Traitor and True

"To your knees," whispered the priests to the unhappy conspirators. "To your knees and hear the sentences passed on you."

"This," said the Greffier of the Judges when all were kneeling, Van den Enden being assisted and held up between the two guards, "is the decree of the High Court of his Majesty the King. You, Louis, Chevalier and Prince de Beaurepaire, late Colonel of all his Majesty's Guards and Grand Veneur of France, are adjudged guilty of high treason and lèse-majeste. You, Francois Affinius van den Enden, are adjudged guilty of the same. You, La Preaux, falsely styling yourself Chevalier and known to many under an assumed name, are adjudged guilty of the same. The woman Louise de Belleau de Cortonne, widow of Jacques de Mallorties, Seigneur de Villers and Boudéville, styling herself falsely Emérance, Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville, is found guilty of the same."

"The Lord's will be done," said the two priests solemnly.

"For you, Louis de Beaurepaire, Prince et Chevalier," continued the Greffier, "the sentence is that you be decapitated to-morrow at three of the afternoon in front of this, his Majesty's fortress of the Bastille. If your body is claimed by your family it will be given up for burial. At that burial no insignia of your offices of Colonel of his Majesty's Guards and Grand Veneur may be placed upon your bier, or coffin, nor may your Chevalier's sword and fourreau en croix be so placed. All your goods are confiscated to the King."

"God save the King!" exclaimed De Beaurepaire.

"For you, La Preaux," continued the Greffier, "the sentence is that you be decapitated at the same time and place as the Prince Louis de Beaurepaire, and in company with him and the woman Louise de Belleau de Cortonne."

"Ah," murmured De Beaurepaire. "Ah! Emérance and I shall be happy at last. We dreamt of a union. At last we shall be united."

"I thank my judges and the King-though they have misjudged me-for recognising my claims to gentle blood," exclaimed Fleur de Mai.

"For you, Van den Enden," again went on the Greffier, "the sentence is that you be hanged by the neck on a gibbet near unto the scaffold on which your companions in guilt must die. And your goods, like the goods of those companions, are confiscated to the King. Amen."

"I shall not leave you till the end," Bourdaloue whispered in De Beaurepaire's ears as the prisoners were now escorted back to their cells. "My son, may God have mercy on you."

"I pray so, holy father. He knows I have need of mercy."

"As have all of us. Come, my son, come."

At the same hour, almost at the same moment, a different scene, though one which owed its existence to the trial now concluded, was being enacted at St. Germain, where the Court now was.

Seated in his chair, advanced three feet from the brilliant circle that surrounded him, Le Roi Soleil witnessed the representation of Cinna, that superb tragedy which Corneille-stung by the criticisms on Le Cid of those who were deemed his rivals, and doubly stung by the criticisms of those who could by no possibility whatever possess the right of deeming themselves his rivals-had determined should outvie the former masterpiece. By connivance with those who fondly hoped that this play-written immediately after a preceding Norman Rebellion had been crushed-might soften the King's heart towards his whilom companion, it had been selected by the chamberlains for that evening's representation. Never, perhaps, had a greater tribute been paid to genius than this now paid to the dramatist!

Throughout the play, Louis had sat unmoved in his chair, though all present remarked that no word or action of the players was lost by him.

But when, at the end, Augustus Cæsar, having, discovered the treachery of Cinna, resolved to pardon the latter and thus win back his fidelity, the King was observed to move restlessly.

As Monvel, the actor who played the part of Cæsar, speaking with deep impressiveness uttered the superb speech commencing: -

Soyons amis, Cinna.

Tu trahis mes bienfaits, je les veux redoubler.

Je t'en avois comblé, je t'en veux accabler,

Louis' hand was raised to his head and it seemed as though he swiftly brushed away some tears that had sprung to his eyes.

While, a moment later, those seated next to him heard him, or thought they heard him, mutter the words: -

"For the treachery to myself I might have pardoned him. For that against France, for making a pact with her enemies, I can never pardon him."

