CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHICOT, LATINIST.
After the departure of the young men, Chicot went on quietly; but assoon as they had disappeared in the valley, he stopped at the top of ahill and looked all round him; then, seeing no one, he seated himself,and commenced an examination. He had now two purses, for he perceivedthat the packet he had received contained money, besides the letter. Itwas quite a royal purse, embroidered with an "H" at each end.
"It is pretty," said Chicot, "no one could be more generous or morestupid. Decidedly I shall never make anything of the king. All thatastonishes me is that he did not have the letter embroidered outsidealso. Now let me see how much money he has sent. One hundred crowns;just the sum I borrowed from Gorenflot. Ah! pardon, Henri, this is good.But the purse annoys me; if I were to keep it I should feel as if thevery birds, as they flew over my head, would denounce me as a royalmessenger."
So saying, he drew from his pocket Gorenflot's bag, emptied the king'smoney into it, then placed a stone in the purse, and threw it into theOrge, which flowed under the bridge at his feet.
"So much for myself--now for Henri," said Chicot; and he took up theletter, broke the seal with the utmost tranquillity, and sent theenvelope into the river after the purse. "Now," said he, "let us read.
"'Dear brother, the deep love which you felt for our late dear brother and king, Charles IX., still clings to the Louvre and to my heart; it grieves me, therefore, to have to write to you about vexatious things. You are strong, however, against ill fortune, so that I do not hesitate to communicate these things to you--things which can only be told to a tried friend. Besides, I have an interest in warning you--the honor of my name and of your own, my brother. We resemble each other in one thing, that we are each surrounded with enemies. Chicot will explain to you.
"'M. de Turenne, your servant, causes daily scandal at your court; God forbid that I should interfere in your affairs, except where your honor is concerned; but your wife, whom to my regret I call my sister, should be more careful than she is of your honor. I advise you, therefore, to watch the communications of Margot with Turenne, that she does not bring shame on the house of Bourbon. Act as soon as you shall be sure of the fact, into which I pray you to inquire as soon as Chicot shall have explained to you my letter.
"'Those whom as brother and king I denounce to you, generally meet at a little chateau called Loignac, the pretext being generally the chase. This chateau is, besides, the focus for intrigues to which the Guises are not strangers, and you know the strange love with which my sister pursued Henri de Guise. I embrace you, and am ever ready to aid you in all, and for all; meanwhile aid yourself by the advice of Chicot, whom I send to you. Your affectionate,' etc.
"_Age auctore Chicot_," said Chicot, "here am I, installed counselor ofthe king of Navarre! This seems to me a bad commission, and in flyingone ill, I have fallen into a worse one. Really, I should almost preferMayenne. But the letter is clever, and if Henriot be like otherhusbands, it will embroil him at once with his wife, Turenne, theGuises, and even with Spain. But if Henri de Valois is so well informedof all that passes in Navarre, he must have some spy there.
"Then, again," continued he, "this letter will lead me into mischief ifI meet a Spaniard, a Lorraine, a Bearnais, or a Fleming curious enoughto wish to know what brings me here, and I should be very foolish not toremember that there is a chance of that. M. Borromee, above all, Isuspect may play me some trick. Besides, what did I seek in asking theking for this mission? Tranquillity. And now I am going to embroil theking of Navarre with his wife. However, that is not my affair, exceptthat I shall make mortal enemies, who will prevent me from ever reachingthe happy age of eighty.
"Ma foi! but that is not much, for it is only worth living when you areyoung. But then I might as well have waited for the knife of M. deMayenne. However, I will take precautions, and will translate this fineletter into Latin, and engrave it on my memory; then I will buy a horse,because from Juvisy to Pau I should have too often to put the right footbefore the left if I walked--but first I will destroy this letter."
This he proceeded to do; tearing it into an infinite number of littlepieces, sending some into the river, others into the air, and buryingthe rest in holes in the ground.
"Now let me think of my Latin theme," said he; and this study occupiedhim until he arrived at Corbeil, where he bestowed a glance at thecathedral, but fixed an earnest look at a traiteur's, whence came anappetizing smell of dinner. We will not describe either the dinner hemade or the horse he bought; suffice it to say that the dinner was longand the horse was bad.