MARGUERITE DE VALOIS,
17
who, unmoved by this solitary effort, was doing
his best with his arquebuse out of his window.
And now, all this desert and obscure quarter
was lighted up, as if by open day—peopled like
the inferior of an ant-hive; for, from the Hôtel
de Montmorency, six or eight Huguenot gentle-
men, with their servants and friends, issuing
forth, made a furious charge, and began, sup-
ported by the firing from the windows, to re-
pulse Maurevel's and the De Guise's force,
whom at length they drove back to the place
whence they had come.
Coconnas, who had not yet managed to drive
in Mercandon's door, though lie tried to do so
with all his might, was surprised in this sudden
retreat. Placing his back to the wall, and grasp-
ing his sword firmly, he began, not only to de-
iend himself, but to attack his assailants, with
cries so terrible, that they were heard above all
the uproar. He struck right and left, hitting
friends and enemies, until a wide space was
cleared around, him. In proportion as his rapier
made a hole in some breast, and the warm blood
spurted over on his hands and face, he, with
dilated eye, expanded nostrils, and clinched
teeth, regained the ground he had lost, and again
approached tlie beleaguered house.
De Mouy, after a terrible combat in the stair-
case and hall, had ended by coming out of the
burning house like a true hero, ln the midst
of all the struggle, he had not ceased to cry.
" Here, Maurevel!—Maurevel, where are you?"
insulting him by the most opprobrious epithets.
He at length appeared in the street, supporting
on one arm his mistress, half naked and nearly
fainting, and holding a poniard between his
teeth. His sword, flaming by the sweeping action
he gave it, traced circles of white or red, accord-
ing as the moon glittered on the blade, or a
flambeau glared on its blood-stained brightness.
Maurevel had fled. La Hurière, driven back by
De Mouy as far as Coconnas, who did not rec-
ognize him, and received him at sword's point,
entreated mercy on both sides. At this mo-
ment, Mercandon perceived him, and knew
him, by his white scarf, to be one of the mur-
derers. He fired. La Hurière shrieked, threw
up his arms, dropped his arquebuss, and, after
having vainly attempted to reach the wall, in
order io support himself, fell with his face flat
on the earth.
De Mouy, profiting by this circumstance,
turned down the Rue de Paradis, and disap-
peared.
Such had been the resistance of the Hugue-
nots, that the De Guise party, quite repulsed,
had retired into their hotel, fearing to be be-
sieged and taken in their own habitation. .
Coconnas, who, drunk with blood aud riot,
had 'reached that degree of excitement when,
with the men of the South more especially,
courage changes into madness, had not seen or
heard anything, was going toward a man lying
with his face downward in a pool of blood, and
whom he recognized for La Hurière, when the
door of the house he had in vain tried to burst
in bpened, and old Mercandon, followed by his
son and two nephews, rushed upon him.
" Here he is! here he is!" cried they all, with
one voice.
Coconnas was in the middle of the street, and
fearing to be surrounded by these four men
who assailed him at once, gave one of those
chamois bounds which he had so often practiced
in his native mountains, and in an instant found
himself with his back against the wall of the
Hôtel de Guise. Once at ease as to not being
surprised from behind, he put himself in a post-
ure of defense, and said, jestingly, "Ah! ah!
Daddy Mercandon, don't you know me?"
" Wretch!" cried the old Huguenot, " I know
you well; you are engaged against me—me, the
friend and companion of your father!"
" And his creditor, are you not?"
" Yes; his creditor, as you say."
" Well, then," said Coconnas, " I have come
to settle the account."
"Seize him, bind him!" said Mercandon to
the young men who accompanied h»m, and who
at his bidding rushed toward the Piedmontese.
"One moment! one moment!" said Cocon-
nas, laughing, " to seize a man you must have a
writ, and you have forgotten that. ' '
And with these words, he crossed his sword
with the young man nearest to him, and at the
first blow cut his wrist to the bone.
Tlie wounded man retreated, with a shriek of
agony.
" That will do for one!" said Coconnas.