CHAPTER XXVI

The royal supper, au grand couvert, was that night a melancholy one. Surrounded, as was always the case, by the sons and daughters of his royal house as well as the grandsons and granddaughters, and also by those ladies of highest rank to whom the right was accorded of supping at the royal table, the King sat silent and meditative. It was observed, too, that his Majesty's fine appetite had failed him to-night and that he scarcely ate anything, in spite of this being the meal for which he cared most. The thirty violins that usually played nightly in the gallery of the antechamber were, on this occasion, silent, since the King had ordered that there should be no music; the talk and chatter that, in discreet limitation, usually went on at the second table was now almost entirely suppressed; a gloom had fallen over the Court which, from the august ruler downwards, none seemed able to shake off. Rousing himself, however, from the melancholy that had obtained possession of him to-night-a melancholy produced more by the knowledge that there was no possibility of pardon for his early playmate than by even the reflection that, on the morrow, this playmate was to atone for his treachery on the scaffold-Louis rose from his seat and left the table, while all present rose at the same moment.

"De Brissac," the King said to that officer, who now filled and, until the new Colonel of Guards should be appointed, would fill the place of the unhappy man who was to die to-morrow at three o'clock; "there will be no audience to-night in my bedchamber. Inform the Court," after which the King bowed to all who were present and retired. Yet, so strong was habit that, as he passed a little antechamber on his way to his bedroom he stopped and, going into it alone, saw that his pet spaniels had been fed and were comfortable for the night.

"De la Ruffardière," he said to a young nobleman present in the bedroom, to whom at this time had fallen the privilege of removing the King's coat, waistcoat and shirt before handing his Majesty over to the care of the premier valet, "I will dispense with your attendance to-night, and yours," addressing the valet. "I am-fatigued-and would be alone. Bid De Brissac have the guard set at once in the corridor and changed as quietly as possible. Good-night. Heaven have you in its holy keeping."

"Sire," the Marquis de la Ruffardière ventured to say. "I-I-there is a-"

"What is it?" the King asked, looking fixedly at the young man. "What is it-?"

"Sire, a-a lady has arrived to-night. She begs audience of your Majesty. She-"

"Who is the lady?"

"Sire, it is the Princesse de Beaurepaire."

"The Princesse de Beaurepaire! Here! At St. Germain."

"Here, sire. In the blue antechamber. On her arrival your Majesty's Intendant had a suite of rooms prepared for her. But, sire, she implores leave to speak with your Majesty."

"This is the bitterest stroke of all," the King murmured to himself. "His mother and almost mine. Heaven!" Then, addressing the Marquis aloud, he said: "I will, I must, go to her. No," he said, seeing that the other made as if he would accompany him. "No. Remain here. This is-I-I-must go alone." Passing through the door which the Marquis rushed forward to open, Louis went down a small passage and, softly turning the handle of the door, entered the blue antechamber. "Madame," he said very gently, as he perceived the Princess rise suddenly from the fauteuil on which she had been seated, or, rather, huddled, "Madame. Ah! that we should meet thus. Oh! madame!" and taking her hand he bent over it and kissed it.

"Mercy, sire," the Princess cried, flinging herself at once at the King's feet. "Mercy! Mercy for my unhappy son. Nay," she said, as Louis endeavoured with extreme gentleness to raise her to her feet, "nay, nay, let me stay here. Here until you have granted my prayer. Louis!" throwing aside all ceremony in her agony, "spare him. Spare him. Ah! you cannot, you will not, slay him, evil as he has been, evilly as he has acted towards you Louis," she cried again as, releasing his hand now, she placed both hers upon her bosom. "Louis, even as he when a child lay on this breast, so, too, did you. As your mother would take you from her bosom to place on mine, so have I taken him from mine to place on hers. We were almost foster mothers as you were almost foster brothers! Ah! sire, as there is One above and He the only One from whom you can sue for mercy, so let me sue for and win mercy on earth from the only one who can accord it." "I am not the only one. He is condemned by his judges. Doomed. If I spare him, then must I spare all who henceforth conspire against me; then have I been merciless to all whom I have hitherto refused to spare for their treachery. For their infidelity."

