The gardens of the Palais Royal made a delightful place for such an entertainment as the king’s ball. In its contrasts of light and shadow, in its sombre alleys starred with colored lights, in its blend of courtly pomp and sylvan simplicity, it seemed the fairy-like creation of some splendid dream. Against the vivid greenness of the trees, intensified by the brightness of the blazing lamps, the whiteness of the statues asserted itself with fantastic emphasis. Everywhere innumerable flowers of every hue and every odor sweetened the air and pleased the eye, and through the blooming spaces, seemingly as innumerable as the blossoms and seemingly as brilliant, moved the gay, many-colored crowd of the king’s guests. The gardens were large, the gardens were spacious, but the king’s guests were many, and seemed to leave no foot of room unoccupied. Hither and thither they drifted, swayed, eddied, laughing, chattering, intriguing, whispering, admiring, wondering, playing all the tricks, repeating all the antics that are the time-honored attributes and privileges of a masquerade. Here trained dancers executed some elaborate measure for the entertainment of those that cared to pause in their wandering and behold them; there mysterious individuals, in flowing draperies, professed to read the stars and tell the fortunes of those that chose to spare some moments from frivolity for such mystic consultations. In the handsomest part of the garden, hard by the Pond and Fountain of Diana, a magnificent tent had been pitched, which was reserved for the accommodation of the king himself and for such special friends as he might choose to invite to share his privacy. Around this tent a stream of mirth-makers flowed at a respectful distance, envying—for envy is present even at a masquerade—those most highly favored where all were highly favored in being admitted into the sovereign’s intimacy. At the door of this tent, Monsieur Breant, who had been one of the cardinal’s principal servants, and who still remained the head custodian of the palace, was standing surveying the scene with a curiosity dulled by long familiarity. He was unaware that a sombrely clad hunchback, quite an incongruous figure in the merry crowd, was making for him, until the hunchback, coming along beside him, touched him on the arm and called him by name: "Monsieur Breant!" Breant turned and gazed at the hunchback with some surprise. "Who are you?" he asked. The hunchback laughed as he answered: "Don’t you know me? Why, man, I am Æsop the Second. My illustrious ancestor laughed at all the world, and so do I. He loved the Greek girl Rhodopis, who built herself a pyramid. I am wiser than he, for I love only myself." Breant shrugged his shoulders and made to turn upon his heel. "I have no time for fooling." Æsop detained him. "Don’t leave me; I am good company." Breant did not seem to be tempted by the offer. "That may be, but I must attend on his majesty." Æsop still restrained him. "You can do me a favor." Breant eyed the impertinent hunchback with disfavor. "Why should I do you a favor, Æsop the Second?" The hunchback explained, gayly: "In the first place, because I am the guest of his Majesty the King. In the second place, because I am the confidential devil of his Highness the Prince de Gonzague. But my third reason is perhaps better." As he spoke he took a well-filled purse from his pocket and tossed it lightly from one hand to the other, looking at Breant with a sneering smile. Breant would have been no true servant of the time if he had not liked money for the sake of the pleasure that money could give; Breant would have been no true servant of the time if he had not been always in want of money. He eyed the purse approvingly, and his manner was more amiable. "What do you want?" he asked. Æsop made his wishes clear. "There is a little lodge yonder in the darkness at the end of that alley, hard by the small gate that is seldom used. You know the gate, for you sometimes used to wait in that little lodge when a late exalted personage chose to walk abroad incognito." Breant frowned at him. "You know much, Master Æsop." Æsop shrugged his shoulders. "I am a wizard. But it needs no wizard to guess that, as the exalted personage is no longer with us, he will not walk abroad to-night, and you will not have to yawn and doze in the lodge till he return." "What then?" asked Breant. Æsop lowered his voice to a whisper. "Let me have the key of the little lodge for to-night." Breant lifted his hands in protest. "Impossible!" he said. Æsop shook his head. "I hate that word, Monsieur Breant. ’Tis a vile word. Come now, twenty louis and the key of the lodge for an hour after midnight." Breant looked at the purse and looked at the hunchback. "Why do you want it?" he asked. Æsop laughed mockingly. "Vanity. I wish to walk this ball like a gentleman. I have fine clothes; they lie now in a bundle on the lodge step. If I had the key I could slip inside and change and change again and enjoy myself, and no one the worse or the wiser." The purse seemed to grow larger to Breant’s eyes, and his objections to dwindle proportionately. "A queer whim, crookback," he said. Æsop amended the phrase: "A harmless whim, and twenty louis would please the pocket." Breant slipped his hand into a side-pocket, and, producing a little key, he handed it to Æsop. "There’s the key, but I must have it back before morning." Æsop took the key, and the purse changed owners. "You shall," he promised. "Good. Now I shall make myself beautiful." Breant looked at him good-humoredly. "Good sport, Æsop the Second." He turned and disappeared into the tent. Æsop, looking at the key with satisfaction, murmured to himself: "The best." As he moved slowly away from the king’s tent a little crowd of Gonzague’s friends—Chavernay, Oriol, Navailles, NocÉ, Gironne, Choisy, Albret, and Montaubert—all laughing and talking loudly, crossed his path and perceived the hunchback, who seemed to them, naturally enough, a somewhat singular