CHAPTER XXVI
WHAT VALUE A VALOIS PRINCE SET UPON HIS WORD
To Gilles de Crohin, when he woke to consciousness one morning in his former lodging in La Fère, the whole of the past few weeks appeared indeed like a long dream.
Cambray—Jacqueline—his mask—his deceit—that last day upon the ramparts—were they not all the creations of his fevered brain? Surely a whole lifetime could not be crowded into so short a space of time. No man could have lived through so much, loved so passionately, have lost and fought and conquered so strenuously, all within a few weeks.
And when, after many days' enforced rest and a good deal of attention from a skilful leech backed by Maître Jehan's unwavering care, he was once more on his feet and was able to relate to Madame la Reyne de Navarre the many vicissitudes of his perilous adventure, it seemed to him as if he were recounting to a child, fairy tales and dream stories which had never been.
It was only at evening, when he wandered round the little Dutch garden at the back of the house where he lodged, that Jacqueline came to him, aglow with life—a living, breathing, exquisite reality. For the Madonna lilies were all abloom in that garden just then: tall, stately white lilies, which bordered one of the narrow paths. They had slender, pale green stems, their fragrance filled the evening air and the soft breeze stirred their delicate crowns. Then it would seem to Gilles as if his Jacqueline were walking down the path beside him, that the breeze blew the tendrils of her fair hair against his nostrils and that her voice filled his ear with its sweet, melodious sound. A big heartache would make the rough soldier sigh with longing then. Unseen by any one, alone with his thoughts of her, he would stretch out his arms to that tantalizing vision which seemed so real and was yet so far, so very far away.
Madame la Reyne would at times chaff him about his moodiness, and he himself was ready to laugh aloud at his own folly. What right had he—the uncouth soldier of fortune, the homeless adventurer—to think of the great and noble lady, who was as far removed from him as were the stars? What right indeed? Even though Marguerite de Navarre, lavish in her gratitude, had already showered honours and wealth upon the man who had served her so faithfully.
'Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont,' she had said to him with solemn earnestness, on the day when first she had realized how completely he had worked out her own schemes; 'the lands of Froide Monte, which are some of the richest in Acquitaine, were a part of my dowry when I married. They are yours now, as they once were the property of your forebears. They are yours, with their forests, their streams and their castles. Take them as a poor token of my lifelong gratitude.' And when Gilles demurred, half-indifferent even to so princely a gift, she added with her habitual impatience: 'Pardieu, Messire, why should you be too proud to accept a gift from me, seeing that I was not too proud to ask so signal a service of you?'
Even so, that gift—so graciously offered, so welcome to the man's pride of ancestry—had but little value in his sight, since he could not do with it the one thing that mattered, which was to lay it at Jacqueline's feet.
'Do not look so morose, Messire,' Marguerite de Navarre said teasingly. 'I vow that you have left your heart captive in Cambray.' Then as Gilles, after this straight hit, remained silent and absorbed, she added gaily: 'Have no fear, Messire! When Monsieur is Lord of the Netherlands, he will force the lady of your choice into granting you her favours. Remember!' she said more seriously, 'that the Prince de Froidmont can now aspire to the hand of the richest and most exalted lady in the land.'
'Monseigneur is still far from being Lord of the Netherlands,' Gilles said dryly, chiefly with a view to inducing a fresh train of thought in the royal lady's mind.
Marguerite shrugged her pretty shoulders.
'He still procrastinates,' she admitted. 'He should be at La Fère by now, with five thousand troops. Everything was ready when I left Paris.'
'He has found something else to distract him,' rejoined Gilles, with unconscious bitterness. 'Perhaps Mme. de Marquette has resumed her sway over him, the while Cambray waits and starves.'
'Chien sabe?' allowed Madame la Reyne with an impatient sigh.
