One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre. G. P. R. James
were I so inclined."
"As easy as sit here and sew," cried Beatrice. "Here is the King claims the disposal of your hand, and the League claims it too; and, between them both, you can give it to whom you will. Fly from Paris! Betake yourself where you will, but not to the court of Henry; for his tyranny might be greater than even that of the League. Then, make your choice. Give your hand to him you love; and be quite sure, that the party that your good lord shall join will sanction your marriage with all accustomed forms."
"But if I love no one?" said Eugenie, with a smile.
"Why then, live in single simplicity till you do," replied Beatrice, with an incredulous shake of the head. "But, at all events, fly from the yoke they now put upon you."
"Fly, Beatrice?" answered Eugenie; "fly, and how? How am I to fly, with a city beleaguered on all sides; a watchful Argus in the League, with its thousand eyes all round me: having none to guide me, and not knowing where to go;--how am I to fly?"
"By a thousand ways," answered her friend, laughing at her embarrassment. "Change your dress, in the first place: put on a petticoat of crimson satin embroidered with green, together with a black velvet body and sleeves, cut in the fashion of the Duchess of Valentinois, of blessed memory!--a cloak of straw-coloured silk, a capuche of light blue cloth broidered with gold, a mass of grey hair under a black cap, and a vertugadin of four feet square. Dress yourself thus, and call yourself Madame la Presidente de Noailles; and, by my word, the guards will let you pass all the gates, and thank God to get rid of you! Or, if that does not suit you, take the gown and bonnet of a young advocate," she continued in the same gay tone; "hide those pretty lips and that rounded chin under a false beard from Armandi's; and be very sure the guards would as soon think of stopping you as they would of stopping the prince of darkness, who, after all, is the real governor of this great city. Nothing keeps you here but fear, my Eugenie! Why, I will undertake to go in and out twenty times a day, if I please."
"Ay, but you have a bolder heart than I have," answered Eugenie de Menancourt; "and I know full well, Beatrice, that a thing which, executed with a good courage, is done with ease, miscarries at the first step when it is attempted by timidity and fear. The very thought of wandering through the gates of Paris alone makes me shrink."
"But I will go with you, Eugenie," replied Beatrice, "and will answer for success whenever you like to make the attempt."
Eugenie paused, and thought for several moments, fixing her fine eyes upon vacancy with a faint smile and a longing look, as if she would fain have taken advantage of her friend's proposal, yet dared not make the attempt. "Not yet, dear Beatrice--not yet!" she answered: "I dare not, indeed, unless some sharp necessity happens to give me temporary courage. As long as they refrain from urging me to wed one I can never love, and from pressing on me any other in his room, so long will I stay where I am."
"But see that your decision come not too late, Eugenie," answered her friend. "They may soon begin to press you on the subject; and, when once they find you reluctant, they may take measures to prevent your flight."
"I do not think they will press me," answered Eugenie. "First, in regard to Philip d'Aubin, they will never favour him, as he is of the party of the King; and, in regard to any other, they know full well that I could, if I would, urge my father's promise to him."
"But you would not do it!" exclaimed Beatrice.
"No, Beatrice, no!" answered Eugenie, laying her hand kindly upon hers; "no, I would rather die!"
"But hear me," said Beatrice, somewhat eagerly; "think of all that may happen. A thousand things may tempt D'Aubin to quit the royal party. He may come over to the League--he may urge your father's promise--he may obtain the sanction of Mayenne:--what will you do then?"
"Fly to the farthest corner of the earth," replied Eugenie, "sooner than fulfil a promise that was none of mine, and against which my whole heart revolts on every account. Listen, Beatrice; I do believe that, in the moment of need, I shall not want courage, and certainly shall not want resolution. Should I have any reason to fear compulsion, but too often used of late, I will take counsel with none but you; you shall guide me as you think fit, and I will fly anywhere, rather than give my hand to one I cannot love."
"Write me but five words," replied Beatrice, "write me 'Come to me with speed,' and send it by a page when you want assistance, and doubt not but I will find means to deliver you, were you at the very altar. But, hark! I hear steps upon the staircase, and horses before the house; and I must resume all my bold and haughty bearing, and put on the mask, which I have laid aside to Eugenie de Menancourt alone."
As she spoke, she drew her chair a little further from that of her friend; and, placing it in the exact position which the ceremonious intercourse of that day pointed out, she remained with the glove drawn off from one fair hand, which, dropping gracefully over the arm of the fauteuil, continued to hold her small black mask, twirling it as listlessly round and round as ever the fair hand of fashionable dame in our own days played with a glove, to show her skin's whiteness or her brilliant rings. Eugenie de Menancourt's eyes sought the door with an expression of anxiety; but Beatrice, on the contrary, gazed vacantly through the window towards the buildings on the opposite side of the river; and the visitors had entered the room, and were already speaking to her friend, before she appeared to be conscious of their presence, or condescended to notice them. Turning her head at length, she fixed her eyes upon a square-built, powerful man, with a somewhat heavy, but not unpleasing, countenance; who, richly dressed, and followed by two or three gentlemen, in a more gay and smart, but not more magnificent, costume, was speaking to Mademoiselle de Menancourt, with all that courteous respect which chivalrous times, then just passing away, had left behind them.
"Good morrow, my lord Duke!" said Beatrice, as the visitor turned towards her: "I anticipated not the pleasure of seeing your Highness here to day. Good faith! have you so much ease in a beleaguered city, as to exercise your horses in visiting ladies before noon? On my honour, I will be a soldier, for 'tis the idlest life I know, and only fit for a woman."
"I came but to ask briefly after your fair friend's health," replied the Duke; "and knew not that I should have to risk with you, gay lady, one of our old encounters of sharp words. I trust, however, your health is better."
"Did you ever see me look more beautiful, Duke of Mayenne?" asked Beatrice, with a gay toss of her head; "and can you ask if I am ill? But as to my friend's health, if you would that she should be well, and keep well, let her go out of Paris, home to her own dwelling; and keep her not here, where one is surrounded, night and day, with the sound of cannon and arquebuses. Do you intend that it should be said, in future, that carrying on the war against women and children was first introduced into modern Europe by the Duke of Mayenne and the Catholic League, that you keep a lady here a close prisoner in your beleaguered capital?"
"Not as a prisoner, fair lady," answered the Duke of Mayenne; "God forbid that either I or she should look upon her situation as one of imprisonment; but, being lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and, consequently, her lawful guardian and protector, till marriage gives her a better, I should be wanting both in duty and in courtesy, were I to leave her in a distant and distracted province, in a time of unfortunate civil war."
"Well explained and justified, my good lord Duke," cried Beatrice, who, both in right of rank and beauty, treated the ambitious leader of the League as equal to equal. "And yet, after all, my lord, has not that same marriage that you mention some small share in your tenacious kindness? Did you ever hear, my lord, of a rat-catcher giving the rats the bait out of his trap, from pure affection for the heretic vermin?"
The Duke of Mayenne first reddened, and then smiled; either more amused than angry at the gay flippancy of his fair opponent, or judging it best, at least, to appear so. "Your similes savour of a profession that I know not, fair lady," he replied; "but if you mean, Lady Beatrice, that hereafter I may dispose of your fair friend's hand in such a manner as seems to me most conducive towards her happiness--if you mean that," he repeated, in a marked tone, "I deny not that you are right. Yet I would fain know who has a better right to do so than the lieutenant-general of the kingdom?"
"Oh! no one, surely!" answered