CHAPTER III.
Which shows what a French forest was at night, and who inhabited it.
THOSE whom either the love of sylvan sports, or that calm meditative charm inherent to wood scenery, has tempted to explore the deeper recesses of the forest, must be well aware that many particular glades and coverts will often lie secret and undiscovered, amidst the mazes of the leafy labyrinth, even to the eyes of those long accustomed to investigate its most intricate windings. In those countries where forest hunting is a frequent sport, I have more than once found myself led on into scenes completely new, when I had fancied that long experience had made me fully acquainted with every rood of the woodland round about, and have often met with no small trouble in retracing the spot, although I took all pains to observe the way thither, and fix its distinctive marks in my memory.
In the heart of the forest of St. Germain, at a considerable distance from any of the roads, or even by-paths of the wood, lay a deep dingle or dell, which probably had been a gravel-pit many centuries before, and might have furnished forth sand to strew the halls of Charlemagne, for aught I know to the contrary. However, so many ages had elapsed since it had been employed for such purpose, that many a stout oak had sprung, and flourished, and withered round about it, and had left the ruins of their once princely forms crumbling on its brink. At the time I speak of, a considerable part of the dell itself was filled up with tangled brush-wood, which a long hot season had stripped and withered; and over the edge hung a quantity of dry shrubs and stunted trees, forming a thick screen over the wild recess below.
One side, and one side only, was free of access, and this was by means of a small sandy path winding down into the bottom of the dell, between two deep banks, which assumed almost the appearance of cliffs as the road descended. This little footway conducted, it is true, into the most profound part of the hollow, but then immediately lost itself in the thick underwood, through which none but a very practised eye would have discovered the means of entering a deep lair of ground, sheltered by the steep bank and its superincumbent trees on one side, and concealed by a screen of wood on every other.
On the night I have mentioned, this well concealed retreat was tenanted by a group of men, whose wild attire harmonized perfectly with the rudeness of the scene around. The apparel of almost every class was discernible among them, but each vesture plainly showed, that it had long passed that epoch generally termed “better days;” and indeed, the more costly had been their original nature, the greater was their present state of degradation. So that what had once been the suit of some gay cavalier of the court, and which doubtless had shone as such in the circles of the bright and the fair, having since passed through the hands of the page, who had perhaps used it to personate his master, and the fripier, who had tried hard to restore it to a degree of lustre, and the poor petitioner who had bought it and borne it second-hand to court, and lost both his labour and his money—having passed through these, and perhaps a thousand other hands, it had gradually acquired that sort of undefinable tint, which ought properly to be called old-age colour, and at present served, and only served, to keep its owner from the winds of heaven. At the same time the buff jerkin which covered the broad shoulders of another hard by, though it had never boasted much finery, had escaped with only a few rusty stains from its former intimacy with a steel cuirass, and a slight greasy gloss upon the left side, which indicated its owner’s habit of laying his hand upon his sword.
Here, too, every sort of offensive weapon was to be met with. The long Toledo blade with its basket hilt and black scabbard tipped with steel; the double-handed heavy sword, which during the wars of the League had often steaded well the troops of Henry the Fourth, when attacked by the superior cavalry of the Dukes of Guise and Mayenne, and which had been but little used since; the poniard, the stiletto, the heavy petronel, or horse pistol, and the smaller girdle pistol, which had been but lately introduced, were all to be seen, either as accompaniments to the dress of some of the party, or scattered about on the ground, where they had been placed for greater convenience.
The accoutrements of these denizens of the forest were kept in countenance by every other accessory circumstance of appearance; and a torch stuck in the sand in the midst, glared upon features which Salvator might have loved to trace. It was not alone the negligence of personal appearance, shown in their long dishevelled hair and untrimmed beards, which rendered them savagely picturesque, but many a furious passion had there written deep traces of its unbounded sway, and marked them with that wild undefinable expression, which habitual vice and lawless licence are sure to leave behind in their course.
At the moment I speak of, wine had been circulating very freely amongst the robbers; for such indeed they were. Some were sleeping, either with their hands clasped over their knees and their heads drooping down to meet them, or stretched more at their ease under the trees, snoring loud in answer to the wind, that whistled through the branches. Some sat gazing with a wise sententious look on the empty gourds, many of which, fashioned into bottles, lay scattered about upon the ground: and two or three, who had either drunk less of the potent liquor, or whose heads were better calculated to resist its effects than the rest, sat clustered together singing and chatting by turns, arrived exactly at that point of ebriety, where a man’s real character shows itself, notwithstanding all his efforts to conceal it.
The buff jerkin we have spoken of, covered the shoulders of one among this little knot of choice spirits, who still woke to revel after sleep had laid his leaden mace upon their companions; and it may be remarked, that a pair of broader shoulders are rarely to be seen than those so covered.
Wouvermans is said to have been very much puzzled by a figure in one of his pictures, which, notwithstanding all his efforts, he could never keep down (as painters express it). Whatever he did, that one figure was always salient, and more prominent than the artist intended; nor was it till he had half blotted it out, that he discovered its original defect was being too large. Something like Wouvermans’ figure, the freebooter I speak of, stood conspicuous amongst the others, from the Herculean proportion of his limbs; but he had, in addition, other qualities to distinguish him from the rest. His brow was broad, and of that peculiar form to which physiognomists have attached the idea of a strong determined spirit; at the same time, the clear sparkle of his blue Norman eye bespoke an impetuous, but not a depraved mind.
