In the autumn of 1587, on the approach of the invading army of Dohna and Bouillon, Madame de Bassompierre and her children had to leave Harouel and take refuge at Nancy. The invaders burned the town of Harouel, but appear to have left the château untouched.

On the return of the family to Harouel, François and his younger brother Jean, who now shared his studies, were given another tutor, named Gravet, “and two young men, called Clinchamp and La Motte, the one to teach us to write, the other to dance, play the lute and music.” They passed the next four years partly at Harouel and partly at Nancy, where, in the autumn of 1591, François saw for the first time Charles de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, who had recently effected his romantic escape from the Château of Blois,[5] and with whom he was to be on such intimate terms in later years.

In October, 1591, the two boys went, accompanied by their masters, to study at Freiburg, but only remained there five months, “because Gravet, our tutor, killed La Motte, who taught us to dance.” In consequence of this unfortunate affair, they returned to Harouel, but towards the end of 1592 were sent to continue their studies at the University of Pont-à-Mousson, founded by Duke Charles III and his uncle the Cardinal de Lorraine, and early in the following year reached the first class. They passed the Carnival of 1593 at Nancy, where they took part in a tournament, “dressed à la Suisse.” At its conclusion they returned to Pont-à-Mousson, where, shortly afterwards, their father brought them a German tutor, George von Springesfeld, in place of the homicidal Gravet. At the Carnival of 1594 they again went to Nancy, to assist at the marriage of William II, Duke of Bavaria, and Marie Élisabeth, younger daughter of the Duke of Lorraine, when it was decided that they should accompany the bridal pair back to Bavaria, and keep their terms at the University of Ingoldstadt. They travelled in the duke’s suite by way of Heidelberg, Spire, Neustadt, Donauworth and Landshut, the party being splendidly entertained by the various nobles at whose houses they stopped; but the journey did not end without a tragic incident, in which François de Bassompierre had a narrow escape of his life.

At Donauworth, where they were delayed for two or three days by the swollen condition of the Danube, he went out in a boat with the duke and some of his attendants, to reconnoitre the passage of the river. As they were nearing the castle in which the duchess was lodged, William II ordered one of his pages to load and fire a pistol, in order to announce their approach to his consort. The pistol missed fire, and, while the page was examining the priming, it suddenly went off and killed an old nobleman of the prince’s suite, who was sitting close to Bassompierre.

At Ingoldstadt the two brothers, and the elder in particular, would certainly not appear to have wasted much time:—

But what contributed a good deal more than this bizarre erudition to give to the future marshal that perfect aplomb, those graceful accomplishments and charming manners to which he owed his fortune, was the journey through Italy which he and his brother undertook after they had completed their course at Ingoldstadt and returned to Harouel, which was then a house of mourning, as their father, Christophe de Bassompierre, had died just before they left Bavaria.

In the autumn of 1596 they set out for the South, accompanied by the Sieur de Malleville, an old gentleman, who acted as their gouverneur, Springesfeld, their German tutor, and one of their late father’s gentlemen, and travelled by way of Strasbourg, Ulm, Augsburg, Munich, Innsbrück and Trent to Verona, where they were the guests of the Counts Ciro and Alberto Canossa, the latter of whom had once been page to William II of Bavaria. From Verona they proceeded to Mantua and Bologna, and then, crossing the Apennines, arrived at Florence.

Here they received a gracious message from Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had married Christine of Lorraine, daughter of Charles III, inviting them to visit him at his country-seat at Lambrogiano, to which one of the prince’s carriages would be sent to convey them. On the day following their arrival at Lambrogiano, the Grand Duchess invited the elder brother to walk with her in the gardens, where they met her niece Marie de’ Medici, to whom she presented him. Bassompierre little imagined as he made his reverence that the young princess whom he was saluting was the future Queen of France. In the evening they left Lambrogiano and returned to Florence, where they remained for a few days and then set out for Rome, by way of Sienna and Viterbo.

At Rome they stayed a week, in order to perform the various devotions customary for good Catholics who visited the Eternal City, and waited upon several of the cardinals to whom they had letters of introduction, and also upon the Spanish Ambassador, the Duke of Sessa, who had been a friend of their father, and whose acquaintance they had made some years before when he passed through Lorraine on his way to France. The Ambassador provided them with passports and with letters of recommendation to the Viceroy of Naples, and they set out for that city, stopping on the road at Gaëta, Capua, and Aversa.

