A parliamentary officer, clothed in black and with a gravity that augured ill, entered, bowed to the king, and unfolding a parchment, read the sentence, as is usually done to criminals before their execution.
“What is this?” said Aramis to Juxon.
Juxon replied with a sign which meant that he knew no more than Aramis about it.
“Then it is for today?” asked the king.
“Was not Your Majesty warned that it was to take place this morning?”
“Then I must die like a common criminal by the hand of the London executioner?”
“The London executioner has disappeared, Your Majesty, but a man has offered his services instead. The execution will therefore only be delayed long enough for you to arrange your spiritual and temporal affairs.”
A slight moisture on his brow was the only trace of emotion that Charles evinced, as he learned these tidings. But Aramis was livid. His heart ceased beating, he closed his eyes and leaned upon the table. Charles perceived it and took his hand.
“Come, my friend,” said he, “courage.” Then he turned to the officer. “Sir, I am ready. There is but little reason why I should delay you. Firstly, I wish to communicate; secondly, to embrace my children and bid them farewell for the last time. Will this be permitted me?”
“Certainly,” replied the officer, and left the room.
Aramis dug his nails into his flesh and groaned aloud.
“Oh! my lord bishop,” he cried, seizing Juxon’s hands, “where is Providence? where is Providence?”
“My son,” replied the bishop, with firmness, “you see Him not, because the passions of the world conceal Him.”
“My son,” said the king to Aramis, “do not take it so to heart. You ask what God is doing. God beholds your devotion and my martyrdom, and believe me, both will have their reward. Ascribe to men, then, what is happening, and not to God. It is men who drive me to death; it is men who make you weep.”
“Yes, sire,” said Aramis, “yes, you are right. It is men whom I should hold responsible, and I will hold them responsible.”
“Be seated, Juxon,” said the king, falling upon his knees. “I have now to confess to you. Remain, sir,” he added to Aramis, who had moved to leave the room. “Remain, Parry. I have nothing to say that cannot be said before all.”
Juxon sat down, and the king, kneeling humbly before him, began his confession.
LXVI
Remember!
The mob had already assembled when the confession terminated. The king’s children next arrived—the Princess Charlotte, a beautiful, fair-haired child, with tears in her eyes, and the Duke of Gloucester, a boy eight or nine years old, whose tearless eyes and curling lip revealed a growing pride. He had wept all night long, but would not show his grief before the people.
Charles’s heart melted within him at the sight of those two children, whom he had not seen for two years and whom he now met at the moment of death. He turned to brush away a tear, and then, summoning up all his firmness, drew his daughter toward him, recommending her to be pious and resigned. Then he took the boy upon his knee.
“My son,” he said to him, “you saw a great number of people in the streets as you came here. These men are going to behead your father. Do not forget that. Perhaps some day they will want to make you king, instead of the Prince of Wales, or the Duke of York, your elder brothers. But you are not the king, my son, and can never be so while they are alive. Swear to me, then, never to let them put a crown upon your head unless you have a legal right to the crown. For one day—listen, my son—one day, if you do so, they will doom you to destruction, head and crown, too, and then you will not be able to die with a calm conscience, as I die. Swear, my son.”
The child stretched out his little hand toward that of his father and said, “I swear to Your Majesty.”
“Henry,” said Charles, “call me your father.”
“Father,” replied the child, “I swear to you that they shall kill me sooner than make me king.”
“Good, my child. Now kiss me; and you, too, Charlotte. Never forget me.”
“Oh! never, never!” cried both the children, throwing their arms around their father’s neck.
“Farewell,” said Charles, “farewell, my children. Take them away, Juxon; their tears will deprive me of the courage to die.”
Juxon led them away, and this time the doors were left open.
Meanwhile, Athos, in his concealment, waited in vain the signal to recommence his work. Two long hours he waited in terrible inaction. A deathlike silence reigned in the room above. At last he determined to discover the cause of this stillness. He crept from his hole and stood, hidden by the black drapery, beneath the scaffold. Peeping out from the drapery, he could see the rows of halberdiers and Musketeers around the scaffold and the first ranks of the populace swaying and groaning like the sea.
“What is the matter, then?” he asked himself, trembling more than the wind-swayed cloth he was holding back. “The people are hurrying on, the soldiers under arms, and among the spectators I see d’Artagnan. What is he waiting for? What is he looking at? Good God! have they allowed the headsman to escape?”
Suddenly the dull beating of muffled drums filled the square. The sound of heavy steps was heard above his head. The next moment the very planks of the scaffold creaked with the weight of an advancing procession, and the eager faces of the spectators confirmed what a last hope at the bottom
