CHAPTER XII.
We must change the scene once more, and return to the palace of Philip Augustus. The whirlwind of passion had passed by; but the deep pangs of disappointed expectation, with a long train of gloomy suspicions and painful anticipations, swelled in the bosom of the monarch, like those heavy, sweeping billows which a storm leaves behind on the long-agitated sea.
Philip Augustus slowly mounted the stairs of the great keep of the castle, pausing at every two or three steps, as if even the attention necessary to raise his foot from the one grade to the other interrupted the deep current of his thoughts. So profound, indeed, were those thoughts, that he never even remarked the presence of Guerin, till at length, at the very door of the queen's apartments, the minister beseeched him to collect himself.
"Remember, sire," said the bishop, "that no point of the lady's conduct is reproachable; and, for Heaven's sake! yield not your noble mind to any fit of passion that you may repent of hereafter."
"Fear not, Guerin," replied the king: "I am as cool as snow;" and opening the door, he pushed aside the tapestry and entered.
Agnes had heard the step, but it was so different from her husband's general pace, that she had not believed it to be his. When she beheld him, however, a glow of bright, unspeakable joy, which in itself might have convinced the most suspicious, spread over her countenance.
Philip was not proof against it; and as she sprang forward to meet him, he kissed her cheek, and pressed her in the wonted embrace. But there is nought so pertinacious on earth as suspicion. 'Tis the fiend's best, most persevering servant. Cast it from us with what force we will--crush it under what weight of reasoning we may, once born in the human heart, it still rises on its invisible ladder, and squeezes its little drop of corroding poison into every cup we drink.
The queen's women left the room, and Philip sat down by the embroidery frame where Agnes had been working before she went out. He still held her hand in his, as she stood beside him; but fixing his eyes upon the embroidery, he was in a moment again lost in painful thought, though his hand every now and then contracted on the small fingers they grasped, with a sort of habitual fondness.
Agnes was surprised and pained at this unwonted mood; and yet she would not deem it coldness, or say one word that might irritate her husband's mind; so that for long she left him to think in silence, seeing that something most agonising must evidently have happened, so to absorb his ideas, even beside her.
At length, however, without making a motion to withdraw her hand, she sunk slowly down upon her knees beside him; and, gazing up in his face, she asked, "Do you not love me, Philip?" in a low, sweet tone, that vibrated through his soul to all the gentler and dearer feelings of his heart.
"Love you, Agnes!" cried he, throwing his arms round her beautiful form, and pressing kiss upon kiss on her lips--"love you! Oh God! how deeply!" He gazed on her face for a moment or two, with one of those long, straining, wistful glances that we sometimes give to the dead; then, starting up, he paced the room for several minutes, murmuring some indistinct words to himself, till at length his steps grew slower again, his lips ceased to move, and he once more fell into deep meditation.
Agnes rose, and, advancing towards him, laid her hand affectionately upon his arm, "Calm yourself, Philip. Come and sit down again, and tell your Agnes what has disturbed you. Calm yourself, beloved! Oh, calm yourself!"
"Calm, madam!" said the king, turning towards her with an air of cold abstraction. "How would you have me calm?"
Agnes let her hand drop from his arm; and, returning to her seat, she bent her head down and wept silently.
Philip took another turn in the chamber, during which he twice turned his eyes upon the figure of his wife--then advanced towards her, and leaning down, cast his arm over her neck. "Weep not, dear Agnes," he said,--"weep not; I have many things to agitate and distress me. You must bear with me, and let my humour have its way."
Agnes looked up, and kissed the lips that spoke to her, through her tears. She asked no questions, however, lest she might recall whatever was painful to her husband's mind. Philip, too, glanced not for a moment towards the real cause of his agitation. There was something so pure, so tender, so beautiful, in the whole conduct and demeanour of his wife--so full of the same affection towards him that he felt towards her--so unmixed with the least touch of that constraint that might make her love doubted, that his suspicions stood reproved, and though they rankled still, he dared not own them.
"Can it be only a feeling of cold duty binds her to me thus?" he asked himself; "she cited nought else to support her resolution of not flying with that pale seducer, D'Auvergne; and yet, see how she strives for my affection! how she seems to fix her whole hopes upon it!--how to see it shaken agitates her!"
The fiend had his answer ready. It might be pride--the fear of sinking from the queen of a great kingdom, back into the daughter of a petty prince. It might be vanity--which would be painfully wrung to leave splendour, and riches, and admiration of a world, to become--what?--what had been the wife of a great king--a lonely, unnoticed outcast from her once husband's kingdom. Still, he thought it was impossible. She had never loved splendour--she had never sought admiration. Her delights had been with him alone, in sports and amusements that might be tasted, with any one beloved, even in the lowest station. It was impossible;--and yet it rankled. He felt he wronged her. He was ashamed of it;--and yet those thoughts rankled! Memory, too, dwelt with painful accuracy upon those words he had overheard,--notwithstanding her own feelings, she would not quit him!--and imagination, with more skill than the best sophist of the court of Crœsus, drew therefrom matter to basis a thousand painful doubts.
As thus he thought, he cast himself again into the seat before the frame; and his mind being well prepared for every bitter and sorrowful idea, he gave himself up to the gloomy train of fancies that pressed on him on every side: the revolt of his barons--the disaffection of his allies--the falling off of his friends--the exhaustion of his finances--and last, not least, that dreadful interdict, that cut his kingdom off from the Christian world, and made it like a lazar house. He resolved all the horrible proofs of the papal power, that he had seen on his way: the young, the old, clinging to his stirrup and praying relief--the dead, the dying, exposed by the road-side to catch his eye--the gloomy silence of the cities and the fields--the deathlike void of all accustomed sounds, that spread around his path wherever he turned:--he thought over them all; and, as he thought, he almost unconsciously took up the chalk wherewith Agnes had been tracing the figures on her embroidery, and slowly scrawled upon the edge of the frame, "Interdict! Interdict!";
She had watched his motions as a mother watches those of her sick child; but when she read the letters he had written, a faint cry broke from her lips, and she became deadly pale. The conviction that Philip's resolution was shaken by the thunders of the Roman church took full possession of her mind, and she saw that the moment was arrived for her to make her own peace the sacrifice for his. She felt her fate sealed,--she felt her heart broken; and though she had often, often contemplated the chances of such a moment, how trifling, how weak had been the very worst dreams of her imagination to the agony of the reality!
