"Thanks, sire; pray Heaven for me!" "Oh, a thousand devils! pray to Satan rather; for only by his aid can you escape a halter." "Adieu, sire." "Adieu! By the way, M. de Maurevel, remember that if you are heard of before ten to-morrow, or are not heard of afterward, there is a dungeon at the Louvre." And Charles IX. calmly began to whistle, with more than usual precision, his favorite air. CHAPTER IV. THE EVENING OF THE 24TH OF AUGUST, 1572. Our readers have not forgotten that in the previous chapter we mentioned a gentleman named De la Mole whom Henry of Navarre was anxiously expecting. This young gentleman, as the admiral had announced, entered Paris by the gate of Saint Marcel the evening of the 24th of August, 1572; and bestowing a contemptuous glance on the numerous hostelries that displayed their picturesque signs on either side of him, he spurred his steaming horse on into the heart of the city, and after having crossed the Place Maubert, Le Petit Pont, the Pont Notre-Dame, and skirted the quays, he stopped at the end of the Rue de Bresec, which we have since corrupted into the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, and for the greater convenience of our readers we will call by its modern name. The name pleased him, no doubt, for he entered the street, and finding on his left a large sheet-iron plate swinging, creaking on its hinges, with an accompaniment of little bells, he stopped and read these words, "La Belle Étoile," written on a scroll beneath the sign, which was a most attractive one for a famished traveller, as it represented a fowl roasting in the midst of a black sky, while a man in a red cloak held out his hands and his purse toward this new-fangled constellation. "Here," said the gentleman to himself, "is an inn that promises well, and the landlord must be a most ingenious fellow. I have always heard that the Rue de l'Arbre Sec was near the Louvre; and, provided that the interior answers to the exterior, I shall be admirably lodged." While the newcomer was thus indulging in this monologue another horseman who had entered the street at the other end, that is to say, by the Rue Saint-Honoré, stopped also to admire the sign of La Belle Étoile.
Prev.
Back
Top