On their arrival at Naples, they lost no time in presenting the letters which the Duke of Sessa had given them to the Viceroy, Don Henriques de Guzman, Count of Olivares, “who, on opening them, inquired if we were the sons of that M. de Bassompierre, colonel of reiters, who had come to the succour of the Duke of Alva in Flanders, by orders of the late King Charles. And when we told him that we were, he embraced us most affectionately, assuring us that he had loved our father as his own brother, and that he was the most noble and generous cavalier whom he had ever known; adding that he would treat us, not only as persons of quality, but as his own children, which, indeed, he did, giving us all the proofs of affection and good-will possible to imagine.”

At Naples, the brothers passed a considerable part of their time in practising equitation, under the guidance of two celebrated Italian riding-masters; but at the beginning of 1597 their course of instruction was interrupted by an attack of small-pox. On their recovery, they returned to Rome, where they remained until after Easter, the only incident of importance which marked their second visit to the Papal city being their rescue of a French gentleman named Saint-Offange, who had killed another in a duel, from the pursuit of the law.

From Rome they went to Florence, where they resumed the riding-lessons which the small-pox had interrupted at Naples.

While at Florence, they paid short visits to Pisa, Lucca, and Leghorn, and early in November left the Tuscan city and took the road to Bologna, whence they travelled by way of Faenza, Forli, and Ancona to Loretto. At Loretto, where they arrived on Christmas Eve, they were invited by Cardinal Gallio to stay at the Palazzo Santa-Casa. They spent the night in devotions in the chapel, and on Christmas Day the cardinal appointed the elder Bassompierre one of the witnesses to the opening of the alms-boxes, “which amounted to six thousand crowns for the last quarter of the year.”

At Loretto our young travellers, inspired doubtless by their visit to that famous shrine with the desire to do and dare something for the sake of Holy Church, embarked in a strange adventure:—

Travelling by way of Bologna, where their company was reinforced by the Comte de Sommerive, younger son of the famous Duc de Mayenne, of the League, the Chevalier de Verdelli, a friend of the Bassompierres, and several other adventurous young gentlemen, they arrived on January 3 at Ferrara. The duke received them with great honours and cordiality, but he was very irresolute on the question of the war, alleging that his coffers were well-nigh empty; that the King of Spain had declared for the Pope, and that the Venetians, who had encouraged him to resist the Pontiff, refused to assist him openly, and that the support that they were prepared to give him secretly was of very little account. In this state of mind he went, on the Feast of Kings, to hear Mass at a church near the palace, accompanied by a great retinue of lords and gentlemen, when the priests immediately quitted the altars, without finishing the masses they had begun, and retreated from them as excommunicated persons. This incident decided Don Cesare to send the Duchess of Urbino, sister of the late Duke Alphonso, to treat with the Legate;[8] and, accordingly, next day the band of young Frenchmen who had come to offer him their services took leave of him and went their several ways.

The Bassompierres went to Rovigo and thence to Padua, when Johann Tserclas, Count von Tilly, elder brother of the famous captain of the Thirty Years’ War, who was then studying at the University of Padua, invited them to dinner, and the following day accompanied them on a visit to Venice, where they remained a week. On leaving Venice, they returned to Padua, and, after a short stay there, set out for Genoa, stopping on the way at Mantua. At Genoa they lodged at the house of the German consul, and “my brother and I both fell in love with the consul’s daughter, whose name was Philippina, to such a degree that for some days we did not speak to one another.” Which of the two brothers Philippina preferred, Bassompierre does not tell us.

Among the distinguished persons whose acquaintance they made at Genoa were the two brothers Ambrosio and Frederico Spinola, the former of whom, afterwards Duke of San Severino and Marquis of los Balbazes, was to earn such renown as a general in the service of Spain. Frederico, who also entered the Spanish service, was killed in a naval combat off Ostend in May, 1603.

From Genoa our travellers proceeded to Tortona, and thence to Milan, where they stayed for some days and were very hospitably entertained by the Spanish governor at the citadel. They then set out on their homeward journey, accompanied by the Chevalier de Verdelli and Don Alfonso Casale, Spanish Ambassador to Switzerland. They travelled by way of the St. Gotthard, stopping at Como, Lugano, Lucerne and Basle, and in the early summer arrived safely at Harouel, after an absence of more than a year and a half.

