“Monsieur is refreshed?” he asked, gently.
“Yes, thanks to Monseigneur’s hospitality,” replied the other.
The Cardinal placed his thin elbows on the table, cupped his chin in his hands and regarded Arsène with the most extraordinary friendliness.
“I was excessively attached to Louis,” he said.
Arsène’s wan face suddenly flushed deeply, and he bit his lip.
“The law,” continued the Cardinal, delicately, “is very particular about—”
“Fratricide,” said Arsène, in a dull voice.
The Cardinal lifted his eyebrows in painful remonstrance. “Dueling,”
he protested. “There is the penalty of two years in the Bastille for that offense. It would distress me to see Monsieur in that uncomfortable prison.”
Arsène heard these extraordinary words, but they did not convey any immediate meaning to him. He had resolutely pushed all thoughts of Louis aside in the past few months, for his endurance had been solely tried by the siege. But now all his old grief, sadness and desperate regret flooded him. His face changed, twitched. He looked at the Cardinal with miserable pleading.
“It was my life, or his,” he whispered. His hands lifted, dropped impotently. “Almost, now, I wish it had been mine.”
The Cardinal said nothing. He still smiled, but the smile was dark and thoughtful, as if he was thinking of something else. His hands dropped to the table. The right fingers beat a soundless but rapid tattoo on the cloth.
Then he said, very softly: “Do not regret. There was no happiness implicit in that strange and mournful heart. It was conceived in tragedy; it lived in tragedy; it died in tragedy. Only for a brief interlude was there joy, and even that joy was tragic. Those who loved Louis should rejoice that he died. I rejoice.”
Arsène started. A moved expression passed over his features. He felt a burning under his eyelids.
“I had no consolation to offer him,” mused the Cardinal, gazing at his beating fingers. “That is my tragedy, singularly my own. But Monsieur does not comprehend this?”
Arsène was silent. His lack of subtlety was no aid to him in this. He was bewildered. Then the faint obscure thought touched him, and threw him into confusion. He saw the Cardinal’s face, swimming before him. There was a sudden pang in his breast. He cried out, with involuntary vehemence: “We were reconciled, before he died! He understood—!”
The Cardinal’s brows lifted. “Be consoled, then, Monsieur,” he said, and Arsène did not hear the irony in his words. “You have had a most extraordinary experience.”
His tapping fingers halted. The hand relaxed as if exhausted. Now his smile was gone. His strange eyes glowed and welled with an inhuman light, as they fixed themselves piercingly on Arsène. He scrutinized the young man as if he were some mysterious and provocating object, which puzzled and excited him. He remembered this bravo, this adventurer, this gay and reckless courtier so well! But where, now, was all that color and that vitality, that heedlessness and flamboyant courage? This man appeared no longer young. He drooped with weariness and profound tiredness which was not only physical. His emaciated body was sustained by some fortitude it had never possessed before. That dark beard was close and shadowy over that haggard jaw and those sunken cheeks. The aquiline nose appeared larger and sharper, the nostrils more red and distended. His eyes seemed to have fallen deeper into their sockets, and burned steadfastly with an unfamiliar expression of power and steadfastness. What had sustained him? The Cardinal became much excited and curious. He knew, from old acquaintance, that Arsène professed no faith, no fanaticism, that he had always been motivated only by hatred, resentment and a lust for dangerous adventure. But these qualities appeared to have gone, and left strength and hard firmness behind. At the corners of those pale lips, at the corners of those eyes, there was a mysterious residue, a faint luminosity, which lingered on the lips and in the eyelids of those who had dreamt a noble and ecstatic dream.
The Cardinal inclined his head whimsically. “It is Monsieur Arsène de Richepin, in truth, that I address?” he asked, gravely.
Arsène colored, and his eye flashed with anger at what he believed was some mockery. “It is,” he answered, with great coldness.
“I meant no offense,” said the Cardinal, smiling once more. “For a moment I thought I might be mistaken. Monsieur has changed. Would it be discourteous if I inquire, with genuine interest, when this change took place?”
