CHAPTER LX
HIS DEMON HATH DESERTED HIM
The soldiers of the Duke of Brittany stood with bared swords anddeadly pikes around the Marshal de Retz and those of his servants whohad been taken--that is to say, round Poitou, Clerk Henriet, Blanquet,and Robin Romulart. About them surged ever more fiercely the angrypopulace, drunk with the hot wine of destruction, having been filledwith inconceivable fury by that which they had seen in the round towerwherein stood the filled bags of little charred remains.
"Tear the wolves into gobbets! Kill them! Burn them! Send them quickto Hell!" So ran the cry.
And twice and thrice the villagers of the Pays de Retz chargeddesperately as men who fight for their lives.
"Stand to it, men!" cried Pierre de l'Hopital. "Gilles de Retz shallhave fair trial!
"_But I shall try him!_" he added, under his breath.
Never was seen such a sight as the procession which conducted Gillesde Retz to the city of Nantes. The Duke had sent for his whole band ofsoldiers, and these, in ordered companies, marched in front and rear.A triple file guarded the prisoners, and even their levelled pikescould scarce beat back the furious rushes of the populace.
It was like a civil war, for the assailants struck fiercely at thesoldiers--as if in protecting him, they became accessory to the crimesof the hated marshal.
"_Barbe Bleu! Barbe Bleu!_" they cried. "Slay _Barbe Bleu_! Make hisbeard blood-red. He hath dipped it often in the life-blood of ourchildren. Now we will redden it with his own!"
So ran the tumult, surging and gathering and scattering. And ever thepikes of the guard flashed, and the ordered files shouldered a paththrough the press.
"Make way there!" cried the provost marshals. "Make way for theprisoners of the Duke!"
And as they entered the city, from behind and before, from all thewindows and roofs, rose the hoarse grunting roar of the hatred andcursing of a whole people.
But the object of all this rested calm and unmoved, and his cruel greyeye had no expression in it save a certain tolerant and amusedcontempt.
"Bah!" he muttered. "Would that I had slain ten millions of you! It ismy only regret that I had not the time. It is almost unworthy to diefor a few score children!"
During the journey to Nantes, Gilles de Retz kept the grand reservewith which, when he came to himself, he had treated those who hadcaptured him. To the Duke only would he condescend to reply, and tohim he rather spoke as an equal unjustly treated than as a guiltyprisoner and suppliant.
"For this, Sire of Brittany," he said, "must you answer to youroverlord, the King of France, whose minister and marshal I am!"
The Duke would have made some feeble reply, but Pierre de l'Hopitalcut across the conversation with that stern irony which characterisedhim.
"My lord," he said, "remember that before you were made Marshal ofFrance you were born a subject of the Duke of Brittany! And as suchyou shall be judged."
"I decline to stand at your tribunal!" said the marshal, haughtily.
"_Soit!_" said the President, indifferently, "but all the same youshall be tried!"
Duke John, knowing well that while his court was being held in thecapital city of his province, and especially during the trial ofGilles de Retz, Nantes was no place for young maidens who had sufferedlike Maud Lindesay and Margaret Douglas, sent them under escort to theCastle of Angers.
Sholto MacKim and his father were allowed to accompany them, that theymight not be without some of their own country to speak with duringtheir sojourn in France. The Lord James, however, elected to abidewith the court. For there were many ladies there, and, having nobilityof address and desiring to perfect himself in the niceties offashionable speech (which changed daily), he had great pleasure intheir society, and rode in the lists by the side of the Loire witheven more than his former gallantry and success.
For, as he said, he needed some compensation for the long abstinenceenforced upon him by his habit of holy palmer. And right amply did hemake himself amends, and was accounted by dames fair and free thelightsomest and properest Scot who had ever come into the land ofFrance.
With him Laurence remained, both because his father was still angrywith him on account of his desertion of them in Paris, and alsobecause having been so long in the Castle of Machecoul, there wereimportant matters concerning which in the forthcoming trial he alonecould give evidence.
Pierre de l'Hopital would have detained the Lady Sybilla as a possibleaccomplice of the Sieur de Retz, but by the intercession of theScottish maidens, as well as by the sworn evidence of Sholto and theLord James, testifying that wholly by her means Gilles de Retz hadfinally been caught red-handed, she was permitted to depart whithershe would.