CHAPTER II

In September, 1598, the Archduke Albert, son of the Emperor Maximilian II, passed through Lorraine on his way to Italy, there to take ship for Spain to marry the Infanta Clara Eugenia, Philip II’s daughter, by Élisabeth of France, and become through her the sovereign of the Netherlands.[9] The Comte de Vaudemont, younger son of Charles III of Lorraine, went to meet the archduke at Vaudrevange, and invited the brothers Bassompierre to accompany him. They were duly presented to the prince, who received them very cordially and “told them their name was very dear to all his House.”

On their return from this little journey, the whole Bassompierre family began to prepare for a visit to France, Madame de Bassompierre, like a loyal Frenchwoman, being anxious that her sons should be presented to Henri IV, in the hope that they might decide to enter his service. She was, however, at pains to conceal the real object of her journey from the Count von Mansfeld,[10] whom her late husband had associated with her in the guardianship of his children, and whose consent was required before they could leave Lorraine.

At the beginning of October, the Bassompierres left Harouel and on the 12th of that month arrived in Paris, where they took up their quarters at the Hôtel de Montlor, in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre.

Henri IV was then lying ill at the Château of Monceaux, near Meaux, which he had presented to his beloved Gabrielle d’Estrées, Duchesse de Beaufort, in 1595, and reported to be in considerable danger. The only courtier of Madame de Bassompierre’s acquaintance who was with him at the time was Gaspard de Schomberg, father of the marshal, to whom she wrote to inquire when her sons could be presented to his Majesty. Schomberg replied that it was impossible to think of such matters as presentations in the condition the King was in, and advised her to remain in Paris until Henri IV was sufficiently recovered to return to the capital. This she decided to do, and meantime sent her sons to pay their court to Catherine de Bourbon, the King’s sister, who was about to marry the Duke of Bar, eldest son of Charles III of Lorraine. The princess was very gracious to the young men, and, says Bassompierre, “had the intention of marrying me to Mlle. Catherine de Rohan,[11] in order to keep her near her when she went to Lorraine, but I had at that time no inclination towards marriage.”

Several of Madame de Bassompierre’s relatives and friends of her late husband came to visit the Bassompierres at the Hôtel de Montlor, amongst them being Charles de Balsac, Seigneur de Dunes—“le bel Entraguet”—the hero of the famous Duel of the Mignons; Jacques de Harlay, Seigneur de Chanvallon, a former lover of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre; Charles de Cossé, Maréchal de Brissac, and the Comte (afterwards) Duc de Gramont. One day, when Henri IV’s health was beginning to mend, the Duc de Bellegarde, First Gentleman of the Chamber and Grand Equerry to the King—Monsieur le Grand, as he was commonly styled—arrived in Paris on a short visit, and Gramont presented François de Bassompierre to him. Bellegarde received the lad very cordially, and pressed him to dine with him, saying that he had invited some of the most brilliant gentlemen of the Court. During dinner a suggestion was made to organise a ballet to amuse their convalescent sovereign and to go to Monceaux to dance it, and was received with acclamation.

After this aristocratic troupe had rehearsed the ballet to their satisfaction, they set out for Monceaux, but were met on the way by a messenger from the King, who expressed his regret that he was unable to lodge them at the château, where at that time there was but little accommodation, and desired them to stop at Meaux, to which he would send coaches that evening to bring them and their “props” to Meaux. Bassompierre was thus disappointed in his expectation of being presented to the King before the ballet. However, it was decided that he should take part in it all the same.

The party accordingly proceeded to Meaux, where they dressed for the ballet, and then bestowed themselves, with their pages, the musicians, and all their paraphernalia in six of the royal coaches, and set off for Monceaux, where they danced their ballet, which appears to have caused the good-natured monarch, who took the jest at his expense in excellent part, much amusement.

