The road to Nancy from Paris ran through the old province of Champagne until Lorraine was entered--Lorraine, which, since the peace of Westphalia, had fallen under French rule.
Along this road the cavalcade led by La Truaumont progressed day by day on its way towards Nancy, a hundred and fifty miles and more by road from Paris. Between each morning and night the members of that cavalcade rode on and accomplished some thirty miles at a slow pace so as to spare their horses as much as possible, while halting in the evenings at old inns where, though they gave no name, their appearance and their manners proclaimed that they were persons, or at least that one of them was, of high importance.
For the Duchess, Jacquette and Humphrey took their meals together behind a screen in whatever public room they sat down, as was the custom of the nobility when travelling; La Truaumont took his alone behind another screen close by, while the soi-disant, or, it may be, the actual Colonel--for Colonels could oft fall low in these times!--Boisfleury took his in company with the sinister and truculent Fleur de Mai.
"And, sang bleu!" exclaimed the latter individual on the third night of their halt, which took place at Vitry, "if we were not ordered to sit apart and to restore ourselves like serving men and valets by this insolent La Truaumont, I would be well content with the office. This ride through the air of Champagne is good for our health, the food and drink is wholesome and ample, the absence of expense good for our pockets. Nevertheless, I do think I must stick my rapier through La Truaumont's midriff at the end of the ride. For his insults," and he swallowed a large gulp of golden Avize, a local wine.
"Stick thy fork in thy mouth and thy glass down thy throat!" replied Boisfleury, tearing the flesh off a chicken's wing with his teeth as he spoke, "and utter no banalities. You are well paid, you sleep warm and soft o' nights and eat and drink of the best, and all you have to do is to ride by my side and listen to my sweet converse and hold your babbling tongue. While as to rapiers through midriffs--what would the attempt profit you? La Truaumont is a ferrailleur of the first water. Better put good food inside you than your vitals outside."
"I am as good as he," Fleur de Mai replied in a voice which was getting husky with the Avize, when suddenly Boisfleury interrupted any further observations by exclaiming:--
"Be silent, fool, and stagger to thy feet. See, the Duchess rises from the table behind the screen. Ha! the Englishman bids madame good-night. He kissed her hand and, me damne! kisses slyly the ear of the girl, d'Angelis. Ha! Ha! The kiss, the English kiss! They can do nothing without that. And, observe, La Truaumont comes this way. Stand steady on thy feet, chameau."
"Boot and saddle at six o'clock to-morrow," said La Truaumont as he came down the great inn-room which was part hall, and, at the end, part kitchen. "Up at five. Boisfleury, see he is up," looking at Fleur de Mai.
"I shall be up," muttered that worthy. "Have no fear. A pint of this wine will not make me sleep heavily. I'll throw the dice with you now for a bottle of the best."
* * * * *
The noble lady, Ortenzia, Duchesse de Castellucchio, who was now riding from Paris to Nancy on her way to cross the Alps and, later, to join her own family, that of the Scoriatis, had some few years before this made almost a similar journey to France, there to marry her countryman the Duc de Castellucchio, a man whose family, originally poor, had followed Concino Concini--the Maréchal d'Ancre--into France, but had managed to escape the awful end that had overtaken both him and his wife.
Having escaped such a fate as the assassination of the former or the execution by burning of the latter, as well as any other forms of death which the creatures of those once powerful adventurers might well have expected to overtake them, the family thrived and prospered. Steering clear of political machinations until the Concinis were almost forgotten and, indeed, until Louis le Juste was himself in his grave, they devoted themselves to commerce and, above all, to money lending and, thereby, grew rich.
But when, at last, Mazarin's star was in the ascendant as it became shortly after the death of Richelieu, they attached themselves to his fortunes, while, as he grew all powerful, so did they who, coming to France almost paupers, were now enormously wealthy.
One grief there was, however, that fell heavily on old Felice Ventura who had, by this time, become Monsieur le Duc de Castellucchio (he having decided to confer honour on his birthplace by taking its name for his title), and that grief was that his only son and successor gave signs of becoming a maniac, if he were not already one.
