Chapter XIII

The next day but one following, which was the day appointed for putting Pierre Lenet's plans in execution, was one of the gloomiest of spring days, a season which is traditionally called the most beautiful of the year, but which is always, especially in France, the most disagreeable.

A fine, soaking rain was falling in the parterres of Chantilly, streaking the clumps of trees in the garden and the hedge-rows in the park with a grayish mist. In the great court-yards fifty horses, all ready saddled, were standing about the hitching posts, sad-eyed, with ears drooping, impatiently pawing the ground; packs of hounds in couples were waiting in groups of twelve, breathing noisily, gaping between whiles, and striving by their united efforts to run away with the groom, who was wiping the rain-soaked ears of his favorites.

The whippers-in, in chamois livery, with their hands behind their backs and their horns slung over their shoulders, wandered hither and thither. Some few officers, inured to storms by their experience at Rocroy or Lens, defied the rain, and whiled away the weary time of waiting by talking together in groups upon the terraces and outer staircases.

Every one was notified that it was a ceremonious occasion, and had assumed his most solemn expression to see Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien wearing his first pair of breeches, hunt his first stag. Every officer in the prince's service, every adherent of the illustrious family, invited by Lenet's circular letter, had fulfilled what he considered his bounden duty by hastening to Chantilly. The anxiety aroused in the first instance by the condition of the princess dowager was dissipated by a favorable bulletin from Bourdelot. She had been bled, and had that morning taken an emetic, the universal panacea at that period.

At ten o'clock all Madame de Condé's personal guests had arrived; each one was admitted upon presenting his letter of invitation, and those who, by any chance, had neglected to bring it, upon being recognized by Lenet were admitted by the Swiss at a nod from him. These guests, with the household staff, constituted a body of eighty or ninety men, most of whom were gathered about the superb white horse, upon whose back, just in front of the great French saddle, was a little velvet seat with a back, intended for Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien, where he was to take his place when Vialas, his equerry, should have taken his seat upon the principal saddle.

However, there was as yet no suggestion of beginning the hunt, but they seemed to await the arrival of additional guests.

About half-past ten, three gentlemen, followed by six valets all armed to the teeth, and carrying valises so swollen that one would have said they were starting out to make the tour of Europe, rode in at the gate and noticing the posts in the court-yard, apparently put there for that purpose, attempted to hitch their horses to them.

Immediately a man dressed in blue, with a silver baldric, halberd in hand, accosted the new-comers, who, by their drenched clothing and their mud-stained boots, were easily recognized as travellers from a distance.

"Whence come you, messieurs?" said this functionary.

"From the North," one of them replied.

"Whither go you?"

"To the burial."

"The proof?"

"You see our crèpe."

It was a fact that the three masters had each a piece of crèpe on their swords.

"Excuse me, messieurs," said the halberdier; "the château is yours. There is a table spread, an apartment warmed, servants awaiting your orders; your people will be entertained in the servants' quarters."

The gentlemen, who were honest rustics, half-starved and inquisitive, bowed, dismounted, threw their reins to their servants, and having been shown the way to the dining-hall, betook themselves thither. A chamberlain awaited them at the door, and acted as their guide.

Meanwhile the horses were taken off the hands of the strange servants by the servants of the house, taken to the stables, rubbed down, brushed, watered, and confronted with a trough well supplied with oats and a rack filled with hay.

The three gentlemen had hardly taken their places at the table, when six other horsemen, followed by six lackeys armed and equipped like those we have described, rode in as they did, and like them, seeing the posts, essayed to hitch their horses to the rings. But the man with the halberd, who had received strict orders, approached them and repeated his questions.

"Whence come you?" said he.

"From Picardy. We are officers in Turenne."

"Whither go you?"

"To the burial."

"The proof."

"You see our crèpe."

And like their predecessors, they pointed to the crèpe attached to the hilt of their rapiers.

The same attention was shown to them, and they followed the others to the dining-hall; the same care was bestowed upon their horses, who followed the other horses to the stables.

Behind them came four others, and the same scene was renewed.

Between half-past ten and noon, two by two, four by four, five by five, alone or in parties, shabbily or sumptuously dressed, but all well mounted, well armed, and well equipped, a hundred cavaliers made their appearance, all of whom were questioned according to the same formula, and replied by stating whence they came and that they were going to the burial, and by exhibiting their crèpe.