Humility was certainly not a fault of this young gentleman from Lorraine, who had a nice appreciation of his own attractions. And he proceeds to relate with complacency how, a few days later, they danced again the same ballet at the Tuileries, for the diversion of Catherine de Bourbon and Gabrielle d’Estrées, who, by permission of her royal lover, had come to Paris expressly to witness it again, and that “when the twenty-four men and women came forward to perform the dances, all the spectators were delighted to behold a selection of such handsome persons. So that, when the dances were over, they insisted on their being performed again, an incident which I have never seen happen since.”

Undoubtedly, if we are to judge from his portraits, which belong, however, to the time of Louis XIII, that is to say, to a period when he had already passed the brilliant years of his youth, Bassompierre may be pardoned his satisfaction at his personal appearance. These depict him as of middle height and very well made, though his figure is a little inclined to embonpoint. The face is of an almost perfect oval, framed in long blond curls which descend to the richly-embroidered lace which covers his shoulders. The nose, which sinks a little in joining the forehead, dominates two small moustaches, separated above the mouth and ending in carefully-pomaded points. A “royale”—or, as it has been called since the time of the Second Empire, an “impériale”—extends from immediately under the lower lip to the extremity of the chin, and imparts to the whole physiognomy that intelligent expression which is to be observed in all the portraits of the time of Louis XIII. However, if Bassompierre had arranged his beard in quite a different manner, his features would not have been less intelligent or less pleasing; his agreeable smile and bright brown eyes would have always sufficed to animate his countenance and to denote a man made for successes of all kinds.

In December, Henri IV, being sufficiently recovered to leave Monceaux, removed for change of air to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he lodged at the Deanery, as did Gabrielle, and where he had his last natural son by the duchess—Alexandre de Vendôme, afterwards Grand Prior of France—baptised.[17] In the evening there was a grand ballet, in which Bassompierre took part, “dressed as an Indian.”

The Court remained at Saint-Germain until after the marriage of Catherine de Bourbon with the Duke of Bar, which was celebrated on January 30, 1599, when it returned to Paris; but at the beginning of Lent the King set out for Fontainebleau. Bassompierre, however, remained for a few days longer in Paris, and was the last to bid farewell to that singular personage the Maréchal de Joyeuse, whom Voltaire has so well described in these two lines:

before he finally quitted the world for the convent.

“My cousin,” Henri IV had remarked to Joyeuse a little while before, as they were standing one day on a balcony, beneath which a crowd had gathered, “those people down there do not appear very well pleased at seeing an apostate King and an unfrocked monk together.” This pleasantry struck Joyeuse to the quick and this time he resumed the hair-shirt, not to put it off again. And as in those days people obeyed their religious convictions without deeming it necessary to advertise the fact to the public, Joyeuse, having spent the evening in the midst of the gayest company in Paris, withdrew to the convent where he had resolved to spend the remainder of his days, without saying a word of his intention to anyone.

Bassompierre was by this time firmly established in the good graces of the King, for whom he had already conceived so warm an admiration and affection that he had decided to enter his service. We will allow him to speak himself on this occasion, inasmuch as he does so with a sensibility and gratitude very unusual with him, and which one does not find in his Mémoires, except when Henri IV is in question:

On the approach of Holy Week, Bassompierre requested the King’s permission to go to Paris to perform his Easter devotions, when Henri IV informed him that he should go with him on the Tuesday to Melun, whither he proposed to escort the Duchesse de Beaufort, who also wished to perform her devotions in the capital, and next day continue his journey to Paris.

We must here explain that it had been for some months generally known that the Very Christian King, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of his great Minister Sully and his faithful adviser Duplessis-Mornay, fully intended to marry his Gabrielle, as soon as he could obtain the dissolution of his marriage with Marguerite de Valois. Such a resolution aroused universal alarm. The duchess had many friends and few enemies, but not even her most devoted partisans could maintain that her birth and previous life fitted her to be the Queen of France, while it was obvious that the claims of her legitimated sons, and of those who might be born in wedlock, would add another element of discord to those already existing. After considerable difficulty, on February 7, 1599, Marguerite, who had declared that it was “repugnant to her to put in her place a woman of such low extraction, and of so impure a life as the one about whom rumour speaks,”[18] was at length persuaded to sign the necessary procuration, which Henri IV lost no time in sending to Rome. But Clement VIII disapproved of his Majesty’s choice, less probably on account of Gabrielle’s obvious unsuitability to share a throne than because she was the intimate friend of Catherine de Bourbon, Duchess of Bar, and Louise de Coligny, Princess of Orange. These two ladies were amongst the most stubborn heretics in Europe, and his Holiness did not doubt that, urged by them, Gabrielle would use all her influence with the King in favour of their co-religionists. He, therefore, refused to dissolve the marriage, sheltering himself behind the difficulties regarding the succession in which the new union which the King was contemplating would involve France. This paternal solicitude for his kingdom did not deceive Henri IV, who, impatient at the delay, instructed his representative at the Vatican to hint that, if the Holy Father continued contumacious, the eldest son of the Church might be tempted to behave in an exceedingly unfilial manner, and follow the example of his last namesake on the throne of England. Whether, with this threat hanging over him, Clement would eventually have yielded is a matter of opinion; but an unexpected event came to relieve the tension.