"Their treachery! Their infidelity! And his! His treachery and infidelity! Do you deem that I do not see it, know it, hate and despise it? Do you think that I, Anne de Beaurepaire-that I, who was the proudest woman in your father's Court, that I whom your father-who hated all other women-alone loved, do not hate and despise my son's acts? Ah! Ah!" she sobbed, "I hate and loathe his infidelity but, God help and pity me! I love the infidel, and he is-my-child. Ah! Louis, Louis," she continued, and now not only had she possessed herself of the King's hand but, with her other disengaged hand, had grasped him above the elbow so that he could not free himself from her; "think of it. Think. Think. Short of making me his Queen, which he could not do, while on my part I would be naught else than that to him, your father loved me so well that there was nothing I could ask that he would not have granted. He who detested all other women; he, the woman hater! It cannot be that his child will not spare my child. My only child, since his brother, Léon, is imbecile. Ah! I have but one; do not deprive me of that only one."

"Madame," the King replied, while still endeavouring to lift the unhappy Princess to her feet and while the tears streamed from his own eyes as he witnessed her tears falling. "I-I-it rests not with me. There are others to whom are confided-"

"Others," she wailed, yet still with some of her haughty contempt left in her tones. "Others. What others? De Louvois, who reeks of the roture. De Louvois the plebeian; La Reynie whose name should be Le Renard; that woman who weaves her toils-"

"Madame, silence! I command-nay, nay, I beg of you to be silent. Not a word of-"

"Ah! I am distraught. I know not what I say. Yet if you will not hear me nor have mercy on me, at least have mercy on my grief and sorrow. See-see-Louis de Bourbon-I kneel at your feet in supplication even as once your father knelt at mine, and-God help me! – you are as inexorable to me as I was to him; yet I kneel in a better, a nobler hope. Sire!" she continued in her misery. "Sire, look on me! If you will not pity me, pity my tears, my supplications; see how abject I am. I-I-Anne de Beaurepaire, who never thought to sue to mortal man. Ah! be not so pitiless, Louis! You! of whom it has been said that you are never wantonly cruel."

"Nor am I now," the King exclaimed, his face convulsed with grief and emotion. "It is not I, but France. Had Lou-the Prince de Beaurepaire-and I been simple gentlemen; had he but aimed his treacherous shaft against me and my life, then he might have gone in peace for the sake of our childhood together, for the sake of the noble Anne, his mother, whom," his voice sinking to a murmur, "my austere father could not refrain from loving. But it was against France. France and her ancient laws and rights; her throne; all that makes France what she is, all that makes your proud race-a race as proud as my own, or as the race of Guise, or Bretagne, or Montmorenci, or Courtenai-what it is. France, for which I stand here the symbol and representative; France which has but one other name-Bourbon."

"Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!" the Princess wailed. "As you are great, as you are Louis the Bourbon, be great in your pardon. Show mercy to a broken-hearted woman."

"If I might I would. But if I spare him, having spared none other who conspired against France, will France spare me? Will she pardon her unjust steward? And there are others. The Council, the great Ministers-"

"Yet," the Princess cried, "it is you who have said, 'L'Etat c'est moi'. You, whose 'Je le veux' none have ever dared to question and still live."

"Nevertheless," the King said, still very gently while sick at heart at being forced to so reply, "he dared-"

"And," she sobbed, loosing her grasp on his hand and arm as she fell an inert mass to the floor; "therefore must die."

After which she lay motionless, her superb grey hair, which, in her emotion had become dishevelled, making a white patch upon the rich, blood-red Segoda carpet.

Kneeling now by the side of the unhappy mother upon whose breast, as she had said, he had so often been soothed in infancy, the King endeavoured in every way to restore her to sensibility and raise her from the position to which she had fallen. He kissed and rubbed her hands again and again; he whispered words of comfort and affection into her now deaf ears, and said all that one might say to comfort a broken-hearted woman, except that which alone might have called her back to sense and happiness-a promise of pardon for her son.

After which, finding that it was impossible to restore her by his own efforts, the King left the room quietly, went back to his bedroom and, summoning the Marquis de la Ruffardière to assist him, returned to the blue antechamber.

"Poor lady," he said, looking down at the Princess, "she has swooned at learning that there is no hope of pardon for him. Can we convey her to the rooms the Intendant has set apart for her?"

"Doubtless, sire, if your Majesty will permit yourself-"

"Permit myself! In my childhood she has often rocked me to sleep in her arms!"

"Perhaps one of her women, sire, might also assist-"

"When we have conveyed her to her apartments. But, first, go out to the corridor and bid the guard retire for a quarter of an hour. There must be no prying eyes to witness the weakness of the noble Anne de Beaurepaire."

