Chapter XXIX: Arrested

To resume my own narrative: I had proceeded from the Rue St. Jacques, after a somewhat devious course, along the Rue Betizi and the Fosses St. Germain l'Auxerrois, when at the place where the latter is intersected by the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, a dark and ancient street that leads from the Rue St. Honoré to the Seine, I found all the oil-lamps extinguished, and a fiacre, surrounded by twelve foot musketeers of the Comte de Treville's company, standing fairly in the centre of the way. At that moment the clock of St. Germain tolled two; but daybreak seemed far distant, as the shadows lay deep and black in the quaint and overhanging streets of Paris.

'Halt, monsieur, and give up your sword,' said a muffled man, whose voice was familiar to me.

'Not to a mere mousquetaire,' said I, unsheathing it, and standing on my guard; 'and least of all to one of your rank, my ex-captain of horse; for now I recognise you, worthy Monsieur de Brissac.'

'Bah! did not Francis I. of France give up his to the son of a butcher?'

'True, when only three of the Scottish Guard remained on their feet beside him, and a mountain of slain lay round them. By St. Andrew--'

'Hark!' said a musketeer; 'a Huguenot swears by St. Andrew.'

'Surrender your sword, Monsieur Arthur Blane, I command you!' reiterated Brissac.

'You have a warrant, I presume?'

'Peste! you are particular!--'

'Most people usually are, under these circumstances.'

'My word and sword should be warrant enough; but here is the document,' said he, holding a paper close lo one of the lamps of the fiacre. '_Louis, par la Grace de Dieu, Roi de France et de Navarre,_' &c. &c., 'signed at our castle of Versailles,' and so forth, all in due form. 'What the devil would you have more? I have arrested a Bishop and a Marechal of France--ay, Monseigneur de Montmorenci himself--with infinitely less ceremony.'

Inflamed with anger and alarm, and irresolute whether to fight, fly, or yield, I still kept my point towards him.

'Mere musketeers have not status sufficient to arrest a gentleman of the Scottish Guard;--we rank with field-officers of the French line,' said I.

'M. Blane forgets that I am noble.'

'By marriage with a lady descended from Joan of Arc's family; but you forget, my dear M. Brissac, that by the edict of Louis XIII., (whose agreeable warrant you bear,) passed in 1614, "females descended from _La Pucelle_, shall no longer ennoble their husbands," so that heraldic force is at an end.'

'Pardieu! beat him down, messieurs, with the butts of your muskets, for I am weary of this!' exclaimed de Brissac, with sudden passion; and finding, on reflection, the danger and futility of further resistance, I surrendered my weapon, saying, with a lightness, I was far from feeling,

'Here is my spit--but pray be careful of it, for a dainty demoiselle's pink glove, is, or should be at the shell of it.'

'Little Babette's of the Fleur-de-lis, in the Rue d'Ecosse, I presume,' said he, scornfully; but as Marion de l'Orme usually wore pink gloves, he shook with rage, as he thrust me into the carriage and took his place beside me. The fiacre was put in motion; the musketeers ran at a double quick march on each side of it, which dispelled my first idea that they meant to assassinate me; and as we drove on, I taxed my memory in vain for any offence or crime I might have committed.

'Oh--you are angry at finding me at little De l'Orme's, perhaps?' said I.

'What care I for Mademoiselle de l'Orme?' said he; 'who is her lover now?'

'Rumour says a certain M. de Brissac--but I know 'tis the young Marquis de Toneins.'

'Bah--her affections are of the most rapid nature!'

'Well, my dear M. de Brissac,' said I, in that sneering fashion which the Parisians were fast teaching me; 'if you are not jealous of me, you will perhaps have the kindness to acquaint me with my crime.'

'You have been in love with the King's mistress.'

My heart trembled at these words; but I resolved to put a bold face on the affair.

'Nay, nay, M. Brissac! she is in love with me.'

'Oh, fie, M. Blane! But no matter; I have known a man branded with the fleur-de-lis, or sent in chains to the galleys at Toulon for less.'

'Pleasant reminiscences!'

'Very; suggestive, too: I hope you like them.'

'This arrest is an infamous violation of the privileges of the Scottish Guard,' said I, losing all temper; 'these privileges were given us by the predecessors of Louis XIII.--by kings better and braver than he--privileges won in battle, and which he cannot, dare not revoke!'

'Dare not?'

'No!'

'Peste! do they include the right of intromitting with the King's mistress?'

'King Louis will hear more of this; if he wishes, a town taken in Lorraine, or a castle stormed on the Rhine.'

'Your Scottish government may, if they choose, place a French gentleman in the castle of Edinburgh, by way of reprisal,' sneered De Brissac.

'That will comfort me mightily.'

'I presume there is no lack of French fiddlers and dancing masters in Scotland?'

'There are twenty thousand Scots now under Hepburn and La Force; I would they were all to-night in Paris.'

'The Marechal de la Force is a brave fellow.'

'Ay, none is braver. He will face the devil or a cannon-ball--'

'But he cannot face his angry wife.'

'In all things he excels M. de Brissac.'

'Thank you; but for the place to which we are going, I would ask you to alight and measure swords with me.'

'Now that you speak of it, where are we going?'

'Cannot you guess?'

'No; but your musketeers must be well nigh out of breath by this time.'

'We are en route to the Bastille.'

'The Bastille!' I exclaimed, while my blood ran cold.

'Yes; 'tis occasionally fashionable to visit it at the French court.'

'I would prefer any other prison--'

'The Château d'Amboise, perhaps; but we cannot always choose our own quarters, M. Blane,' said De Brissac, as the fiacre, to the great relief of messieurs the twelve breathless musketeers, halted close by the Porte St. Antoine; and vainly I recalled the warning of the Marquis de Gordon, when first I met him at Clara's--

'_Be wary, for her chamber has occasionally led to the Bastille, or to the more dreadful oubliettes of the Louvre!_'