She repressed the cry, however, already half uttered; and rising from her seat with her determination fixed, and her mind made up to the worst evil that fate could inflict, she kneeled down at the king's feet, and, raising her eyes to his, "My lord," she said, "the time is come for making you a request that I am sure you will not refuse. Your own repose, your kingdom's welfare, and the church's peace require--all and each--that you should consent to part from one who has been too long an object of painful contest. Till I thought that the opinion of your prelates and your peers had gained over your will to such a separation, I never dared, my noble lord, even to think thereof; but now you are doubtless convinced that it must be so; and all I have to beg is, that you would give me sufficient guard and escort, to conduct me safely to my father's arms; and that you would sometimes think with tenderness of one who has loved you well."
Agnes spoke as calmly as if she had asked some simple boon. Her voice was low but clear; and the only thing that could betray agitation, was the excessive rapidity of her utterance, seeming as if she doubted her own powers to bring her request to an end.
Philip gazed upon her with a glance of agony and surprise, that were painful even to behold. His cheek was as pale as death; but his brow was flushed and red; and as she proceeded, the drops of agony stood upon his temples. When she had done, he strove to speak, but no voice answered his will; and after gasping as for breath, he started up, exclaimed with great effort, "Oh, Agnes!" and darted out of the chamber.
At ten paces' distance from the door stood Guerin, as if in expectation of the king's return. Philip caught him by the arm, and, scarcely conscious of what he did, pointed wildly with the other hand to the door of the queen's apartments.
"Good God! my lord," cried the minister, well knowing the violent nature of his master's passion. "In Heaven's name! what have you done?"
"Done! done!" cried the monarch. "Done! She loves me not, Guerin! She seeks to quit me. She loves me not, I say! She loves me not! I, that would have sacrificed my soul for her! I, that would have abjured the cross--embraced the crescent--desolated Europe--died myself, for her. She seeks to leave me! Oh, madness and fury!" and clenching his hands, he stamped with his armed heel upon the ground, till the vaulted roofs of the keep echoed and re-echoed to the sound.
"Oh! my lord! be calm, in Heaven's name!" cried Guerin. "Speak not such wild and daring words! Remember, though you be a king, there is a King still higher; who perhaps even now chastens you for resisting his high will."
"Away!" cried the king. "School not me, sir bishop! I tell thee, there is worse hell here, than if there had never been heaven;" and he struck his hand upon his mailed breast with fury, indeed almost approaching to insanity. "Oh, Guerin, Guerin!" he cried again, after a moment's pause, "she would leave me! Did you hear? She would leave me!"
"Let me beseech you, sire," said the minister once more. "Compose yourself, and, as a wise and good prince, let the discomfort and misery that Heaven has sent to yourself, at least be turned to your people's good; and, by so doing, be sure that you will merit of Heaven some consolation."
"Consolation!" said the monarch mournfully. "Oh, my friend, what consolation can I have? She loves me not, Guerin! She seeks to quit me! What consolation can I have under that?"
"At least the consolation, sire, of relieving and restoring happiness to your distressed people," answered the minister. "The queen herself seeks to quit you, sire. The queen herself prays you to yield to the authority of the church. After that, you will surely never think of detaining her against her will. It would be an impious rebellion against a special manifestation of Heaven's commands; for sure I am that nothing but the express conviction that it is God's will would have induced the princess to express such a desire as you have vaguely mentioned."
"Do you think so, Guerin?" demanded Philip, musing--"do you think so? But no, no! She would never quit me if she loved me?"
"Her love for you, my lord, may be suspended by the will of Heaven," replied the minister; "for surely she never showed want of love towards you till now. Yield then, my lord, to the will of the Most High. Let the queen depart; and, indeed, by so doing, I believe that even your own fondest hopes may be gratified. Our holy father the pope, you know, would not even hear the question of divorce tried, till you should show your obedience to the church by separating from the queen. When you have done so, he has pledged himself to examine it in the true apostolic spirit; and doubtless he will come to the same decision as your bishops of France had done before. Free from all ties, you may then recall the queen----"
"But her love!" interrupted Philip,--"can I ever recall her love?"
"If it be by the will of Heaven," replied Guerin, "that she seeks to leave you, her love for you, my lord, will not be lost, but increased a thousand fold when Heaven's blessing sanctions it: and the pope----"
"Curses upon his head!" thundered Philip, bursting forth into a new frenzy of passion,--"may pride and ambition be a curse on him and his successors for ever! May they grasp at the power of others, till they lose their own! May nation after nation cast off their sway! and itch of dominion, with impotence of means, be their damnation for ever! Now I have given him back his curse--say, what of him?"
"Nothing, my lord," replied Guerin; "but, that the only means to make him consent to your union with the princess is to part with her for a time. Oh, my lord! if you have not already consented,--consent, I beseech you: she prays it herself. Do not refuse her--your kingdom requires it: have compassion upon it. Your own honour is implicated; for your barons rebel, and you never can chastise them while the whole realm is bound to their cause by the strong bond of mutual distress."