Arsène was still angry, and perplexed. He stared resentfully at the Cardinal, and did not answer. His confusion grew.
The Cardinal resumed his scrutiny. His eye lingered thoughtfully on every feature of the young man’s face. Then slowly, he raised his hand and passed it over his mouth, as if to hide a smile.
“I perceive it is still Monsieur de Richepin,” he observed.
Arsène stared.
“Monsieur has revealed unexpected traits of character,” resumed the Cardinal, after a moment. “It is my stupidity which failed to observe them before.”
There was silence in the room. The Cardinal’s expression became increasingly friendly, but very curious.
“There is another question, for which I must beg Monsieur’s pardon. I do not ask in vulgar curiosity, but in real interest: What sustains Monsieur in that wretched city?”
Arsène did not speak. His brows drew together.
“Remembering Monsieur, of whom I have long been fond,” continued the Cardinal, “I may be pardoned for being somewhat puzzled. Monsieur had no faith, no profound convictions.” He became more eager. “Again, I must implore Monsieur’s pardon. I am a student of men.” He paused. Then he added impatiently: “Certes, Monsieur understands what I am asking?”
Arsène was silent.
“In that city, Monsieur must find his endurance sorely tried. He must suffer, not only for himself, but for those to whom he is attached,” continued the Cardinal, fuming at this apparent stupidity, but determined that his curiosity be satisfied. “He must know the cause is lost, that the city must fall. He is the leader. He must observe the torment, the hunger and despair of his fellow rebels. He must, by now, have realized that the English, as always, have betrayed their promise. He must know what the inevitable end will be, and that there is no hope. I wish, then, to know, with all amazed sincerity, what sustains Monsieur.”
But Arsène was still silent. His eyes were fixed upon the Cardinal’s face. Is it my imagination, asked the Cardinal of himself, with profound excitement, or is there in truth a strange and poignant light in this bravo’s bold eyes?
“Monsieur comprehends,” went on the Cardinal, “that each day’s continued resistance lessens our patience, and the possibilities of our mercy. Yet, Monsieur has ordered that the city continue to resist. I wish to know why he has come to this desperate conclusion. It is not in keeping with Monsieur’s shrewd character, which I believed I knew so well.”
Arsène stirred on his seat. The strange light increased in his eyes. It cast a luminous glow over his emaciated features. His voice was hoarse and uncertain when he spoke, and almost humble:
“Monsieur le Cardinal remembers Paul de Vitry, my friend? Paul had faith; I did not comprehend this faith. It is still uncertain in me, still wavering. I did not see his dream, while he lived. Now, it is given to me to catch faint far glimpses of it. I cannot put it into lucid words,” he said, lifting his hands impotently. “There are no words for it. I still hardly believe—. But I know: that I must recreate in myself the faith of Paul de Vitry, if only that I might hope again.”
There was a long silence in the room. The Cardinal looked down at his hands. He regarded the sparkling ring on his finger with a withdrawn and musing look. He turned it around and around, like a jeweler scrutinizing wares offered for sale. Now his expression was masked and hidden.
“‘If only that I might hope again,’” he repeated, almost inaudibly.
He glanced up swiftly. Arsène’s face was moved and working. He appeared about to weep.
What a terrible spiritual coming-of-age this bravo must have experienced! mused the Cardinal. What agonies he must have endured, and none of them physical. Men began with hope and faith, and slowly lost them. But this man had begun with nothing but his own shallowness, recklessness and obtuseness, and had acquired, in desperate and frightful jeopardy, in succorless ruin, the hope and faith which sustains men, and which cannot be comprehended. Then, certes! there must be something divine, something untouchable, something selfless and heroic, noble and majestic in the souls of men, after all! There must be something indestructible under all the bestiality and foulness of mankind, some nugget of beauty and self-abnegation and loftiness. The Cardinal, with much puzzlement, had observed that civilization was the conquest of some mysterious will over man’s natural inertia. He had believed it was rapacity and lust. Now, he was not so certain.
“I am not so certain,” he said, aloud, and started at the sound of his own voice.
