For well nigh two long years had the walls of Acre rung to the war-cries and clashing arms of the contending myriads of Christian and Mohammedan forces, while no real advantage had resulted to either army, from the fierce and sanguinary struggles that daily alarmed the apprehensions, or excited the hopes of the besieged. The rocky heights of Carmel now echoed to the flourish of the European trumpet, and now sent back the wilder strains of the Arabian drum and cymbal. On the one side were mustered the gigantic warriors of the western forests, from the wild frontiers of Germany, and the shores of the Baltic; while on the other were assembled the Moslems of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, the wandering tribes from the Tigris to the banks of the Indus, and the swarthy hordes of the Mauritanian desert. Not a day passed unnoted by some bloody skirmish or pitched battle;—at one time the sultan forced his way into the beleaguered city, and the next moment the crusaders plundered the camp of the Mohammedan. As often as by stress of weather the European fleet was driven from its blockading station, so often were fresh troops poured in to replace the exhausted garrison; and as fast as the sword of the infidel, or the unsparing pestilence, thinned the camp of the crusaders, so fast was it replenished by fresh swarms of pilgrims, burning with enthusiastic ardor, and aspiring to re-establish the dominion of the Latin kings within the precincts of the holy city.
Suddenly, however, the aspect of affairs was altered; a change took place in the tactics of the paynim leaders—a change which, in the space of a few weeks, wrought more havoc in the lines of the invaders than months of open warfare. The regular attacks of marshalled front and steady fighting, wherein the light cavalry of the Turkish and Saracen tribes invariably gave way before the tremendous charges of the steel-clad knights, were exchanged for an incessant and harassing war of outposts. Not a drop of water could be conveyed into the Christian camp, unless purchased by a tenfold effusion of noble blood; not a picket could be placed in advance of their position, but it was inevitably surrounded and cut off; not a messenger could be despatched to any Latin city, but he was intercepted, and his intelligence rendered subservient to the detriment and destruction of the inventors.
Nor was it long before the author of this new system was discovered. In every affair a chieftain was observed, no less remarkable for his powerful make, far exceeding the stature and slight, though sinewy, frame of his oriental followers, than for his skill in disposing his irregular horsemen, so as to act with the greatest possible advantage against his formidable, but cumbrous opponents. His arms and equipment, moreover, distinguished him yet more clearly than his huge person from his paynim coadjutors. His brows indeed were turbaned, but beneath the embroidered shawl and glittering tiara he wore the massive cerveilliere and barred vizor of the European headpiece; instead of the fluttering caftan and light hauberk, his whole form was sheathed in solid mail; the steed which he bestrode showed more bone and muscle than the swift but slender coursers of the desert, and was armed on chest and croup with plates of tempered steel. Nor, though he avoided to risk his light-armed troops against their invulnerable opponents, did he himself shrink from the encounter; on the contrary, ever leading the attack and covering the retreat, it seemed his especial delight to mingle hand to hand with the best lances of the temple. Many a knight had fallen beneath the sweep of his tremendous blade, and these not of the unknown and unregarded multitude; for it was ever from among the noblest and the best that he singled out his antagonists—his victims—for of all who had gone against him, not one had been known to return. So great was the annoyance wrought to the armies of the cross by the policy, as well as by the valor of the moslem chief, that every method had been contrived for overpowering him by numbers, or deceiving him by stratagem; still the sagacity and foresight of the infidel had penetrated their deep devices, with a certainty as unerring as that with which his huge battle-axe had cloven their proudest crests.
To such a pitch had the terror of his prowess extended, that not content with the reality, in itself sufficiently gloomy, the soldiers had begun to invest him with the attributes of a superhuman avenger. It was observed, that save the gold and crimson scarf which bound his iron temples, he was black from head to heel-stirrup, and spur, and crest, the trappings of his charger, and the animal itself, all dark as the raven’s wing—that, more than once since he had fought in the van of the mussulmans, strange shouts had been heard ringing above the lelies of the paynim, and repeating the hallowed war-cry of the Christian in tones of hellish derision—once, too, when he had utterly destroyed a little band of templars, a maimed and wounded wretch, who had escaped from the carnage of his brethren, skulking beneath his lifeless horse, averred that, while careering at his utmost speed, the charger of the mysterious warrior had swerved in mad consternation from the consecrated banner, which had been hurled to the earth, and that the sullen head of the rider had involuntarily bowed to the saddle-bow as he dashed onward in his course of blood and ruin; and in truth there was enough of the marvellous—in the activity by which he avoided all collision with a superior force, and in the victories which he bore off day by day from the men who, till he had come upon the stage, had only fought to conquer—to palliate, if not to justify, some vague and shadowy terrors, in an age when the truth of supernatural interference, whether of saints or demons, was believed as implicitly as the holy writ. Men, who a few weeks before would have gone forth to battle against a threefold array of enemies rejoicing as if to a banquet, now fought faintly, and began to look for safety in a timely retreat, rather than in the deeds of their own right hands, as soon as they beheld the sable form of that adversary, whom all regarded as something more than a mere human foe; while many believed, that if not a natural incarnation of the evil principle, he was, at least, a mortal endowed with power to work the mischief designed for his performance, by the inveterate malignity of the arch-fiend himself. And it was a fact, very characteristic of the period at which these events occurred, that the most accomplished warriors of the time bestowed as much attention on the framing of periapt, and spell, and all the arms of spiritual war, as on their mere earthly weapons, the spear, the buckler, and the steed.
