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Updated: July 16, 2025
And it was with an unfamiliar exaltation of the spirit that Lagardere swore to himself that the unwitting confidence of Gabrielle de Caylus should not be misplaced, and that all his hand, his heart, his sword could do for her service should cheerfully and faithfully be done. Lagardere could see that she was holding something in the nature of a bundle in her out-stretched arms.
Lagardere interrupted him: "Monseigneur, he is going to say that that packet contains only the birth-lines of Mademoiselle de Nevers but there is more than that." Louis of Orleans turned his steady gaze on Louis of Gonzague, and read little to comfort him in the twitching face of his life-long friend. "Break the seals, Louis," he commanded.
It was addressed to her in a handwriting that was wholly unfamiliar, and carefully sealed with seals in black wax, that bore the impression of the word "Adsum." The princess looked keenly at the hunchback, who stood quietly before her with bent head in an attitude of respectful attention. "Do you know anything further respecting this package?" the princess asked. Lagardere shook his head.
"Better have a sword or two to back you," Cocardasse suggested, cunningly. Lagardere frowned. "No, thank you. I do my own fighting." Passepoil whispered, insinuatingly: "Could I help to carry off the lady?" Lagardere's frown deepened. "No, thank you. I do my own love-making. Clear out and leave me alone. That is all I want of you, my friends." Cocardasse sighed.
But the man that had killed Nevers, the man that Lagardere had branded, had still a hate to satisfy. "A thousand crowns," he cried, "to the man who gets the child!" Not a man of all the baffled assassins answered to that challenge. Standing upon the steps of the bridge, Lagardere caught it up. "Seek her behind my sword, assassin! You wear my mark, and I will find you out! You shall all suffer!
The world laughed at me, but I laughed at the world, and I won my wish." "Just think of it!" said Cocardasse. "Henri de Lagardere, a gentleman born, without a decent relative, without a decent friend, without a penny, making his livelihood as a strolling player in the booth of a mountebank." While Cocardasse was speaking, Lagardere seemed to listen like a man in a dream.
In another moment Lagardere was stooping again, the long hair was falling about his face, and the two men could scarcely believe that Æsop was not standing before them. "Hush! To you both, as to all the world, I am Æsop, Gonzague's attendant devil. Now I have work for you. Go to-night at eleven to No. 7, Rue de Chantre." As he spoke he drew a letter from his coat and gave it to Cocardasse.
In a moment Lagardere enveloped himself in his gypsy's cloak and flung himself on one of the benches of the Inn, where he lay as if wrapped in the heavy sleep which is the privilege of those that live in the open air and follow the stars with their feet.
"No," he said "no, not as yet, to my knowledge, or he would be dead. But I have a conviction that our paths will cross one day, and when that day comes you may be sorry for Lagardere if your heart is inclined to be pitiful."
"Why there?" he questioned. Lagardere explained, amiably: "Because such is the good duke's pleasure. When I sent him my cartel I made it plain that I had little time on my hands, as I was anxious, on account of the king's fire-new zeal against duelling, to cross the frontier as speedily as might be.
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