Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845
"Oh!" exclaimed the duchess, "something terrible will happen! They recognise each other."
They had done so. Coconnas dropped the bridle of his horse in surprise at meeting with his former acquaintance, whom he fully believed he had killed, or at any rate disabled for a long time to come. As to La Mole, when he recognised Coconnas, a flush of anger overspread his pallid countenance. For a few seconds, the two men remained gazing at each other with looks which made Margaret and the duchess tremble. Then La Mole, glancing around him, and understanding, doubtless, that the place was not a fit one for an explanation, spurred his horse, and rejoined the Duke of Alençon. Coconnas remained for a moment stationary, twisting his mustache till he brought the corner of it nearly into his eye, and then moved onwards.
"Ha!" exclaimed Margaret, with mingled scorn and vexation; "I was not mistaken then. Oh, this time it is too bad!" And she bit her lips in anger.
"He is very handsome," said the duchess, in a tone of commiseration.
Just at this moment the Duke of Alençon took his place behind the king and the queen-mother; so that his gentlemen, in order to follow him, had to pass Margaret and the Duchess of Nevers. As La Mole went by, he removed his hat, bowed low to the queen, and remained bareheaded, waiting till her majesty should honour him with a look. But Margaret turned her head proudly away. La Mole doubtless understood the scornful expression of her features; his pale face became livid, and he grasped his horse's mane as if to save himself from falling.
"Look at him, cruel that you are," said Henriette to the Queen; "he is going to faint."
"Good," said Margaret, with a smile of immense contempt. "Have you no salts to offer him?"
Madame de Nevers was mistaken. La Mole recovered himself, and took his place behind the Duke of Alençon.
The royal party continued to advance, and presently came in sight of the gallows at Montfaucon. The King and Catharine of Medicis were followed by the Dukes of Anjou and Alençon, the King of Navarre, the Duke of Guise, and their gentlemen; then came Margaret, the Duchess of Nevers, and the ladies, composing what was called the Queen's flying squadron; finally, the pages, esquires, lackeys, and the people – in all, ten thousand souls. The guards, who marched in front, placed themselves in a large circle round the enclosure in which stood the gibbet; and on their approach, the ravens that had perched upon the instrument of death flew away with hoarse and dismal croakings. To the principal gallows was hanging a shapeless mass, a blackened corpse, covered with mud and coagulated blood. It was suspended by the feet, for the head was wanting. In place of the latter, the ingenuity of the people had substituted a bundle of straw, with a mask fixed upon it; and in the mouth of the mask some scoffer, acquainted with the admiral's habits, had placed a toothpick.
It was a sad and strange sight to behold all these elegant cavaliers and beautiful women passing, like one of the processions which Goya has painted, under the blackened skeletons and tall grim gibbets. The greater the mirth of the visitors, the more striking was the contrast with the mournful silence and cold insensibility of the corpses which were its object. Many of the party supported with difficulty this horrible spectacle; and Henry of Navarre especially, in spite of his powers of dissimulation and habitual command over himself, was at last unable to bear it longer. He took, as a pretext, the stench emitted by these human remains; and approaching Charles, who, with Catharine of Medicis, had paused before the body of the admiral —
"Sire," said he, "does not your Majesty find that the smell of this poor corpse is too noxious to be longer endured?"
"Ha! think you so, Harry?" cried Charles, whose eyes were sparkling with a ferocious joy.
"Yes, sire."
"Then I am not of your opinion. The body of a dead enemy always smells well."
"By my faith! sire," said Monsieur de Tavannes, "your Majesty should have invited Pierre Ronsard to accompany us on this little visit to the admiral; he would have made an impromptu epitaph on old Gaspard."
"That will I make," said Charles. And after a moments reflection, "Listen, gentlemen," said he —
"Ci-gît, mais c'est mal entendu,
Pour lui le mot est trop honnête,
Ici l'amiral est pendu,
Par les pieds, à faute de tête."
"Bravo! bravo!" cried the Catholic gentlemen with one voice, whilst the converted Huguenots there present maintained a gloomy silence. As to Henry, he was talking to Margaret and the Duchess of Nevers, and pretended not to hear.
"Come, sir," said Catharine, who, in spite of the perfumes with which she was covered, began to have enough of this tainted atmosphere – "Come, sir," said she to the king, "the best of friends must part. Let us bid adieu to the admiral, and return to Paris."