The middle watch of night was long passed, and the sky was overcast with heavy clouds—what little air was stirring came in blasts as close and scorching as though they issued from the mouth of an oven. The camp of the crusaders was silent, and sleeping, all but the vigilant guards, ever on the alert to catch the faintest sound, which might portend a sally from the walls of the city, or a surprise of the indefatigable Saladin from without.
In the pavilion of Lusignan, the nominal leader of the expedition, all the chiefs of the crusade had met in deep consultation. But the debate was ended; one by one they had retired to their respective quarters, and the Latin monarch was left alone, to muse on the brighter prospects which were opening to his ambition in the approach of Philip Augustus and the lion-hearted Richard, at the head of such an array of gallant spirits as might justify his most extravagant wishes. Suddenly his musings were interrupted by sounds, remote at first, but gradually thickening upon his ear. The faint blast of a distant trumpet, and the challenge of sentries, was succeeded by the hurried tramp of approaching footsteps; voices were heard in eager and exulting conversation, and lights were seen marshalling the new-comers to the royal tent. A few moments, and a knot of his most distinguished knights stood before him, and, with fettered hands, and his black armor soiled with dust and blood, the mysterious warrior of the desert, a captive in the presence of his conquerors.
The narration of the victory was brief. A foraging-party had ridden forth on the preceding morning, never to return!—for, instructed by his scouts, the infidel had beset their march, had assaulted them at nightfall, and destroyed them to a man. But his good fortune had at last deserted him. A heavy body of knights, with their archers and sergeants, returning from a distant excursion, had come suddenly upon his rear when he was prosecuting his easy triumph. The moslems, finding themselves abruptly compelled to act on the defensive, were seized by one of those panics to which all night-attacks are so liable—were thrown into confusion, routed, and cut to pieces. Their commander, on the first appearance of the Christians, had charged with his wonted fury, before he perceived that he was deserted by all, and surrounded past the hope of escape. Heretofore he had fought for victory, now he fought for revenge and for death; and never had he enacted such prodigies of valor as now when that valor was about to be extinguished for ever! Quarter was offered to him, and the tender answered by redoubled blows of his weighty axe. Before he could be taken, he had surrounded himself with a rampart of dead; and when at length numbers prevailed, and he was a prisoner, so deep was the respect of the victors toward so gallant a foe, that all former prejudices vanished: and when he had opposed the first attempt to remove his vizor, he was conveyed, unquestioned and in all honor, to the tent of the Latin king.
The time had arrived when further concealment was impracticable. The captive stood before the commander of the crusading force; and the rules of war, no less than the usages of that chivalrous courtesy practised alike by the warriors of the West and their oriental foemen, required that he should remove the vizor which still concealed his features. Still, however, he stood motionless, with his arms folded across his breast, resembling rather the empty panoply which adorns some hero’s monument than a being instinct with life, and agitated by all the passions to which the mortal heart is liable. Words were addressed to him in the lingua-Franca, or mixed language, which had obtained during those frequent intervals of truce which characterized the nature of the holy wars—breaking into the bloody gloom of strife as an occasional ray of sunshine illuminates the day of storm and darkness—but no effect was produced by their sound on the proud or perhaps uncomprehending prisoner.
For a moment, their former terrors, which had vanished on the fall of their dreaded opponent, appeared to have regained their ascendency over the superstitious hearts of the unenlightened warriors: many there were who confidently expected that the removal of the iron mask would disclose the swart and thunder-stricken brow, the fiery glance, and the infernal aspect, of the prince of darkness! No resistance was offered when the chamberlain of Guy de Lusignan stepped forward, and with all courtesy unlaced the fastenings of the casque and gorget. The clasps gave way, and scarcely could a deeper consternation or a more manifest astonishment have fallen upon the beholders had the king of terrors himself glared forth in awful revelation from that iron panoply. It was no dark-complexioned Saracen—
with whiskered lip and aquiline features, who struck such a chill by his appearance on every heart. The pale skin, the full blue eye, the fair curls that clustered round the lofty brow, bespoke an unmixed descent from the tribes of some northern land of mountain and forest; and that eye, that brow, those lineaments, were all familiar to the shuddering circle as the reflexion of their own in the polished mirror.
One name burst at once from every lip in accents of the deepest scorn. It was the name of one whose titles had stood highest upon their lists of fame; whose deeds had been celebrated by many a wandering minstrel even among the remote hills of Caledonia or the morasses of green Erin; the valor of whose heart and the strength of whose arm had been related far and near by many a pilgrim; whose untimely fall had been mourned by many a maid beside the banks of his native Rhine!—“Arnold of Falkenhorst!” The frame of the culprit was convulsed till the meshes of his linked mail clattered from the nervous motion of the limbs which they enclosed; a crimson flush passed across his countenance, but not a word escaped from his lips, and he gazed straight before him with a fixed, unmeaning stare—how sadly changed from the glance of fire which would so short a time ago have quelled with its indignant lightning the slightest opposition to his indomitable pride!
