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The outer staircase and courtyard were filled by an anxious crowd. The scaffold erected during the night for the Prince de Conde opposite to the convent of the Recollets, had amazed and startled the whole nobility. All present spoke in a low voice and the talk was the same mixture as at Blois, of frivolous and serious, light and earnest matters.
By the way in which the port of Blois, the chateau, and the town were guarded, Christophe was prepared to find spies and traps everywhere; and he therefore resolved to conceal the importance of his mission and the tension of his mind under the empty-headed and shopkeeping appearance with which he presented himself to the eyes of young Pardaillan, the officer of the guard, and the Scottish captain.
You may go to Amboise either from Blois or from Tours; it is about half-way between these towns. The great point is to go, especially if you have put it off repeatedly; and to go, if possible, on a day when the great view of the Loire, which you enjoy from the battlements and terraces, presents itself under a friendly sky.
King Edward had hardly set sail when Phillip began to break the terms of truce by inciting the adherents of Charles of Blois to attack those of De Montford, and by rendering assistance to them with money and men. He also left no means untried to detach Flanders from its alliance with England.
On the 6th of August, as he passed through Winchester, he visited the dying Henry of Blois, and heard the bishop's last words of bitter reproach as he foretold the great adversities which the Divine vengeance held in store for the true murderer of the archbishop. But England itself was no safe refuge for the king in this great extremity.
It is not true that in France the death penalty was decreed against bankrupts without distinction. Simple failures involved no penalty; fraudulent bankrupts suffered the penalty of death in the states of Orleans, under Charles IX., and in the states of Blois in 1576, but these edicts, renewed by Henry IV., were merely comminatory.
In the south and east the Blois faction held the country, and Nantes the capital was garrisoned and occupied by a strong French army. In the north and west the Montfort party prevailed, for the island kingdom was at their back and always fresh sails broke the northern sky-line bearing adventurers from over the channel.
She ordered a white banner made, covered with the lilies of France, and with the inscription, "Jesus Maria," emblazoned upon it. At the end of two months she entered the town of Blois, where the army was stationed, seated upon a fine horse, her head bare, her dark curls streaming in the wind, an air of triumph and joy on her face. Six thousand soldiers were drawn up to receive her.
So we rode, wondering and amazed, behind and around her, and at the appointed spot, in the very midst of the English lines, we halted, and made a great avenue for the army from Blois to pass through. All gazed in wonder at the Maid. All saluted deeply. The English in their towers gazed in amaze, but fired no shot. We all passed into the city in safety.
Alexandre de Beauharnais, deputy from Blois, had passed with his colleagues into the ballroom, had with them taken the fatal oath; in the decisive night of the 4th of August he, with burning enthusiasm, had renounced all the privileges of the nobility, all his feudal rights; and, breaking with the past, with all its family traditions and customs, had passed, with all the passion and zest of his nine- and-twenty years, into the hostile camp of the people and of liberty.
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