figure in such a scene. "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. "Nonsense!" he cried. "Nonsense, NocÉ, you began the jest." Then he added, in a lower voice: "You can’t pick a quarrel with the poor devil." The hunchback paid him an extravagant salutation. "Monsieur de Chavernay, you are always chivalrous. You really ought to die young, for it will take so much trouble to turn you into a rogue." Fat Oriol, staring in amazement at the controversy, questioned: "What does the fellow mean?" Chavernay burst into a fit of laughing, and patted Oriol on the back. "I’m afraid he means that you are a rogue, Oriol." While the angry gentlemen stood together, with the hunchback apart eying them derisively, and Chavernay standing between the belligerents as peace-maker, Taranne hurriedly joined the group. He was evidently choking with news and eager to distribute it. "Friends, friends," he cried, "there is something extraordinary going on here to-night!" "What is it?" asked Chavernay. Taranne answered him, with a voice as grave as an oracle: "All the sentinels are doubled, and there are two companies of soldiers in the great court." Navailles protested: "You are joking!" Taranne was not to be put down. "Never more serious. Every one who enters is scrutinized most carefully." "That is easy to explain," said Chavernay; "it is just to make sure that they really are invited." Taranne declined to admit this interpretation of his mystery: "Not so, for nobody is allowed on any pretext to leave the gardens." 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." While this conversation was going on a group of middle-aged gentlemen had been moving down the avenue that led to the Pond of Diana. These were the Baron de la Hunaudaye, Monsieur de Marillac, Monsieur de Barbanchois, Monsieur de la Ferte, and Monsieur de Vauguyon. They had been taking a peaceful interest in the spectacle afforded them, had been comparing it with similar festivities that they recalled in the days of their youth, and had been enjoying themselves tranquilly enough. Perceiving a group of young men apparently engaged in animated discussion, the elders quickened their pace a little to join the party and learn the cause of its animation. When they arrived Æsop was speaking. "Something extraordinary is going on here to-night, Monsieur de Navailles. The king is preoccupied. The guard is doubled, but no one knows why, not even these gentlemen. But I know, Æsop the Wise." "What do you know?" asked Navailles. Æsop looked at him mockingly. "You would never guess it if you guessed for a thousand years. It has nothing to do with plots or politics, with foreign intrigues or domestic difficulties—" Oriol thirsted for information. "What is it for, then?" Æsop answered, gravely, with an amazing question: "Gentlemen, do you believe in ghosts?" And the gravity of his voice and the strangeness of his question forced his hearers, surprised and uneasy, in spite of themselves, to laugh disdainfully. Æsop accepted their laughter composedly. "Of course not. No one believes in ghosts at noonday, on the crowded street, though perhaps some do at midnight when the world is over-still. But here, to-night, in all this glitter and crowd and noise and color, the king is perturbed and the guards are doubled because of a ghost—the ghost of a man who has been dead these seventeen years." The Baron de la Hunaudaye, bluff old soldier of the brave days of the dawning reign, was interested in the hunchback’s words. "Of whom do you speak?" he asked. Æsop turned to the new-comers, and addressed them more respectfully than he had been addressing the partisans of Gonzague: "I speak of a gallant gentleman—young, brave, beautiful, well-beloved. I speak to men who knew him. To you, Monsieur de la Hunaudaye, who would now be lying under Flemish earth if his sword had not slain your assailant; to you, Monsieur de Marillac, whose daughter took the veil for love of him; to you, Monsieur de Barbanchois, who fortified against him the dwelling of your lady love; to you, Monsieur de la Ferte, who lost to him one evening your Castle of Senneterre; to you, Monsieur de Vauguyon, whose shoulder should still remember the stroke of his sword." As Æsop spoke, he addressed in turn each of the elder men, and as he spoke recognition of his meaning showed itself in the face of each man whom he addressed. Hunaudaye nodded. "Louis de Nevers," he said, solemnly. Instantly Æsop uncovered. "Yes, Louis de Nevers, who was assassinated under the walls of the Castle of Caylus twenty years ago." Chavernay came over to Æsop. "My father was a friend of Louis de Nevers." Æsop looked from the group of old men to the group of young men. "It is the ghost of Nevers that troubles us to-night. There were three Louis in those days, brothers in arms. Louis of France did all he could to find the assassin of Nevers. In vain. Louis de Gonzague did all he could to find the assassin of Nevers. In vain. Well, gentlemen, would you believe it, to-night Louis of France and Louis de Gonzague will be told the name of the assassin of Nevers?" "And the name?" asked Chavernay. Choisy plucked him impatiently by the sleeve. "Don’t you see that the humpbacked fool is making game of us?" Æsop shrugged his shoulders. "As you please, sirs, as you please; but that is why the guards are doubled." He turned on his heel, and walked leisurely away from the two groups of gentlemen. The elders, having little in common with Gonzague’s friends, followed his example, and drifted off together, talking to one another in a low voice of the gallant gentleman whose name had suddenly been recalled to their memories at that moment. Gonzague’s gang stared at one another, feeling vaguely discomfited. "The man is mad," said Gironne. "There seems a method in his madness," said Chavernay, dryly. Albret interrupted them. "Here comes his majesty." "And, as I live, with the Princess de Gonzague!" Montaubert cried, amazed. Oriol elevated his fat palms. "Wonders will never cease!" |