A deep scar was apparent on his left cheek; and the wound which had been its progenitor, was most probably the cause of a sneering turn in the corner of his mouth, which, with a bold expression of daring confidence, completed the mute history that his face afforded, of a life spent in arms, or well, or ill, as circumstances prompted,—an unshrinking heart, which dared every personal evil, and a bright but unprincipled mind, which followed no dictates but the passions of the moment.
He was now in his gayest mood, and holding a horn in his hand, trolled forth an old French ditty, seeming confident of pleasing, or perhaps careless whether he pleased or not.
To think that great men be
More gay than I that lie on the grass
Under the greenwood tree.
I tell thee no, I tell thee no,
The Great are slaves to their gilded show.
Are the ceilings of gay saloons
So richly wrought as yon sky we see,
Or their glitter so bright as the moon’s?
I tell thee no, I tell thee no,
The Great are slaves to their gilded show.
There is never a heart so free,
In the vest of gold, and the palace gay,
As in buff ‘neath the forest tree.
I tell thee yea, I tell thee yea,
The Great were made for the poor man’s prey.”
So sang the owner of the buff jerkin, and his song met with more or less applause from his companions, according to the particular humour of each. One only amongst the freebooters seemed scarcely to participate in the merriment. He had drunk as deeply as the rest, but he appeared neither gay, nor stupid, nor sleepy; and while the tall Norman sang, he cast, from time to time, a calm sneering glance upon the singer, which showed no especial love, either for the music, or musician.
“You sing about prey,” said he, as the other concluded the last stanza of his ditty—“You sing about prey, and yet you are no great falcon, after all; if we may judge from to-day.”
“And why not, Monsieur Pierrepont Le Blanc?” demanded the Norman, without displaying aught of ill-humour in his countenance: “though they ought to have called you Monsieur Le Noir—Mr. Black, not Mr. White.—Nay, do not frown, good comrade; I speak but of your beard, not of your heart. What, art thou still grumbling, because we did not cut the young Count’s throat outright?”
“Nay, not for that,” answered the other, “but because we have lost the best man amongst us, for want of his being well seconded.”
“You lie, Parbleu!” cried the Norman, drawing his sword, and fixing his thumb upon a stain, about three inches from the point. “Did not I lend the youth so much of my iron toothpick? and would have sent it through him, if his horse had not carried him away. But I know you, Master Buccaneer—You would have had me stab him behind, while Mortagne slashed his head before. That would have been a fit task for a Norman gentleman, and a soldier! I whose life he saved too!”
“Did you not swear, when you joined our troop,” demanded the other, “to forget every thing that went before?”
The Norman hesitated; he well remembered his oath, against which the better feelings of his heart were perhaps sometimes rebellious. He felt, too, confused at the direct appeal the other had made to it; and to pass it by, he caught at the word forget, answering with a stave of the song—
The pangs and chains they bear;
The brave remember every debt
To honour, and the fair.
For these are bonds that bind us more,
Yet leave us freer than before.
“Yes, let those that can do so, forget: but I very well remember, at the battle at Perpignan, I had charged with the advance guard, when the fire of the enemy’s musketeers, and a masked battery which began to enfilade our line, soon threw our left flank into disorder, and a charge of cavalry drove back De Coucy’s troop. Mielleraye’s standard was in the hands of the enemy, when I and five others rallied to rescue it. A gloomy old Spaniard fired his petronel and disabled my left arm, but still I held the standard-pole with my right, keeping the standard before me; but my Don drew his long Toledo, and had got the point to my breast, just going to run it through me and standard and all, as I’ve often spitted a duck’s liver and a piece of bacon on a skewer; when, turning round my head, to see if no help was near, I perceived this young Count de Blenau’s banderol, coming like lightning over the field, and driving all before it; and blue and gold were then the best colours that ever I saw, for they gave me new heart, and wrenching the standard-pole round—But hark, there is the horn!”
As he spoke, the clear full note of a hunting-horn came swelling from the south-west; and in a moment after, another, much nearer to them, seemed to answer the first. Each, after giving breath to one solitary note, relapsed into silence; and such of the robbers as were awake, having listened till the signal met with a reply, bestirred themselves to rouse their sleeping companions, and to put some face of order upon the disarray which their revels had left behind.
“Now, Sir Norman,” cried he that they distinguished by the name of Le Blanc; “we shall see how Monseigneur rates your slackness in his cause. Will you tell him your long story of the siege of Perpignan?”
“Pardie!” cried the other, “I care no more for him, than I do for you. Every man that stands before me on forest ground is but a man, and I will treat him as such.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” exclaimed his companion; “it were good to see thee bully a privy counsellor; why, thou darest as soon take a lion by the beard.”
“I dare pass my sword through his heart, were there need,” answered the Norman; “but here they come,—stand you aside and let me deal with him.”
Approaching steps, and a rustling sound in the thick screen of wood already mentioned, as the long boughs were forced back by the passage of some person along the narrow pathway, announced the arrival of those for whom the robbers had been waiting.
“Why, it is as dark as the pit of Acheron!” cried a deep voice amongst the trees. “Are we never to reach the light I saw from above? Oh, here it is.—Chauvelin, hold back that bough, it has caught my cloak.” As the speaker uttered the last words, an armed servant, in Isabel and silver, appeared at the entrance of the path, holding back the stray branches, while Chavigni himself advanced into the circle of robbers, who stood grouped around in strange picturesque attitudes, some advancing boldly, as if to confront the daring stranger that thus intruded on their haunts, some gazing with a kind of curiosity upon the being so different from themselves, who had thus placed himself in sudden contact with them, some lowering upon him with bended heads, like wolves when they encounter a nobler beast of prey.
