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Updated: May 10, 2025
Really you waste a great deal of breath," the captain said. "I regret the cruel necessity of arresting you, M. de Mar; but there is nothing gained by blustering about it. I usually know what I am about." "You do not know! Nom de dieu, you do not know. Félix Broux, speak up there. If you have told him behind my back that I am Étienne de Mar, I defy you to say it to my face."
The great world has heard of the St. Quentins? I warrant you! As loudly as it has of Sully and Villeroi, Trémouille and Biron. That is enough for the Broux. I was brought up to worship the saints and M. le Duc, and I loved and revered them alike, by faith, for M. le Duc, at court, seemed as far away from us as the saints in heaven.
"And will he tell tales?" "No," said Lucas, "he will tell no tales." "How about your spy in the Hôtel St. Quentin?" "Martin, the clerk? Oh, I warned him off before I left," Lucas said easily. "He will lie perdu till we want him again. And Grammont, you see, is dead too. There is no direct witness to the thing but the boy Broux."
So M. Étienne went into the tournebride and washed his face. And that was all the toilet he made for audience with the greatest king in the world. "You'll ride to Monsieur's," he commanded me, when the captain answered: "No; he goes with you, monsieur, if he's the boy Choux, Troux, whatever it is." "Broux Félix Broux!" I cried, a-quiver. "That's it. You go to the king, too. Another luck-child."
"Messieurs," I said, "if it is my name that does not please you, why, I can say for it that if it is not very high-sounding, at least it is an honest one and has ever been held so down where we live." "And that is at St. Quentin," said Yeux-gris. "Yes, monsieur. My father, Anton Broux, is Master of the Forest to the Duke of St. Quentin."
"Trust me for that." "Then came you here?" "Not at once. I tracked Mar and this Broux to Mar's old lodgings at the Three Lanterns. When I had dogged them to the door I came here and worked upon Lorance to write Mar a letter commanding his presence. For I thought that the night was yet young and to-morrow he might be out of my reach.
M. Étienne did not send me hither to bring her grief and trouble." "Who are you?" she asked me abruptly. "You have never been here before on monsieur's errands?" "No, mademoiselle; I came up only yesterday from Picardie. I belong on the St. Quentin estate. My name is Félix Broux." "Alack, you have chosen a bad time to visit Paris!" "I came up to see life," I said, "and mordieu! I am seeing it."
"Gilles Forestier and Félix Broux, Monsieur, just from Paris, with news." "Wait." "Is it all right, M. le Duc?" the sentry asked, saluting. "Yes," Monsieur answered, closing the shutter. The soldier, with another salute to the blank window, and a nod of "Good-by, then," to us, went back to his post.
Quentins rank with the saints." "You you are a hired servant. You come to Monsieur as you might come to anybody. With the Broux it is different," I retorted angrily. Yet I could not but know in my heart that any hired servant might have served Monsieur better than I. My boasted loyalty what was it but lip-service? I said more humbly: "Pshaw! it is no great matter. Tell me about the quarrel."
I had believed that of some hired lackey, not of a Broux." "Monsieur, I was wrong a thousand times wrong. I knew that as soon as I had sworn. And when I found it was you they meant, I came to you, oath or no oath." "There spoke the Broux!" cried Monsieur with his brilliant smile. "Now you are Félix. Who are my would-be murderers?"
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