He was moved and stirred. Some dark and bitter core in him was shaken. Yet he could smile at himself. Is my ingenuousness so great that I must seize eagerly on any evidence that there lives in men some obscure and tender virtue? he asked in his heart.
A peculiar lightness pervaded him, a relaxing, a relief. An odd delirium rose to his head. Hope, then, and faith, existed, could manifest themselves inexorably and with supernatural strength even in such as this bravo!
His narrow and delicate hands clenched themselves convulsively on the table. His eyes pierced Arsène’s face like twin lances of lightning.
“Monsieur knows,” he said, very softly, “that resistance is hopeless, even with faith. I will not dishonor Monsieur by asking him to order the surrender of the city. But I ask him to reflect.”
“We have reflected,” said Arsène in a low voice. “But, we cannot surrender. For our own sakes, we cannot surrender.”
“Continued resistance will bring terrible retribution,” whispered the Cardinal, still hardly believing.
Arsène gazed at him steadfastly. “For our own sakes, we cannot surrender, no matter what the end,” he said. “If we surrender, and live, how can we endure the living?”
The Cardinal leaned back in his chair.
“And the others, they feel so, also?”
Arsène hesitated. Then his expression kindled once more. “Not in the beginning. There were many who bewailed; there were many who were treacherous, cowardly and expedient. But these have already escaped from the city. Those who remain believe as I do, that we cannot surrender.”
He stood up, as if his thoughts impelled him to urgent activity. He clenched his fists, and leaned them on the table, fixing the Cardinal with a passionate look.
“Monseigneur, La Rochelle may fall. The cause of Protestantism in France may fall. The hope for the rights of man, for liberty and enlightenment and peace may be darkened. This hope cannot be destroyed! It may be stamped into the ground, buried under the fallen walls of La Rochelle, be silenced by the noose or the sword. It may be assailed by a thousand barbarous foes, driven from gutter into attic, into cellar or sewer. It may lie supine under the stones of centuries. But it cannot be destroyed! The dream has been dreamt, and the swords of a hundred armies, the cannon of a multitudinous force, cannot obliterate that dream! If it shall not be dreamt again in France, it shall be dreamt elsewhere, and then again, elsewhere, until all men know it, and have liberated themselves.”
And then, in himself, the doubt and the uncertainty, the bewilderment and confusion, were flooded away in a wave of exultation and conviction. He looked at the Cardinal with a great and dawning joy in his heart, as though he had received an invincible message, an invincible promise.
The Cardinal looked at him, unspeaking. His frail fingers clasped themselves tightly. His face became very grave.
Then he rose, and began to pace up and down the warm bright room, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent in deep meditation. His slight figure in its somber soldier’s uniform seemed taller than it was, and very reserved and finely wrought. His fragile countenance, with its imperial, took on the aspect of carved and delicate ivory. Arsène watched him, and he was overcome with a dim wonder. Could this elegant and exquisite gentleman be in truth that mountebank, that malefactor, that ruthless murderer whom all Europe regarded with terror? Could this be that Roman plotter, that lecher and Machiavelli whose intrigues had set a whole continent to seething and whispering? It was incredible. This was some aristocratic thinker, some philosopher, who was less engaged with armies and courts than in the profound study of man, an inexhaustible subject which called forth all the powers of his mind and the metaphysical conjectures of his unknown and terrible soul.
He returned to Arsène, and smiled absently. Arsène believed that he did not really see him. His words, too, were very strange and inexplicable.
“Monsieur, it has occurred to me just now what might happen to the kings, the generals, the princes of the Church, if the peoples, confronted in hatred and war with each other, should suddenly regard each other with complete understanding, complete awakening. How aghast they would be, how stricken with dumbness! Can you not imagine how they would stare, each man into his antagonist’s and enemy’s eyes, and how their hands would drop and the swords clatter to the ground? And now they would whisper to themselves: how is it that I have come to this place, to kill?”
Arsène was silent. The Cardinal paused in front of him, and there was a blind fever in those fathomless eyes.
“And then,” continued the priest, in a peculiar voice, “there would be a sudden echoless silence all over the world.”
