France -- History -- Henry III, 1574-1589 -- Fiction
Bussy drew back, picking up his broken blade, and in an instant
it was fastened to the handle with a handkerchief; and the battle
recommenced, presenting the extraordinary spectacle of a man
almost without arms, but also almost without wounds, keeping six
enemies at bay, and with ten corpses at his feet for a rampart.
When the fight began again, Monsoreau commenced to draw away the
bodies, lest Bussy should snatch a sword from one of them. Bussy
was surrounded; the blade of his sword bent and shook in his
hand, and fatigue began to render his arm heavy, when suddenly,
one of the bodies raising itself, pushed a rapier into his hand.
It was Rémy’s last act of devotion. Bussy uttered a cry of joy,
and threw away his broken sword: at the same moment Monsoreau
fired at Rémy, and the ball entered his brain. This time he fell
to rise no more.
Bussy uttered a cry. His strength seemed to return to him, and
he whirled round his sword in a circle, cutting through a wrist
at his right hand, and laying open a cheek at his left. Exhausted
by the effort, he let his right arm fall for a moment, while
with his left he tried to undraw the bolts behind him. During
this second, he received a ball in his thigh, and two swords
touched his side. But he had unfastened the bolt, and turned
the key. Sublime with rage, he rushed on Monsoreau, and wounded
him in the breast.
“Ah!” cried Bussy, “I begin to think I shall escape.” The four
men rushed on him, but they could not touch him, and were repulsed
with blows. Monsoreau approached him twice more, and twice more
was wounded. But three men seized hold of the handle of his sword,
and tore it from him. He seized a stool of carved wood, and struck
three blows with it, and knocked down two men; but it broke on the
shoulder of the third, who sent his dagger into Bussy’s breast.
Bussy seized him by the wrist, forced the dagger from him, and
stabbed him to the heart. The last man jumped out of the window.
Bussy made two steps to follow him, but Monsoreau, raising himself
from the floor, where he was lying, wounded him in the leg with
his dagger. The young man seized a sword which lay near, and
plunged it so vigorously into his breast, that he pinned him to
the floor.
“Ah!” cried Bussy, “I do not know if I shall live, but at least
I shall have seen you die!”
Bussy dragged himself to the corridor, his wounds bleeding fearfully.
He threw a last glance behind him. The moon was shining brilliantly,
and its light penetrated this room inundated with blood, and
illuminated the walls pierced by balls, and hacked by blows, and
lighted up the pale faces of the dead, which even then seemed
to preserve the fierce look of assassins.
Bussy, at the sight of this field of battle, peopled by him with
slain, nearly dying as he was, experienced a feeling of pride.
As he had intended, he had done what no man had done before him.
There now remained to him only to fly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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