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Updated: June 17, 2025
Lucas's hand went to his belt again; he made one step as if to come around the table. Mayenne's angry eye was on him but he did not move; and Lucas made no more steps. Controlling himself with an effort, he said: "It was not my fault, monsieur. No man could have laboured harder or planned better than I. I have been diligent, I have been clever.
"Yes, my dear monsieur, it is a little hard for M. de Mayenne's nephew you are a nephew, are you not? to explain how he comes to ride with the Duc de St. Quentin." It was awkward to explain. Lucas, knowing well that there was no future for him who betrayed the Generalissimo's secrets, cried out angrily: "He lies! I never rode out with M. de St. Quentin." "Oh, come now.
"I will tell M. le Comte so," I answered with all the impudence I could muster. "By Heaven, you will tell him nothing," he cried. "You will never see daylight again." "I have Mayenne's word," I began, but his retort was to draw dagger. I deemed it time to stop parleying, and I did what the best of soldiers must do sometimes: I ran. I bounded into the oratory, flinging the door to after me.
What mocking devil had driven Étienne de Mar, out of a whole France full of lovely women, to fix his unturnable desire on this Ligueuse of Mayenne's own brood? Had his father's friends no daughters, that he must seek a mistress from the black duke's household? Were there no families of clean hands and honest speech, that he must ally himself with the treacherous blood of Lorraine?
"I was never saner. I come, my friend, to make you listen to sanity." I had waited from moment to moment Mayenne's summons to his soldiers. But he had not rung, and now he flung himself down again in his arm-chair. "What, to your understanding, is sanity?"
And the Duke of Nemours wrote to his half-brother, the Duke of Mayenne; offering to use all his influence to bring about Mayenne's election as king on condition that if these efforts failed, Mayenne should do his best to procure the election of Nemours.
He must be free by this time; they cannot keep Mayenne's nephew in the Bastille. And oh, if he hated you before, how he will hate you now! Oh, Étienne, if you love me, go! Go to your own camp, your own side, at St. Denis. There are you safe. Here in Paris you may not draw a tranquil breath." "And shall I flee my dangers? Shall I run, in the face of my peril?"
If M. le Duc told me to hold this house against the armies of France and Spain, I'd hold it till the last man of us was dead. But I am here in his absence to guard his hôtel, his moneys, and his papers. I don't call it guarding to throw a firebrand among them. Bringing Mayenne's niece here would be worse than that." "Monsieur would never hesitate! Monsieur is no chicken-heart!" M. Étienne cried.
Some say he and Monsieur were at daggers drawn about politics; but I warrant it was about Mlle. de Montluc. They call her the Rose of Lorraine. She's the Duke of Mayenne's own cousin and housemate. And we're king's men, so of course it was no match for Monsieur's son. They say Mayenne himself favoured the marriage, but our duke wouldn't hear of it.
You might have thought them keeping carnival in the midst of a happy and loyal city. If the Lieutenant-General found anything to vex him in the present situation, he did not let the commonalty know it. The Duke of Mayenne's house, like my duke's, was guarded by men-at-arms; but his grilles were thrown back while his soldiers lounged on the stone benches in the archway.
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