It was only in moments of passion that subtlety and intuition could flare up vividly in Arsène. Too, he was so exhausted by weakness and his own emotion now that he could feel and think nothing. So, he merely stood and regarded the Cardinal in exhausted silence. However, he knew that the Cardinal did not resent his lack of response. He was too engrossed with his own thoughts.
The Cardinal continued to stand near him, and to look at him. Finally, he said:
“Monsieur, I have known you for many years. I have known your father, and esteemed his gifts at the gaming table, his miraculous perfumes, his exquisite taste. Your brother had served me, and had acquired my fondness. I ask you now, what favor can I grant you, in these sad hours?”
Arsène lifted his head eagerly, and moistened his dry lips. “I prefer death by the musket, to the noose,” he said. “I am a soldier, and ask a soldier’s death.”
The Cardinal’s brows rose delicately. The thin and brittle mask darkened his features again. He appeared to sink into thought. At last he moved to the door and opened it upon the darkness. The captain of his guards appeared, and saluted.
“Bretonne,” said the Cardinal, “Monsieur de Bonnelle prefers to take his mercenaries to their own camp immediately. You will please to assemble them.”
He closed the door. Arsène stared at him, white as death, and trembling. The Cardinal smiled. He laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“May I give Monsieur a message for my old friend, the Duchesse de Rohan? Please assure her of my endless admiration and affection, and inform her that I have great need of more unguents for my rheumatism, and that her last vial of herbal remedies for indigestion has cured me.”
Arsène was speechless. Tears blinded him. Through the blur and dazzle of them he could see the Cardinal, smiling with the utmost candor and friendliness, and with a hint of amusement.
“Some prescience warns me that we shall never meet again, Arsène,” said the Cardinal, in a lower tone. “I regret this exceedingly. In parting, then, I wish you all godspeed. And peace.”
Arsène tried to speak, but his pale lips could only move without sound. The Cardinal pressed his shoulder strongly for an instant, then turned away. The door opened, and Bretonne appeared, and saluted.
“The mercenaries are awaiting Monsieur de Bonnelle, Monsieur le Cardinal,” he said.
Arsène still strove to spe
ak, but now a cold and warning look had entered the Cardinal’s eyes, for all his smile. So, with a deep bow, the young man bent his head and lifted the Cardinal’s hand to his lips. Then, turning, he stumbled out into the night.
His companions were waiting for him near the watchfires, excited and anxious, but as silent and alert as himself. The Cardinal’s men saluted briskly, and were saluted in turn. If they were curious, or doubtful, it was not evident.
The old dreamlike quality beset Arsène as he led his companions away. They, too, did not speak. They began to hasten. They passed the bodies of the guards they had slain, still undiscovered. They reached the walls of the city. There they found the others waiting, fuming and overcome with apprehension. They began to whisper furiously. But those who had returned shook their heads in silence. Now they moved even swifter. They dropped like heavy apples over the wall.
Arsène, in climbing, reached the top. All at once, in the far distance, he saw the sudden agitated flaring of torches, heard the distant shouts and cries, discerned the leaping of fresh fires. The murdered men had been discovered, the alarm had been given.
He dropped over. In the safety of the city, torches had been lit. He saw the huge piles of foodstuffs, gleefully piled up, and the hurrying men who carried them away.
“It was a great and involuntary gift of his Eminence,” laughed one young man, ironically.
“Yes, it was a great gift,” said Arsène.
CHAPTER LVII
That winter was most horrible. Ten thousand Rochellais remained alive. By the time the first spring breezes blew, less than seven thousand remained.
There was no fuel. Now, there were hardly any children, for they had been the first to succumb. A sickness invaded the starved and desolate houses, and when starvation did not kill, the disease released the people of their sufferings.
Among the people, the expedient still remained, and the traitors. No one knew how they obtained food, but they continued to be singularly plump, though they protested their agonies. Feuquières, less from treachery than from compassion, went among the leaders, pleading for surrender. He was sickened. He never forgot this siege, and the scenes in the city. To the end of his life, he remained a liberal Frenchman, though in the beginning he had been as intolerant and cruel as the others of his class and religion.
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