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Another day, while he was still very ill, Biron and his wife made bold to enter his room on tiptoe, and kept behind his curtains, out of sight, as they thought; but he perceived them by means of the glass on the chimney- piece.
"Were not Chalais, Cinq-Mars, Biron, and Montmorency executed?" asked Herzog, with irony. "That was on a scaffold," replied Panine. "Well! the speculator's scaffold is the Bourse! But only small dabblers in money succumb; the great ones are safe from danger.
The same language was held by Laval, by Rochefoucauld, and by the Marechal de Biron, the last gentleman, whose two sons were engaged in the vile enterprise, bitterly cursing the Duke to his face, as he rode through the gate after revealing his secret undertaking.
No, M. de Biron," he added quickly, as Biron in a rage laid his hand on a bell which stood beside him on the table, "you cannot that way undo what is done." "I can at least deliver you," the Grand Master answered, in heat, "to those who will deal with you as you have dealt with us and ours." "It will avail you nothing," Count Hannibal replied soberly.
It was Biron himself who told me this the next day, in the terms I have given. M. de Lauzun said adieu to him in a firm tone, and dismissed him. He prohibited, and reasonably, all ceremony; he was buried at the Petits Augustins; he had nothing from the King but the ancient company of the battle-axes, which was suppressed two days after.
I represented to them the hazards of carrying on a war when they were to be opposed against so able a general as the Marechal de Biron, who would not spare them, as other generals had done, he being their private enemy.
They had sworn allegiance to the Regent Biron, as they had to the Empress Anna; they threw themselves upon the earth when they met him, they humbly bared their heads when passing his palace; and when the magnates of the realm, the princes and counts of Russia, in their proud equipages, discovered the regent's carriage in the distance, they ordered a halt, descended from their vehicles, and bowed themselves to the ground before their passing lord.
It overwhelms me, Monseigneur, to discover that the confidence which I had based mainly on the love of my duty, should be so disappointed. My health no longer permitting me to continue my services in the war, I have written to M. the Duke de Biron to beg him to appoint my successor. I could not, in a situation so piteous, refrain from informing you of my despair.
He was in the heart of a hostile fortress where the resistance of a single man armed to the teeth must have been futile; and he was unarmed, save for a poniard. Nevertheless, for a moment the impulse to spring on Biron, and with the dagger at his throat to make his life the price of a safe passage, was strong.
The heavy troopers of Flanders and Hainault, following their spirited chieftain, dashed upon old Marshal Biron, routing his cavalry, charging clean up to the Huguenot guns and sabring the cannoneers. The shock was square, solid, irresistible, and was followed up by the German riders under Eric of Brunswick, who charged upon the battalia of the royal army, where the king commanded in person.
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