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Updated: June 17, 2025
A moment more, and De Mouchy was lost; but it was then that Le Brusquet stayed them with a jest, a grim jest that tickled their fancy, and arrested their outstretched hands for a yet sweeter vengeance. "A moment, my children!" he called out, barring the way at the head of the stair; "one moment!
A few minutes after our arrival Le Brusquet ambled up on a Spanish mule, and soon we three were deep in discussing what had happened since the day I rode out of the Porte St. Michel.
They understood and drank Le Brusquet with a searching look in his eyes and a smile on his lips, and his companion with a reckless laugh. And now they rose. "Monsieur," said the wounded man, "will you add to your kindness by telling us to whom we are indebted? You are a soldier I can see that and I can keep that sword of yours from rusting if you will." So he had not recognised me!
I found my friends awaiting me, and Le Brusquet asked: "Well, have you come forth a made man?" "Monsieur, I will answer you that," I said with assumed gravity, "if you will tell me who betrayed me to the Queen." I looked from one to the other, and they both laughed. "Behold the traitor, then!" And Le Brusquet pointed with his finger at me. "Yes, you! as if you had called it from the housetops.
Le Brusquet stepped back and seated himself on a table, and then for the first time I noticed a third person in the room a tall, soldierly man, with the collar of The Order at his neck. With a wave of his hand Le Brusquet presented me to the stranger, whom I found was M. de Lorgnac, the lieutenant of the Queen's guard he in whose house Pierrebon had obtained shelter.
"He took up the paper, and it rustled in his trembling hand. One more glance at the bowed figure beside him, and he called out: "'Le Brusquet, give me a pen. "I made no answer, but stood as if I had not heard. I swear to you, Orrain, that I would rather have let my right hand wither than do his bidding. Twice he repeated his order; but I stood like a stone. Diane made no movement.
I thanked him for the kindness he had shown in this, to one so utterly unknown as I was to him; but he stayed me with a smile, saying that in this or any other matter I could command him, as the friend of Le Brusquet, and went on to pay me a handsome compliment in regard to the affair of the previous night. "An affair that is like to place me on the road to Montfauçon," I said a little bitterly.
I said, and half rising from my seat; but with an exclamation Le Brusquet snatched the packet from De Lorgnac's hand. In a moment the letters were opened, and he was reading them with feverish haste. There were four letters in all, and when he had done he looked at us, and there was the light of hope in his eyes. "Speak, man!" And I gripped him by the arm. "I cannot bear this longer!"
An hour later I sat with Lorgnac and Le Brusquet in a little room in the former's house in the Rue Tire Boudin. At the Louvre I had discovered that there was no chance of my being able to see the Queen until after the supper hour; and so I accepted the hospitality De Lorgnac offered me, and was back again in the very house in which I had spent my last night in Paris.
The Spanish war had broken out, and De Lorgnac was in the field at Marienbourg. Le Brusquet had gone, none knew whither perchance to see the pears of Besmé and as for me, I felt it was time to be up and stirring. Things had changed with me, for I was now the Vidame d'Orrain, and I might hope and dream again.
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