Chapter XI: My First Parade

And now, having got through the musty lore of the last chapter, we will return to my own adventures with renewed vigour.

A few days after my enrolment, the trumpets of the Light Horse and Musketeers blew shrilly in the court of the Louvre, announcing that his Majesty was leaving the Council to proceed to mass.

The whole of the Scottish Guard were under arms; the hundred cuirassiers on horseback in full array, with rapier, helmet, and plume; the hundred archers, now archers but in name, as they were armed with arquebuses, and clad in white hocquetons, glittering with lace; and the twenty-four chosen Scottish gentlemen, keepers of the royal body, who never left the King of France until their hands deposited his remains in the regal sepulchre of St. Denis, which was always the last duty of the Scottish Guard, before they encircled the throne of his successor.

Our commander was styled _first_ captain of his Majesty's Guards, and began the military year by serving the first quarter of it.

The court before the Louvre presented a brilliant appearance. The Guards of horse and foot under arms; the Grey and the Blue Musketeers--all of whom were gentlemen of the best families in France--richly attired, laced and plumed; nobles, chevaliers, pages, and lacqueys, all clad in gorgeous dresses; horses, gaily trapped, pawing the pavement, impatient for their riders. Amid all this glittering crowd I looked for the carriage of the Countess d'Amboise, but nowhere could see it, yet I was told that it was usually drawn by six white horses.

With all the vanity of youth, I was particularly anxious that she should see me in my brilliant accoutrements, plumed, spurred, and belted. My gay companions laughed and made bold jests when I inquired if she had been seen, for the secret of my patronage had been whispered about, and the old Marechal de Logis told me gruffly that, 'the King always went to Madame, for Madame dared not come to the King.'

Patrick Gordon had come to parade in a bad humour that morning. A horseman had splashed him with mud, on the Pont de Notre Dame, and he was making loud complaints on the subject to the Commandant of the City Watch and the Chevalier Livingstone.

'Zounds!' said he, curling his strong grey moustache up to his eyes, 'he was only a rascally bourgeois, monsieur; had I been daubed by the horse of a musketeer, or gentleman, I should not have cared so much, but a cit--a mere cit!'

'Whom one cannot fight; it was too bad, M. le Marechal de Logis,' replied the Captain of the Watch; 'why did you not fling him into the Seine?'

'Of course,' added the Chevalier Livingstone; 'for a mere bourgeois must be taught that he is not to ride everybody down like a prince of the blood.'

'Is yonder carriage, which I see drawn by four white horses and guarded by twelve Grey Musketeers, the equipage of the Countess d'Amboise?' I asked.

'Always your Countess,' grumbled the Marechal; 'no, 'tis the Queen's.'

'And why has the Countess six?'

'My bon camarado, have you yet to learn that Anne of Austria is only the wife of the most Christian King, while Clara d'Ische is his mistress? This makes all the difference in the world.'

'Our old Marechal de Logis has paraded in a bad humour to-day,' said Raynold Cheyne, as Gordon moved his horse to the rear of our line.

''Tis his dark day,' said the Chevalier; 'but, Blane, you cannot know what we mean by that anniversary.'

'The day on which he lost his friend and mistress together, by a hasty shot.'

'Thirty years ago, that is to say, in April 1605, he stood in high favour with the beautiful Marguerite of Valois, who was then living--and still lovely--at the old embattled Hotel de Sens; but lo! as madame was not so discreet as in the days of the Huguenots, one night he discovered a rival.'

'Where?' I asked, 'in her chamber?'

'Nay, in the boot of her coach.'

'A strange place--well?'

'He fired his arquebuse through it, and killed him on the spot.'

'The deuce; that was unpleasant!'

'After this, Marguerite quitted the Hotel de Sens for ever; it became hateful to her. She then built another house in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, near the Seine, and the Pré aux Cleres.'

'And the Marechal de Logis?'

'Lost her favour for ever; but he did not break his heart, for Marguerite was well past forty. He was supposed to be her ninth lover; but hush, here he comes again.'