And bowing her head ironically to the corpse by way of a farewell, she turned her horse and regained the road, whilst her suite filed past the body of Coligny. The crowd followed the cavalcade, and ten minutes after the king's departure, no one remained near the mutilated body of the admiral.
When we say no one, we make a mistake. A gentleman, mounted on a black horse, and who, probably, during the stay of the king, had been unable to contemplate the disfigured corpse sufficiently at his ease, lingered behind, and was amusing himself by examining, in all their details, the chains, irons, stone pillars, in short, the whole paraphernalia of the gibbet, which, no doubt, appeared to him, who had been but a few days at Paris, and was not aware of the perfection to which all things are brought in the metropolis, a paragon of hideous ingenuity. This person was our friend Coconnas. A woman's quick eye had in vain sought him through the ranks of the cavalcade. Monsieur de Coconnas remained in admiration before the masterpiece of Enguerrand de Marigny.
But the woman in question was not the only person who sought Coconnas. A cavalier, remarkable for his white satin doublet, and the elegance of his plume, after looking before him, and on either side, had at last looked back and perceived the tall form of the Piedmontese, and the gigantic profile of his horse, sharply defined against the evening sky, now reddened by the last rays of the setting sun. Then the gentleman in the white satin doublet left the road which the cavalcade was following, struck into a side path, and describing a curve, returned towards the gibbet. He had scarcely done this, when the Duchess of Nevers approached the Queen of Navarre, and said —
"We were mistaken, Margaret, for the Piedmontese has remained behind, and Monsieur de la Mole has followed him."
"Mordi!" cried Margaret laughing, "is it so? I confess that I shall not be sorry to have to alter my opinion."
She then looked round, and saw La Mole returning towards the gallows.
It was now the turn of the two princesses to quit the cavalcade. The moment was favourable for so doing, for they were just crossing a road bordered by high hedges, by following which they would get to within thirty paces of the gibbet. Madame de Nevers said a word to the captain of her guards, Margaret made a sign to Gillonne, her tirewoman and confidant; and these four persons took the cross road, and hastened to place themselves in ambuscade behind some bushes near the spot they were desirous of observing. There they dismounted, and the captain held the horses, whilst the three ladies found a pleasant seat upon the close fresh turf, with which the place was overgrown. An opening in the bushes enabled them to observe the smallest details of what was passing.
La Mole had completed his circuit, and, walking up behind Coconnas, he stretched out his hand and touched him on the shoulder. The Piedmontese turned his head.
"Oh!" said he, "it was no dream then. You are still alive?"
"Yes, sir," replied La Mole, "I am still alive. It is not your fault, but such is the case."
"Mordieu! I recognise you perfectly," said Coconnas, "in spite of your pale cheeks. You were redder than that the last time I saw you."
"And I recognise you also," said La Mole, "in spite of that yellow cut across your face. You were paler than you are now when I gave it to you."
Coconnas bit his lips, but continued in the same ironical tone.
"It is curious, is it not, Monsieur de la Mole, particularly for a Huguenot, to see the admiral hung up to that iron hook?"
"Count," said La Mole with a bow, "I am no longer a Huguenot, I have the honour to be a Catholic."
"Bah!" cried Coconnas, bursting into a laugh, "You are converted? How very sly of you!"
"Sir," replied La Mole, with the same serious politeness, "I made a vow to become a Catholic if I escaped the massacre."
"It was a very prudent vow," returned the Piedmontese, "and I congratulate you on it; is it the only one you made?"
"No, sir, I made one other," replied La Mole, patting his horse with his usual deliberate grace.
"And it was – " enquired Coconnas.
"To hang you up yonder, to that little hook which seems to be waiting for you, just below Monsieur de Coligny."
"What!" cried Coconnas, "all alive, just as I am?"
"No, sir; after passing my sword through your body."
Coconnas became purple, and his grey eye flashed fire.
"Really," said he, with a sneer; "to yonder rail? You are not quite tall enough for that, my little gentleman."
"Then I will get upon your horse," replied La Mole. "Ah! you think, my dear M. Hannibal de Coconnas, that you may assassinate people with impunity under the loyal and honourable pretext of being a hundred to one. Not so. A day comes when every man finds his man, and for you that day is come now. I am almost tempted to break your ugly head with a pistol shot; but pshaw! I should perhaps miss you, for my hand still shakes with the wounds you so treacherously gave me.