The while Cambray waits and starves! That was indeed the deathly sting which poisoned Gilles de Crohin's very life during those four dreary months, while Monsieur Duc d'Anjou was ostensibly making preparations for his expedition for the relief of the beleaguered city. Ostensibly in truth, for very soon his fond sister had to realize that, now as always, that fickle brother of hers was playing his favourite game of procrastination and faithlessness. With him, in fact, faithlessness had become an obsession. It seemed as if he could not act or think straight, as if he could not keep his word. Now, while he was supposed to recruit his troops, to consult with his officers, to provide for engines and munitions of war, he actually deputed his long-suffering and still faithful friend, Gilles de Crohin, to do the work for him. His own thoughts had once more turned to a possible marriage—not with Jacqueline de Broyart, to whom he was bound by every conceivable tie of honour and of loyalty—but with Elizabeth of England, whom he coveted because of her wealth, and the power which so brilliant an alliance would place in his hands.
But of these thoughts he did not dare to speak even to the adoring sister, who most certainly would have turned her back on him for ever had she known that he harboured such dishonourable projects. He did not dare to speak of them even to Gilles, for he felt that this would strain his friend's loyalty to breaking point. He entered outwardly into the spirit of the proposed expedition with all the zest which he could muster, but the moment he was no longer under Marguerite de Navarre's own eyes he did not lift another finger in its organization.
'Turenne and la Voute are quite capable of going to the relief of Cambray without me,' he said to Gilles with a yawn and a lazy stretch of his long, loose limbs. 'I have never been counted a good commander, and Parma is always a difficult problem to tackle. Let Turenne go, I say. My brother Henri lauds him as the greatest general of the day, and the rogue hath fought on the Spanish side before now, so he hath all their tricks at his fingers' ends.'
Monsieur was in Paris then, and Marguerite de Navarre, wellnigh distraught, had entreated Gilles to stir him into immediate activity.
'Cambray will fall before that indolent brother of mine gets there, Messire,' she had pleaded, with tears of impotent anger in her eyes.
Gilles had gone. He needed no goad even for so distasteful a task. 'Cambray might fall!' The thought drove him into a fever, from which he could find no solace save in breathless activity. He found Monsieur in his Palace in Paris, surrounded by the usual crowd of effeminate youngsters and idle women, decked out in new-fangled, impossible clothes, the creations of his own fancy, indolent, vicious, incorrigible. Just now, when Gilles had come to speak to him of matters that meant life or death, honour or shame, the future welfare or downfall of a nation, he was lounging in a huge armchair, his feet resting on a pile of cushions. He was wearing one of his favourite satin suits, with slashed doublet all covered with tags and ribbons; he had gold earrings in his ears and was nursing a litter of tiny hairless puppies, whom he was teasing with the elaborate insignia of the Order of the Holy Ghost, wrought in gold and set with diamonds, which he wore on a blue ribband round his neck.
Gilles looked down on him with a contempt that was no longer good-humoured. Cambray was waiting and starving whilst this miserable coxcomb idled away the hours! Two months had gone by and practically nothing had been done. There were no troops, no munitions, no arms; and Cambray was waiting and starving! God alone knew what miseries were being endured by those valiant burghers over there, whom Gilles' own voice had so easily rallied once to a stubborn and heroic defence! God alone knew what his exquisite Jacqueline was being made to suffer! At the thought, his very soul writhed in torment. He could have raised his hands in measureless anger against that effeminate nincompoop, and crushed the last spark of a profligate and useless life out of him. As it was, he had to entreat, to argue, almost to kneel, pleading the cause of Cambray and of his proud Jacqueline—his perfect and unapproachable lily, whom this miserable rag of manhood was casting aside and spurning with a careless wave of the hand.
Ye gods! That he, of all men, should have been assigned such a rôle! That Fate should have destined him to plead for the very honour and safety of the woman whom he worshipped, with a man whom he despised! And yet he argued and he entreated because Madame la Reyne herself vowed that no one could keep her brother in the path of integrity now, except his friend Gilles de Crohin. She had begged him not to leave Monsieur, not for a day, not if possible for an hour!
'He will give us the slip again,' she begged most earnestly; 'and be off to England after his wild-goose chase. Elizabeth will never marry him—never! And we shall remain before the world, uselessly discredited and shamed.'
