He drew near to the window, resumed his place in the
balcony, and remained there, motionless, annihilated, dead,
till the moment when, the heavens beginning to darken, the
first flambeaux traversed the enlivened street, and gave the
signal for illumination to all the windows of the city.
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
CHAPTER 7
Parry.
Whilst the unknown was viewing these lights with interest,
and lending an ear to the various noises, Master Cropole
entered his apartment, followed by two attendants, who laid
the cloth for his meal.
The stranger did not pay them the least attention; but
Cropole approaching him respectfully, whispered ” Monsieur,
the diamond has been valued.”
“Ah!” said the traveler. “Well?”
“Well, monsieur, the jeweler of S. A. R. gives two hundred
and eighty pistoles for it.”
“Have you them?”
“I thought it best to take them, monsieur; nevertheless, I
made it a condition of the bargain, that if monsieur wished
to keep his diamond, it should be held till monsieur was
again in funds.”
“Oh, no, not at all; I told you to sell it.”
“Then I have obeyed, or nearly so, since, without having
definitely sold it, I have touched the money.”
“Pay yourself,” added the unknown.
“I will do so, monsieur, since you so positively require
it.”
A sad smile passed over the lips of the gentleman.
“Place the money on that trunk,” said he, turning round and
pointing to the piece of furniture.
Cropole deposited a tolerably large bag as directed, after
having taken from it the amount of his reckoning.
“Now,” said he, “I hope monsieur will not give me the pain
of not taking any supper. Dinner has already been refused;
this is affronting to the house of les Medici. Look,
monsieur, the supper is on the table, and I venture to say
that it is not a bad one.”
The unknown asked for a glass of wine, broke off a morsel of
bread, and did not stir from the window whilst he ate and
drank.
Shortly after was heard a loud flourish of trumpets; cries
arose in the distance, a confused buzzing filled the lower
part of the city, and the first distinct sound that struck
the ears of the stranger was the tramp of advancing horses.
“The king! the king!” repeated a noisy and eager crowd.
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Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
“The king!” cried Cropole, abandoning his guest and his
ideas of delicacy, to satisfy his curiosity.
With Cropole were mingled, and jostled, on the staircase,
Madame Cropole, Pittrino, and the waiters and scullions.
The cortege advanced slowly, lighted by a thousand
flambeaux, in the streets and from the windows.
After a company of musketeers, a closely ranked troop of
gentlemen, came the litter of monsieur le cardinal, drawn
like a carriage by four black horses. The pages and people
of the cardinal marched behind.
Next came the carriage of the queen-mother, with her maids
of honor at the doors, her gentlemen on horseback at both
sides.
The king then appeared, mounted upon a splendid horse of
Saxon breed, with a flowing mane. The young prince
exhibited, when bowing to some windows from which issued the
most animated acclamations, a noble and handsome
countenance, illumined by the flambeaux of his pages.
By the side of the king, though a little in the rear, the
Prince de Conde, M. Dangeau, and twenty other courtiers,
followed by their people and their baggage, closed this
veritably triumphant march. The pomp was of a military
character.
Some of the courtiers — the elder ones, for instance —
wore traveling dresses; but all the rest were clothed in
warlike panoply. Many wore the gorges and buff coat of the
times of Henry IV. and Louis XIII.
When the king passed before him, the unknown, who had leant
forward over the balcony to obtain a better view, and who
had concealed his face by leaning on his arm, felt his heart
swell and overflow with a bitter jealousy.
The noise of the trumpets excited him — the popular
acclamations deafened him: for a moment he allowed his
reason to be absorbed in this flood of lights, tumult and
brilliant images.