"Chastise them!" said Philip thoughtfully, pausing on the ideas the minister had suggested. Then suddenly he turned to Guerin with his brow knit, and his cheek flushed, as if with the struggle of some new resolution. "Be it so, Guerin!" cried he,--"be it so! The interdict shall be raised--I will take them one by one--I will cut them into chaff, and scatter them to the wind--I will be king of France indeed! and if, in the mean while, this proud prelate yields me my wife--my own beloved wife--why, well; but if he dares then refuse his sanction, when I have bowed my rebellious subjects, his seat is but a frail one; for I will march on Rome, and hurl him from his chair, and send him forth to tread the sands of Palestine.--But stay, Guerin. Think you, that on examination he will confirm the bishops' decree, if I yield for the time?"
"I trust he will, my lord," replied the minister. "May I tell the queen you grant her request?" he added, eager to urge Philip's indecision into the irrevocable.
"Yes!" said the monarch, "yes!--Yet stay, Guerin,--stay!" and he fell into thought again; when suddenly some one, mounting the steps like lightning, approached the little vestibule where they stood. "Ha! have you taken the count D'Auvergne?" cried the king, seeing one of his serjeants-of-arms--his eyes flashing at the same time with all their former fury.
"No, my lord," replied the man: "he has not yet been heard of; but a messenger, in breathless haste, from the bishop of Tours, brings you this packet, sire. He says, prince Arthur is taken," added the serjeant.
"Avert it, Heaven!" exclaimed Philip, tearing open the despatch. "Too true! too true!" he added: "and the people of Poitou in revolt! laying the misfortune to our door, for resisting the interdict. Oh, Guerin! it must be done--it must be done! The interdict must be raised, or all is lost.--Begone, fellow! leave us!" he exclaimed, turning to the serjeant, who tarried for no second command. Then, pacing up and down for an instant, with his eyes bent on the ground, the king repeated more than once:--"She seeks to leave me! she spoke of it as calmly as a hermit tells his beads. She loves me not!--Too true, she loves me not!"
"May I announce your will in this respect, my lord? demanded Guerin, as the king paused and pondered bitterly over all that had passed.
"Ask me not, good friend!--ask me not!" replied the king, turning away his head, as if to avoid facing the act to which his minister urged him, "Ask me not. Do what thou wilt; there is my signet,--use it wisely; but tear not my heart, by asking commands I cannot utter."
Thus speaking, the king drew his private seal from his finger, and placing it in Guerin's hand, turned away; and, with a quick but irregular step, descended the staircase, passed through the gardens, and issuing out by the postern gate, plunged into the very heart of the forest.
Guerin paused to collect his thoughts, scarcely believing the victory that had been obtained; so little had he expected it in the morning. He then approached the door of the queen's apartments, and knocked gently for admittance. At first it passed unnoticed, but on repeating it somewhat louder, one of Agnes's women presented herself, with a face of ashy paleness, while another looked over her shoulder.
"Enter, my lord bishop, enter!" said the second in a low voice. "Thank God, you are come! We know not what has so struck the queen; but she is very ill. She speaks not; she raises not her head; and yet by her sobbing 'tis clear she has not fainted. See where she lies!"
Guerin entered. From Philip's account, he had thought to find the queen with a mind composed and made up to her fortunes; but a sadly different scene presented itself. Agnes had apparently, the moment her husband had left her, caught down the crucifix from a little moveable oratory which stood in the room, and throwing herself on her knees before one of the seats, had been seeking consolation in prayer. The emotions which crossed her address to Heaven may easily be conceived; and so powerfully had they worked, that, overcoming all other thoughts, they seemed to have swept hope and trust, even in the Almighty, away before them, and dashed the unhappy girl to the ground like a stricken flower. Her head and whole person had fallen forward on the cushion of the seat, before which she had been kneeling. Her face was resting partly on her hands, and partly on the cross, which they clasped, and which was deluged with her tears; while a succession of short convulsive sobs was all that announced her to be amongst the living.
"Has she not spoken since the king left her?" demanded Guerin, both alarmed and shocked.
"Not a word, sir," replied her principal attendant. "We heard her move once, after the king's voice ceased; and then came a dead silence: so we ventured to come in, lest she should have fallen into one of those swoons which have afflicted her ever since the tournament of the Champeaux. We have striven to raise her, and to draw some word from her; but she lies there, and sobs, and answers nothing."
"Send for Rigord the leech," said Guerin; "I saw him in the hall:" and then approaching Agnes, with a heart deeply touched with the sorrow he beheld, "Grieve not so, lady," he said in a kindly voice; "I trust that this will not be so heavy a burden as you think: I doubt not--indeed I doubt not, that a short separation from your royal husband will be all that you will have to bear. The king having once, by your good counsel, submitted his cause to the trial of the holy church, our good father, the pope, will doubtless judge mildly, and soon restore to him the treasure he has lost. Bear up, then, sweet lady, bear up! and be sure that wherever you go, the blessings of a whole nation, which your self-devotion has saved from civil war and misery of every kind, will follow your footsteps, and smooth your way."
It was impossible to say whether Agnes heard him or not; but the words of comfort which the good bishop proffered produced no effect. She remained with her face still leaning on the cross, and a quick succession of convulsive sobs was her only reply. Guerin saw that all farther attempt to communicate with her in any way would be vain for the time; and he only waited the arrival of the leech to leave the apartment.
Rigord, who acted both as physician and historian to Philip Augustus, instantly followed the queen's attendant, who had been despatched to seek him; and, after having received a promise from him to bring intelligence of the queen's real state, the minister retired to his own chamber, and hastened to render Philip's resolution irrevocable, by writing that letter of submission to the holy see, which speedily raised the interdict from France.
CHAPTER XIII.
Black and gloomy silence reigned through the old château of Compiègne, during the two days that followed the queen's determination to depart. All Philip's military operations were neglected--all the affairs of his immediate government were forgotten, and his hours passed in wandering alone in the forest, or in pacing his chamber with agitated and uncertain steps.