"My ugly head!" roared Coconnas, throwing himself off his horse. "On foot! Monsieur le Compte – out with your blade!" And he drew his sword.
"I think your Huguenot called him ugly," whispered the Duchess of Nevers to Margaret. "Do you find him so?"
"He is charming," cried Margaret laughing, "and Monsieur de la Mole's anger renders him unjust. But hush! let us observe them."
La Mole got off his horse with as much deliberation as Coconnas had shown haste, drew his sword, and put himself on guard.
"Ah!" cried he, as he extended his arm.
"Oh!" exclaimed Coconnas, as he stretched out his.
Both, it will be remembered, were wounded in the shoulder, and a sudden movement still caused them acute suffering. A stifled laugh was audible from behind the trees. The princesses had been unable to restrain it when they saw the two champions rubbing their shoulders and grimacing with pain. The laughed reached the ears of La Mole and Coconnas, who had been hitherto unaware of the presence of witnesses, but who now, on looking round, perceived the ladies. La Mole again put himself on guard, steady as an automaton, and Coconnas, as their swords crossed, uttered an energetic Mordieu!
"Ah ça!" exclaimed Margaret, "they are in earnest, and will kill one another if we do not prevent it. This is going too far. Stop, gentlemen, I entreat you."
"Let them go on," said Henriette, who, having already seen Coconnas make head successfully against three antagonists at once, trusted that he would have at least as easy a bargain of La Mole.
At the first clash of the steel, the combatants became silent. They were neither of them confident in their strength, and, at each pass or parry, their imperfectly healed wounds caused them sharp pain. Nevertheless, with fixed and ardent eye, his lips slightly parted, his teeth firmly-set, La Mole advanced with short steady steps upon his adversary; who, perceiving that he had to do with a master of fence, retreated – gradually, it is true, but still retreated. In this manner they reached the edge of the moat, or dry ditch, on the other side of which the spectators had stationed themselves. There, as if he had only retired with the view of getting nearer to the duchess, Coconnas stopped, and made a rapid thrust. At the same instant a sanguine spot, which grew each second larger, appeared upon the white satin of La Mole's doublet.
"Courage!" cried the Duchess of Nevers.
"Poor La Mole!" exclaimed Margaret, with a cry of sorrow.
La Mole heard the exclamation, threw one expressive glance to the queen, and making a skilful feint, followed it up by a pass of lightning swiftness. This time both the women shrieked. The point of La Mole's rapier had appeared, crimson with blood, behind the back of Coconnas.
Neither of the combatants fell; they remained on their feet, staring at each other, each of them feeling that at the first movement he made he should lose his balance. At last the Piedmontese, more dangerously wounded than his antagonist, and feeling that his strength was ebbing away with his blood, threw himself forward upon La Mole, and seized hill with one arm, whilst with the other hand he felt for his dagger. La Mole mustered all his remaining strength, raised his hand, and struck Coconnas on the forehead with his sword-hilt. Coconnas fell, but in falling he dragged his adversary after him, and both rolled into the ditch. Then Margaret and the Duchess of Nevers, seeing that although, apparently dying, they still sought to finish each other, sprang forward, preceded by the captain of the guards. But before they reached the wounded men, the eyes of the latter closed, their grasp was loosened, and, letting fall their weapons, they stretched themselves out stiff and convulsed. A pool of blood had already formed itself around them.
"Oh! brave, brave La Mole!" exclaimed Margaret, unable to repress her admiration. "How can I forgive myself for having suspected you?" And her eyes filled with tears.
"Alas! alas!" cried the duchess, sobbing violently. "Say, madam, did you ever see such intrepid champions?"
"Tudieu!– What hard knocks!" exclaimed the captain, trying to stanch the blood that flowed from the wounds. "Hola! you who are coming, come more quickly."
A man, seated on the front of a sort of cart painted of a red colour, was seen slowly approaching.
"Hola!" repeated the captain, "will you come, then, when you are called? Do you not see that these gentlemen are in want of assistance?"
The man in the cart, whose appearance was in the highest degree coarse and repulsive, stopped his horse, got down, and stepped over the two bodies.
"These are pretty wounds," said he, "but I make better ones."
"Who, then, are you?" said Margaret, experiencing, in spite of herself, a vague and unconquerable sensation of terror.