When they had all dined, and become acquainted with one another, while their people were being entertained and their horses were resting, Lenet entered the room where they were all assembled, and said to them:--

"Messieurs, Madame la Princesse thanks you by my mouth for the honor you have done her by calling upon her on your way to join Monsieur le Duc de La Rochefoucauld, who awaits your coming to celebrate the obsequies of his late father. Look upon this house as your own, and deign to take part in the diversion of a stag hunt, ordered to take place this afternoon by Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien, who dons to-day his first pair of breeches."

A murmur of approbation and gratitude welcomed the first part of Lenet's harangue, who, like a practised orator, paused for that purpose.

"After the hunt," he continued, "you will sup with Madame la Princesse, who desires to thank you in person; thereafter you will be at liberty to continue your journey."

Some of the gentlemen paid particular attention to the announcement of this programme, which seemed to some extent to impose fetters on their free will; but in all likelihood they had been warned by Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld to expect something of the sort, for not one of them murmured. Some went to inspect their horses; others had recourse to their portmanteaux to put themselves in fit condition to appear before the princesses; while others remained at table, talking about the state of affairs in the country, which seemed to have some affinity with the events of the day.

Many walked about beneath the main balcony where Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien, his toilet completed, was expected to appear for the last time before his final farewell to female attendants.

The young prince in his nursery, surrounded by nurses and playthings, did not realize his own importance. But the pride of birth manifested itself in full measure, and he gazed impatiently at the rich, yet simple costume in which he was to be dressed for the first time. It was a black velvet suit trimmed with unpolished silver, which made it appear as if he were dressed in mourning: indeed his mother, who was determined at all hazards to pose as a widow, thought seriously of speaking of him in a certain harangue as the "_poor orphaned prince._"

But there was one who eyed these splendid garments even more longingly than the prince. A few feet from him, another child, a few months older than he, with red cheeks and light hair, overflowing with health and strength and childish petulance, was devouring with hungry eyes the luxurious surroundings of his more fortunate playfellow. Several times, unable to repress his curiosity, he had ventured to approach the chair upon which the fine clothes were spread out, and had slyly patted the velvet and caressed the trimming, while the little prince was looking in another direction. But at last it happened that he brought back his eyes in time, and Pierrot drew his hand away too late.

"Take care!" cried the prince, sharply: "take care, Pierrot, you'll spoil my new breeches; they're 'broidered velvet, Pierrot, and it fades when you touch it. I forbid you touching my breeches!"

Pierrot hid the guilty hand behind his back, twisting his shoulders this way and that, as children of all ranks do when they are crossed.

"Don't be angry, Louis," said Madame la Princesse to her son, whose features were disfigured by an ugly grimace. "If Pierrot touches your suit again, he shall be whipped."

Pierrot changed his sulky expression for a threatening one.

"Monseigneur's a prince," he said, "but I'm a gardener; and if monseigneur is to keep me from touching his clothes, I won't let him play with my Guinea hens. Ah! I'm stronger than monseigneur, and he knows it."

These imprudent words were no sooner out of Pierrot's mouth, than the prince's nurse, who was Pierrot's mother, seized the independent youngster by the wrist, and said:--

"Pierrot, you forget that monseigneur is your master, the master of everything in the château and around the château, and so your Guinea hens are his."

"Why, I thought he was my brother," said Pierrot.

"Your foster-brother, yes."

"If he's my brother, we ought to share; and if my Guinea hens are his, his clothes are mine."

The nurse was about to reply by a demonstration of the difference between a uterine brother and a foster-brother, but the young prince, who wished Pierrot to witness his triumph from beginning to end, because he was especially desirous to excite Pierrot's admiration and envy, did not give her time.

"Don't be afraid, Pierrot," said he; "I am not angry with you, and you shall see me in a little while on my fine white horse, and my nice little saddle! I am going to hunt, and I shall kill the stag!"

"Oh! yes," retorted the irreverent Pierrot, "you'll stay a long while on horseback! You wanted to ride my donkey the other day, and my donkey threw you off on to the ground!"

"Yes, but to-day," rejoined the prince, with all the majesty he could summon to his assistance and find in his memory,--"to-day I represent my papa, and I shall not fall. Besides, Vialas will hold me in his arms."

"Come, come," said Madame la Princesse, to cut short the discussion between the children, "come and dress the prince! One o'clock is striking, and all our friends are waiting impatiently. Lenet, bid them give the signal for departure."