Alas! much precious time had in the meanwhile been lost. News had come through that the Duke of Parma had given up the thought of taking Cambray by storm and had left del Fuente in temporary command with orders to reduce her by starvation.
But this was two months ago.
Marguerite de Navarre, wearied to death, harassed by Monsieur's inactivity, obstructed by the King of France, was on the verge of despair. Cambray, according to the most haphazard calculations, must be on the point of surrender.
Early in July, Monsieur, stung into a semblance of activity by perpetual nagging from his sister and constant goading from Gilles, did send M. de Turenne with an insufficient force, ill-equipped and ill-found, to effect a surprise attack against the Spanish army.
We know how signally that failed. The blame naturally was lavishly distributed. M. de Turenne, ignorant of his ground, had, it was averred, employed guides who led him astray. Spies and traitors amongst his troops were also supposed to have got wind of his plans and to have betrayed them to the Spanish commander. Certain it is that Turenne's small force was surprised, cut up, Turenne himself taken prisoner and that la Voute, his second, only escaped a like fate by disguising himself as a woman and running with the best of them back to La Fère.
The blow had fallen, sudden, swift and terrible. When the news was brought to Marguerite of Navarre she was seized with so awful an attack of choler, that she fell into unconsciousness and had to take to her bed.
She sent for Gilles, who was eating out his heart in Paris, playing the watch-dog over a dissolute Prince. At her command he proceeded at once to La Fère.
'All is not lost, Messire,' she said to him, as soon as his calm, trust-inspiring presence had infused some semblance of hope into her heart. 'But we must not allow Monsieur to exert himself any more in the matter. His incapacity alone matches his indolence.'
She felt so ashamed and so humiliated, that Gilles wellnigh forgot the grudge, which he really owed her for that pitiable adventure into which she had thrust him, and which was even now ending in disaster.
'My spirit is wellnigh broken,' she continued, with pathetic self-depreciation. 'If only, out of all this misery, we could save one shred of our honour!'
'Will your Majesty let me try?' Gilles said simply.
'What do you mean?' she riposted.
'Let me gather an army together. Let me do battle against the Duke of Parma. Monseigneur hath proved himself unwilling. We court disaster by allowing him thus to fritter away both time and men. It was Turenne yesterday; it will be Condé to-morrow, or Montmorency or Bussy—anybody, any unfortunate or incompetent who is willing to serve him! In God's name, Madame la Reyne,' urged Gilles, with a tone of bitter reproach, 'do not let us procrastinate any longer! Cambray is in her death-agony. Let me go to her aid!'
She made a final, half-hearted protest.
'No! No!' she said. 'You cannot, must not leave your post. If you do not keep watch over Monsieur, we shall lose him altogether.'
'Better that,' he retorted grimly, 'than that we should lose Cambray.'
'There you are right, Messire. Cambray now is bound up with our honour.'
She had become like a child—so different to her former self-assured, almost arrogant self. Gilles, whose firm purpose gave him the strength, had little ado to mould her to his will. She had become malleable, yielding, humble in her helplessness. Marguerite de Navarre was actually ready to listen to advice, to let another think for her and scheme. She accepted counsel with a blindness and submissiveness which were truly pathetic. And Gilles—with the vision before him of Jacqueline enduring all the horrors of a protracted siege—was experiencing a semblance of happiness at thought that at last he would have the power of working for her. So he set to with a will, to make the harassed Queen see eye to eye with him, to make her enter into his ideas and his plans.
'Your Majesty,' he said, 'has offered me the richest lands in Aquitaine. I entreat you to take them back and to give me their worth in money, and I'll gather together an army that will know how to fight. Then, when we are sure of victory, Monsieur can come and himself take command. But in the meanwhile, we will beat the Duke of Parma and relieve Cambray. This I swear to you by the living God!'
Marguerite was soon swept off her feet by his determination and his enthusiasm. With naïve surrender, she laid down her burden and left Gilles to shoulder it. Now at last he could work for his Jacqueline! He could fight for her, die for her when the time came! He could drive the foe from her gates and bequeath to her, ere he fell, the freedom of the country she loved so well.