Always strange as a boy, this son had, as a young man, given still more astonishing signs of mental derangement, and, a short time after he had espoused Ortenzia Scoriati, the daughter of a noble and wealthy Milanese family, he was regarded and spoken of not only as a lunatic but a dangerous one. For, from such outbreaks as rousing the whole house from their beds by saying that a ghost was wandering round it, and by dragging his wife out of her own bed by the hair to look for the apparition; by not allowing any footmen to be in his service who were under seventy, in case his wife should fall in love with them, and by breaking up all the statues he owned (which his father had collected at an enormous cost) since he proclaimed such things to be heathen and profligate, he proceeded to greater extremities. He invariably tore the patches off his wife's face whenever she placed them on it, saying that they were the allurements used by giddy women; he insisted next that his wife should have her teeth drawn so that she should become hideous in the eyes of the world, and it was only by the flight from him which she was now undertaking that the Duchess was able to prevent herself from being thus disfigured for the rest of her life.
But even before this moment had arrived, his conduct had been such as to induce the unhappy Duchess to determine to leave him. He ruined all the costly furniture and pictures, as well as the statues, which his old father had accumulated, on the usual plea that they were not fit for modest people to gaze upon, while, not six months before this flight took place, he invited his wife to go for a drive with him in their coach one afternoon, and, when they had set out, calmly informed her that they were going to Rome. But that which was worse than all for the Duchess was that they actually did continue their journey to that city, though neither of them had either a change of clothes or of linen with them.
It was to De Beaurepaire, whom she had known ever since she came to France, that the Duchess turned for assistance when she determined to finally quit it, while for a companion in her journey she looked to her demoiselle de compagnie, "Jacquette," or Jacqueline d'Angelis.
For Jacquette loved her and pitied her sad lot, and, had it not been for her stronger love for Humphrey, and her hopes for a happy future with him, she would not only have accompanied the Duchess on this journey they were making at this moment but would never have contemplated parting from her.
And now, therefore, not only was Mademoiselle d'Angelis a member of that small band but so, also, was Humphrey West, since, having at present no occupation whatsoever, and no interest in life except to be by the side of the girl he loved so well, he had made interest with De Beaurepaire and the Duchess--both of whom had always treated him well and kindly--to be allowed to form one of the latter's escort as well as to be the knight and sentinel of his betrothed.
That these two should love each other was not strange, nor would it have been strange even if they had met no longer than a year ago. He was young and good looking enough to win any woman's fancy, while, beside his sufficiency of good looks, he was tall and broad and gave signs of health and strength in every action of his body.
She, "his girl," as he called her to her face and to himself, was worthy of him. Amidst a Court that, at least from the day when Louis XIII. died, had been none too moral and, under the influence of the Queen-Mother and the then young King, had long since verged towards absolute recklessness, Jacquette moved free and pure herself, while hating, averting her eyes from, and being unwilling to see, all that went on around her. For, while the girl was as beautiful as though she had just left some canvas painted by Correggio, she was, partly and principally owing to her own nature and partly to her English mother's training, almost as pure as though she had just left that mother's side. Similarly, as neither late nights, nor masques, nor dances, nor any wild dissipations whatever to which the Court and all who were in it, or of it, gave themselves up, could impair that fair soft beauty, so neither could whispered words nor looks nor hints from dissolute courtiers impair her purity of mind. To crown all, she loved one man and one alone, and she would never love any other.
And, now, this strangely assorted band of travellers had reached their third halting-place on the road to Nancy, where shelter was to be found in the house of De Beaurepaire's mother. This strangely assorted band consisting of a woman of high rank in two countries, a young girl whose life had been almost entirely passed in the glamour and ease of the French Court, a valiant young Englishman who loved that girl, and three reckless adventurers.
Yet the first three persons of the number had no thought, no presentiment that, beneath the apparently insignificant nature of the journey they were making, there lurked in the hearts of the other three a deeper, a sterner, a more wicked purpose: a more profound and horrible reason for their being on the road. The purpose of reaching a city outside the King's dominions, a Republican city in which no sympathies for a monarch or a monarchy were likely to exist, even should that purpose become known; the purpose of there meeting the arch-plotter of a hideous crime and being able to discuss in safety how the workings of that crime should be decided on.
These first three knew this no more than they knew that, following them, and sometimes preceding them, when opportunity offered, so that she might await their arrival; spying on all their movements and communicating those movements to De Beaurepaire as she learnt them, went a woman whose mad love for him had spurred her on to sink from what was almost as high as patriotism to that which was the deepest depths of wicked intrigue.