Bassompierre duly accompanied the King and the duchess to Melun, Gabrielle, who was in an advanced state of pregnancy, being carried in a litter. At supper Henri IV said to him: “Bassompierre, my mistress wishes to take you with her in her barge to-morrow to Paris. You will play cards together by the way.” That night they slept at Savigny, about midway between Fontainebleau and the capital, and the following morning (April 6) the King accompanied the duchess to the bank of the Seine, where her barge was awaiting her, in which she embarked with Bassompierre, the Duc de Montbazon, Captain of the Guards, the Marquis de la Varenne and her waiting-women.

At the moment of parting from her royal lover, Gabrielle broke down and began to sob bitterly, declaring that she had a presentiment that she should never see him again. The King, after vainly endeavouring to console her, was on the point of yielding and taking her back to Fontainebleau. But, in view of their intended marriage, he attached great importance to the duchess performing her Easter devotions in the capital, and, after repeated embraces, he freed himself from her detaining arms and gave the signal for the barge to start.

About three o’clock in the afternoon, Gabrielle reached Paris, and disembarked on the quay near the Arsenal, where her brother-in-law, the Maréchal de Balagny, her brother the Marquis de Cœuvres, Madame de Retz, and the duchesse and Mlle. de Guise were awaiting her. She rested for a while at her sister’s house, where a number of distinguished persons called upon her, and then went to sup at the house of Sebastian Zamet,—“the lord of the 1,800,000 crowns”—an Italian financier, who had risen from a very humble position to great wealth and the personal friendship of Henri IV. After supper she attended the Tenebræ at the Couvent du Petit Saint-Antoine, then renowned for its fine music. During the service she was taken ill and was carried to Zamet’s house, where she recovered sufficiently to go to the apartments of her aunt Madame de Sourdes, at the Deanery of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, where she always stayed when paying a short visit to Paris, as she did not make use of her own house in the Rue Fromenteau, which communicated with the Louvre, except when the Court happened to be in residence. Next day, though still feeling far from well, she attended Mass at her parish church, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois. She was borne in a litter, by the side of which walked the Duc de Montbazon, in virtue of his position as Captain of the Guards, and escorted by archers; while the Lorraine princesses and a number of ladies of high rank followed in coaches. In the church she was again taken ill, and, on returning to the deanery, fell into violent convulsions. On the 9th—Good Friday—she gave birth to a still-born child, after which the surgeons who attended

her proceeded to bleed the unfortunate woman four times. The consequence was that poor Gabrielle died the following morning (April 10); the only wonder is that she did not die before! The public, learning that she had been taken ill shortly after supping with Zamet, persisted in the belief that she had been poisoned—Italians bore a sinister reputation in those days, and, indeed, down to a much later period—but this theory is now generally discredited.[19]

During this time the King remained prostrated with grief. “My affliction,” he wrote to his sister Catherine, “is incomparable, like the person who is the cause of it. Regrets and tears will accompany me to the tomb. The root of my love is dead and will never put forth another branch.”

But alas! how changeable are the affections of kings! Scarcely two months had passed[23] before his Majesty had embarked in a new love-affair, with Henriette d’Entragues, whom he created Marquise de Verneuil, that ambitious, greedy, intriguing woman, who, later, was to conspire with the enemies of France against her royal lover. Nor did this attachment prevent him from seeking amusement in other directions and honouring with his fugitive attentions, not only divers beauties of the Court, whose names Bassompierre does not hesitate to hand down to fame, but even that vulgar class which the chronicler qualifies with a word so explicit that we dare not repeat it.

