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Updated: June 5, 2025
Men and women, the guests of Gonzague, flooded from the supper-room into the great hall, and under the gaze of the Three Louis, Oriol with his fancy, Navailles with Cidalise, Taranne, Nocé, and the others, each with his raddled Egeria of the opera-house and the ballet.
After these again came Gonzague's own little tail of partisans, Navailles and Nocé, Taranne and Oriol, Choisy and Gironne, Albret and Montaubert, with Chavernay fluttering about them like an impudent butterfly, laughing at them, laughing at his august cousin, laughing at the king, laughing at himself laughing at everything.
The Navailles would scarce dare to fall upon the party in the neighbourhood of so many of the English King's fortified cities; and before the sun set they hoped to be within the environs of Bordeaux itself a hope in which they were not destined to be disappointed.
"Good Heavens! What is this?" cried Navailles. Nocé chuckled: "A hunchback brings luck. May I slap you on the back, little lord?" Æsop answered him, coolly: "Yes, Monsieur de Nocé, if I may slap you in the face." Nocé took offence instantly. "Now, by Heaven, crookback!" he cried, and made a threatening gesture against Æsop, who eyed him insolently with a mocking smile. Chavernay interposed.
On one side was virtue and honour, on the other, the King's anger, disgrace, and exile. The husband and wife did not long hesitate. Madame de Navailles at once took her measures, and so well, that in a few hours one evening the door was entirely closed up. During the same night the King, thinking to enter as usual by the little staircase, was much surprised to no longer find a door.
He will not hear patiently of such indignities offered to a subject of his, not though the King of France himself had done it! That Sieur de Navailles is no friend to England. I know him well, and his false, treacherous ways. I have heard much of him ere now, and the King has his eye upon him. Gaston, this hollow truce cannot long continue.
Oriol flushed with a sudden wave of intelligence: "Perhaps some plot against his majesty." "Heaven knows," Navailles commented. Æsop interrupted the discussion with a dry laugh, dimly suggestive of the cackle of a jackdaw. "I know, gentlemen." Oriol stared at him. "You know?" Nocé gave vent to an angry laugh. "The hunchback knows."
In Bordeaux, and there alone, wilt thou be safe. It is thither that thou must fly, for thither alone will the Sieur de Navailles fear to follow you. For me, I must remain here, as I have done these many years. It will not be worse than it hath ever been." "And thinkest thou that I will leave thee thus to languish after thou hast restored to me my brother?" asked Gaston hotly.
She landed at La Rochelle, and was received in pity by Madame de Neuillant, mother of the Marechale Duchesse de Navailles, and was reduced by that avaricious old woman to keep the keys of her granary, and to see the hay measured out to her horses, as I have already related elsewhere.
"You are something young as yet to sally forth into the unknown world and carve for yourselves your fortunes there; but nevertheless I trow the day has come, for this place is no longer a safe shelter for you. The Sieur de Navailles, as it is told me, is already searching for you. It cannot be long before he finds your hiding place, and then no man may call your lives safe by night or day.
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