"Madam," replied the man, bowing to the ground, "I an Maître Caboche, executioner of the city of Paris; and I am come to suspend to this gibbet some companions for the admiral."
"And I am the Queen of Navarre; throw out your dead bodies, place our horses' clothes in your cart, and bring these two gentlemen carefully to the Louvre."
La Mole recovers from his wounds before Coconnas is out of danger. The latter is, in great measure, restored to health through the care and attention which his late antagonist generously lavishes on him; they become intimate friends, and Coconnas is appointed to the household of the Duke of Alençon, to which La Mole already belongs. The duke, out of opposition to his brothers, the king and the Duke of Anjou, has a leaning towards the Huguenot party. De Mouy, a Protestant leader, whose father has been assassinated by Maurevel, comes in disguise to the Louvre, to communicate with Henry of Navarre, in the sincerity of whose conversion the Huguenots do not believe. Henry, however, who knows that the walls of the Louvre have ears, refuses to listen to De Mouy, and declares himself Catholic to the backbone; and De Mouy, despairing and indignant, leaves the king's apartment. The Duke of Alençon, who has overheard their conference, as Henry suspected, stops the Huguenot emissary, and shows a disposition to put himself at the head of that party and become King of Navarre. There is a great deal of intrigue and manœuvring, very skilfully managed by Henry, who makes D'Alençon believe that he has no wish to become any thing more than a simple country-gentleman, and that he is willing to aid him in his ambitious designs. He proposes that they should watch for an opportunity of leaving Paris and repairing to Navarre. Before the negotiations between the two princes are completed, however, the Duke of Anjou has been elected King of Poland, and has had his election ratified by the Pope; and D'Alençon then begins to think that it would be advisable to remain at Paris on the chance of himself becoming King of France. Charles IX. is delicate and sickly, subject to tremendous outbursts of passion which leave him weak and exhausted; his life is not likely to be a long one. Should he die, and even if the Poles should allow their new king to return to France, D'Alençon would have time, he thinks, before the arrival of the latter, to seize upon the vacant throne. Even the reversion of the crown of Poland would perhaps be preferable to the possession of that of Navarre. Whilst ruminating these plans, one of the king's frequent hunting parties takes place in the forest of Bondy, and is attended by all the royal family except the Duke of Anjou, then absent at the siege of La Rochelle. At this hunting party the following striking incidents occur.
The piqueur who had told the king that the boar was still in the enclosure, had spoken the truth. Hardly was the bloodhound put upon the scent, when he plunged into a thicket, and drove the animal, an enormous one of its kind, from its retreat in a cluster of thorn-bushes. The boar made straight across the road, at about fifty paces from the king. The leashes of a score of dogs were immediately slipped, and the eager hounds rushed headlong in pursuit.
The chase was Charles's strongest passion. Scarcely had the boar crossed the road, when he spurred after him, sounding the view upon his horn, and followed by the Duke of Alençon, and by Henry of Navarre. All the other chasseurs followed.
The royal forests, at the period referred to, were not, as at present, extensive parks intersected by carriage roads. Kings had not yet had the happy idea of becoming timber-merchants, and of dividing their woods into tailles and futaies. The trees, planted, not by scientific foresters but by the hand of God, who let the seed fall where the wind chose to bear it, were not arranged in quincunxes, but sprang up without order, and as they now do in the virgin forests of America. Consequently a forest at that period was a place in which boars and stags, wolves and robbers, were to be found in abundance.
The wood of Bondy was surrounded by a circular road, like the tire of a wheel and crossed by a dozen paths which might be called the spokes. To complete the comparison, the axle, was represented by carrefour, or open space, in the centre of the wood, whence all these paths diverged, and whither any of the sportsmen who might be thrown out were in the habit of repairing, till some sight or sound of the chase enabled them to rejoin it.
At the end of a quarter of an hour, it happened, as it usually did at these hunts, that insurmountable obstacles had opposed themselves to the progress of the hunters, the baying of the hounds had become inaudible in the distance, and the king himself had returned to the carrefour, swearing and cursing according to his custom.
"Well, D'Alençon! Well, Henriot!" cried he – "here you are, mordieu! as calm and quiet as nuns following their abbess. That is not hunting. You, D'Alençon – you look as if you had just come out of a band-box; and you are so perfumed, that if you got between the boar and my dogs, you would make them lose the scent. And you, Henriot – where is your boar-spear? Where your arquebuss?"