The Statesman himself advanced in silence; and, with something of a frown upon his brow, glanced his eye firmly over every face around, nor was there an eye amongst them that did not sink before the stern commanding fire of his, as it rested for a moment upon the countenance of each, seeming calmly to construe the expression of the features, and read into the soul beneath, as we often see a student turn over the pages of some foreign book, and collect their meaning at a glance.
“Well, Sirs,” said he at length, “my knave tells me, that ye have failed in executing my commands.”
The Norman we have somewhat minutely described heretofore, now began to excuse himself and his fellows; and was proceeding to set forth that they had done all which came within their power and province to do, and was also engaged in stating, that no man could do more, when Chavigni interrupted him. “Silence!” cried he, with but little apparent respect for these lords of the forest, “I blame ye not for not doing more than ye could do; but how dare ye, mongrel bloodhounds, to disobey my strict commands? and when I bade ye abstain from injuring the youth, how is it ye have mangled him like a stag torn by the wolves?”
The Norman turned with a look of subdued triumph towards him who had previously censured his forbearance. “Speak, speak, Le Blanc!” cried he; “answer Monseigneur.—Well,” continued he, as the other drew back, “the truth is this, Sir Count: we were divided in opinion with respect to the best method of fulfilling your commands, so we called a council of war—”
“A council of war!” repeated Chavigni, his lip curling into an ineffable sneer. “Well, proceed, proceed! You are a Norman, I presume—and braggart, I perceive.—Proceed, Sir, proceed!”
Be it remarked, that by this time the influence of Chavigni’s first appearance had greatly worn away from the mind of the Norman. The commanding dignity of the Statesman, though it still, in a degree, overawed, had lost the effect of novelty; and the bold heart of the freebooter began to reproach him for truckling to a being who was inferior to himself, according to his estimate of human dignities—an estimate formed not alone on personal courage, but also on personal strength.
However, as we have said, he was, in some measure, overawed; and though he would have done much to prove his daring in the sight of his companions, his mind was not yet sufficiently wrought up to shake off all respect, and he answered boldly, but calmly, “Well, Sir Count, give me your patience, and you shall hear. But my story must be told my own way, or not at all. We called a council of war, then, where every man gave his opinion, and my voice was for shooting Monsieur de Blenau’s horse as he rode by, and then taking advantage of the confusion among his lackeys, to seize upon his person, and carrying him into St. Herman’s brake, which lies between Le Croix de bois and the river—You know where I mean, Monseigneur?”
“No, truly,” answered the Statesman; “but, as I guess, some deep part of the forest, where you could have searched him at your ease—The plan was a good one. Why went it not forward?”
“You shall hear in good time,” answered the freebooter, growing somewhat more familiar in his tone. “As you say, St. Herman’s brake is deep enough in the forest—and if we had once housed him there, we might have searched him from top to toe for the packet—ay, and looked in his mouth, if we found it no where else. But the first objection was, that an arquebuse, though a very pretty weapon, and pleasant serviceable companion in broad brawl and battle, talks too loud for secret service, and the noise thereof might put the Count’s people on their guard before we secured his person. However, they say ‘a Norman cow can always get over a stile,’ so I offered to do the business with yon arbalete;” and he pointed to a steel cross-bow lying near, of that peculiar shape which seems to unite the properties of the cross-bow and gun, propelling the ball or bolt by means of the stiff arched spring and cord, by which little noise is made, while the aim is rendered more certain by a long tube similar to the barrel of a musket, through which the shot passes.
“When was I ever known to miss my aim?” continued the Norman. “Why, I always shoot my stags in the eye, for fear of hurting the skin. However, Mortagne—your old friend, Monsieur de Chavigni—who was a sort of band captain amongst us, loved blood, as you know, like an unreclaimed falcon; besides, he had some old grudge against the Count, who turned him out of the Queen’s anteroom, when he was Ancient in the Cardinal’s guard. He it was who over-ruled my proposal. He would have shot him willingly enough, but your gentleman would not hear of that; so we attacked the Count’s train, at the turn of the road—boldly, and in the face. Mortagne was lucky enough to get a fair cut at his head, which slashed through his beaver, and laid his skull bare, but went no farther, only serving to make the youth as savage as a hurt boar; for I had only time to see his hand laid upon his sword, when its cross was knocking against Mortagne’s ribs before, and the point shining out between his blade-bones behind. It was done in the twinkling of an eye.”
“He is a gallant youth,” said Chavigni; “he always was from a boy; but where is your wounded companion?”
“Wounded!” cried the Norman. “Odds life! he’s dead. It was enough to have killed the Devil. There he lies, poor fellow, wrapped in his cloak. Will you please to look upon him, Sir Counsellor?” and snatching up one of the torches, he approached the spot where the dead man lay, under a bank covered with withered brush-wood and stunted trees.
Chavigni followed with a slow step and gloomy brow, the robbers drawing back at his approach; for though they held high birth in but little respect, the redoubted name and fearless bearing of the Statesman had power over even their ungoverned spirits. He, however, who had been called Pierrepont Le Blanc by the tall Norman, twitched his companion by the sleeve as he lighted Chavigni on. “A cowed hound, Norman!” whispered he—“thou hast felt the lash—a cowed hound!”
The Norman glanced on him a look of fire, but passing on in silence, he disengaged the mantle from the corpse, and displayed the face of his dead companion, whose calm closed eyes and unruffled features might have been supposed to picture quiet sleep, had not the ashy paleness of his cheek, and the drop of the under-jaw, told that the soul no longer tenanted its earthly dwelling. The bosom of the unfortunate man remained open, in the state in which his comrades had left it, after an ineffectual attempt to give him aid; and in the left side appeared a small wound, where the weapon of his opponent had found entrance, so trifling in appearance, that it seemed a marvel how so little a thing could overthrow the prodigious strength which those limbs announced, and rob them of that hardy spirit which animated them some few hours before.