Night and day he toiled, not only with heart and will but with the frenzy of despair; while Marguerite, ever hopeful, ever deluded where that contemptible brother of hers was concerned, flew to Paris to keep a watch over him, then back to La Fère to concert with Gilles—hoping against hope that all would still be well, ready to forgive Monsieur even for the seventy times seventh time, confident that she would still see him entering Cambray and marching thence from city to city, the chosen Lord of the Netherlands, more puissant than any King.
On the last day of July, Gilles de Crohin had his forces ready, equipped, armed, provisioned, at La Fère, where Marguerite de Navarre came herself in order to wish him and the expedition God speed.
But Monsieur—who had promised, nay sworn, he would come too, in order to take command in person at the last, when victory was assured—Monsieur had not arrived.
For two sennights the devoted sister and the faithful friend waited for him; but he did not come. Marguerite sent courier upon courier after him to Paris, but he evaded them all, and at one time nobody knew where he had hidden himself. To his other vices and failings, this descendant of a once noble race had added the supreme act of a coward. What that final weary waiting meant for Gilles, not even a veracious chronicler can describe. With Cambray almost in sight, with the Spanish armies not two leagues away, with his Jacqueline enduring every horror and every misery which the aching heart of an absent lover can conjure up before his tortured mind, he was forced to remain in idleness, eating out his heart in regret, remorse and longing, doubtful as to what the future might bring, tortured even with the fear that, mayhap, in Cambray only a flower-covered mound of earth would mark the spot where his Jacqueline slept the last sleep of eternal rest.
Then at last, upon the fourteenth day of August, a letter came by runner from Monsieur, for the Queen of Navarre. It had been written in Paris more than a week ago, and obviously had been purposely delayed. It began with many protestations of good-will, of love for his sister and of confidence in his friend. Then the letter went on in a kind of peevish strain:
'I am quite convinced, My dear sister, that I am altogether unfit for the kind of attack which the present Situation demands. Now Gilles has a great deal more Energy than I have, and a great deal more Knowledge. As you know, I never had any longing for military Glory, and feel absolutely no desire to make a State Entry into Cambray with a swarm of starved or diseased Flemings hanging to my stirrup-leathers. Let Gilles to all that. He seems to have had a liking for that unsavoury Crowd. Then, by and by, if the Spaniards, in the meanwhile, do not frustrate his Designs by giving him a beating, I shall be ready to take up once more the negotiations for my proposed Sovereignty of the Netherlands. But understand, My dear Sister, that this happy Event must come to pass without the co-operation of a Flemish bride. Frankly, I have no liking for the Race, and would be jeopardising My whole Future, by selling Myself to the first Dutch wench that an untoward Fate would throw in My way. Entre nous, Elizabeth of England has not been so haughty with Me of late. Get Me that Kingdom of the Netherlands by all means, My dear. I verily believe that this accrued Dignity would ensure the favourable Acceptance of My suit by the English Queen.'
Marguerite had never made any secret before Gilles of her brother's perfidy. Even this infamous letter she placed loyally before him now. When he had finished reading it and she saw the look of measureless contempt which flashed through his eyes, she could have cried with shame and misery.
'What to do, Messire?' she exclaimed piteously. 'Oh, my God! what to do?'
'Relieve Cambray first and foremost, Madame,' he replied firmly. 'After that, we shall see.'
'But the Flemish lords!' she rejoined. 'Their anger! Their contempt! I could not bear it, Messire! The shame of it all will kill me!'
'It has got to be borne, Madame! Cambray has suffered enough. It is our turn now.'
Nor would he discuss the matter any further, even with her. The expedition had been entrusted to his hands, and nothing would delay him now. Cambray was waiting and starving, every hour might mean her final surrender. The Spanish commander—apprised of Monsieur le Duc d'Anjou's arrival with a strong force—had already offered battle. Gilles was only too eager to accept the issue.
On the fifteenth day of August, 1581, that battle was fought on the plains outside Cambray. The issue was never in doubt for one moment. Le Carpentier asserts that the Duke of Parma, after six hours' stubborn fighting, surrendered his position and all his forts and retired in great haste in the direction of Valenciennes.