The thoughts and feelings that filled those hours, however, though all painful, were of a mixed and irregular character. Sometimes, it was the indignant swelling of a proud and imperious heart against the usurped power that snatched from it its brightest hopes. Sometimes, it was the thrilling agony of parting from all he loved. Sometimes, it was the burning thirst for vengeance, both on the head of him who had caused the misery, and of those who, by their falling off in time of need, had left him to bear it alone; and, sometimes, it was the shadowy doubts and suspicions of awakened jealousy, throwing all into darkness and gloom. Still, however, the deep, the passionate love remained; and to it clung the faint hope of rewinning the treasure he sacrificed for a time.
Thus, as he strode along the paths of the forest, with his arms crossed upon his broad chest, he sketched out the stern but vast plan of crushing his rebellious barons piecemeal, as soon as ever the interdict--that fatal bond of union amongst them--should be broken. He carried his glance, too, still farther into the future; and saw many a rising coalition against him in Europe, fomented and supported by the church of Rome; and firm in his own vigorous talent, it was with a sort of joy that he contemplated their coming, as the means whereby he would avenge the indignity he had suffered from the Roman see, crush his enemies, punish his disobedient vassals, and, extending his dominion to the infinite of hope, would hold Agnes once more to his heart, and dare the whole world to snatch her thence again.
Such were the thoughts of Philip Augustus, so mingled of many passions--ambition--love--revenge. Each in its turn using as its servant a great and powerful mind, and all bringing about--for with such opposite agents does Heaven still work its high will--all bringing about great changes to the world at large; revolutions in thoughts, in feelings, and in manners; the fall of systems, and the advance of the human mind.
Were we of those who love to view agony with a microscope, we would try equally to display the feelings of Agnes de Meranie, while, with crushed joys, blighted hopes, and a broken heart, she prepared for the journey that was to separate her for ever from him she loved best on earth.
It would be too painful a picture, however, either to draw or to examine. Suffice it, then, that, recovered from the sort of stupor into which she had fallen after the efforts which had been called forth by Philip's presence, she sat in calm dejected silence; while her women, informed of her decision, made the necessary arrangements for her departure. If she spoke at all, it was but to direct care to be taken of each particular object, which might recall to her afterwards the few bright hours she had so deeply enjoyed. 'Twas now an ornament,--'twas now some piece of her dress, either given her by her husband, or worn on some day of peculiar happiness, which called her notice; and, as a traveller, forced to leave some bright land that he may never see again, carries away with him a thousand views and charts, to aid remembrance in after-years, poor Agnes was anxious to secure, alone, all that could lead memory back to the joys that she was quitting for ever. To each little trinket there was some memory affixed; and to her heart they were relics, as holy as ever lay upon shrine or altar.
It was on the second morning after her resolution had been taken, and with a sad haste, springing from the consciousness of failing powers, she was hurrying on her preparations, when she was informed that the chancellor, Guerin, desired a few minutes' audience. She would fain have shrunk from it; for, though she revered the minister for his undoubted integrity, and his devotion to her husband, yet, it had so happened that Guerin had almost always been called on to speak with her for the purpose of communicating some painful news, or urging some bitter duty. The impression he had left on her mind, therefore, was aught but pleasant; and, though she esteemed him much, she loved not his society. She was of too gentle a nature, however, to permit a feeling so painful to its object to be seen for a moment, even now that the minister's good word or bad could serve her nothing; and she desired him to be admitted immediately.
The havoc that a few hours had worked on a face which was once the perfection of earthly beauty struck even the minister, unobservant as he was in general of things so foreign to his calling. As he remarked it, he made a sudden pause in his advance; and looking up with a faint smile, more sad, more melancholy than even tears, Agnes shook her head, saving mildly, as a comment on his surprise--
"It cannot be, lord bishop, that any one should suffer as I have suffered, and not let the traces shine out. But you are welcome, my lord. How fares it with my noble lord--my husband, the king? He has not come to me since yester-morning; and yet, methinks, we might have better borne these wretched two days together than apart. We might have fortified each other's resolution with strong words. We might have shown each other, that what it was right to do, it was right to do firmly."
"The king, madam," replied Guerin, "has scarcely been in a state to see any one. I have been thrice refused admittance, though my plea was urgent business of the state. He has been totally alone, till within the last few minutes."
"Poor Philip!" exclaimed Agnes, the tears, in spite of every effort, swelling in her eyes, and rolling over her fair pale cheek. "Poor Philip! And did he think his Agnes would have tried to shake the resolution which cost him such pangs to maintain? Oh, no! She would have aided him to fix it, and to bear it."
"He feared not your constancy, lady," replied the bishop of Senlis. "He feared his own. I have heard that fortitude is a woman's virtue; and, in truth, I now believe it. But I must do my errand; for, in faith, lady, I cannot see you weep:"--and the good minister wiped a bright drop from his own clear, cold eye. "Having at last seen the king," he proceeded, "he has commanded me to take strict care that all the attendants you please to name should accompany you; that your household expenses should be charged upon his domains, as that of the queen of France; and having, from all things, good hope that the pope, satisfied with this submission to his authority, will proceed immediately to verify the divorce pronounced by the bishops, so that your separation may be short--"
"Ha! What?" exclaimed Agnes, starting up, and catching the bishop's arm with both her hands, while she gazed in his face with a look of thunderstruck, incredulous astonishment--"What is it you say? Is there a chance--is there a hope--is there a possibility that I may see him again--that I may clasp his hand--that I may rest on his bosom once more? O God! O God! blessed be thy holy name!" and falling on her knees, she turned her beautiful eyes to heaven; while, clasping her fair hands, and raising them also, trembling with emotion, towards the sky, her lips moved silently, but rapidly, in grateful, enthusiastic thanksgiving.
"But, oh!" she cried, starting up, and fixing her eager glance upon the minister, "as you are a churchman, as you are a knight, as you are a man! do not deceive me! Is there a hope--is there even a remote hope? Does Philip think there is a hope?