Chavigni gazed upon him, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and for a moment his mind wandered far into those paths, to which such a sight naturally directs the course of our ideas, till, his thoughts losing themselves in the uncertainty of the void before them, by a sudden effort he recalled them to the business in which he was immediately engaged.
“Well, he has bitterly expiated the disobedience of my commands; but tell me,” he said, turning to the Norman, who still continued to hold the torch over the dead man, “how is it ye have dared to force my servant to show himself, and my liveries, in this attack, contrary to my special order?”
“That is easily told,” answered the Norman, assuming a tone equally bold and peremptory with that of the Statesman. “Thus it stands, Sir Count: you men of quality often employ us nobility of the forest to do what you either cannot, or dare not do for yourselves; then, if all goes well, you pay us scantily for our pains; if it goes ill, you hang us for your own doings. But we will have none of that. If we are to be falcons for your game, we will risk the stroke of the heron’s bill, but we will not have our necks wrung after we have struck the prey. When your lackey was present, it was your deed. Mark ye that, Sir Counsellor?”
“Villain, thou art insolent!” cried Chavigni, forgetting, in the height of passion, the fearful odds against him, in case of quarrel at such a moment. “How dare you, slave, to—”
“Villain! and slave!” cried the Norman, interrupting him, and laying his hand on his sword. “Know, proud Sir, that I dare any thing. You are now in the green forest, not at council-board, to prate of daring.”
Chavigni’s dignity, like his prudence, became lost in his anger. “Boasting Norman coward!” cried he, “who had not even courage, when he saw his leader slain before his face—”
The Norman threw the torch from his hand, and drew his weapon; but Chavigni’s sword sprang in a moment from the scabbard. He was, perhaps, the best swordsman of his day; and before his servant (who advanced, calling loudly to Lafemas to come forth from the wood where he had remained from the first) could approach, or the robbers could show any signs of taking part in the fray, the blades of the statesman and the freebooter had crossed, and, maugre the Norman’s vast strength, his weapon was instantly wrenched from his hand, and, flying over the heads of his companions, struck against the bank above.
Chavigni drew back, as if to pass his sword through the body of his opponent; but the one moment he had been thus engaged, gave time for reflection on the imprudence of his conduct, and calmly returning his sword to its sheath, “Thou art no coward, after all,” said he, addressing the Norman in a softened tone of voice; “but trust me, friend, that boasting graces but little a brave man. As for the rest, it is no disgrace to have measured swords with Chavigni.”
The Norman was one of those men so totally unaccustomed to command their passions, that, like slaves who have thrown off their chains, each struggles for the mastery, obtains it for a moment, and is again deprived of power by some one more violent still.
The dignity of the Statesman’s manner, the apparent generosity of his conduct, and the degree of gentleness with which he spoke, acted upon the feelings of the Norman, like the waves of the sea when they meet the waters of the Dordogne, driving them back even to their very source with irresistible violence. An unwonted tear trembled in his eye. “Monseigneur, I have done foul wrong,” said he, “in thus urging you, when you trusted yourself amongst us. But you have punished me more by your forbearance, than if you had passed your sword through my body.”
“Ha! such thoughts in a freebooter!” cried Chavigni. “Friend, this is not thy right trade. But what means all this smoke that gathers round us?—Surely those bushes are on fire;—see the sparks how they rise!”
His remark called the eyes of all upon that part of the dingle, into which the Norman had incautiously thrown his torch, on drawing his sword upon the Statesman. Continued sparks, mingled with a thick cloud of smoke, were rising quickly from it, showing plainly that the fire had caught some of the dry bushes thereabout; and in a moment after a bright flame burst forth, speedily communicating itself to the old withered oaks round the spot, and threatening to spread destruction into the heart of the forest.
In an instant all the robbers were engaged in the most strenuous endeavours to extinguish the fire; but the distance, to which the vast strength of the Norman had hurled the torch among the bushes, rendered all access extremely difficult. No water was to be procured, and the means they employed, that of cutting down the smaller trees and bushes with their swords and axes, instead of opposing any obstacle to the flames, seemed rather to accelerate their progress. From bush to bush, from tree to tree, the impetuous element spread on, till, finding themselves almost girt in by the fire, the heat and smoke of which were becoming too intense for endurance, the robbers abandoned their useless efforts to extinguish it, and hurried to gather up their scattered arms and garments, before the flames reached the spot of their late revels.
The Norman, however, together with Chavigni and his servant, still continued their exertions; and even Lafemas, who had come forth from his hiding-place, gave some awkward assistance; when suddenly the Norman stopped, put his hand to his ear, to aid his hearing amidst the cracking of the wood and the roaring of the flames, and exclaimed, “I hear horse upon the hill—follow me, Monseigneur. St. Patrice guide us! this is a bad business:—follow me!” So saying, three steps brought him to the flat below, where his companions were still engaged in gathering together all they had left on the ground.
“Messieurs!” he cried to the robbers, “leave all useless lumber; I hear horses coming down the hill. It must be a lieutenant of the forest, and the gardes champétres, alarmed by the fire—Seek your horses, quick!—each his own way. We meet at St. Herman’s brake—You, Monseigneur, follow me, I will be your guide; but dally not, Sir, if, as I guess, you would rather be deemed in the Rue St. Honoré, than in the Forest of St. Germain.”
