believed that I might consider myself your heir.”
“Oho!” exclaimed the two young men.
“Nevertheless, I could not be more grateful to find that you are alive, gentlemen.”
“So you sold our horses, did you?” asked Coconnas.
“Alas!” cried La Hurière.
“And our portmanteaus?” insisted La Mole.
“Oh! your portmanteaus? Oh, no,” cried La Hurière, “only what was in them.”
“Now look here, La Mole,” persisted Coconnas, “it seems to me that this is a bold rascal; suppose we disembowel him!”
This threat seemed to have great effect on Maître La Hurière, who stammered out these words:
“Well, gentlemen, I rather think the affair can be arranged.”
“Listen!” said La Mole, “I am the one who has the greatest cause of complaint against you.”
“Certainly, Monsieur le Comte, for I recollect that in a moment of madness I had the audacity to threaten you.”
“Yes, with a bullet which flew only a couple of inches above my head.”
“Do you think so?”
“I am certain of it.”
“If you are certain of it, Monsieur de la Mole,” said La Hurière, picking up his stew-pan with an innocent air, “I am too thoroughly at your service to give you the lie.”
“Well,” said La Mole, “as far as I am concerned I make no demand upon you.”
“What, my dear gentleman”—
“Except”—
“Aïe! aïe!” groaned La Hurière.
“Except a dinner for myself and my friends every time I find myself in your neighborhood.”
“How is this?” exclaimed La Hurière in an ecstasy. “I am at your service, my dear gentleman; I am at your service.”
“So it is a bargain, is it?”
“With all my heart — and you, Monsieur de Coconnas,” continued the landlord, “do you agree to the bargain?”
“Yes; but, like my friend, I must add one small condition.”
“What is that?”
“That you restore to Monsieur de la Mole the fifty crowns which I owe him, and which I put into your keeping.”
“To me, sir? When was that?”
“A quarter of an hour before you sold my horse and my portmanteau.”
La Hurière showed that he understood.
“Ah! I remember,” said he; and he stepped toward a cupboard and took out from it, one after the other, fifty crowns, which he brought to La Mole.
“Very well, sir,” said that gentleman; “very well. Serve me an omelet. The fifty crowns are for Grégoire.”
“Oh!” cried La Hurière; “in truth, my dear gentlemen, you are genuine princes, and you may count on me for life and for death.”
“If that is so,” said Coconnas, “make us the omelet we want, and spare neither butter nor lard.”
Then looking at the clock,
“Faith, you are right, La Mole,” said he, “we still have three hours to wait, and we may as well be here as anywhere else. All the more because, if I am not mistaken, we are already half way to the Pont Saint Michel.”
And the two young men went and sat down at table in the very same room and at the very same place which they had occupied during that memorable evening of the twenty-sixth of August, 1572, when Coconnas had proposed to La Mole to play each against the other the first mistress which they should have!
Let us grant for the honor of the morality of our two young men that neither of them this evening had the least idea of making such a proposition to his companion.
Chapter 19.
The Abode of Maître Réné, Perfumer to the Queen Mother.
At the period of this history there existed in Paris, for passing from one part of the city to another, but five bridges, some of stone and the others of wood, and they all led to the Cité; there were le Pont des Meuniers, le Pont au Change, le Pont Notre–Dame, le Petit Pont, and le Pont Saint Michel.
In other places when there was need of crossing the river there were ferries.
These five bridges were loaded with houses like the Pont Vecchio at Florence at the present time. Of these five bridges, each of which has its history, we shall now speak more particularly of the Pont Saint Michel.
The Pont Saint Michel had been built of stone in 1373; in spite of its apparent solidity, a freshet in the Seine undermined a part of it on the thirty-first of January, 1408; in 1416 it had been rebuilt of wood; but during the night of December 16, 1547, it was again carried away; about 1550, in other words twenty-two years anterior to the epoch which we have reached, it was again built of wood, and though it needed repairs it was regarded as solid enough.
In the midst of the houses which bordered the line of the bridge, facing the small islet on which the Templers had been burnt, and where at the present time the platform of the Pont Neuf rests, stood a wooden panelled house over which a large roof impended like the lid of an immense eye. At the only window, which opened on the first story, over the window and door of the ground floor, hermetically sealed, shone a reddish light, which attracted the attention of the passers-by to the low, wide façade, painted blue, with rich gold mouldings. A kind of frieze separating the ground floor from the first floor represented groups of devils in the most grotesque postures imaginable; and a wide scroll painted blue like the façade ran between the frieze and the window, with this inscription: “RÉNÉ, FLORENTIN, PERFUMER DE SA MAJESTÉ LA REINE MÈRE.”
The door of this shop was, as we have said, well bolted; but it was defended from nocturnal attacks better than by bolts by its occupant’s reputation, so redoubtable that the passengers over the bridge usually described a curve which took them to the opposite row of houses, as if they feared the very smell of the perfumes that might exhale through the walls.
More than this, the right and left hand neighbors, doubtless fearing that they might be compromised by the proximity, had, since Maître Réné‘s occupancy of the house, taken their departure one after the other so that the two houses next to Réné‘s were left empty and closed. Yet, in spite of this solitude and desertedness, belated passers-by had frequently seen, glittering through the crevices of the shutters of these empty habitations, strange rays of light, and had felt certain
