, Francis," said Charles frowning. "For the second time, thanks, Henriot. Gentlemen," continued the king, "we will return to Paris; I have had enough for to-day."

Margaret came up to congratulate Henry.

"Ma foi! yes, Margot," said Charles, "you may congratulate him, and very sincerely too, for without him the King of France would now be Henry the Third."

"Alas! madam," said the Béarnais, "the Duke of Anjou, already my enemy, will hate me tenfold for this morning's work. But it cannot be helped. One does what one can, as M. d'Alençon will tell you."

And stooping, he drew his hunting-knife from the carcass of the boar, and plunged it thrice into the ground, to cleanse it from the blood.

Before leaving the Louvre, on the morning of the boar-hunt, Charles has been prevailed upon by Catharine of Medicis, who, in consequence of the prediction already referred to, has vowed Henry's destruction, to sign a warrant for the King of Navarre's arrest and imprisonment in the Bastile. In this warrant she inserts the words, "dead or alive," and entrusts its execution to the assassin Maurevel, intimating to him that Henry's death will be more agreeable to her than his capture. Charles, however, learns that his mother has had an interview with Maurevel, guesses the fate reserved for Henry, and, as the least troublesome way of rescuing the man who had that day saved his life, he makes his brother-in-law accompany him to sup and pass the night out of the Louvre. Henry does not dare to refuse, although he is expecting a nocturnal visit from De Mouy in his apartment, and the two kings leave the palace together. Here is what passes after their departure.

It wanted two hours of midnight, and the most profound silence reigned in the Louvre. Margaret and the Duchess of Nevers had betaken themselves to their rendezvous in the Rue Tizon; Coconnas and La Mole had followed them; the Duke of Alençon remained in his apartment in vague and anxious expectation of the events which the queen-mother had predicted to him; finally, Catharine herself had retired to rest, and Madame de Sauve, seated at her bedside, was reading to her certain Italian tales, at which the good queen laughed heartily. For a long time, Catharine had not been in so complacent a humour. After making an excellent supper with her ladies, after holding a consultation with her physician, and making up the account of her day's expenditure, she had ordered prayers for the success of an enterprise, highly important, she said, to the happiness of her children. It was one of Catharine's Florentine habits to have prayers and masses said for the success of projects, the nature of which was known but to God and to herself.

Whilst Madame de Sauve is reading, a terrible cry and a pistol-shot are heard, followed by the noise of a struggle from the direction of the King of Navarre's apartment. All are greatly alarmed, except Catharine, who affects not to have heard the sounds, and forbids enquiry as to their cause, attributing them to some brawling guardsmen. At last the disturbance appears to have ceased.

"It is over," said Catharine. – "Captain," she continued, addressing herself to Monsieur de Nancey, "if there has been scandal in the palace, you will not fail to-morrow to have it severely punished. Go on reading, Carlotta."

And Catharine fell back upon her pillows. Only those nearest to her observed that large drops of perspiration were trickling down her face.

Madame de Sauve obeyed the formal order she had received, but with her eyes and voice only. Her imagination represented to her some terrible danger suspended over the head of him she loved. After a short struggle between emotion and etiquette, the former prevailed; her voice died away, the book fell from her hands, and she fainted. Just then a violent noise was heard; a heavy hurried step shook the corridor; two pistol-shots caused the windows to rattle in their frames, and Catharine, astonished at this prolonged struggle, sprang from her couch, pale, and with dilated eyeballs. The captain of the guard was hastening to the door, when she seized his arm.

"Let no one leave the room," she cried; "I will go myself to see what is occurring."

What was occurring, or rather what had occurred, was this: De Mouy had received, that morning, from Henry's page, Orthon, the key of the King of Navarre's apartment. In the hollow of the key was a small roll of paper, which he drew out with a pin. It contained the password to be used that night at the Louvre. Orthon had, moreover, delivered a verbal invitation from Henry to De Mouy, to visit him at the Louvre that night at ten o'clock.

At half-past nine, De Mouy donned a cuirass, of which the strength had been more than once tested; over this he buttoned a silken doublet, buckled on his sword, stuck his pistols in his belt, and covered the whole with the counterpart of La Mole's famous crimson mantle. Thanks to this well-known garment, and to the password with which he was provided, he passed the guards undiscovered, and went straight to Henry's apartment, imitating as usual, and as well as he could, La Mole's manner of walking. In the antechamber he found Orthon waiting for him.

"Sire de Mouy," said the lad, "the king is out, but he begs of you to wait, and, if agreeable, to throw yourself upon his bed till his return."

De Mouy entered without asking any further explanation, and by way of passing the time, took a pen and ink, and began marking the different stages from Paris to Pau upon a map of France that hung against the wall. This he had completed, however, in a quarter of an hour; and after walking two or three times round the room, and gaping twice as often, he took advantage of Henry's permission, and stretched himself upon the large bed, surrounded with dark hangings, which stood at the further end of the apartment. He placed his pistols and a lamp upon a table near at hand, laid his naked sword beside him, and certain not to be surprised, since Orthon was keeping watch in the antechamber, he sank into a heavy slumber, and was soon snoring in a manner worthy of the King of Navarre himself.

It was then that six men, with naked swords in their hands, and daggers in their girdles, stealthily entered the corridor upon which the door of Henry's apartment opened. A seventh man walked in front of the party, having, besides his sword, and a dagger as broad and as strong as a hunting-knife, a brace of pistols suspended to his belt by silver hooks. This man was Maurevel. On reaching Henry's door, he paused, introduced into the lock the key which he had received from the queen-mother, and, leaving two men at the outer door, entered the antechamber with the four others. "Ah, ha!" said he, as the loud breathing of the sleeper reached his ears from the inner room, "he is there."

Just then Orthon, thinking it was his master who was coming in, went to meet him, and found himself face to face with five armed men. At the sight of that sinister countenance, of that Maurevel, whom men called Tueur du Roi, the faithful lad stepped back, and placed himself before the second door.