At the same moment, the window under
which Coconnas had - sought shelter, opened.
He sprang on one side, fearing an attack from
behind ; but, instead of an enemy, it was a wom-
an he beheld : instead of the enemy's weapon
he was prepared to encounter, it was a nosegay
that fell at his feet.
"Ah!" he said, "a woman!" He saluted
the lady with his sword, and stooped to pick up
the bouquet.
" Be on your guard, brave Catholic!—be on
your guard!" cried the lady.
Coconnas rose, but not before the dagger of
tbe second nephew had pierced his cloak, and
wounded his other shoulder.
The lady uttered a piercing shriek.
Coconnas thanked her, assured her by a gest-
ure, and then made a pass at the nephew, which
he parried; but at the second thrust, his foot
slipped in the blood, and Coconnas, springing
at him like a tiger-cat, drove his sword through
his breast.
" Good! good! brave cavalier!" exclaimed
the lady of the Hôtel de Guise—" good! I will
send you succor."
" Do not give yourself any trouble about that,
madame," was Coconnas's reply; " rather look
on to the end, if it interests you, and see how
the Comte Annibal de Coconnas settles the
Huguenots."
At this moment, the son of old Mercandon
placed a pistol almost close to Coconnas, and
fired. The Count fell on his knee. The lady
at the window shrieked again; but Coconnas
rose instantly; he had only knelt to avoid the
ball, which struck the wall about two feet be-
neath where the lady was standing.
Almost at the same moment there issued a cry
of rage from the window of Mercandon's house,
and an old woman who recognized Coconnas as
a Catholic, from his white scarf and cross, threw
a flower-pot at him, which struck him above the
knee.
"Bravo!" said Coconnas; "one throws me
flowers and the other flower-pots."
"Thanks, mother—thanks!" said the young
man.
" Go on, wife, go on," said old Mercandon;
" but take care of yourself."
"Ah!" said Coconnas, "thc women are in
arms, then, some for me, and others against
me!   Mordi! let us end this."
The scene, in fact, was much changed; and
evidently drew near its close. Coconnas was
wounded in the face, it is true, but in all the
vigor of four-and twenty, used to arms, and ir-
ritated rather than weakened by the three or
four scratches be had received ; whilst on the
other side there remained only Mercandon and
his son, an old man of sixty or seventy years,
and a stripling of sixteen or eighteen, pale, fair
and weak,and who, having discharged his pistol,
which was consequently useless, was brandish-
ing a sword half the length of that of the Pied-
montese. The father, armed only with a dag-
ger and a discharged arquebuss, was calling for
help. An old woman, looking out of the win-
dow, held a piece of marble in her hand, which
she was preparing to hurl down. Coconnas,
excited on the one bund by menaces, and on tbe
other by encouragements, proud of his twofold
victory, drunken with powder and blood, light-
ed by the reflection of a house in flames, warm-
ed by the idea that he was fighting under the
eyes of a female 'whose beauty was as superior
as he felt assured she was of high rank—Cocon-
nas, like the last of the Horatii, felt his strength
redouble, and seeing the young man falter,
rushed on him and crossed his small weapon
with his terrible and bloody rapier. Two blows
sufficed to drive it out of his hands. Then Mer-
candon tried to drive Coconnas back, so that
the projectiles thrown from the window might
be sure to strike him, but Coconnas, to paralyze
the double attack of the old man, who tried to
stab him with his dagger, and the mother of the
young man, who was endeavoring to break his
skull with the stone she was ready to throw,
seized his adversary by the body, presenting him
against all the blows, as a buckler, and well
nigh strangling him in his Herculean grasp.
" Help! help!" cried the young man, " he is
breaking my breast-bone—help! help!" and his
voice grew faint in a low and choking groan.
Then Mercandon ceased to attack, and began
to entreat.
"Mercy, mercy! Monsieur de Coconnas,
mercy!—he is my only child!"
" He is my son, my son!" cried the mother;
" the hope of our old age! Do not kill him, sir—
do not kill him!"