"Sire," replied Henry, "an arquebuss would be useless to me. I know that your majesty likes to shoot the boar himself when it is brought to bay. As to the spear, I handle it very clumsily. We are not used to it in our mountains, where we hunt the bear with nothing but a dagger."
"By the mordieu, Henry, when you return to your Pyrenees you shall send me a cart-load of bears. It must be noble sport to contend with an animal that can stifle you with a hug. But hark! I hear the dogs! No, I was mistaken."
The king put his horn to his mouth and sounded fanfare. Several horns replied to him. Suddenly a piqueur appeared, sounding a different call.
"The view! the view!" cried the king; and he galloped off, followed by the other sportsmen.
The piqueur was not mistaken. As the king advanced he heard the baying of the pack, which was now composed of more than sixty dogs, fresh relays having been slipped at different places near which the boar had passed. At last Charles caught a second glimpse of the animal, and, profiting by the height of the adjacent trees, which enabled him to ride beneath their branches, he turned into the wood, sounding his horn with all his strength. The princes followed him for some time, but the king had so vigorous a horse, and, carried away by his eagerness, he dashed over such steep and broken ground, and through such dense thickets, that first the ladies, then the Duke of Guise and his gentlemen, and at last the two princes, were forced to abandon him. All the hunters therefore, with the exception of Charles and a few piqueurs, found themselves reassembled at the carrefour. D'Alençon and Henry were standing near each other in a long alley. At about a hundred paces from them the Duke of Guise had halted, with his retinue of twenty or thirty gentlemen, who were armed, it might have been thought, rather for the battle-field than the hunting-ground. The ladies were in the carrefour itself.
"Would it not seem," said the Duke of Alençon to Henry, glancing at the Duke of Guise with the corner of his eye, "that yonder man with his steel-clad escort is the true king? He does not even vouchsafe a glance to us poor princes."
"Why should he treat us better than our own relations do?" replied Henry. "Are we not, you and I, prisoners at the court of France, hostages for our party?"
The Duke Francis started, and looked at Henry as if to provoke a further explanation; but Henry had gone further than was his wont, and he remained silent.
"What do you mean, Henry?" enquired the duke, evidently vexed that his brother-in-law, by his taciturnity, compelled him to put the question.
"I mean, brother," answered Henry, "that those armed men who seem so careful not to lose sight of us, have quite the appearance of guards charged to prevent us from escaping."
"Escaping! Why? How?" cried D'Alençon, with a well-feigned air of surprise and simplicity.
"You have a magnificent jennet there, Francis," said Henry, following up the subject, whilst appearing to change the conversation. "I am sure he would get over seven leagues in an hour, and twenty from now till noon. It is a fine day for a ride. Look at that cross-road – how level and pleasant it is! Are you not tempted, Francis? For my part, my spurs are burning my heels."
Francis made no answer. He turned red and pale alternately, and appeared to be straining his hearing to catch some sound of the chase.
"The news from Poland have produced their effect," said Henry to himself, "and my good brother-in-law has a plan of his own. He would like to see me escape, but I shall not go alone."
He had scarcely made the reflection, when several of the recently converted Huguenots, who within the last two or three months had returned to the court and the Romish church, came up at a canter, and saluted the two princes with a most engaging smile. The Duke of Alençon, already urged on by Henry's overtures, had but to utter a word or make a sign, and it was evident that his flight would be favoured by the thirty or forty cavaliers who had collected around him, as if to oppose themselves to the followers of the Duke of Guise. But that word he did not utter. He turned away his head, and, putting his horn to his mouth, sounded the rally.
Nevertheless the new-comers, as if they thought that D'Alençon's hesitation was occasioned by the vicinity of the Guisards, had gradually placed themselves between the latter and the two princes, arraying themselves in échelon with a sort of strategic skill, which implied a habit of military manœuvres. Guise and his followers would have had to ride over them to get at the Duke of Alençon and the King of Navarre; whilst, on the other side, a long and unobstructed road lay open before the brothers-in-law.