So saying, he drew aside the boughs, disclosing a path somewhat to the right of that by which Chavigni had entered their retreat, and which apparently led to the high sand-cliff which flanked it on the north. The Statesman, with his servant and Lafemas, followed quickly upon his steps, only lighted by the occasional gleam of the flames, as they flashed and flickered through the foliage of the trees.
Having to struggle every moment with the low branches of the hazel and the tangled briars that shot across the path, it was some time ere they reached the bank, and there the footway they had hitherto followed seemed to end. “Here are steps,” said the Norman, in a low voice; “hold by the boughs, Monseigneur, lest your footing fail. Here is the first step.”
The ascent was not difficult, and in a few minutes they had lost sight of the dingle and the flames by which it was surrounded; only every now and then, where the branches opened, a broad red light fell upon their path, telling that the fire still raged with unabated fury. A moment or two after, they could perceive that the track entered upon a small savanna, on which the moon was still shining, her beams showing with a strange sickly light, mingled as they were with the fitful gleams of the flames and the red reflection of the sky. The whole of this small plain, however, was quite sufficiently illuminated to allow Chavigni and his companion to distinguish two horses fastened by their bridles to a tree hard by; and a momentary glance convinced the Statesman, that the spot where he and Lafemas had left their beasts, was again before him, although he had arrived there by another and much shorter path than that by which he had been conducted to the rendezvous.
“We have left all danger behind us, Monseigneur,” said the robber, after having carefully examined the savanna, to ascertain that no spy lurked amongst the trees around. “The flies are all swarming round the flames. There stand your horses—mount, and good speed attend you! Your servant must go with me, for our beasts are not so nigh.”
Chavigni whispered a word in the robber’s ear, who in return bowed low, with an air of profound respect. “I will attend your Lordship—” replied he, “—and without fear.”
“You may do so in safety,” said the Statesman, and mounting his horse, after waiting a moment for the Judge, he took his way once more towards the high road to St. Germain.
CHAPTER IV.
In which the learned reader will discover that it is easy to raise suspicions without any cause, and that royalty is not patent against superstition.
WE must now return to the principal personage of our history, and accompany him on his way towards St. Germain, whither he was wending when last we left him.
There are some authors fond of holding their readers in suspense, of bringing them into unexpected situations, and surprising them into applause. All such things are extremely appropriate in a novel or romance; but as this is a true and authentic history, and as eke I detest what theatrical folks call “claptrap,” I shall proceed to record the facts in the order in which they took place, as nearly as it is possible to do so, and will, like our old friend Othello, “a round unvarnished tale deliver.”
The distance to St. Germain was considerable, and naturally appeared still longer than it really was, to persons unacquainted with one step of the road before them, and apprehensive of a thousand occurrences both likely and unlikely. Nothing, however, happened to interrupt them on the way; and their journey passed over, not only in peace, but pretty much in silence also. Both the ladies who occupied the inside of the carriage, seemed to be very sufficiently taken up with their own thoughts, and no way disposed to loquacity, so that the only break to the melancholy stillness which hung over them, was now and then a half-formed sentence, proceeding from what was rapidly passing in the mind of each, or the complaining creak of the heavy wheels, as they ground their unwilling way through the less practicable parts of the forest road.
At times, too, a groan from the lips of their wounded companion interrupted the silence, as the roughness of the way jolted the ponderous vehicle in which he was carried, and re-awakened him to a sense of pain.
Long ere they had reached St. Germain, night had fallen over their road, and nothing could be distinguished by those within the carriage, but the figures of the two horsemen who kept close to the windows. The interior was still darker, and it was only a kind of inarticulate sob from the other side, which made the Marchioness inquire, “Pauline! you are not weeping?”
The young lady did not positively say whether she was so or not, but replied in a voice which showed her mother’s conjecture to be well founded.
“It was not thus, Mamma,” she said, “that I had hoped to arrive at St-Germain.”
“Fie, fie! Pauline,” replied the old lady; “I have long tried to make you feel like a woman, and you are still a child, a weak child. These accidents, and worse than these, occur to every one in the course of life, and they must be met with fortitude. Have you flattered yourself that you would be exempt from the common sorrows of humanity?”
“But if he should die?” said Pauline, with the tone of one who longs to be soothed out of their fears. The old lady, however, applied no such unction to the wound in her daughter’s heart. Madame de Beaumont had herself been reared in the school of adversity; and while her mind and principles had been thus strengthened and confirmed, her feelings had not been rendered more acute. In the present instance, whether she spoke it heedlessly, or whether she intended to destroy one passion by exciting another, to cure Pauline’s grief by rousing her anger, her answer afforded but little consolation. “If he dies,” said she dryly, “why I suppose the fair lady, whose picture he has in his bosom, would weep, and you——”
A deep groan from their wounded companion broke in upon her speech, and suggested to the Marchioness that he might not be quite so insensible as he seemed. Such an answer, too, was not so palatable to Pauline as to induce her to urge the conversation any farther; so that Silence again resumed her empire over the party, remaining undisturbed till the old lady, drawing back the curtain, announced that they were entering St. Germain.
A few minutes more brought them to the lodging of the Count de Blenau; and here the Marchioness descending, gave all the necessary directions in order that the young gentleman might be carried to his sleeping-chamber in the easiest and most convenient method, while Pauline, without proffering any aid, sat back in a dark corner of the carriage. Nor would any thing have shown that she was interested in what passed around her, but when the light of a torch glared into the vehicle, discovering a handkerchief pressed over her eyes to hide the tears she could not restrain.