The following scene described by Bassompierre is too typical of the life of Henri IV and his immediate entourage to be omitted. It occurred during a flying visit to Paris which the King and a few of his favourites paid in July, 1599, while the Court was in residence at Blois:—

In November, Bassompierre obtained permission from the King to go to Lorraine, to persuade Charles IV to free him from the security which his late father had given for some 50,000 crowns which the duke had borrowed at the time of the marriage of his elder daughter to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, an obligation which had been causing him considerable uneasiness. In Lorraine he remained for some six weeks, “more for the love which I bore Mlle. de Bourbonne[30] than for the other affair.”

Early in the New Year he returned to Paris, where the charms of Mlle. de Bourbonne were soon forgotten for those of a lady whom he calls la Raverie and who was presumably a star of the demi-monde. The courtiers of Henri IV were, however, quite capable of losing their hearts to two or more ladies at the same time, following the example of their royal master, who “fell in love that winter with Madame de Boinville and Mlle. Clin.”[31] In addition to love-making, he danced in several ballets, one of which was appropriately called le Ballet des Amoureux.

CHAPTER III

Towards the middle of May, as Charles Emmanuel had as yet taken no steps to carry out his engagements, Henri IV began moving troops towards the frontier of Savoy, and he himself, accompanied by a few of his intimates, amongst whom was Bassompierre, set out for Lyons, having sent the rest of the Court on in advance to await him at Moulins. At Moulins, where he was the guest of Queen Louise, widow of the late King, he stayed for some little time “principally on account of la Bourdaisière, with whom he was in love”[32]; and it was not until the beginning of July that he arrived at Lyons. Here he remained three weeks, to see what action Charles Emmanuel proposed to take. That prince, however, had signed the treaty of February merely for the purpose of gaining time; and the promises of Spain, which feared, above all things, to see France once more in possession of Saluzzo, decided him to break his word. At the expiration of the three months he solicited a further delay or an amelioration of the conditions of the treaty, hoping that the expected rebellion of the Maréchal de Biron and the Comte d’Auvergne, whom, by specious promises, he had succeeded in seducing from their allegiance to their sovereign, would break out before Henri IV was ready to take the field.

Henri IV, however, was not deceived, and summoned the Duke to declare immediately what his intentions were. The latter, after many tergiversations, announced that he was prepared to surrender Saluzzo. But when the King despatched officers to take possession of the chief places in the marquisate, he refused to surrender them; and on August 11, Henri IV, at the end of his patience, declared war at Lyons.

Bassompierre has left us an interesting account of the campaign which followed—a campaign of invasion undertaken by an army scarcely more numerous than a brigade to-day; but which, thanks to the improvements in the artillery which Sully had introduced and the valour of the troops, proved entirely successful. He himself underwent his “baptism of fire” at the taking of the town of Montmélian, where he served with the regiment of the Sire (afterwards the Maréchal) de Créquy. His military career came very near to ending as well as beginning at Montmélian, for, in the darkness, he lost his way and was cut off from his comrades, “so that I was for more than an hour at the mercy of the fire from the citadel, at twenty paces from the ditch.” By what seems like a miracle, however, he was not hit, and, at length a sergeant, whom Créquy had sent to find him, arrived and guided him to a place of safety.

Charles Emmanuel, for once entirely wrong in his calculations, was unable to offer any effective resistance to the invaders of his realm; France remained tranquil; Biron, traitor though he was, in spite of himself, mastered Bresse; Chambéry, the capital of Savoy, surrendered to Henri IV after but a show of resistance; the citadel of Montmélian, fondly deemed impregnable, fell before Sully’s new siege-guns; and the Duke, seeing himself beaten, sued for peace, and, on New Year’s Day, 1601, signed a treaty with France, by which he retained Saluzzo, in exchange for the cession of Bresse, Bugey, Valromey and Gex.

Whilst engaged in the conquest of Savoy, Henri IV went to visit Madame de Verneuil at Grenoble, as he had hastened at the peril of his life to throw himself at the feet of the Comtesse de Gramont (“la belle Corisande”) after the Battle of Coutras. The years had not changed him and he made these journeys as eagerly as a gallant of half his age.