Suddenly, between the trees, at ten paces from the King of Navarre, there appeared another horseman, whom the princes had not yet seen. Henry was trying to guess who this person was, when the gentleman raised his hat and disclosed the features of the Viscount of Turenne, one of the chiefs of the Protestant party, and who was supposed to be then in Poitou. The viscount even risked a sign, which meant to say – "Are you coming?" But Henry, after consulting the inexpressive countenance and dull eyes of the Duke of Alençon, turned his head two or three times upon his shoulders, as if something in the collar of his doublet inconvenienced him. It as a reply in the negative. The viscount understood it, gave his horse the spur, and disappeared amongst the trees. At the same moment the pack was heard approaching; then, at the end of the alley, the boar was seen to pass, followed at a short distance by the dogs, whilst after them came Charles IX., like some demon-huntsman bareheaded, his horn at his mouth, sounding as though he would burst his lungs. Three or four piqueurs followed him.
"The king!" cried D'Alençon, riding off to join in the chase. Henry, encouraged by the presence of his partizans, signed to them to remain, and approached the ladies.
"Well," said Margaret, advancing to meet him.
"Well madam," said Henry, "we are hunting the boar."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, the wind has changed since yesterday morning. I think I predicted that such would be the case."
"These changes of wind are bad for hunting – are they not, sir?" enquired Margaret.
"Yes," replied her husband, "they sometimes overturn previous arrangements, and the plan has to be remade."
At this moment the baying of the pack was again heard near the carrefour. The noise and tumult rapidly approaching, warned the hunters to be on the alert. All heads were raised, every ear as strained, when suddenly the boar burst out of the wood, and, instead of plunging into the opposite thicket made straight for the carrefour. Close to the animal's heels were thirty or forty of the strongest amongst the dogs, and at less than twenty paces behind these came Charles himself, without cap or cloak, his clothes torn by the thorns, his face and hands covered with blood. Only one or two piqueurs kept up with him. Alternately sounding his horn and shouting encouragement to the dogs, the king pressed onwards, every thing but the chase forgotten. If his horse had failed him at that moment, he would have exclaimed, like Richard III., "My kingdom for a horse!" But the horse appeared as eager as his rider. His feet scarce touched the ground, and he seemed to snort fire from his blood-red nostrils. Boar, dogs, and king dashed by like a whirlwind.
"Hallali! hallali!" cried the king as he passed. And again he applied his horn to his bleeding lips. A short distance behind him came the Duke of Alençon and two more piqueurs. The horses of the others were blown or distanced.
Every body now joined in the pursuit, for it was evident that the boar would soon turn to bay. Accordingly, at the end of ten minutes, the beast left the path and entered the wood; but on reaching a neighbouring glade, he turned his tail to a rock and made head against the dogs. The most interesting moment of the hunt had arrived. The animal was evidently prepared to make a desperate defence. The dogs, fierce and foaming after their three hours' chase, precipitated themselves upon him with a fury which was redoubled by the shouts and oaths of the king. The hunters arranged themselves in a circle, Charles a little in front, having behind him the Duke of Alençon, who carried an arquebuss, and Henry of Navarre, who was armed only with a couteau-de-chasse. The duke unslung his arquebuss and lit the match; Henry loosened his hunting-knife in the scabbard. As to the Duke of Guise, who affected to despise field-sports, he kept himself a little apart with his gentlemen; and on the other side another little group was formed by the ladies. All eyes were fixed in anxious expectation upon the boar.
A little apart stood a piqueur, exerting all his strength to resist the efforts of two enormous dogs, who awaited, covered with their coats of mail, howling savagely, and struggling as though they would break their chains, the moment when they should be let loose upon the boar. The latter did wonders. Attacked at one time by forty dogs, that covered him like a living wave or many-coloured carpet, and strove on all sides to tear his wrinkled and bristling hide, he, at each blow of his formidable tusk, tossed one of his assailants ten feet into the air. The dogs fell to the ground ripped up, and threw themselves, with their bowels hanging out of their wounds, once more into the mélée; whilst Charles, with hair on end, inflamed eyes, and distended nostrils, bent forward over the neck of his foaming steed and sounded a furious hallali. In less than ten minutes twenty dogs were disabled.
"The mastiffs!" cried Charles; "the mastiffs!"
At the word, the piqueur slipped the leashes, and the two dogs dashed into the midst of the carnage, upsetting the smaller hounds, and with their iron-coated sides forcing their way to the boar, whom they seized each by an ear. The animal, feeling himself coiffé, as it is termed, gnashed his teeth with pain and fury.
"Bravo, Duredent! Bravo, Risquetout!" vociferated Charles. "Courage, my dogs! a spear! a spear!"