THE VALOIS SAGA: Queen Margot, Chicot de Jester & The Forty-Five Guardsmen (Historical Novels). Alexandre Dumas

Coconnas.

      His first move was to repair to the Rue de l’Arbre Sec and to enter Maître La Hurière’s, for La Mole remembered that he had often repeated to the Piedmontese a certain Latin motto which was meant to prove that Love, Bacchus, and Ceres are gods absolutely necessary to us, and he hoped that Coconnas, to follow up the Roman aphorism, had gone to the Belle Étoile after a night which must have been as full for his friend as it had been for himself.

      La Mole found nothing at La Hurière’s except the reminder of the assumed obligation. A breakfast which was offered with good grace was eagerly accepted by our gentleman, in spite of his anxiety. His stomach calmed in default of his mind, La Mole resumed his walk, ascending the bank of the Seine like a husband searching for his drowned wife. On reaching the quay of the Grève, he recognized the place where, as he had said to Monsieur d’Alençon, he had been stopped during his nocturnal tramp three or four hours before. This was no unusual thing in Paris, older by a hundred years than that in which Boileau was awakened at the sound of a ball piercing his window shutter. A bit of the plume from his hat remained on the battle-field. The sentiment of possession is innate in man. La Mole had ten plumes each more beautiful than the last, and yet he stopped to pick up that one, or, rather, the sole fragment of what remained of it, and was contemplating it with a pitiful air when he heard the sound of heavy steps approaching, and rough voices ordering him to stand aside. La Mole raised his head and perceived a litter preceded by two pages and accompanied by an outrider. La Mole thought he recognized the litter, and quickly stepped aside.

      The young man was not mistaken.

      “Monsieur de la Mole!” exclaimed a sweet voice from the litter, while a hand as white and as smooth as satin drew back the curtains.

      “Yes, madame, in person,” replied La Mole bowing.

      “Monsieur de la Mole with a plume in his hand,” continued the lady in the litter. “Are you in love, my dear monsieur, and are you recovering lost traces?”

      “Yes, madame,” replied La Mole, “I am in love, and very much so. But just now these are my own traces that I have found, although they are not those for which I am searching. But will your majesty permit me to inquire after your health?”

      “It is excellent, monsieur; it seems to me that I have never been better. This probably comes from the fact of my having spent the night in retreat.”

      “Ah! in retreat!” said La Mole, looking at Marguerite strangely.

      “Well, yes; what is there surprising in that?”

      “May I, without indiscretion, ask you in what convent?”

      “Certainly, monsieur, I make no mystery of it; in the convent of the Annonciade. But what are you doing here with this startled air?”

      “Madame, I too passed the night in retreat, and in the vicinity of the same convent. This morning I am looking for my friend who has disappeared, and in seeking him I came upon this plume.”

      “Whom does it belong to? Really, you frighten me about him; the place is a bad one.”

      “Your majesty may be reassured; the plume belongs to me. I lost it here about half-past five, as I was escaping from the hands of four bandits who tried with all their might to murder me, or at least I think they did.”

      Marguerite repressed a quick gesture of terror.

      “Oh! tell me about it!” said she.

      “Nothing is easier, madame. It was, as I have had the honor to tell your majesty, about five o’clock in the morning.”

      “And you were already out at five o’clock in the morning?” interrupted Marguerite.

      “Your majesty will excuse me,” said La Mole, “I had not yet returned.”

      “Ah! Monsieur de la Mole! you returned at five o’clock in the morning!” said Marguerite with a smile which was fatal for every one, and which La Mole was unfortunate enough to find adorable; “you returned so late, you merited this punishment!”

      “Therefore I do not complain, madame,” said La Mole, bowing respectfully, “and I should have been cut to pieces had I not considered myself a hundred times more fortunate than I deserve to be. But I was returning late, or early, as your majesty pleases, from that fortunate house in which I had spent the night in retreat, when four cut-throats rushed from the Rue de la Mortellerie and pursued me with indescribably long knives. It is grotesque, is it not, madame? but it is true — I had to run away, for I had forgotten my sword.”

      “Oh! I understand,” said Marguerite, with an admirably naïve manner, “and you have come back to find your sword?”

      La Mole looked at Marguerite as though a suspicion flashed through his mind.

      “Madame, I would return to some place and very willingly too, since my sword is an excellent blade, but I do not know where the house is.”

      “What, monsieur?” exclaimed Marguerite. “You do not know where the house is in which you passed the night?”

      “No, madame, and may Satan exterminate me if I have any idea!”

      “Well this is strange! your story, then, is a romance?”

      “A true romance, as you say, madame.”

      “Tell it to me.”

      “It is somewhat long.”

      “Never mind, I have time.”

      “And, above all, it is improbable.”

      “Never mind, no one could be more credulous than I.”

      “Does your majesty command me?”

      “Why, yes; if necessary.”

      “In that case I obey. Last evening, having left two adorable women with whom we had spent the evening on the Saint Michel bridge, we took supper at Maître La Hurière’s.”

      “In the first place,” said Marguerite, perfectly naturally, “who is Maître La Hurière?”

      “Maître La Hurière, madame,” said La Mole, again glancing at Marguerite with the suspicion he had already felt, “Maître La Hurière is the host of the inn of the Belle Étoile in the Rue de l’Arbre Sec.”

      “Yes, I can see it from here. You were supping, then, at Maître La Hurière’s with your friend Coconnas, no doubt?”

      “Yes, madame, with my friend Coconnas, when a man entered and handed us each a note.”

      “Were they alike?” asked Marguerite.

      “Exactly alike. They contained only a single line:

      “‘You are awaited in the Rue Saint Antoine, opposite the Rue Saint Jouy.’”

      “And had the note no signature?” asked Marguerite.

      “No; only three words — three charming words which three times promised the same thing, that is to say, a three-fold happiness.”

      “And what were these three words?”

      “Eros, Cupido, Amor.”

      “In short, three sweet words; and did they fulfil what they promised?”

      “Oh! more, madame, a hundred times more!” cried La Mole with enthusiasm.

      “Continue. I am curious to know who was waiting for you in the Rue Saint Antoine, opposite the Rue de Jouy.”

      “Two duennas, each with a handkerchief in her hand. They said we must let them bandage our eyes. Your majesty may imagine that it was not a difficult thing to have done. We bravely extended our necks. My guide turned me to the left, my friend’s guide turned him to the right, and we were separated.”

      “And then?” continued Marguerite, who seemed determined to carry out the investigation to the end.

      “I