As soon as the Count was safely lodged in his own dwelling, the carriage proceeded towards the palace, which showed but little appearance of regal state. However the mind of Pauline might have been accustomed to picture a court in all the gay and splendid colouring which youthful imagination lends to anticipated pleasure, her thoughts were now far too fully occupied, to admit of her noticing the lonely and deserted appearance of the scene. But to Madame de Beaumont it was different. She, who remembered St. Germain in other days, looked in vain for the lights flashing from every window of the palace; for the servants hurrying along the different avenues, the sentinels parading before every entrance, and the gay groups of courtiers and ladies, in all the brilliant costume of the time, which used to crowd the terrace and gardens to enjoy the cool of the evening after the sun had gone down.
All that she remembered had had its day; and nothing remained but silence and solitude. A single sentry, at the principal gate, was all that indicated the dwelling of a king; and it was not till the carriage had passed under the archway, that even an attendant presented himself to inquire who were the comers at that late hour.
The principal domestic of Madame de Beaumont, who had already descended from his horse, gave the name of his lady with all ceremony, and also tendered a card (as he had been instructed by the Marchioness), on which her style and title were fully displayed. The royal servant bowed low, saying that the Queen, his mistress, had expected the Marchioness before; and seizing the rope of a great bell, which hung above the staircase, he rang such a peal that the empty galleries of the palace returned a kind of groaning echo to the rude clang which seemed to mock their loneliness.
Two or three more servants appeared, in answer to the bell’s noisy summons; yet such was still the paucity of attendants, that Madame de Beaumont, even while she descended from her carriage, and began to ascend the “grand escalier,” had need to look, from time to time, at the splendid fresco paintings which decorated the walls, and the crowns and fleurs-de-lis with which all the cornices were ornamented, before she could satisfy herself that she really was in the royal chateau of St. Germain.
Pauline’s eyes, fixed on the floor, wandered little to any of the objects round, yet, perhaps, the vast spaciousness of the palace, contrasted with the scarcity of its inhabitants, might cast even an additional degree of gloom over her mind, saddened, as it already was, by the occurrences of the day. Doubtless, in the remote parts of Languedoc, where Pauline de Beaumont had hitherto dwelt, gay visions of a court had come floating upon imagination like the lamps which the Hindoos commit to the waters of the Ganges, casting a wild and uncertain light upon the distant prospect; and it is probable, that even if St. Germain had possessed all its former splendour, Pauline would still have been disappointed, for youthful imagination always outrivals plain reality; and besides, there is an unpleasing feeling of solitude communicated by the aspect of a strange place, which detracts greatly from the first pleasure of novelty. Thus there were a thousand reasons why Mademoiselle de Beaumont, as she followed the attendant through the long empty galleries and vacant chambers of the palace, towards the apartments prepared for her mother and herself, felt none of those happy sensations which she had anticipated from her arrival at court; nor was it till, on entering the antechamber of their suite of rooms, she beheld the gay smiling face of her Lyonaise waiting-maid, that she felt there was any thing akin to old recollections within those cold and pompous walls, which seemed to look upon her as a stranger.
The soubrette had been sent forward the day before with a part of the Marchioness de Beaumont’s equipage; and now, having endured a whole day’s comparative silence with the patience and fortitude of a martyr, she advanced to the two ladies with loquacity in her countenance, as if resolved to make up, as speedily as possible, for the restraint under which her tongue had laboured during her short sojourn in the palace; but the deep gravity of Madame de Beaumont, and the melancholy air of her daughter, checked Louise in full career; so that, having kissed her mistress on both cheeks, she paused, while her lip, like an overfilled reservoir whose waters are trembling on the very brink, seemed ready to pour forth the torrent of words which she had so long suppressed.
Pauline, as she passed through the anteroom, wiped the last tears from her eyes, and on entering the saloon, advanced towards a mirror which hung between the windows, as if to ascertain what traces they had left behind. The soubrette did not fail to advance, in order to adjust her young lady’s dress, and finding herself once more in the exercise of her functions, the right of chattering seemed equally restored; for she commenced immediately, beginning in a low and respectful voice, but gradually increasing as the thought of her mistress was swallowed up in the more comprehensive idea of herself.
“Oh, dear Mademoiselle,” said she, “I am so glad you are come at last. This place is so sad and so dull! Who would think it was a court? Why, I expected to see it all filled with lords and ladies, and instead of that, I have seen nothing but dismal-looking men, who go gliding about in silence, seeming afraid to open their lips, as if that cruel old Cardinal, whom they all tremble at, could hear every word they say. I did see one fine-looking gentleman this morning, to be sure, with his servants all in beautiful liveries of blue and gold, and horses as if there were fire coming out of their very eyes; but he rode away to hunt, after he had been half an hour with the Queen and Mademoiselle de Hauteford, as they call her.”
“Mademoiselle who?” exclaimed Pauline, quickly, as if startled from her reverie by something curious in the name. “Who did you say, Louise?”
“Oh, such a pretty young lady!” replied the waiting-woman. “Mademoiselle de Hauteford is her name. I saw her this morning as she went to the Queen’s levee. She has eyes as blue as the sky, and teeth like pearls themselves; but withal she looks as cold and as proud as if she were the Queen’s own self.”
While the soubrette spoke, Pauline raised her large dark eyes to the tall Venetian mirror which stood before her, and which had never reflected any thing lovelier than herself, as hastily she passed her fair small hand across her brow, brushing back the glossy ringlets that hung clustering over her forehead. But she was tired and pale with fatigue and anxiety; her eyes, too, bore the traces of tears, and with a sigh and look of dissatisfaction, she turned away from the mirror, which, like every other invention of human vanity, often procures us disappointment as well as gratification.
