I might spend many hours in describing the impression which this great Sovereign made upon my mind; but if the part which she took in the conversation I have detailed does not sufficiently exhibit those qualities of will and intellect which made her the worthy compeer of the King my master, I should labour in vain.
Moreover, my stay in her neighbourhood, though Raleigh and Griffin showed me every civility, was short. An hour after taking leave of her, on the 15th of August, 1601, I sailed from Dover, and crossing to Calais without mishap anticipated with pleasure the King's satisfaction when he should hear the result of my mission, and learn from my mouth the just and friendly sentiments which Queen Elizabeth entertained towards him.
Unfortunately I was not able to impart these on the instant.
During my absence a trifling matter had carried the King to Dieppe, whence his anxiety on the queen's account, who was shortly to be brought to bed, led him to take the road to Paris.
He sent word to me to follow him, but necessarily some days elapsed before we met; an opportunity of which his enemies and mine were quick to take advantage, and that so insidiously and with so much success as to imperil not my reputation only but his happiness.
The time at their disposal was increased by the fact; that when Ireached the Arsenal I found the Louvre vacant, the queen, who lay at Fontainebleau, having summoned the King thither. Ferret, his secretary, however, awaited me with a letter, in which Henry, after expressing his desire to see we, bade me nevertheless stay in Paris a day to transact some business. "Then," he continued, "come to me, my friend, and we will discuss the matter of which you know. In the meantime send me your papers by Ferret, who will give you a receipt for them."Suspecting no danger in a course which was usual enough, Ihastened to comply. Summoning Maignan, who, whenever Itravelled, carried my portfolio, I unlocked it, and emptying the papers in a mass on the table, handed them in detail to Ferret.
Presently, to my astonishment, I found that one, and this the most important, was missing. I went over the papers again, and again, and yet again. Still it was not to be found.
It will be remembered that whenever I travelled on a mission of importance I wrote my despatches in one of three modes, according as they were of little, great, or the first importance; in ordinary characters that is, in a cipher to which the council possessed the key, or in a cipher to which only the King and Iheld keys. This last, as it was seldom used, was rarely changed;but it was my duty, on my return from each mission, immediately to remit my key to the King, who deposited it in a safe place until another occasion for its use arose.
It was this key which was missing. I had been accustomed to carry it in the portfolio with the other papers; but in a sealed envelope which I broke and again sealed with my own signet whenever I had occasion to use the cipher. I had last seen the envelope at Calais, when I handed the portfolio to Maignan before beginning my journey to Paris; the portfolio had not since been opened, yet the sealed packet was missing.
More than a little uneasy, I recalled Maignan, who had withdrawn after delivering up his charge, "You rascal!" I said with some heat. "Has this been out of your custody?""The bag?" he answered, looking at it. Then his face changed.
"You have cut your finger, my lord," he said.
I had cut it slightly in unbuckling the portfolio, and a drop or two of blood had fallen on the papers. But his reference to it at this moment, when my mind was full of my loss, angered me, and even awoke my suspicions. "Silence!" I said, "and answer me.
Have you let this bag out of your possession?" This time he replied straightforwardly that he had not.
"Nor unlocked it?"
"I have no key, your excellency."
That was true; and as I had at bottom the utmost confidence in his fidelity, I pursued the inquiry no farther in that direction, but made a third search among the papers. This also failing to bring the packet to light, and Ferret being in haste to be gone, I was obliged for the moment to put up with the loss, and draw what comfort I could from the reflection that, no despatch in the missing cipher was extant. Whoever had stolen it, therefore, another could be substituted for it and no one the worse. Still I was unwilling that the King should hear of the mischance from a stranger, and be led to think me careless; and I bade Ferret be silent about it unless Henry missed the packet, which might not happen before my arrival.
When the secretary, who readily assented, had given me his receipt and was gone, I questioned Maignan afresh and more closely, but with no result. He had not seen me place the packet in the portfolio at Calais, and that I had done so I could vouch only my own memory, which I knew to be fallible. In the meantime, though the mischance annoyed me, I attached no great importance to it; but anticipating that a word of explanation would satisfy the King, and a new cipher dispose of other difficulties, I dismissed the matter from my mind.
Twenty-four hours later, however, I was rudely awakened. Acourier arrived from Henry, and surprising me in the midst of my last preparations at the Arsenal, handed me an order to attend his Majesty; an order couched in the most absolute and peremptory terms, and lacking all those friendly expressions which the King never failed to use when he wrote to me. A missive so brief and so formal--and so needless, for I was on the point of starting--had not reached me for years; and coming at this moment when Ihad no reason to expect a reverse of fortune, it had all the effect of a thunder-bolt in a clear sky. I stood stunned, the words which I was dictating to my secretary dying on my lips.