So, when the Marquis had obeyed this order and bidden the sentries leave the principal corridor till he summoned them back, he and the King lifted the Princess gently from the floor and conveyed her to the rooms set apart for her, after which they handed her over to the care of the women she had brought with her on the long, swift journey from Nancy.

Followed by the Marquis, the King returned to his bedchamber and prepared to retire, the assistance of the former being now accepted. Yet, while Louis was gradually undressed by De la Ruffardière who removed his shoes and stockings as well as his clothes, since the premier valet had long since departed on receiving his dismissal for the night, the King sighed heavily more than once; and more than once, too, the Marquis observed that the tears stood in his eyes. And, once also, he murmured to himself: "It is his last night on earth. His last night. Stay with me," he commanded as, after rising from his prayers, he prepared to get into his bed. "Stay with me, De la Ruffardière. You can sleep here on the lounge or in the antechamber, can you not?"

"Sire, I will not sleep. Rather may I crave to be allowed to keep guard in the antechamber."

"Nay! nay! Sleep. Rest is needful to all. Extinguish all light, except the night-lamp. Good-night, De la Ruffardière."

"Good-night, your Majesty. God bless your Majesty and grant you a peaceful night's rest."

"Amen," the King said, sighing deeply.

When, however, the guard was being changed in front of the château, and the exchange of sign and countersign could be plainly heard by the Marquis who was lying wide awake on the lounge at the foot of the great ruelle of the King's bed, Louis spoke and called him by name.

"Here, sire," the other said, springing off the couch. "How fares it with your Majesty?"

"Sad at heart. Sad. Sad. De la Ruffardière, tell me frankly; here to-night and alone as we are-tell me as man to man-what is the character I bear with my people? Do they deem me a cruel ruler?"

"Ah, sire! The noblest King who has ever adorned a throne. Bountiful, magnanimous-"

"What," the king continued, scarcely pausing to hear the answer he knew must come from a courtier, "what is thought of De Beaurepaire's punishment? Am I deemed implacable?"

"Sire," the other said, hardly daring to answer him, yet forcing himself to do so, "if he should go free what shall be the reward of those who have never wavered in their loyalty to, and love of, your Majesty?"

"Ah," Louis said. "Ah, 'tis true."

After this, the King seemed to sleep, yet, ere the time came for him to awake and give the usual audience in bed to all the courtiers, he spoke to the Marquis a second time.

"You are a friend of De Courtenai?" he asked.

"I am, sire."

"Does he, do all of his family, regret the Byzantine throne they once sat on? Do they who were once Kings, they who are akin to the throne of France, regret their present poverty and lowliness?"

"They have never said so, sire, to my knowledge. They are content to be simple gentlemen. The men are plain soldiers, giving their swords to France, the women to rearing their children as children having the blood of De Courtenai in them. Sire, bon sang ne peut mentir."

"They should be happy, very happy," Louis murmured. "The throne they lost could not outvie the gentle, simple life, nor the absence of trouble, care and heartache. De la Ruffardière, pray God that none whom you love may ever attain to a throne."

CHAPTER XXVII

It was, as the King had whispered to himself, De Beaurepaire's last night on earth, as it was also of those others. Of the woman he loved; of the vagabond who, bully though he might be, had been staunch and inflexible; of the old man who, the chief conspirator of all, was now to suffer the most ignominious of deaths.

In the chamber in the Bastille allotted to De Beaurepaire the prisoner sat now before the fire musing on what all would say when they knew of his end; of what his friends who had loved him well would feel, and of how his enemies, of whom he had so many, would gloat over his downfall. Naturally he thought also of the women who had loved him once and the women who loved him now, in this his darkest hour.

"The women who love me now!" he said to himself. "Who are they? Who? My mother and-and-Emérance. Emérance who is not fifty paces away from me, Emérance who dies by my side to-morrow, yet whom I may not see until, to-morrow, we stand on the same scaffold together. And then but for a moment ere the axe falls."

"Whom I may not see until to-morrow," he repeated. "Not until to-morrow."

And again he said to himself, "Not until to-morrow," while adding: "And there are so many long hours until three o'clock to-morrow!"

As though to corroborate this thought there boomed out the tones of the prison clock striking midnight, the sound being followed an instant later by the deeper boom of the great bell of Notre Dame and then by that of the other clocks in the city.