"It appears to me, lady," replied the minister,--"and for no earthly consideration would I deceive you,--that there is every cause to hope. Our holy father the pope would not take the matter of the king's divorce even into consideration, till the monarch submitted to the decision of the church of Rome, which, he declared, was alone competent to decide upon the question,--a right which the bishops of France, he said, had arrogated unjustly to themselves."
"And did he," exclaimed Agnes solemnly--"did he cast his curse upon this whole country--spread misery, desolation, and sorrow over the nation--stir up civil war and rebellion, and tear two hearts asunder that loved each other so devotedly, for the empty right to judge a cause that had been already judged, and do away a sentence which he knew not whether it was right or wrong?--and is this the representative of Christ's apostle?"
"'Tis even as you say, lady, I am afraid," replied the minister. "But even suppose his conduct to proceed from pride and arrogance,--which Heaven forbid that I should insinuate!--our hope would be but strengthened by such an opinion. For, contented with having established his right and enforced his will, he will of course commission a council to inquire into the cause, and decide according to their good judgment. What that decision will be, is only known on high; but as many prelates of France will of course sit in that council, it is not likely that they will consent to reverse their own judgment."
"And what thinks the king?" demanded Agnes thoughtfully.
"No stronger proof, lady, can be given, that he thinks as I do," replied Guerin, "than his determination that you should never be far from him; so that, as soon as the papal decision shall be announced in his favour, he may fly to reunite himself to her he will ever look upon as his lawful wife. He begs, madam, that you would name that royal château which you would desire for your residence--"
"Then I am not to quit France!" cried Agnes, hope and joy once more beaming up in her eyes. "I am not to put wide, foreign lands between us, and the journey of many a weary day! Oh! 'tis too much! 'tis too much!" and sinking back into the chair where she had been sitting before the minister's entrance, she covered her eyes with her hands, and let the struggle between joy and sorrow flow gently away in tears.
Guerin made a movement as if to withdraw; but the queen raised her hand, and stopped him. "Stay, my lord bishop, stay!" she said--"These are tears such as I have not shed for long; and there is in them a balmy quality that will soothe many of the wounds in my heart. Before you go, I must render some reply to my dear lord's message. Tell him, as my whole joy in life has been to be with him, so my only earthly hope is to rejoin him soon. Thank him for all the blessed comfort he has sent me by your lips; and say to him that it has snatched his Agnes from the brink of despair. Say, moreover, that I would fain, fain see him, if it will not pain him too deeply, before I take my departure from the halls where I have known so much happiness. But bid him not, on that account, to give his heart one pang to solace mine. And now, my lord, I will choose my residence. Let me see. I will not say Compiègne! for, though I love it well, and have here many a dear memory, yet, I know, Philip loves it too; and I would that he should often inhabit some place that is full of remembrances of me. But there is a castle on the woody hill above Mantes where once, in the earliest days of our marriage, we spent a pleasant month. It shall be my widow's portion, till I see my lord again. Oh! why, why, why must we part at all? But no!" she added more firmly, "it is doubtless right that it should be so: and, if we may thus buy for our fate the blessed certainty of never parting again, I will not think--I will try not to think--the price too dear."
"Perhaps, madam, if I might venture to advise," said the minister, "the interview you desire with the king would take place the last thing before your departure."
Agnes drooped her head. "My departure!" said she mournfullyeg. "True! 'twill be but one pain for all. I have ordered my departure for this evening, because I thought that the sooner I were gone, the sooner would the pain be over for Philip; but oh, lord bishop, you know not what it is to take such a resolution of departure--to cut short, even by one brief minute, that fond lingering with which we cling to all the loved objects that have surrounded us in happiness. But it is right to do it, and it shall be done: my litter shall be here an hour before supper; what guards you and the king think necessary to escort me, I will beg you to command at the hour of three. But I hope," she added, in an almost imploring tone,--"I hope I shall see my husband before I go?"
"Doubt it not, madam," said Guerin: "I have but to express your desire. Could I but serve you farther?"
"In nothing, my good lord," replied the queen, "but in watching over the king like a father. Soothe his ruffled mood; calm his hurt mind; teach him not to forget Agnes, but to bear her absence with more fortitude than she can bear his. And now, my lord," she added, wiping the tears once more from her eyes, "I will go and pray, against that dreadful hour. I have need of help, but Heaven will give it me; and if ever woman's heart broke in silence, it shall be mine this night."
Guerin took his leave and withdrew; and, proceeding to the cabinet of Philip Augustus, gave him such an account of his conversation with the queen, as he thought might soothe and console him, without shaking his resolution of parting from her, at least for a time. Philip listened, at first, in gloomy silence; but, as every now and then, through the dry account given by his plain minister, shone out some touch of the deep affection borne him by his wife, a shade passed away from his brow, and he would exclaim, "Ha! said she so? Angel! Oh, Guerin, she is an angel!" Then starting up, struck by some sudden impulse, he paced the room with hasty and irregular steps.
"A villain!" cried he at length--"a villain!--Thibalt d'Auvergne, beware thy head!--By the blessed rood! Guerin, If I lay my hands upon him, I will cut his false heart from his mischief-devising breast! Fiend! fiend! to strive to rob me of an angel's love like that! He has fled me, Guerin!--he has fled me for the time. You have doubtless heard, within five minutes, he and his train had left the town behind him. 'Twas the consciousness of villany drove him to flight. But I will find him, if I seek him in the heart of Africa! The world shall not hold us two."
Guerin strove to calm the mind of the king, but it was in vain; and, till the hour approached for the departure of Agnes from the castle, Philip spent the time either in breathing vows of vengeance against his adversaries, or in pacing up and down, and thinking, with a wrung and agonised heart, over the dreadful moment before him. At length he could bear it no longer; and, throwing open the door of his cabinet, he walked hastily towards the queen's apartments. Guerin followed, for a few paces, knowing that the critical moment was arrived when France was to be saved or lost--doubting the resolution of both Agnes and Philip, and himself uncertain how to act.