For an instant all remained petrified, as it were, by wonder and vexation of spirit. The next moment a fierce rush toward the captive, with naked weapons and bended brows, threatened immediate destruction to the wretched renegado.
Scarcely, however, was this spirit manifested, before it was checked by the grand-master of the temple, who stood beside the seat of Lusignan. He threw his venerable person between the victim and the uplifted weapons that thirsted for his blood.
“Forbear!” he cried, in the deep tones of determination—“forbear, soldiers of the cross, and servants of the Most High! Will ye contaminate your knightly swords with the base gore of a traitor to his standard, a denier of his God? Fitter the axe of the headsman, or the sordid gibbet, for the recreant and coward! Say forth, Beau Sire de Lusignan—have I spoken well?”
“Well and nobly hast thou spoken, Amaury de Montleon,” replied the monarch. “By to-morrow’s dawn shall the captive meet the verdict of his peers; and if they condemn him—by the cross which I wear on my breast, and the faith to which I trust for salvation, shall he die like a dog on the gallows, and his name shall be infamous for ever! Lead him away, Sir John de Crespigny, and answer for your prisoner with your head! And you, fair sirs, meet me at sunrise in the tiltyard: there will we sit in judgment before our assembled hosts, and all men shall behold our doom. Till then, farewell!”
In the dogged silence of despair was the prisoner led away, and in the silence of sorrow and dismay the barons of that proud array passed away from the presence of the king: and the night was again solitary and undisturbed.
It wanted a full hour of the appointed time for the trial, when the swarming camp poured forth its many-tongued multitudes to the tiltyard. The volatile Frenchman, the proud and taciturn Castilian, the resolute Briton, and the less courtly knights of the German empire, crowded to the spot. It was a vast enclosure, surrounded with palisades, and levelled with the greatest care, for the exhibition of that martial skill on which the crusaders set so high a value, and provided with elevated seats for the judges of the games—now to be applied to a more important and awful decision.
The vast multitude was silent, every feeling absorbed in breathless expectation; every brow was knit, and every heart was quivering with that sickening impatience which makes us long to know all that is concealed from our vision by the dark clouds of futurity, even if that all be the worst—
This expectation had already reached its highest pitch, when, as the sun reared his broad disk in a flood of radiance above the level horizon of the desert, a mournful and wailing blast of trumpets announced the approach of the judges. Arrayed in their robes of peace, with their knightly belts and spurs, rode the whilome monarch of Jerusalem, and the noblest chiefs of every different nation which had united to form one army under the guidance of one commander. Prelates, and peers, and knights—all who had raised themselves above the mass, in which all were brave and noble, by distinguished talents of either war or peace—had been convoked to sit in judgment on a cause which concerned no less the welfare of the holy church and the interests of religion than the discipline and laws of war. The peers of France and England, and the dignitaries of the empire, many of whom were present, although their respective kings had not yet reached the shores of Palestine—were clad in their robes and caps of maintenance, the knights in the surcoats and collars of their orders, and the prelates in all the splendor of pontifical decoration. A strong body of knights, whose rank did not as yet entitle them to seats in the council, were marshalled like pillars of steel, in full caparison of battle, around the listed field, to prevent the escape of the prisoner, no less than to guard his person from premature violence, had such been attempted by the enthusiastic and indignant concourse.
Arnold of Falkenhorst—stripped of his Moorish garb, and wearing in its stead his discarded robes of knighthood, his collar and blazoned shield about his neck, his golden spurs on his heel, and his swordless scabbard belted to his side—was placed before his peers, to abide their verdict. Beside him stood a page, displaying his crested burgonet and the banner of his ancient house, and behind him a group of chosen warders, keeping a vigilant watch on every motion. But the precaution seemed needless: the spirits of the prisoner had sunk, and he seemed deserted alike by the almost incredible courage which he had so often displayed, and by the presence of mind for which he had been so widely and so justly famous. His countenance, even to his lips, was as white as sculptured marble, and his eyes had a dead and vacant glare; and scarcely did he seem conscious of the purpose for which that multitude was collected around him. Once, and once only, as his eye fell upon the fatal tree, which cast its long shadow in terrible distinctness across the field of judgment, with its accursed noose, and the ministers of blood around it, a rapid and convulsive shudder ran through every limb; it was but a momentary affection, and, when passed, no sign of emotion could be traced in his person, unless it were a slight and almost imperceptible rocking of his whole frame from side to side, as he stood awaiting his doom. Utter despondency seemed to have taken possession of his whole soul; and the soldier who had looked unmoved into the very eye of death in the field, sunk like the veriest coward under the apprehensions of that fate which he had no longer the resolution to bear like a man.
The herald stepped forth, in his quartered tabard and crown of dignity, and the trumpeter by his side blew a summons on his brazen instrument that might have waked the dead. While the sounds were yet ringing in the ears of all, the clear voice of the king-at-arms cried aloud: “Arnold of Falkenhorst, count, banneret, and baron, hear! Thou standest this day before thy peers, accused of heresy and treason; a forsworn and perjured knight; a deserter from thy banner, and a denier of thy God; leagued with the pagan dogs against the holy church; a recreant, a traitor, and a renegado; with arms in thine hands wert thou taken, battling against the cross which thou didst swear to maintain with the best blood of thy veins! Speak! dost thou disavow the deed?”