"I will go to my sister," she said to Sholto, who came to know how hecould serve her. "It matters little. My work is nearly done!"
So, riding as was her custom all alone upon a white palfrey, shepassed out of their sight towards the south.
* * * * *
In the city of Nantes the rumour of the taking of Gilles de Retz hadspread like wild-fire, and as the cavalcade rode through the streets,the windows rained down curses and the citizens hooted up from thesidewalks. But the marshal kept his haughty and disdainful regard,appearing like a noble nature who perforce companies for the noncewith meaner men. He sat his favourite charger like a true companion ofDunois and De Richemont, and, as more than one remarked, on thisoccasion he looked like the royal prince and the Duke of Brittany theprisoner.
So in the New Tower of the Castle of Nantes, Gilles de Retz was placedto wait his trial. There is no need to give a long account of it. Thedocuments have been printed in plain letter, and all the world knowshow Clerk Henriet faltered under the stern questioning of Pierre del'Hopital, and how finally he declared fully all these iniquitieswithout parallel in which he had borne so cruel a part.
Poitou, more faithful to his master, held out till the threat oftorture and the appeals of his friend Henriet broke him down. But theattitude and bearing of the chief culprit deserve that the historianshould not wholly pass them over.
Even in his first haughty and contemptuous silence, Gilles de Retz wasshifting his ground, and with a cool unheated intelligence orientinghimself to new conditions. It soon became evident to his mind that thepowers of Evil in which he trusted, and to whose service he hadconsecrated his life and fortune, had befooled and betrayed him.
Well--even so would he fool them--if, by the grace of God, there wereyet any merit or hope in the service of Good. The priests said so. TheScripture said so, and they might be right after all. At least, thething was worth trying.
For a cold and calculating brain lay behind the worst excesses of theterrible Lord de Retz. The religion of the Cross might not be of muchfinal use--still, it was all that remained, and Gilles de Retzdetermined to avail himself of it. So once more he apostasised fromBarran-Sathanas to Jehovah.
With an effrontery almost too stupendous for belief, he arrayedhimself in the white robes of a Carmelite novice and spent his prisondays in singing litanies and in private confession with his religiousadviser.
When the great day of the trial at last arrived, the marshal, who hadexpected on the bench the weak kindly countenance of Duke John, wascalled upon to confront the indomitable judicial rectitude of Pierrede l'Hopital, President and Grand-Seneschal of Brittany.
Gilles de Retz appeared at his trial dressed in white of the richestmaterials and with all his military decorations upon him. But hisjudge, habited in stern and simple black, was not in the leastintimidated.
Then came the great surprise. After the evidence of Henriet and Poitouhad been read to him, the marshal was asked to plead. To the surpriseof all, the accused claimed benefit of clergy.
"I have been a great sinner," he said, "I have indeed deserved athousand deaths. But now I am a man of God. I have confessed. I havereceived absolution for all my sins. God has forgiven me, and my soulis cleansed!"
"Good!" answered Pierre de l'
Hopital, "I have nothing to do with yoursoul. I must leave that, as you very pertinently remark, to God. But Iam here to try your body, and if found guilty to condemn that body tosuffer the penalties by law provided according to the statutes ofBrittany."
Then Clerk Henriet was brought in to testify more fully of the crimesbeyond parallel in the history of mankind.
The court had been hung round with black, and the only object whichappeared prominent was a beautiful ivory crucifix with a noble figureof the Redeemer of Men carved upon it. This was suspended, accordingto the custom, over the head of the President of the Tribunal.
Henriet had not proceeded far with his terrible relation of well nighinconceivable crimes when he stopped.
"I cannot go on," he said, in a broken appealing voice; "I cannot tellwhat I have to tell with That Figure looking down upon me!"
So, with the whole Court standing up in reverence, the image of theMost Pitiful was solemnly veiled from sight, that such deeds ofdarkness might not be so much as named in that holy and graciouspresence.
And during the ceremony Friar Gilles of the order of the Carmelitesstood up more reverently than any, for now, seeing that no bettermight be, he had definitely renounced Barran-Sathanas and cast in hislot with God Almighty.
* * * * *
"The sentence of this court is that you, Gilles de Laval, Lord ofRetz, Marshal of France, and you, Poitou and Henriet, be carried tothe meadow of La Biesse at nine of the clock on the morning ofto-morrow, and that you be there hanged and burned till you be dead.And to God the Just One be the glory!"