But before Philip had passed through the corridor, he turned to the minister, and, holding up his hand, with an air of stern majesty he said, "Alone, Guerin! I must be alone! At three, warn me!" and he pursued his way to the queen's apartment.
The next hour we must pass over in silence; for no one was witness to a scene that required almost more than mortal fortitude to support. At three, the queen's litter was in the castle court, the serjeants of arms mounted to attend her, and the horses of her ladies held ready to set out. With a heart beating with stronger emotions than had ever agitated it in the face of adverse hosts, Guerin approached the apartments of Agnes de Meranie. He opened the door, but paused without pushing aside the tapestry, saying, "My lord!"
"Come in," replied Philip, in a voice of thunder; and Guerin, entering, beheld him standing in the midst of the floor with Agnes clinging to him, fair, frail, and faint, with her arms twined round his powerful frame, like the ivy clinging round some tall oak agitated by a storm. The kings face was heated, his eyes were red, and the veins of his temples were swelled almost to bursting. "She shall not go!" cried he, as Guerin entered, in a voice both raised and shaken by the extremity of his feelings--"By the Lord of heaven! she shall not go!"
There was energy in his tone, almost to madness; and Guerin stood silent, seeing all that he had laboured to bring about swept away in that moment. But Agnes slowly withdrew her arms from the king, raised her weeping face from his bosom, clasped her hands together, and gazed on him for a moment with a glance of deep and agonised feeling--then said, in a low but resolute voice, "Philip, it must be done! Farewell, beloved! farewell!" and, running forward towards the door, she took the arm of one of her women, to support her from the chamber.
Before she could go, however, Philip caught her again in his arms, and pressed kiss after kiss upon her lips and cheek. "Help me! help me!" said Agnes, and two of her women, gently disengaging her from the king's embrace, half bore, half carried her down the stairs, and, raising her into the litter, drew its curtains round, and veiled her farther sorrows from all other eyes.
When she was gone, Philip stood for a moment gazing, as it were, on vacancy--twice raised his hand to his head--made a step or two towards the door--reeled--staggered--and fell heavily on the floor, with the blood gushing from his mouth and nostrils.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
VOLUME THE THIRD.
CHAPTER I.
The Count d'Auvergne left Agnes de Meranie, with his mind stretched to the highest point of excitement. For months and months he had been dwelling on the thoughts of that one moment. In the midst of other scenes and circumstances, his soul had been abstracted and busy with the anticipations of that hour. His whole powers and energies had been wrought up to bear it firmly and calmly. And now he had accomplished his task. It was done! he had seen, he had met the object of his young, deep, all-absorbing affection--the object of all his regrets, the undesigning cause of all his misery--he had seen her the wife of another--he had seen her in sorrow and distress--he had helped even to tear her heart, by pressing on her a separation from the man she loved. He had marked every touch of her strong affection for Philip. He had felt every cold and chilling word she had addressed to himself, and yet he had borne it calmly--firmly, at least. Like the Indian savage, he had endured the fire and the torture without a sign of suffering; but still the fire and the torture had done their work upon his corporeal frame.
The words in the letter, presented to him by De Coucy's page, swam dizzily before his eyes, without conveying their defined meaning to his senses. He saw that it was some new pang--he saw that it was some fresh misfortune; but reason reeled upon her throne, and he could not sufficiently fix his mind to gather what was the precise nature of the tidings he received. He bade the page follow, however, in a hurried and confused tone, and passed rapidly on through the castle hall into the town, and to the lodging where he had left his retainers. His horse stood saddled in the court, and all seemed prepared for departure; and without well knowing why, but with the mere indistinct desire of flying from the sorrows that pursued him, he mounted his horse and turned him to the road.
"Shall we follow, my lord?" demanded his squire, running at his bridle as he rode forward.
"Ha?--Yes!--Follow!" replied the count, and galloped on with the letter the page had given him still in his hand. He rode on with the swiftness of the wind; whenever his horse made the least pause, urging him forward with the spur, as if a moment's cessation of his rapid pace gave him up again to the dark and gloomy thoughts that pursued him like fierce and winged fiends.
Still, his long habit of commanding his feelings struggled for its ancient power. He felt that his mind was overcome, and he strove to raise it up again. He endeavoured to recall his stoical firmness; he tried to reason upon his own weakness; but the object to which he had bent all his thoughts was accomplished--the motive for his endurance was over, his firmness was gone, and reason hovered vaguely round each subject that was presented to her, without grasping it decidedly. During the last two years, he had raised up, as it were, a strong embankment in his own mind against the flood of his sorrows, he had fortified it with every power of a firm and vigorous intellect; but the torrent had swelled by degrees, till its force became resistless; and now it bore away every barrier, with destruction the more fearful from the opposition it had encountered.
He rode on. The day was burning and oppressive. The hot mid-day sun struck scorching on its brow, and his eyes became wild and bloodshot; but still he rode on, as if he felt in no degree anything that passed without the dark chamber of his own bosom. De Coucy's page had hastened for his horse when he found the count about to depart, and had galloped after. Seeing at length that his thoughts were occupied in other matters, and that he held the letter he had received, crushed together in his hand, Ermold De Marcy made bold to spur forward his weary beast, and approaching D'Auvergne to say, "Is there any hope, my lord, of your being able, in this matter, to relieve sir Guy?"
"Sir Guy!" cried D'Auvergne, suddenly checking his horse in full career, and gazing in the page's face with an anxious, thoughtful look, as if he strove with effort to recollect his ideas, and fix them on the subject brought before him--"Sir Guy! What of sir Guy! Who is sir Guy?"