The lips of Arnold moved, but no words came forth. It seemed as if some swelling convulsion of his throat smothered his utterance. There was a long pause, all expecting that the prisoner would seek to justify his defection, or challenge—as his last resource—the trial by the judgment of God. The rocking motion of his frame increased, and it almost appeared as if he were about to fall upon the earth. The trumpet’s din again broke the silence, and the herald’s voice again made proclamation:
“Arnold of Falkenhorst, speak now, or hear thy doom!—and then for ever hold thy peace!”
No answer was returned to the second summons; and, at the command of Lusignan, the peers and princes of the crusade were called upon for their award. Scarcely had he ceased, before the assembled judges rose to their feet like a single man. In calm determination they laid each one his extended hand upon his breast, and, like the distant mutterings of thunder, was heard the fatal verdict—“Guilty, upon mine honor!”
The words were caught up by the myriads that were collected around, and shouted till the welkin rang: “Guilty, guilty!—To the gibbet with the traitor!”
As soon as the tumult was appeased, Guy de Lusignan arose from his lofty seat, and—the herald making proclamation after him—pronounced the judgment of the court:—
“Arnold of Falkenhorst, whilome count of the empire, belted knight, and sworn soldier of the cross! by thy peers hast thou been tried, and by thy peers art thou condemned! Traitor, recreant, and heretic—discourteous gentleman, false knight, and fallen Christian—hear thy doom! The crest shall be erased from thy burgonet; the spurs shall be hewn from thine heels; the bearings of thy shield shall be defaced; the name of thy house shall be forgotten! To the holy church are thy lands and lordships forfeit! On the gibbet shalt thou die like a dog, and thy body shall be food for the wolf and the vulture!”
“It is the will of God,” shouted the assembled nations, “it is the will of God!”
As soon as the sentence was pronounced—painful, degrading, abhorrent as that sentence was—some portion of the prisoner’s anxiety was relieved; at least, his demeanor was more firm. He raised his eyes, and looked steadily upon the vast crowd which was exulting in his approaching degradation. If there was no composure on his brow, neither was there that appearance of abject depression by which his soul and body had appeared to be alike prostrated. Nay, for an instant his eye flashed and his lip curled, as he tore the collar of knighthood and the shield from his neck, and cast them at the feet of the herald, who was approaching to fulfil the decree. “I had discarded them before,” he said, “nor does it grieve me now to behold them thus.” Yet, notwithstanding the vaunt, his proud spirit was stung—stung more deeply by the sense of degradation than by the fear of death. The spurs which had so often goaded his charger to glory, amid the acclamations and admiration of thousands, were hacked from his heels by the sordid cleaver; the falcon-crest, which had once been a rallying-point and a beacon amid the dust and confusion of the fight, was shorn from his casque; the quarterings of many a noble family were erased from his proud escutcheon, and the shield itself reversed and hung aloft upon the ignominious tree. The pride which had burst into a momentary blaze of indignation, had already ceased to act upon his flagging spirits; and, when a confessor was tendered to him, and he was even offered the privilege of readmission within the pale of the church, he trembled.
“The crime—if crime there be—is his,” he said, pointing toward Guy de Lusignan. “I had served him, and served the cross, as never man did, had he not spurned me with injury, and disgraced me before his court, when I sought the hand of her whom I had rescued by my lance from paynim slavery. Had I been the meanest soldier in the Christian army, my deeds had won me a title to respect, at least, if not to favor. De Lusignan and his haughty daughter drove me forth to seek those rights and that honor from the gratitude of the infidel which were denied by my brothers-in-arms. If I am a sinner, he made me what I am; and now he slays me for it! I say not, ‘Let him give me the hand which he then denied me;’ but let him spare my life, and I am again a Christian; my sword shall again shine in the van of his array; the plots, the stratagems, the secrets of the moslem, shall be his. I, even I, the scorned and condemned renegado, can do more to replace De Lusignan on the throne of Jerusalem than the lances of ten thousand crusaders—ay, than the boasted prowess of Cœur de Lion, or the myriads of France and Austria! All this will I do for him—all this, and more—if he but grants me life. I cannot—I dare not die!—What said I?—I a Falkenhorst, and dare not!”
“Thy life is forfeit,” replied the unmoved priest; “thy life is forfeit, and thy words are folly. For who would trust a traitor to his liege lord, a deserter of his banner, and a denier of his faith? Death is before thee—death and immortality! Beware lest it be an immortality of evil and despair—of the flame that is unquenchable—of the worm that never dies! I say unto thee, ‘Put not thy trust in princes,’ but turn thee to Him who alone can say, ‘Thy sins be forgiven!’ Bend thy knee before the throne of grace; pluck out the bitterness from thine heart, and the pride from thy soul; and ’though thy sins be redder than scarlet, behold they shall be whiter than snow!’ Confess thy sins, and repent thee of thy transgressions, and He who died upon the mount for sinners, even he shall open unto thee the gates of everlasting life.”
“It is too late,” replied the wretched culprit, “it is too late! If I die guilty, let the punishment light on those who shall have sent me to my last account. Away, priest! give me life, or leave me!”
“Slave!” cried the indignant priest—“slave and coward, perish!—and be thy blood, and the blood of Him whom thou hast denied, upon thine own head!”