"Midnight," De Beaurepaire said. "Midnight. Fifteen hours yet of life, fifteen hours spent apart from her! And she here, close by. Ah! it is hard."

He rose from the chair he sat in and went across to the other side of the great fireplace where, in another chair, was seated the Père Bourdaloue reading his breviary. Some time before this the priest had prayed with him and would do so again at intervals during the night, while later-before the end came to-morrow-he would confess and absolve the condemned man as his brother priest would confess and absolve the others, with the exception of Van den Enden, who was resolute not to see either priest or minister of any faith. Now, however, as has been said, the good man read his breviary.

"Father," the condemned man said, standing before him and waiting to speak until he looked up from his book, "Father, help me to see her. I must see her ere we meet there. Below. Help me to bid her a last, a long farewell."

"To see her, my son! The woman who has brought you to this?"

"Nay! nay! Never. None has brought me to this but my own self; my own wickedness, my treachery and ambition. Above all, not she. Instead, her undoing lies heavy at my charge. Had she not loved me with a love passing the love of women, she might have gone free, have escaped. But-but-she grappled herself to me out of that great love and, as I fell, she fell with me. Let me see her once more. Here. To-night."

"What has this love of yours and hers been, Louis de Beaurepaire? The love that honours a woman in its choice, or the mad frenzy, the wild passion, the evil desires that sweep all boundaries and obstacles and laws aside even as the torrent sweeps aside all that stands in its way?"

"An honest love, heaven be praised. On my part the love of the captor for the poor maimed thing he has caught in his hand, and, even in bruising, soothes and comforts too. The love of one who cannot put aside that which, in capturing, he has thus come to love. Yet, further-"

"Yes. What?"

"Our love was not evil. For even as it quickened in our hearts we saw before us a pure, a nobler life that might, that should, be ours. If we had escaped from this our doom; had we never been taken, or, being taken, had we by chance been let go free-we should have wed. Our vows were sworn and deeply, too; they would have been kept."

"You would have kept them knowing what she was?"

"As she would have kept hers knowing what I was. What better am I than she? An intriguer, a traitor, even as she is an intrigante, a traitress; yet without her reasons, without her love of her own province as excuse, as extenuation. Had we wedded, our marriage would have but made us more akin and equal."

"If this is in your heart, the chance is still yours. Your vows may still be fulfilled. Louis de Beaurepaire, remembering who and what you are, remembering also who and what she is-as all learnt who were in the Arsenal at your confrontations-are you willing to make this woman your wife to-night?"

"Willing! To-night! Ay! willing a thousandfold. God help her! she has had no return for her attachment to such as I am; if this be an expiation, an atonement from me to her-even at this our last hour-it shall be hers. And-and-" he murmured so low that scarcely could the priest hear him, "for me it will be happiness extreme. To die by her side though only as her lover might have brought its little share of comfort; to die by her side-I her husband, she my wife-will make death happiness. Yet," he exclaimed, looking down suddenly at the priest from his great height, "can you do this? Can this be lawful? Without flaw or blemish?"

"In our holy Church's eyes? Yes."

"And in the law's eyes?"

"The law cannot over-rule us."

"Hasten then, father, to make us one."

"I will go seek the Lieutenant du Roi, yet it needs not even that. Alas! too often have I passed the last night in this place with other prisoners to make any permission necessary for what I do. Yet this I must do," he said, withdrawing the key of the door from his pocket, putting it in the lock and then opening the door itself.

And De Beaurepaire, observing, smiled grimly.

"I could not escape if I would, yet I have no thought of that," he said. "He who awaits at the altar steps the woman he loves seeks flight no more than I who now await her."

After he had heard the key turned in the lock outside, he sat down in his chair again and gave himself up to further meditation. Perhaps-it might well be! – he thought in those moments of all that he had thrown away, with, last of all, his life: perhaps he thought how he, who had once been the chosen comrade of the King, was now to meet his death for his treachery to that King. Above all he must have thought of the proud, handsome woman who was his mother; the woman who, haughty, disdainful of all others, had worshipped and idolised him. And she was not yet old, he remembered; in spite of the early blanching of her hair she was not yet fifty, and he had entailed upon her so bitter a shame that, henceforth, her once great life must be passed in grey, dull obscurity. Her life that had hitherto been so splendid and bright!