"Do you not remember me, beau sire?" asked the page, astonished at the wild, unsettled look of a man whose fixed, stern, immoveable coldness of expression had often been a matter of wonder to the light, volatile youth, whose own thoughts and feelings changed full fifty times a day--"do you know me, beau sire?" he asked. "I am Ermold de Marcy, the page of sir Guy de Coucy, who now lies in English bonds, as that letter informs you."
"De Coucy in bonds!" cried the count, starting. Then, after gazing for a moment or two in the page's face, he added slowly, "Ay!--Yes!--True! Some one told me of it before, methinks. In bonds! I will march and deliver him!"
"Alas! my lord!" answered the page, "all the powers in France would not deliver him by force. He is in the hands of the English army, full fifty thousand strong; and it is only by paying his ransom, I may hope to see my noble lord freed."
"You shall pay his ransom," replied D'Auvergne--"yes, you shall pay his ransom. How much does the soldan ask?"
"'Tis the English king who holds him, my lord," answered the page; "not the soldan. We are in France, beau sire, not in Palestine."
"Not in Palestine, fool!" cried the count, frowning as if the page sought to mock him. "Feel I not the hot sun burning on my brow? And yet," he continued, looking round, "I believe thou art right.--But the ransom, what does the soldan require.--De Coucy!--the noble De Coucy!--to think of his ever being a prisoner to those infidel Saracens! What does the miscreant soldan demand?"
Surprised and shocked at what he beheld, the page paused for a moment till D'Auvergne repeated his question. Then, however, seeing that it would be a vain attempt to change the current of the count's thoughts, he replied, "I do not know, my lord, precisely; but I should suppose they would never free a knight of his renown under a ransom of ten thousand crowns."
"Ten thousand crowns!" cried D'Auvergne, his mind getting more and more astray every moment, under the effort and excitement of conversation, "thou shalt have double! Then with the remainder thou shalt buy thee a flock of sheep, and find out some valley in the mountains, where nor man nor woman ever trod; there shalt thou hide thee with thy sheep, till age whitens thee, and death strikes thee. Thou shalt! thou shalt, I tell thee, that the records of the world may say there was once a man who lived and died in peace. But come to Jerusalem! Come! and thou shalt have the gold. For me, I am bound by a holy vow to do penance in solitude amongst the green woods of Mount Libanus. Follow quick! follow! and thou shalt have the gold."
So saying, the count rode on, and Ermold de Marcy followed with his train; speaking earnestly, though not very sagely perhaps, with D'Auvergne's chief squire, concerning the sudden fit of insanity that had seized his lord.
Notwithstanding the strange turn which the mind of count Thibalt had taken, he mistook not his road to Paris, nor did he once err in the various turnings of the city. On the contrary, with a faculty sometimes possessed by madness, he seemed to proceed with more readiness than usual, following all the shortest and most direct streets towards the house of the canons of St. Berthe's; where, on his arrival, he went straight to the apartments which had been assigned to him by the good fathers; and calling for his treasurer, whom he had left behind on his visit to Compiègne, he demanded the key of his treasure.
The case which contained the sums he had destined to defray the expenses of his return to the Holy Land was soon laid open before him. For a moment or two, he gazed from it to the page, with one of the painful, wandering looks of a mind partially gone, striving vainly to collect all its remaining energies, and concentrate them on some matter of deep and vital import.
"Take it!" cried he at length--"take what is necessary.--Tell thy lord," he added with great effort, as if the linking each idea to the other was a work of bitter labour--"tell thy lord, I would come--I would strive to free him myself--I would do much.--But, but--Auvergne is not what he was. My heart is the same--but my brain, youth! my brain!"--and he carried his hand to his brow, wandering over it with his fingers, while his eyes fixed gradually on vacancy; and he continued muttering broken sentences to himself, such as, "This morning!--ay! this morning.--The hot sun of the desert.--And Agnes--yes, Agnes--her cold words." Then suddenly catching the eye of the page fixed upon his countenance, he pointed to the gold, exclaiming angrily, "Take it! Why dost thou not take it?--Get thee gone with it to thy lord. Dost thou stay to mock. Take the gold and get thee gone, I say!"
The page, without further bidding, kneeled beside the case, and took thence as many bags of gold as he thought necessary for the purpose of ransoming De Coucy; placing them one by one in his pouch. When he had done, he paused a moment for licence to depart, which was soon given in an angry "Get thee gone!" and, descending the stairs as quickly as possible, he only stayed with the servants of the count d'Auvergne, to bid them have a care of their lord; for that, to a certainty, he was as mad as a marabout; after which, he mounted his horse and rode away.
Ermold de Marcy first turned the head of his weary beast towards the east; but no sooner was he out of Paris, than he changed that direction for one nearly west; and, without exactly retreading his steps, he took quite an opposite path to that which he first intended. This retrograde movement proceeded from no concerted purpose, but was, in reality and truth, a complete change of intention; for, to say sooth, the poor page was not a little embarrassed with the business he had in hand.
"Here," thought he, "I have about me twelve thousand crowns in gold. The roads are full of cotereaux, routiers, and robbers of all descriptions; my horse is so weary, that if I am attacked, I must e'en stand still and be plundered. Night is coming on fast; and I have nowhere to lie--and what to do I know not. If I carry all this gold about with me too, till I find my master, I shall lose it, by Saint Jude! By the holy rood! I will go to the old hermit of Vincennes. He cheated me, and proved himself a true man, after all, about that ring. So I will leave the gold under his charge till I have learned more of my lord, and to whom he has surrendered himself."
This resolution was formed just as he got out of the gate of the city; and skirting round on the outside, he took his way towards the tower of Vincennes; after passing which, he soon reached the dwelling of the hermit in the forest of Saint Mandé, with but little difficulty in finding his road. The old man received him with somewhat more urbanity than usual, and heard his tale in calm silence. Ermold related circumstantially all that had occurred to him since he followed his lord from Paris, looking upon the hermit in the light of a confessor, and relieving his bosom of the load that had weighed upon it ever since his truant escapade to the good town of La Flêche. He told, too, all the efforts he had made to avert the unhappy effects of Jodelle's treachery; and pourtrayed, with an air of bitter mortification, that interested the old man in his favour, the degree of despair he had felt when, on mounting the hill above Mirebeau, he saw the English army in possession of the city and country round about.