Not another word was spoken. He knew that all was hopeless—that he must die, unpitied and despised; and in sullen silence he yielded himself to his fate. The executioners led him to the fatal tree: his arms were pinioned—the noose adjusted about his muscular neck. In dark and gloomy despair he looked for the last time around him. He gazed upon the lists, which had so often witnessed the display of his unrivalled horsemanship, and echoed to the applauses which greeted his appearance on the field of mimic war; he gazed on many a familiar and once-friendly face, all scowling on him in hatred and disdain. Heart-sick, hopeless, and dismayed, he closed his aching eyes; and, as he closed them, the trumpets, to whose cheering sound he had so often charged in glory, rang forth the signal of his doom! The pulleys creaked hoarsely—the rope was tightened even to suffocation—and the quivering frame struggled out its last agonies, amid the unheeded execrations of the infuriate multitude!
There were merriment and music in the Chateau des Tournelles—at that time the abode of France’s royalty!—music and merriment, even from the break of day! That was a singular age, an age of great transitions. The splendid spirit-stirring soul of chivalry was alive yet among the nations—yet! although fast declining, and destined soon to meet its death-blow in the spear-thrust that hurled the noble Henry, last victim of its wondrous system, at once from saddle and from throne! In every art, in every usage, new science had effected even then mighty changes; yet it was the OLD WORLD STILL! Gunpowder, and the use of musketry and ordnance, had introduced new topics; yet still knights spurred their barbed chargers to the shock, still rode in complete steel—and tilts and tournaments still mustered all the knightly and the noble; and banquets at high noon, and balls in the broad daylight, assembled to the board or to the dance, the young, the beautiful, and happy.
There were merriment and music in the court, the hall, the staircase, the saloons of state! All that France held of beautiful, and bright, and brave, and wise, and noble, were gathered to the presence of their king. And there were many there, well-known and honored in those olden days; well-known and honored ever after. The first, in person as in place, was the great king! the proud, and chivalrous, and princely! becoming his high station at all times and in every place; wearing his state right gracefully and freely—the second Henry!—and at his side young Francis, the king-dauphin; with her, the cynosure of every heart, the star of that fair company—Scotland’s unrivalled Mary hanging upon his manly arm, and gazing up with those soft, dovelike eyes, fraught with unutterable soul, into her husband’s face—into her husband’s spirit. Brissac was there, and Joyeuse, and Nevers; and Jarnac, the renowned for skill in fence, and Vielleville; and the cardinal Lorraine, and all the glorious Guises and Montmorenci, soon to be famous as the slayer of his king, and every peer of France, and every peerless lady.
Loud peeled the exulting symphonies; loud sang the chosen minstrelsey—and as the gorgeous sunbeams rushed in a flood of tinted lustre through the rich many-colored panes of the tall windows, glancing on soft voluptuous forms and eyes that might outdazzle their own radiance, arrayed in all the pomp and pride of that magnificent and stately period—a more resplendent scene could scarcely be imagined. That was a day of rich and graceful costumes, when men and warriors thought it no shame to be adorned in silks and velvets, with chains of goldsmith’s work about their necks, and jewels in their ears, and on their hatbands, buttons, and buckles, and swordhilts; and if such were the sumptuous attire of the sterner and more solid sex, what must have been the ornature of the court ladies, under the gentle sway of such a being as Diane de Poictiers, the lovely mistress of the monarch, and arbitress of the soft follies of the court?
The palace halls were decked with every fanciful variety, some in the pomp of blazoned tapestries, with banners rustling from the cornices above the jocund dancers, some filled with fresh green branches, wrought into silver arbors, sweet garlands perfuming the air, and the light half excluded or tempered into a mild and emerald radiance by the dense foliage of the rare exotics. Pages and ushers tripped it to and fro, clad in the royal liveries, embroidered with the cognizance of Henry, the fuigist salamander, bearing the choicest wines, the rarest cates, in every interval of the surrounding dance. It would be tedious to dwell longer on the scene; to multiply more instances of the strange mixture, which might be witnessed everywhere, of artificial luxury with semibarbarous rudeness—to specify the graces of the company, the beauty of the demoiselles and dames, the stately bearing of the warrior nobles, as they swept back and forth in the quaint mazes of some antiquated measure, were a task to be undertaken only by some old chronicler, with style as curious and as quaint as the manners he portrays in living colors. Enough for us to catch a fleeting glimpse of the grand pageantry! to sketch with a dashy pencil the groups which he would designate with absolute and accurate minuteness!