"Really," cried Coconnas, bursting into
laughter, "not kill him! What did he mean,
then, to do with me, with his sword and pis-
tol?"
" Sir," said Mercandon, clasping his hands,
" I have at home your father's undertaking, I
will return it to you—I have ten thousand
crowns of gold, I will give them to you—1 have
the jewels of our family, they shall be yours;
but do not kill him!—do not kill him!"
" And I have my love," said the lady in the
Hôtel de Guise, in a low tone, " and I promise
it you."
Coconnas reflected a moment, and said sud-
denly :
" Are you a Huguenot?"
" Yes," murmured the youth.
"Then you must die!" .replied Coconnas,
frowning, and putting to his adversary's breast
bis keen and glittering dagger.
" Die!" cried the old man; " my poor child,
die!"
And the shriek of the mother resounded so
piercingly and loud, that for a moment it shook
the firm resolution of tbe Piedmontese.
" Oh, Madame la Duchesse!" cried the father
turning toward the lady at the Hôtel de Guise,
" intercede for us, and every morning and even-
ing you shall be remembered in our prayers."
" Then let him be a convert," said the lady.
" I am a Protestant," said the boy.
" Then die!" exclaimed Coconnas, lifting his
dagger; " die! since you will not accept the life
which that lovely mouth offers to you." Mer-
candon and his wifesaw the blade of that deadly
weapon gleam like lightning above the head
of their son.
" My son Oliver," shrieked his mother, " ab-
jure, abjure!"
"Abjure, my dear boy!" cried Mercandon,
going on his knees to Coconnas; " do not leave
us alone on the earth!"
"Abjure altogether," said Coconnas; "for
one Credo, three souls and one life."
" I will!" said the youth.
"We will!" cried Mercandon and his wife.
" On your knees then," said Coconnas, "and
let your son repeat after me, word for word, the
prayer I shall say."
The father obeyed first.
" I am ready," said the son, also kneeling.
Coconnas then began to repeat in Latin the
words of the Credo. But whether from chance
or calculation, young Oliver knelt close to where
his sword had fallen. Scarcely did he see this
weapon within his reach, than, not ceasing to re-
peat the words which Coconnas dictated, he
stretched out his band to take it up. Coconnas
watched the movement, although he pretended
not to see it; but at the moment wdien the young
man touched the handle of the sword with his
fingers, he rushed on him, knocked him over,
and plunged his dagger in his throat, exclaim-
ing:
"Traitor!"
" The youth uttered one cry, raised himself
convulsively on his knee, and fell dead.
"Ah, ruffian!" shrieked Mercandon, "you
slay us to rob us of the hundred rose nobles 3rou
owe us. "
" Ma foi! no," said Coconnas, " and here's
the proof;" and so saying he threw at the old
man's feet the. purse which his father had given
him before his departure to pay his creditor.
"And here's your death!" cried the old
woman from the window.
" Take care, M. de Coconnas—take care!"
called out the lady at the Hôtel de Guise.
But before Coconnas could turn his head to
comply with this advice, or get out of the way
of the threat, a heavy mass came hissing through
the air, falling on the hat of the Piedmontese,
breaking his sword, and prostrating him on the
pavement : he was overcome, crushed, so that
he did not hear the double cry of joy and dis-
tress which came from the right and left.
Mercandon instantly rushed dagger in hand
on Coconnas, bereft of sense: but at this mo-
ment the door of the Hôtel de Guise opened,
and the old man, seeing swords and partisans
gleaming, fled, whilst the lady he had called
the Duchess, whose beauty seemed terrible by
tbe light of the flames, all dazzling as she was
with gems and diamonds, leaned half out of the
window, in order to direct the new-comers, her
arm extended toward Coconnas.
"There! there! in front of me—a gentleman
in a red doublet. There!—that is he—yes, that
is he."
CHAPTER X.
DEATH,   MASS,   OR   THE   BASTILE.   -
Marguerite, as we have said, had shut the
door, and returned to her chamber.    But as she