The voice of Pierre de l'Hopital rang out through the silence of thehall of judgment.
"Amen!" said Friar Gilles, devoutly crossing himself.
And so in due course on the meadow of La Biesse, by the side of theblue Loire, the evil soul of Gilles de Retz went to its own place withall the paraphernalia of repentance and in the full odour of asomewhat hectic sanctity.
* * * * *
The day after the burning, a little company of riders left the city ofAngers, journeying westward along the Loire. It consisted of themaidens Margaret Douglas and Maud Lindesay, with Sholto MacKim and adozen horsemen belonging to his Grace of Brittany. It had beenarranged that they were to be joined, upon an eminence above the riveron the right bank, by the Lord James, Malise, and Laurence, with theescort which was to accompany them to the port of Saint Nazaire. There(as was necessary in order to escape the troublesome navigation of theswift and treacherous upper reaches) they would find vessels ready toset sail for Scotland.
As the little cloud of riders left behind them the black towers ofAngers, they passed through woodland glades wherein, in spite of thelateness of the season, the birds were singing. The air was mild anddelightsome. At last, leaving the river, they struck away inland,having the frowning towers of Champtoce on their left as they rode.Presently they came to a forest, wherein in days before the greatcruelty, Gilles de Retz had often hunted the wolf and the wild boar.
Here the woodland paths were covered deep with fallen leaves, and thenaked branches spoke of the desolation of a dead year.
As the maids rode forward first of their company and talked, as wasnatural, of that which had taken place the day before at Nantes, theybecame aware of the Lady Sybilla riding towards them on her palfrey ofwhite. She would have passed them without speech, with her headdowncast and her eyes fixed upon the dank ground with its coveringdrift of dead autumnal leaves.
But Margaret, grateful for that which the Lady Sybilla had done forthem at Machecoul, spurred her steed and rode thwartwise to intercepther.
"Sybilla," she said, "you will come with us to Scotland. I have manycastles there, and, they tell me, a princessdom of mine own. We shallall be happy together and forget these ill times. Maud and I can neverrepay that which you have done for us."
"Yes, I pray you come with us," said Maud, a little more slowly, "wewill be your sisters, and the ill times shall not come again."
The Lady Sybilla smiled a sad subtle smile and shook her head.
"I thank you. I thank you more than you know. It eases my heart thatyou should forgive a woman such as I for all the evil she has broughtyou and yours. But I am now no fit companion for you or any. I ambecome but a wandering shape, speaking to one who cannot answer, andseeking him whom I can never find."
The little Maid, being but a child, mistook her meaning.
"No, no," she cried, "your life is not done. If the one whom you lovehath left you unkindly--well, bide awhile, and when the first smart ispassed, we will marry you to some braver and more handsome knight.There are many such in Scotland. I pray you come with Maud and me evenas we wish you. Why, there would not be three like us in all the land.I wager we will set kings by the ears between us. Though, as for me, Ican only marry a Douglas!"
The smile of the Lady Sybilla grew ever sadder and ever sweeter.
"The man whom I loved, and who loved me, I betrayed to the death.There is no forgiveness for such as I in this life. Perhaps there maybe in the next. At least, _he_ forgave me, and that is enough. Hebelieved in me against myself, and I will wait. Till then I go hitherand thither and none shall hinder me or molest--for upon Sybilla deThouars God hath set the seal of Cain!"
Margaret Douglas flicked her steed impatiently, causing the spiritedlittle beast to curvet.
"I think it is very ill-done of you not to come to Scotland with us,"she said petulantly, "when we would have been so good to you!"
"Too good, too kind," said the Lady Sybilla, very gently; "suchkindness is not for such as I am. But if I may, while I live I willkeep the golden cross you lent me--the crucifix your brother gave toyou on your birthday!"
"Keep it--it is yours! I do not want it!" cried Margaret, glad to havefound some way of evidencing her gratitude.
"I thank you," said Sybilla de Thouars; "some day I may come toScotland. And if I do, you shall come out from Thrieve and meet me bythe white thorns of the Carlinwark at the hour when the littlechildren sing!"
And so, without other farewell, she turned and rode slowly away downthe avenues of fallen leaves, till the folding woodlands hid her fromthe sight of those two who watched her with tear-blurred eyes andhearts strangely stirred with pity for the fate of her whom they hadonce hated with such good cause.