“Alas!” he said to himself, “if I only had for a confessor
one of those lights of the church, whose soul has sounded
all the mysteries of life, all the littlenesses of
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greatness, perhaps his utterance would overawe the voice
that wails within my soul. But I shall have a priest of
vulgar mind, whose career and fortune I have ruined by my
misfortune. He will speak to me of God and death, as he has
spoken to many another dying man, not understanding that
this one leaves his throne to an usurper, his children to
the cold contempt of public charity.”
And he raised the medallion to his lips.
It was a dull, foggy night. A neighboring church clock
slowly struck the hour. The flickering light of the two
candles showed fitful phantom shadows in the lofty room.
These were the ancestors of Charles, standing back dimly in
their tarnished frames.
An awful sadness enveloped the heart of Charles. He buried
his brow in his hands and thought of the world, so beautiful
when one is about to leave it; of the caresses of children,
so pleasing and so sweet, especially when one is parting
from his children never to see them again; then of his wife,
the noble and courageous woman who had sustained him to the
last moment. He drew from his breast the diamond cross and
the star of the Garter which she had sent him by those
generous Frenchmen; he kissed it, and then, as he reflected,
that she would never again see those things till he lay cold
and mutilated in the tomb, there passed over him one of
those icy shivers which may be called forerunners of death.
Then, in that chamber which recalled to him so many royal
souvenirs, whither had come so many courtiers, the scene of
so much flattering homage, alone with a despairing servant,
whose feeble soul could afford no support to his own, the
king at last yielded to sorrow, and his courage sank to a
level with that feebleness, those shadows, and that wintry
cold. That king, who was so grand, so sublime in the hour of
death, meeting his fate with a smile of resignation on his
lips, now in that gloomy hour wiped away a tear which had
fallen on the table and quivered on the gold embroidered
cloth.
Suddenly the door opened, an ecclesiastic in episcopal robes
entered, followed by two guards, to whom the king waved an
imperious gesture. The guards retired; the room resumed its
obscurity.
“Juxon!” cried Charles, “Juxon, thank you, my last friend;
you come at a fitting moment.”
The bishop looked anxiously at the man sobbing in the
ingle-nook.
“Come, Parry,” said the king, “cease your tears.”
“If it’s Parry,” said the bishop, “I have nothing to fear;
so allow me to salute your majesty and to tell you who I am
and for what I am come.”
At this sight and this voice Charles was about to cry out,
when Aramis placed his finger on his lips and bowed low to
the king of England.
“The chevalier!” murmured Charles.
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“Yes, sire,” interrupted Aramis, raising his voice, “Bishop
Juxon, the faithful knight of Christ, obedient to your
majesty’s wishes.”
Charles clasped his hands, amazed and stupefied to find that
these foreigners, without other motive than that which their
conscience imposed on them, thus combated the will of a
people and the destiny of a king.
“You!” he said, “you! how did you penetrate hither? If they
recognize you, you are lost.”
“Care not for me, sire; think only of yourself. You see,
your friends are wakeful. I know not what we shall do yet,
but four determined men can do much. Meanwhile, do not be
surprised at anything that happens; prepare yourself for
every emergency.”
Charles shook his head.
“Do you know that I die to-morrow at ten o’clock?”
“Something, your majesty, will happen between now and then
to make the execution impossible.”
The king looked at Aramis with astonishment.
At this moment a strange noise, like the unloading of a
cart, and followed by a cry of pain, was heard beneath the