There was a flourishing of trumpets, a rolling of drums, a lowering of swords and standards, an uncovering of heads, with a general salute, as a little man, about forty years of age, with a thin, round profile, in a broad hat and feather, wearing a purple cloak, a prodigiously long sword, having his poor, lean legs encased in wrinkly boots of white perfumed leather, and with the crosses of the Holy Ghost and Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, flashing in diamonds, on his breast, appeared at the grand entrance of the Louvre.

He was Louis XIII.--Louis the Just, whose politics were ever at variance with his inclinations.

He had just left the Council, where the expected war with Lorraine and the Empire was the all-engrossing topic; and as he descended, according to etiquette and to daily use and wont, he gave the parole and countersign for the day to the young and splendid Marquis de Gordon, who, as premiere capitaine of the household troops, stood at his right hand in his white hocqueton and with his lofty plume; he, in turn, gave it to the officers of the Scottish Guard, and to the colonels of the Gensdarmes, Dragoons, and Musketeers; and then the King gave (what he deemed of much more importance) special orders to the keepers of the kennels about his favourite dogs, as he was a passionate lover of the chase--such as it is in France.

By the King's side stalked Richelieu, with a stately step, his keen, hawk-like eyes and prominent cheek-bones full of cunning, and his firm lip and well-defined chin bespeaking dogged perseverance. I gazed with undefined interest upon this lofty prelate, so terrible for his political intrigues, his perspicacity, his subtlety, inflexibility, and revenge.

Around them were the royal confessor, Father Leslie, Principal of the Jesuit College of Toulouse, a tall, grave, and stern-looking Scot; the Masters of the Horse and of the Household; the Grand Chamberlain, M. le Duc de Bouillon, who was entirely dressed in cloth of gold, and the four gentlemen of the chamber--viz., the Dukes de Gevrès, de la Tremouille, de la Beauvillier, and d'Aumont; with the four Captains of the Scots and French Gardes du Corps--the Marquis de Gordon being on the King's right hand. Then came the Grand Almoner and the officers of the chapel; the Admiral of France; the General of the Galleys; the Grand Master of the Artillery; the Grand Ecuyer; the Colonel-General of the French Guards, and the Premier President of the Parliament of Paris. Here I also saw the veteran John Louis, Duc d'Epernon, Colonel-General of France and Governor of Guyenne, the oldest peer, general, and knight in the kingdom; Lieutenant-General Francis de Bethune, Surveyor of France, Governor of St. Maixant, and once Campmaster of the ancient Regiment de Picardie; Philibert de Nerestan, the aged Grand Master of the Knights of St. Lazare, and the Duc de St. Simon, whom Louis XIII. had made a peer and marshal of France because he was a good judge of dogs, and could blow on a hunting-horn without spitting through it.

This fortunate peer was in close conversation with the Abbé la Rivière, the first man who ever wore a peruke; and such was the profusion of its curls, that it weighed two pounds--to make up for the lightness of his brain, as my comrade the Viscount suggested.

'Bravo, M. l'Abbé!' said Raynold Cheyne; 'a dealer in souls with a perfumed periwig!'

Surrounded by musketeers and light horse, with the twenty-four gentlemen of the Scottish Guard, who were the immediate custodiers of the royal person, and escorted by all these peers and soldiers of high rank and sounding name, glittering with jewels, embroidery, and brilliant dresses of silk, velvet, cloth of gold, and cloth of silver, and having all the knightly orders of Europe sparkling on their breasts--Louis was conducted to solemn high mass in the chapel of the Louvre, where the Grand Almoner had all his staff waiting to perform one of those grand musical efforts, which shook the building to its centre.

The moment mass was over, the King repaired to luncheon, after seeing his hounds fed, however, and then we were dismissed. I galloped to our stables, gave Dagobert, my Spanish barb, to his groom, and without taking time to change my trappings, threw myself into a fiacre, or hackney-coach, and ordered the driver to spare neither whip nor speed until he reached the chateau d'Amboise, as I had not seen my patroness for four entire days.