CHAPTER XI.
THE EVENING OF THE LEAGUE.
Paris presented a fine sight, as through its then narrow streets
thousands of people pressed towards the same point, for at eight
o'clock in the evening, M. le Duc de Guise was to receive the
signatures of the bourgeois to the League. A crowd of citizens,
dressed in their best clothes, as for a fête, but fully armed,
directed their steps towards the churches. What added to the
noise and confusion was that large numbers of women, disdaining
to stay at home on such a great day, had followed their husbands,
and many had brought with them a whole batch of children. It was
in the Rue de l'Arbre Sec that the crowd was the thickest. The
streets were literally choked, and the crowd pressed tumultuously
towards a bright light suspended below the sign of the Belle
Etoile. On the threshold a man, with a cotton cap on his head
and a naked sword in one hand and a register in the other, was
crying out, "Come come, brave Catholics, enter the hotel of the
Belle Etoile, where you will find good wine; come, to-night the
good will be separated from the bad, and to-morrow morning the
wheat will be known from the tares; come, gentlemen, you who
can write, come and sign;--you who cannot write, come and tell
your names to me, La Hurière; vive la messe!" A tall man elbowed
his way through the crowd, and in letters half an inch high, wrote
his name, 'Chicot.' Then, turning to La Hurière, he asked if he
had not another register to sign. La Hurière did not understand
raillery, and answered angrily. Chicot retorted, and a quarrel
seemed approaching, when Chicot, feeling some one touch his arm,
turned, and saw the king disguised as a simple bourgeois, and
accompanied by Quelus and Maugiron, also disguised, and carrying
an arquebuse on their shoulders.
"What!" cried the king, "good Catholics disputing among themselves;
par la mordieu, it is a bad example."
"Do not mix yourself with what does not concern you," replied
Chicot, without seeming to recognize him. But a new influx of
the crowd distracted the attention of La Hurière, and separated
the king and his companions from the hotel.
"Why are you here, sire?" said Chicot.
"Do you think I have anything to fear?"
"Eh! mon Dieu! in a crowd like this it is so easy for one man
to put a knife into his neighbor, and who just utters an oath
and gives up the ghost."
"Have I been seen?"
"I think not; but you will be if you stay longer. Go back to the
Louvre, sire."
"Oh! oh! what is this new outcry, and what are the people running
for?"
Chicot looked, but could at first see nothing but a mass of people
crying, howling, and pushing. At last the mass opened, and a monk,
mounted on a donkey, appeared. The monk spoke and gesticulated,
and the ass brayed.
"Ventre de biche!" cried Chicot, "listen to the preacher."
"A preacher on a donkey!" cried Quelus.
"Why not?"
"He is Silenus," said Maugiron.
"Which is the preacher?" said the king, "for they speak both at
once."
"The underneath one is the most eloquent," said Chicot, "but the
one at the top speaks the best French; listen, Henri."
"My brethren," said the monk, "Paris is a superb city; Paris is
the pride of France, and the Parisians a fine people." Then he
began to sing, but the ass mingled his accompaniment so loudly
that he was obliged to stop. The crowd burst out laughing.
"Hold your tongue, Panurge, hold your tongue," cried the monk,
"you shall speak after, but let me speak first."
The ass was quiet.
"My brothers," continued the preacher, "the earth is a valley
of grief, where man often pan quench his thirst only with his
tears."
"He is drunk," said the king.
"I should think so."
"I, who speak to you," continued the monk, "I am returning from
exile like the Hebrews of old, and for eight days Panurge and
I have been living on alms and privations."
"Who is Panurge?" asked the king.
"The superior of his convent, probably but let me listen."
"Who made me endure this? It was Herod; you know what Herod I
speak of. I and Panurge have come from Villeneuve-le-Roi, in
three days, to assist at this great solemnity; now we see, but
we do not understand. What is passing, my brothers? Is it to-day
that they depose Herod? Is it to-day that they put brother Henri
in a convent?--Gentlemen," continued he, "I left Paris with two
friends; Panurge, who is my ass, and Chicot, who is his majesty's
jester. Can you tell me what has become of my friend Chicot?"
Chicot made a grimace.
"Oh," said the king, "he is your friend." Quelus and Maugiron
burst out laughing. "He is handsome and respectable," continued
the king.
"It is Gorenflot, of whom M. de Morvilliers spoke to you."
"The incendiary of St. Geneviève?"
"Himself!"
"Then I will have him hanged!"
"Impossible!"
"Why?"
"He has no neck."
"My brothers," continued Gorenflot: "I am a true martyr, and it
is my cause that they defend at this moment or, rather, that
of all good Catholics. You do not know what is passing in the
provinces, we have been obliged at Lyons to kill a Huguenot who
preached revolt. While one of them remains in France, there will
be no tranquillity for us. Let us exterminate them. To arms!
to arms!"
Several voices repeated, "To arms!"
"Par la mordieu!" said the king, "make this fellow hold his tongue,
or he will make a second St. Bartholomew!"
"Wait," said Chicot, and with his stick he struck Gorenflot with
all his force on the shoulders.
"Murder!" cried the monk.
"It is you!" cried Chicot.
"Help me, M. Chicot, help me! The enemies of the faith wish to
assassinate me, but I will not die without making my voice heard.
Death to the Huguenots!"
"Will you hold your tongue?" cried Chicot. But at this moment
a second blow fell on the shoulders of the monk with such force
that he cried out with real pain. Chicot, astonished, looked
round him, but saw nothing but the stick. The blow had been given
by a man who had immediately disappeared in the crowd after
administering this punishment.
"Who the devil could it have been?" thought Chicot, and he began
to run after the man, who was gliding away, followed by only
one companion.
