The Snowball by Stanley John Weyman

The Snowball
*
    The slight indisposition from which the Queen suffered in the spring
of 1602, and which was occasioned by a cold caught during her
lying-in, by diverting the King's attention from matters of State, had
the effect of doubling the burden cast on my shoulders. Though the
main threads of M. de Biron's conspiracy were in our hands as early as
the month of November of the preceding year, and steps had been
immediately taken to sound the chief associates by summoning them to
court, an interval necessarily followed during which we had everything
to fear; and this not only from the despair of the guilty, but from
the timidity of the innocent who, in a court filled with cabals and
rumors of intrigues, might see no way to clear themselves. Even the
shows and interludes which followed the Dauphin's birth, and made that
Christmas remarkable, served only to amuse the idle; they could not
disperse the cloud which hung over the Louvre, nor divert those who,
on the one side or the other, had aught to fear.
    In connection with this period of suspense I recall an episode, both
characteristic in itself, and worthy, I think, by reason of its
oddity, to be set down here; where it may serve for a preface to those
more serious events, attending the trial and execution of M. de Biron,
which I shall have presently to relate.
    I had occasion, about the end of the month of January, to see M. du
Hallot. The weather was cold, and partly for that reason, partly from
a desire to keep my visit, which had to do with La Fin's disclosures,
from the general eye, I chose to go on foot. For the same reason I
took with me only two armed servants, and a confidential page, the son
of my friend Arnaud. M. du Hallot, who lived at this time in a house
in the Faubourg St. Germain, not far from the College of France,
detained me long, and when I rose to leave insisted that I should take
his coach, as snow had begun to fall and already lay an inch deep in
the streets. At first I was unwilling to do this, but reflecting that
such small services are highly appreciated by those who render them,
and attach men more surely and subtly than the greatest bribes, I
finally consented, and, taking my place with some becoming
expressions, bade young Arnaud find his way home on foot.
    The coach had nearly reached the south end of the Pont au Change, when
a number of youths ran by me, pelting one another with snowballs, and
shouting so lustily that I was at a loss which to admire more—the
silence of their feet or the loudness of their voices. Aware that lads
of that age are small respecters of persons, I was not surprised to
see two or three of them rush on to the bridge before us, and even
continue their Parthian warfare under the very feet of the horses. The
result was, however, that the latter presently took fright at that
part of the bridge where the houses encroach most boldly on the
roadway; and, but for the care of the running footman, who hastened to
their heads, might have done some harm either to the coach or the
passersby.
    As it was, we were brought to a stop while one of the wheels was
extricated from the kennel, into which it had become wedged. Smiling
to think what the King—for he, strangely warned by Providence, was
all his life long timid in a coach—would have said to this, I went to
open the curtains, and had just effected this to a certain extent,
when one of a crowd of idlers who stood on the raised pavement beside
us deliberately lifted up his arm and flung a snowball at me.
    The missile flew wide of its mark by an inch or two only. That I was
amazed at such audacity goes without saying, but in my doubt of what
it might be the prelude—for the breakdown of the coach in that narrow
place, the haunt of the rufflers and vagrants of every kind, might be
a part of a concerted plan—I fell back into my place. The coach, as
it happened, moved on with a jerk at the same moment; and before I had
well digested the matter, or had time to mark the