“Yes, my lord, but you are well aware that calumny fastened even upon those follies in which I had so small a share. Prompted by the cardinal, the king felt extreme resentment. Madame de Vernet was dismissed; Putange was banished; and Madame de Chevreuse was disgraced. And do you not remember, my lord, that when you wished to return as an ambassador to France, it was his majesty himself by whom you were opposed.”
“Yes! and France is about to pay with a war for that opposition. I cannot see you again, madame; well! I will take care that you shall continually hear of me. What do you suppose to have been the true aim of that expedition to Rhe, and that league which I am projecting with the Protestants? The delight of seeing you! I am well enough aware that I have no chance of reaching Paris at the head of an army; but then, this war must bring about a peace; peace will require negotiations; and those negotiations shall be made by none but me. They will no longer dare to reject me then; and I shall return to Paris, and behold you once again, and be, for an instant, happy. It is but too true that my enjoyment will have been bought by the blood of thousands of human beings; but what will their lives be to me, provided that my eyes are blessed once more by seeing you! This may be folly, madame—perhaps madness; but tell me, pray, had ever woman a more impassioned lover, had ever a queen a more enthusiastic servant?”
“My lord! my lord! the witnesses you call for your defence accuse you. These very proofs, that you would give me of your love, are themselves almost crimes!”
“But only because you do not love me, madame. Oh! if you loved me, how different would these circumstances seem, but the joy would be too great, and I should go mad. You spoke but now, madame, of Madame de Chevreuse; but, oh! how much less cruel was that lady than you are! Holland loved her, and she responded to his love.”
“Madame de Chevreuse was not a queen!” murmured Anne of Austria; subdued, in spite of herself, by the expression of a passion so profound.
“And would you then love me if you were not? Oh! tell me, madame! say, that you would love me? let me believe that it is but the dignity of your rank that has come between you and me! let me believe that if you had been but Madame de Chevreuse, there might have been hope for the unhappy Buckingham! Oh! charming queen! thanks for these sweet words—a thousand, thousand thanks!”
“Alas! my lord! you have misunderstood me; I did not mean to let you infer———”
“Hush! hush!” exclaimed the duke. “Be not so cruel as to correct an error that is so full of happiness to me! You have yourself told me that I have been drawn into a snare; and I perhaps shall leave my life in it, for, strangely enough, for some time I have had presentiments of an approaching death.”—And the duke smiled, with a sad, yet winning smile.
“Oh, God!” exclaimed the queen, in a tone of terror, which manifested, more fully than she might have wished, her interest in the duke.
“But I did not tell you this to alarm you, madame. No, it is even ridiculous to speak of it; and, believe me, I do not give importance to such silly dreams. But the words which you have just uttered, the hope which you almost gave me, would be a recompense for everything, even for my life!”
“Oh! but I,” said Anne of Austria—“I also have had my presentiments. I dreamed that I saw you stretched upon the earth, all bloody from a wound.”
“On the left side, and inflicted by a knife, was it not?” said the duke.
“Yes, my lord! it was in the left side, and by a knife. But who could have told you of my dream? I have never spoken of it but in my prayers to God.”
“I ask for no more. You love me, madame! yes, you love me!”
“I love you?”
“Yes, you! Would God send to you the same dreams as to me, if you did not love me? Should we be visited by the same presentiments, if our two existences did not meet in our hearts? Yes, queen, you love me, and you weep for me!”
“Oh, my God! my God!” exclaimed the queen, “this is more than I can bear. In the name of heaven, my lord, withdraw! I know not whether I love you or not; but this I know, that I will never break my vow at the altar. Have pity on me then, and leave this kingdom. Oh! if you should be wounded in France—if you should die in France—if I could imagine that your love for me had been the cause of your death, I should never be consoled. The thought would madden me! Depart then, depart, I beseech you.”
“Oh! how beautiful you are now! How devotedly I love you!” exclaimed Buckingham.
“Depart, I implore you, and return hereafter,” continued the queen. “Come back as an ambassador, as a minister; come back, surrounded by your guards who will defend you, and your servants who will watch over you, and then I shall have no fear for your life, and shall have some happiness in seeing you!”
“Oh! but is it really true what you now tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Give me, then, some pledge of your regard—some object which has once been yours—to satisfy me that I have not been indulging in a dream; something that you have once worn, and that I may wear now—a ring, a necklace, or a chain!”
“And will you go if I give you what you ask?”
“Yes!”
“Immediately?”
“Yes!”
“You will quit France, and will return to England?”
“Yes, I swear I will.”
“Wait, then; wait, sir.”
And Anne of Austria returned to her chamber, and came back almost in an instant, holding in her hand a small casket of rosewood, with her monogram encrusted in gold.
“Here my lord, here! keep this as a memorial of me!”
Buckingham took the casket, and again sank upon his knee.
“You promised me to go,” said the queen.
“And I will keep my word! Your hand, madame, and I leave you!”
Closing her eyes, and leaning on Donna Estefana—for she felt her strength was failing her—Anne of Austria extended her hand.
On that beautiful hand Buckingham pressed his lips passionately, and then arose.
“Before six months have passed,” said he, “if I be not dead, I will see you again, if I must turn the world upside down to accomplish it.”
And true to his promise, he rushed out of the room.
In the corridor he found Madame Bonancieux awaiting him; and, with the same precaution, and the same good fortune, she led him forth out of the Louvre.
THERE WAS IN all this affair, as might be remarked, a person of whom, in spite of his precarious situation, we have appeared to take very little notice. This person was M. Bonancieux, a respectable martyr to the political and amorous intrigues which so thoroughly entangled themselves together in that chivalrous and gallant age. Fortunately, as our readers may or may not remember, we have promised not to lose sight of him.
The officers who had arrested him, conducted him at once to the Bastile, where he had to pass, all trembling as he was, before a company of soldiers, who were charging their muskets.
Taken from there into a partly subterraneous gallery, he had to endure the most brutal insults and ill-treatment. The attendants saw that he was not a nobleman, and they treated him therefore like a beggar.
In about half an hour, a registrar came to put an end to his tortures, but not to his anxiety, by ordering that the should be conducted to the question chamber. They generally questioned prisoners in their own cells, but they did not observe so much