But there was one among that gay assemblage, who must not be passed over with so slight a regard, since she attracted on that festive day, as much of wondering admiration for her unequalled beauties as she excited sympathy, and fear, in after-days, for her sad fortunes—but there was now no cloud upon her radiant beauty, no dimness prophetic of approaching tears in her large laughing eyes, no touch of melancholy thought upon one glorious feature—Marguerite de Vaudreuil, the heiress of a ducal fortune, the heiress of charms so surpassing, that rank and fortune were forgotten by all who gazed upon her pure, high brow, her dazzling glances, her seductive smile, the perfect symmetry of her whole shape and person! Her hair, of the darkest auburn shade, fell in a thousand ringlets, glittering out like threads of virgin gold when a stray sunbeam touched them, fell down her snowy neck over the shapely shoulders and so much of a soft, heaving bosom—veined by unnumbered azure channels, wherein the pure blood coursed so joyously—as was displayed by the falling laces which decked her velvet boddice. Her eyes, so quick and dazzling was their light, almost defied description, possessing at one time the depth and brilliance of the black, melting into the softer languor of the blue—yet they were of the latter hue, and suited truly to the whole style and character of her voluptuous beauty. Her form, as has been noticed, was symmetry itself; and every movement, every step, was fraught with natural and unstudied grace. In sooth, she seemed almost too beautiful for mere mortality—and so thought many a one who gazed upon her, half drunk with that divine delirium which steeps the souls of men who dwell too steadfastly upon such wondrous charms, as she bounded through the labyrinth of the dance, lighter and springier than the world-famed gazelle, or rested from the exciting toil in panting abandonment upon some cushioned settle! and many inquired of themselves, could it be possible that an exterior so divine should be the tenement of a harsh, worldly spirit—that a demeanor and an air so frank, so cordial, and so warm, should be but the deceptive veil that hid a selfish, cold, bad heart. Ay, many asked themselves that question on that day, but not one answered his own question candidly or truly—no! not one man!—for in her presence he had been more or less than mortal, who could pronounce his sentence unmoved by the attractions of her outward seeming.
For Marguerite de Vaudreuil had been but three short months before affianced as the bride of the young Baron de La-Hirè—the bravest and best of Henry’s youthful nobles. It had been a love-treaty—no matter of shrewd bartering of hearts—no cold and worldly convenance—but the outpouring, as it seemed, of two young spirits, each warm and worthy of the other!—and men had envied him, and ladies had held her more fortunate in her high conquest, than in her rank, her riches, or her beauties; and the world had forgotten to calumniate, or to sneer, in admiration of the young glorious pair, that seemed so fitly mated. Three little months had passed—three more, and they had been made one!—but in the interval Charles de La-Hirè, obedient to his king’s behest, had buckled on his sword, and led the followers of his house to the Italian wars. With him, scarcely less brave, and, as some thought, yet handsomer than he, forth rode upon his first campaign, Armand de Laguy, his own orphaned cousin, bred like a brother on his father’s hearth; and, as Charles well believed, a brother in affection. Three little months had passed, and, in a temporary truce, Armand de Laguy had returned alone, leading the relics of his cousin’s force, and laden with the doleful tidings of that cousin’s fall upon the field of honor. None else had seen him die, none else had pierced so deeply into the hostile ranks; but Armand had rushed madly on to save his noble kinsman, and failing in the desperate attempt, had borne off his reward in many a perilous wound. Another month, and it was whispered far and near, that Marguerite had dried her tears already; and that Armand de Laguy had, by his cousin’s death, succeeded, not to lands and to lordships only, but to the winning of that dead cousin’s bride. It had been whispered far and near, and now the whisper was proved true. For on this festive day young Armand, still pale from the effects of his exhausting wounds, and languid from loss of blood, appeared in public for the first time, not in the sable weeds of decent and accustomed wo, but in the gayest garb of a successful bridegroom—his pourpoint of rose-colored velvet strewn thickly with seed-pearl and broideries of silver, his hose of rich white silk, all slashed and lined with cloth of silver, his injured arm suspended in a rare scarf of the lady’s colors, and, above all, the air of quiet confident success with which he offered, and that lovely girl received, his intimate attentions, showed that for once, at least, the tongue of rumor had told truth.
Therefore men gazed in wonder—and marvelled as they gazed, and half condemned!—yet they who had been loudest in their censure when the first whisper reached their ears of so disloyal love, of so bold-fronted an inconstancy, now found themselves devising many an excuse within their secret hearts for this sad lapse of one so exquisitely fair. Henry himself had frowned, when Armand de Laguy led forth the fair betrothed, radiant in festive garb and decked with joyous smiles—but the stern brow of the offended prince had smoothed itself into a softer aspect, and the rebuff which he had determined—but a second’s space before—to give to the untimely lovers, was frittered down into a jest before it left the lips of the repentant speaker.
The day was well-nigh spent—the evening banquet had been spread, and had been honored duly—and now the lamps were lit in hall, and corridor, and bower; and merrier waxed the mirth, and faster wheeled the dance. The company were scattered to and fro, some wandering in the royal gardens, which overspread at that day most of the Isle de Paris; some played with cards or dice; some drank and revelled in the halls; some danced unwearied in the grand saloons; some whispered love in ladies’ ears in dark sequestered bowers—and of these last were Marguerite and Armand—a long alcove of thick green boughs, with orange-trees between, flowering in marble vases, and myrtles, and a thousand odorous trees, mingling their perfumed shadows, led to a lonely bower, and there alone, in the dim starlight—alone indeed! for they might now be deemed as one, sat the two lovers. One fair hand of the frail lady was clasped in the bold suitor’s right, while his left arm, unconscious of its wound, was twined about her slender waist; her head reclined upon his shoulder, with all its rich redundancy of ringlets floating about his neck and bosom, and her eyes, languid and suffused, fondly turned up to meet his passionate glances. “And can it be,” he said, in the thick broken tones that tell of vehement passion, “and can it be that you indeed love Armand? I fear, I fear, sweet beauty, that I, like Charles, should be forgotten, were I, like Charles, removed: for him thou didst love dearly, while on me never didst thou waste thought or word.”