"And saw you no one who had escaped?" demanded the anchorite, with some earnestness.
"No one," replied the page, "but our own mad juggler. Gallon the fool, who had got away, though sore wounded with an arrow. From him, however, I learned nothing, for he was so cursed with the pain of his wound, that he would speak no sense; and when I questioned him sharply, he shouted like a devil, as is his wont, and ran off as hard as he could. I then rode forward to Tours," continued the page, "and for a crown, got a holy clerk to write me a letter to the count d'Auvergne, in case I could not have speech of him, telling him of my lord's case, and praying his help; and never did I doubt that the noble count would instantly go down to Tours himself, to ransom his brother in arms; but, God help us all! I found his wit a cup-full weaker than when I left him."
"How so?" demanded the hermit: "what wouldst thou say, boy? Why did not the good count go? Speak more plainly."
"Alas! good father, he is as mad as the moon!" replied the page; "something that happened this morning at Compiègne, his followers say, must have been the cause, for yesterday he was as wise and calm as ever. To-day, too, when he rose, he was gloomy and stern, they tell me, as he always is; but when he came back from the château, he was as mad as a Saracen santon."
The hermit clasped his hands, and knit his brows; and after thinking deeply for several minutes, he said, apparently more as a corollary to his own thoughts, than to the pages words, "Thus we should learn, never for any object, though it may seem good, to quit the broad and open path of truth. That word policy has caused, and will cause, more misery in the world, than all the plagues of Egypt. I abjure it, and henceforth will never yield a word's approval to aught that has even a touch of falsehood, be it but in seeming. Never deceive any one, youth! even to their own good, as thou mayest think; for thou knowest not what little circumstance may intervene, unknown to thee, and, scattering all the good designs of the matter to the wind, may leave the deceit alone, to act deep and mischievously. A grain of sand in the tubes of a clepsydra will derange all its functions, and throw its manifold and complicated movements wrong. How much more likely, then, that some little unforeseen accident in the intricate workings of this great earthly machine should prove our best calculations false, and whip us with our own policy! Oh! never, never deceive! Deceit in itself is evil, and intention can never make it good."
Though, like most people, who, when they discover an error in their own conduct, take care to sermonise some other person thereupon, the hermit addressed his discourse to Ermold de Marcy, his homily was in fact a reproach to himself; for, in the page's account of the count d'Auvergne's madness, he read, though mistakenly, the effects of the scheme he had sanctioned, as we have seen, for freeing the country from the interdict. For a moment or two, he still continued to think over what he had heard, inflicting on himself that sort of bitter castigation, which his stern mind was as much accustomed to address to himself as to others. He then turned again to the subject of De Coucy. "'Tis an unhappy accident, thou hast told me there, youth," he said, coming suddenly back, upon the subject, without any immediate connexion;--"'tis an unhappy accident,--both your lord being taken, and his brother in arms being unable to aid him; but we must see for means to gain his ransom, and, God willing! it shall be done."
"'Tis done already, father hermit," replied the page: "the noble count had not lost his love for sir Guy, though he had lost his own senses; and albeit he was in no state to manage the matter of the ransom himself, he gave me sufficient money. It lies there in that pouch, twelve thousand crowns, all in gold. Now, I dare not be riding about with such a sum; and so I have brought it to you to keep safe, while I go back and find out the earl of Salisbury, who, I have heard say, was an old companion of my master's in the Holy Land, and will tell me, for his love, into whose hands he has fallen. I will now lead my beast back to the village, by Vincennes, for carry me he can no farther; and, though I could stretch me here in your hut for the night, no stable is near, and my poor bay would be eaten by the wolves before daybreak. To-morrow, with the first ray of the morning, I set out to seek my lord, and find means of freeing him. 'Tis a long journey, and may be a long treaty. Give me, therefore, two months to accomplish it all; and if I come not then, think that the routiers have devoured me; and send, I pray thee, good father, to king Philip, and bid him see my lord ransomed."
"Stay, boy," said the hermit: "you must not go alone. To-morrow morning, speed to Paris; seek sir François de Roussy, Mountjoy king-at-arms; tell him I sent thee. Show him thy lord's case, and bid him give thee a herald to accompany thee on thine errand. Thus shall thou do it far quicker, and far more surely; and the herald's guerdon shall not be wanting when he returns."
The page eagerly caught at the idea, and the farther arrangements between himself and the hermit were easily made. After having yielded a few of its gold pieces, to defray the expenses of the page's journey, the pouch, with the money it contained, was safely deposited under the moss and straw of the hermit's bed; which place, as we have seen, had already, on one occasion, served a similar purpose. Ermold de Marcy then received the old man's blessing, and bidding him adieu, left him to contemplate more at leisure the news he had so suddenly brought him.
It was then, when freed from the immediate subject of De Coucy's imprisonment, which the presence of the page had of course rendered the first subject of consideration, that the mind of the hermit turned to the unhappy fate of Arthur Plantagenet. He paused for several moments, with his arms folded on his chest, drawing manifold sad deductions from that unhappy prince's claim to the crown of England, joined with his present situation, and his uncle's established cruelty. There were hopes that the English barons might interfere, or that shame and fear might lead John to hold his unscrupulous hand. But yet the chance was a frail one; and as the old man contemplated the reverse, he gave an involuntary shudder, and sinking on his knees before the crucifix, he addressed a silent prayer to Heaven, for protection to the unfortunate beings exposed to the cruel ambition of the weak and remorseless tyrant.