Madame de Beaumont’s eyes had been fixed upon Pauline; and translating her daughter’s looks with the instinctive acuteness of a mother, she approached with more gentleness than was her wont. “You are beautiful enough, my Pauline,” said she, pressing a kiss upon her cheek; “you are beautiful enough. Do not fear.”
“Nay, Mamma,” replied Pauline, “I have nothing to fear, either from possessing or from wanting beauty.”
“Thou art a silly girl, Pauline,” continued her mother, “and take these trifles far too much to heart. Perhaps I was wrong concerning this same picture. It was but a random guess. Besides, even were it true, where were the mighty harm? These men are all alike, Pauline—Like butterflies, they rest on a thousand flowers before they settle on any one. We all fancy that our own lover is different from his fellows; but, believe me, my child, the best happiness a woman can boast, is that of being most carefully deceived.”
“Then no such butterfly love for me, Mamma,” replied Pauline, her cheek slightly colouring as she spoke. “I would rather not know this sweet poison—love. My heart is still free, though my fancy may have—have—”
“May have what, Pauline?” demanded her mother, with a doubtful smile. “My dear child, thy heart, and thy fancy, I trow, have not been so separate as thou thinkest.”
“Nay, Mamma,” answered Pauline, “my fancy, like an insect, may have been caught in the web of a spider; but the enemy has not yet seized me, and I will break through while I can.”
“But, first, let us be sure that we are right,” said Madame de Beaumont. “For as every rule has its exception, there be some men, whose hearts are even worthy the acceptance of a squeamish girl, who, knowing nothing of the world, expects to meet with purity like her own. At all events, love, De Blenau is the soul of honour, and will not stoop to deceit. In justice, you must not judge without hearing him.”
“But,” said Pauline, not at all displeased with the refutation of her own ideas, and even wishing, perhaps, to afford her mother occasion to combat them anew,—“but—”
The sentence, however, was never destined to be concluded; for, as she spoke, the door of the apartment opened, and a form glided in, the appearance of which instantly arrested the words on Pauline’s lips, and made her draw back with an instinctive feeling of respect.
The lady who entered had passed that earlier period of existence when beauties and graces succeed each other without pause, like the flowers of spring, that go blooming on from the violet to the rose. She was in the summer of life, but it was the early summer, untouched by autumn; and her form, though it possessed no longer the airy lightness of youth, had acquired in dignity a degree of beauty which compensated for the softer loveliness that years had stolen away. Her brown hair fell in a profusion of large curls round a face, which, if not strictly handsome, was highly pleasing: and even many sorrows and reverses, by mingling an expression of patient melancholy with the gentle majesty of her countenance, produced a greater degree of interest than the features could have originally excited.
Those even who sought for mere beauty of feature, would have perceived that her eyes were quick and fine; that her skin was of the most delicate whiteness, except where it was disfigured by the use of rouge; and that her small mouth might have served as model to a statuary, especially while her lips arched with a warm smile of pleasure and affection, as advancing into the apartment, she pressed Madame de Beaumont to her bosom, who on her part, bending low, received the embrace of Anne of Austria with the humble deference of a respectful subject towards the condescension of their sovereign.
“Once more restored to me, my dear Madame de Beaumont!” said the Queen. “His Eminence of Richelieu does indeed give me back one of the best of my friends—And this is your Pauline.”—She added, turning to Mademoiselle de Beaumont, “You were but young, my fair Demoiselle, when last I saw you. You have grown up a lovely flower from a noble root; but truly you will never be spoiled by splendour at our court.”
As she spoke, her mind seemed naturally to return to other days, and her eye fixed intently on the ground, as if engaged in tracing out the plan of her past existence, running over all the lines of sorrow, danger and disappointed hope, till the task became too bitter, and she turned to the Marchioness with one of those long deep sighs, that almost always follow a review of the days gone by, forming a sort of epitaph to the dreams, the wishes, and the joys, that once were dear, and are now no more.
“When you met me, De Beaumont,” said the Queen, “with the proud Duke of Guise on the banks of the Bidasoa—quitting the kingdom of my father, and entering the kingdom of my husband—with an army for my escort, and princes kneeling at my feet—little, little did ever you or I think, that Anne of Austria, the wife of a great king, and daughter of a long line of monarchs, would, in after years, be forced to dwell at St. Germain, without guards, without court, without attendants, but such as the Cardinal de Richelieu chooses to allow her.—The Cardinal de Richelieu!” she proceeded thoughtfully; “the servant of my husband!—but no less the master of his master, and the king of his king.”
“I can assure your Majesty,” replied Madame de Beaumont, with a deep tone of feeling which had no hypocrisy in it, for her whole heart was bound by habit, principle, and inclination, to her royal mistress—“I can assure your Majesty, that many a tear have I shed over the sorrows of my Queen; and when his Eminence drove me from the court, I regretted not the splendour of a palace, I regretted not the honour of serving my sovereign, I regretted not the friends I left behind, or the hopes I lost, but I regretted that I could not be the sharer of my mistress’s misfortunes.—But your Majesty has now received a blessing from Heaven,” she continued, willing to turn the conversation from the troubled course of memory to the more agreeable channels of hope—“a blessing which we scarcely dreamed of, a consolation under all present sorrows, and a bright prospect for the years to come.
“Oh, yes, my little Louis, you would say,” replied the Queen, her face lightening with all a mother’s joy as she spoke of her son. “He is indeed a cherub; and sure am I, that if God sends him years, he will redress his mother’s wrongs by proving the greatest of his race.”