“Him—never, Armand, never!—by the bright stars above us—by the great gods that hear us—I never—never did love Charles de La-Hirè—never did love man, save thee, my noble Armand. False girlish vanity and pique led me to toy with him at first; now to my sorrow I confess it—and when thou didst look coldly upon me, and seemedst to woo dark Adeline de Courcy, a woman’s vengeance stirred up my very soul, and therefore to punish thee, whom only did I love, I well nigh yielded up myself to torture by wedding one whom I esteemed indeed and honored, but never thought of for one moment with affection; wilt thou believe me, Armand?”
“Sweet angel, Marguerite!” and he clasped her to his hot, heaving breast, and her white arms were flung about his neck, and their lips met in a long fiery kiss.
Just in that point of time—in that soft melting moment—a heavy hand was laid quietly on Armand’s shoulder—he started, as the fiend sprang up, revealed before the temper of Ithuriel’s angel weapon—he started like a guilty thing from that forbidden kiss.
A tall form stood beside him, shrouded from head to heel in a dark riding-cloak of the Italian fashion; but there was no hat on the stately head, nor any covering to the cold stern impassive features. The high broad forehead as pale as sculptured marble, with the dark chestnut curls falling off parted evenly upon the crown—the full, fixed, steady eye, which he could no more meet than he could gaze unscathed on the meridian sun, the noble features, sharpened by want and suffering and wo—were all! all those of his good cousin.
For a moment’s space the three stood there in silence—Charles de La-Hirè reaping rich vengeance from the unconquerable consternation of the traitor! Armand de Laguy bent almost to the earth with shame and conscious terror! and Marguerite half dead with fear, and scarcely certain if indeed he who stood before her were the man in his living presence, whom she had vowed to love for ever; or if it were but the visioned form of an indignant friend returned from the dark grave to thunderstrike the false disturbers of his eternal rest.
“I am in time”—he said at length, in accents slow and unfaltering as his whole air was cold and tranquil—“in time to break off this monstrous union!—Thy perjuries have been in vain, weak man; thy lies are open to the day. He whom thou didst betray to the Italian’s dungeon—to the Italian’s dagger—as thou didst then believe and hope—stands bodily before thee.”
A long heart-piercing shriek burst from the lips of Marguerite, as the dread import of his speech fell on her sharpened fears—the man whom she had loved—first loved!—for all her previous words were false and fickle—stood at her side in all his power and glory—and she affianced to a liar, a base traitor—a foul murderer in his heart!—a scorn and byword to her own sex—an object of contempt and hatred to every noble spirit!
But at that instant Armand de Laguy’s pride awoke—for he was proud, and brave, and daring!—and he gave back the lie, and hurled defiance in his accuser’s teeth.
“Death to thy soul!” he cried; “’tis thou that liest, Charles! Did I not see thee stretched on the bloody plain? did I not sink beside thee, hewed down and trampled under foot, in striving to preserve thee? And when my vassals found me, wert thou not beside me—with thy face scarred, indeed, and mangled beyond recognition—but with the surcoat and the arms upon the lifeless corpse, and the sword in the cold hand? ’Tis thou that liest, man!—’tis thou that, for some base end, didst conceal thy life, and now wouldst charge thy felonies on me; but ’twill not do, fair cousin! The king shall judge between us! Come, lady”—and he would have taken her by the hand, but she sprang back as though a viper would have stung her.
“Back, traitor!” she exclaimed, in tones of the deepest loathing; “I hate thee—spit on thee—defy thee! Base have I been myself, and frail, and fickle; but, as I live, Charles de La-Hirè—but as I live now, and will die right shortly—I knew not of this villany! I did believe thee dead, as that false murtherer swore—and—God be good to me!—I did betray thee dead; and now have lost thee living! But for thee, Armand de Laguy—dog! traitor! villain! knave!—dare not to look upon me any more; dare not address me with one accent of thy serpent-tongue! for Marguerite de Vaudreuil, fallen although she be, and lost for ever, is not so all abandoned as, knowing thee for what thou art, to bear with thee one second longer—no! not though that second could redeem all the past, and wipe out all the sin—”
“Fine words, fine words, fair mistress! but on with me thou shalt!”—and he stretched out his arm to seize her, when, with a perfect majesty, Charles de La-Hirè stepped in and grasped him by the wrist, and held him for a moment there, gazing into his eye as though he would have read his soul; then threw him off with a force that made him stagger back ten paces before he could regain his footing. Then, then, with all the fury of the fiend depicted on his working lineaments, Armand unsheathed his rapier and made a full longe, bounding forward as he did so, right at his cousin’s heart; but he was foiled again—for with a single, and, as it seemed, slight motion of the sheathed broadsword which he held under his cloak, Charles de La-Hirè struck up the weapon, and sent it whirling through the air to twenty paces’ distance.
Just then there came a shout, “The king! the king!”—and, with the words, a glare of many torches, and with his courtiers and his guard about him, the monarch stood forth in offended majesty.
“Ha! what means this insolent broil? What men be these who dare draw swords within the palace precincts?”