She spoke of the famous Louis the Fourteenth, and some might have thought she prophesied. But it was only the fervour of a mother’s hope, an ebullition of that pure feeling, which alone, of all the affections of the heart, the most sordid poverty cannot destroy, and the proudest rank can hardly check.
“He is indeed a cherub,” continued the Queen; “and such was your Pauline to you, De Beaumont, when the Cardinal drove you from my side: a consolation not only in your exile, but also in your mourning for your noble lord. Come near, young lady; let me see if thou art like thy father.”
Pauline approached; and the Queen laying her hand gently upon her arm, ran her eye rapidly over her face and figure, every now and then pausing for a moment, and seeming to call memory to her aid, in the comparison she was making between the dead and the living. But suddenly she started back, “Sainte Vierge!” cried she, crossing herself, “your dress is all dabbled with blood. What bad omen is this?”
“May it please your Majesty,” said the Marchioness, half smiling at the Queen’s superstition, for her own strong mind rejected many of the errors of the day, “that blood is only an omen of Pauline’s charitable disposition; for in the forest hard by, we came up with a wounded cavalier, and, like a true demoiselle errante, Pauline rendered him personal aid, even at the expense of her robe.”
“Nay, nay, De Beaumont,” said the Queen, “it matters not how it came; it is a bad omen: some misfortune is about to happen. I remember the day before my father died, the Conde de Saldaña came to court with a spot of blood upon the lace of his cardinal; and on that fatal day which——”
The door of the apartment at this moment opened, and Anne of Austria, filled with her own peculiar superstition, stopped in the midst of her speech and turned her eye anxiously towards it, as if she expected the coming of some ghastly apparition. The figure that entered, however, though it possessed a dignity scarcely earthly, and a calm still grace—an almost inanimate composure, rarely seen in beings agitated by human passions, was, nevertheless, no form calculated to inspire alarm.
“Oh, Mademoiselle de Hauteford!” cried the Queen, her face brightening as she spoke, “De Beaumont, you will love her, for that she is one of my firmest friends.”
At the name of De Hauteford, Pauline drew up her slight elegant figure to its full height, with a wild start, like a deer suddenly frightened by some distant sound, and drawing her hand across her forehead, brushed back the two or three dark curls which had again fallen over her clear fair brow.
“De Hauteford!” cried Anne of Austria as the young lady advanced, “what has happened? You look pale—some evil is abroad.”
“I would not have intruded on your Majesty, or on these ladies,” said Mademoiselle de Hauteford with a graceful but cold inclination of the head towards the strangers, “had it not been that Monsieur Seguin, your Majesty’s Surgeon, requests the favour of an audience immediately. Nor does he wish to be seen by the common attendants; in truth, he has followed me to the antechamber, where he waits your Majesty’s pleasure.”
“Admit him, admit him!” cried the Queen. “What can he want at this hour?”
The surgeon was instantly brought into the presence of the Queen by Mademoiselle de Hauteford; but, after approaching his royal mistress with a profound bow, he remained in silence glancing his eye towards the strangers who stood in the apartment, in such a manner as to intimate that his communication required to be made in private.
“Speak, speak, Seguin!” cried the Queen, translating his look and answering it at once; “these are all friends, old and dear friends.”
“If such be your Majesty’s pleasure,” replied the Surgeon, with that sort of short dry voice, which generally denotes a man of few words. “I must inform you at once, that young Count de Blenau has been this morning attacked by robbers, while hunting in the forest, and is severely hurt.”
While Seguin communicated this intelligence, Pauline (she scarce knew why) fixed her eye upon Mademoiselle de Hauteford, whose clear pale cheek, ever almost of the hue of alabaster, showed that it could become still paler. The Queen too, though the rouge she wore concealed any change of complexion, appeared manifestly agitated. “I told you so, De Beaumont,” she exclaimed—“that blood foreboded evil: I never knew the sign to fail. This is bad news truly, Seguin,” she continued. “Poor De Blenau! surely he will not die.”
“I hope not, Madam,” replied the Surgeon; “I see every chance of his recovery.”
“But speak more freely,” said the Queen. “Have you learnt any thing from him? These are all friends, I tell you.”
“The Count is very weak, Madam,” answered Seguin, “both from loss of blood and a stunning blow on the head; but he desired me to tell your Majesty, that though the wound is in his side, his heart is uninjured!”
“Oh, I understand, I understand,” exclaimed the Queen. “De Blenau is one out of a thousand; I must write him a note; follow me, Seguin. Good night, dear Madame de Beaumont. Farewell, Pauline!—Come to my levee to-morrow, and we will talk over old stories and new hopes.—But have a care, Pauline—No more blood upon your robe. It is a bad sign in the house of Austria.”
The moment the Queen was gone, Pauline pleaded fatigue, and retired to her chamber, followed by her maid Louise, who, be it remarked, had remained in the room during the Royal visit.
“This is a strange place, this St. Germain,” said the waiting-woman, as she undressed her mistress.
“It is indeed!” replied Pauline. “I wish I had never seen it. But of one thing let me warn you, Louise, before it is too late. Never repeat any thing you may see or hear, while you are at the court; for if you do, your life may answer for it.”
“My life! Mademoiselle Pauline,” exclaimed the soubrette, as if she doubted her ears.
“Yes indeed, your life!” replied the young lady: “So beware.”
“Then I wish I had never seen the place either,” rejoined the maid; “for what is the use of seeing and hearing things, if one may not talk about them?—and who can be always watching one’s tongue?”