“My sword is sheathed, sire,” answered De La-Hirè, kneeling before the king, and laying the good weapon at his feet—“nor has been ever drawn, save at your highness’ bidding, against your highness’ foes. But I beseech you, sire, as you love honesty and honor, and hate deceit and treason, grant me your royal license to prove Armand de Laguy recreant, base, traitorous, a liar, and a felon, and a murtherer, hand to hand, in the presence of the ladies of your court, according to the law of arms and honor!”
“Something of this we have heard already,” replied the king, “Baron de La-Hirè. But say out, now: of what accuse you Armand de Laguy? Show but good cause, and thy request is granted; for I have not forgot your good deeds in my cause against our rebel Savoyards and our Italian foemen. Of what accuse you Armand de Laguy?”
“That he betrayed me, wounded, into the hands of the duke of Parma; that he dealt with Italian bravos to compass my assassination; that by foul lies and treacherous devices he has trained from me my affianced bride; and last, not least, deprived her of fair name and honor. This will I prove upon his body, so help me God and my good sword!”
“Stand forth and answer to his charge, De Laguy—speak out! what sayest thou?”
“I say,” answered Armand, boldly—“I say that he lies! that he did feign his own death, for some evil ends, and did deceive me, who would have died to succor him; that I, believing him dead, have won from him the love of this fair lady, I admit—but I assert that I did win it fairly, and of good right; and, for the rest, I say he lies doubly when he asserts that she has lost fair name or honor! This is my answer, sire; and I beseech you grant his prayer, and let us prove our words, as gentlemen of France, and soldiers, forthwith, by singular battle!”
“Amen!” replied the king. “The third day hence, at noon, in the tiltyard, before our court, we do adjudge the combat—and this fair lady be the prize of the victor!—”
“No, sire!” interposed Charles de La-Hirè, again kneeling; but before he had the time to add a second word, Marguerite de Vaudreuil, who had stood all the while with her hands clasped, and her eyes riveted upon the ground, sprang forth with a great cry.
“No! no! for God’s sake! no! no! sire—great king—good gentleman—brave knight! doom me not to a fate so dreadful. Charles de La-Hirè is all that man can be of good, or great, or noble; but I betrayed him, whom I deemed dead, and he can never trust me living! Moreover, if he would take me to his arms, base as I am and most false-hearted, he should not; for God forbid that my dishonor should blight his noble fame. As for the slave De Laguy—the traitor and low liar—doom me, great monarch, to the convent or the block, but curse me not with such contamination! for, by the heavens I swear, and by the God that rules them, that I will die by my own hand before I wed that serpent!”
“Be it so, fair one,” answered the king, very coldly, “be it so; we permit thy choice—a convent or the victor’s bridal bed shall be thy doom, at thine own option! Meanwhile, your swords, sirs: until the hour of battle ye are both under our arrest. Jarnac, be thou godfather to Charles de La-Hirè; Nevers, do thou like office for De Laguy.”
“By God, not I, sire!” answered the proud duke. “I hold this man’s offence so rank, his guilt so palpable, that, on my conscience, I think your royal hangman were his best godfather!”
“Nevertheless, De Nevers, it shall be as I say! This bold protest of thine is all-sufficient for thine honor; and it is but a form! No words, duke! it must be as I have said! Joyeuse, escort this lady to thy duchess; pray her accept of her as the king’s guest, until this matter be decided. The third day hence at noon, on foot, with sword and dagger, with no arms of defence or vantage; the principals to fight alone, until one die or yield—and so God shield the right!”
It was a clear, bright day in the early autumn, when the royal tiltyard, on the Isle de Paris, was prepared for a deadly conflict. The tilt-yard was a regular, oblong space, enclosed with stout, squared palisades, and galleries for the accommodation of spectators, immediately in the vicinity of the royal residence of the Tournelles, a splendid Gothic structure, adorned with all the rare and fanciful devices of that rich style of architecture. At a short distance thence rose the tall, gray towers of Nôtre Dame, the bells of which were tolling minutely the dirge for a passing soul.
From one of the windows of the palace a gallery had been constructed, hung with rich crimson tapestry, leading to a long range of seats, cushioned and decked with arras, and guarded by a strong party of gentlemen in the royal livery, with partisans in their hands, and sword and dagger at the belt. At either end of the list was a tent pitched: that at the right of the royal gallery a plain marquee of canvass, of small size, which had apparently seen much service, and been used in real warfare. The curtain which formed the door of this was lowered, so that no part of the interior could be seen from without; but a parti-colored pennon was pitched into the ground beside it, and a shield suspended from the palisades, emblazoned with bearings, which all men knew to be those of Charles Baron de La-Hirè, a renowned soldier in the late Italian wars, and the challenger in the present conflict. The pavilion at the left, or lower end, was of a widely-different kind—of the very largest sort then in use, completely framed of crimson cloth, lined with white silk, festooned and fringed with gold, and all the curtains looped up to display a range of massive tables, covered with snow-white damask, and loaded with two hundred covers of pure silver! Vases of flowers and flasks of crystal were intermixed upon the board with tankards, flagons, and cups and urns of gold, embossed and jewelled; and behind every seat a page was placed, clad in the colors of the counts de Laguy. A silken curtain concealed the entrance of an inner tent, wherein the count awaited the signal that should call him to the lists.
Strange and indecent as such an accompaniment would be deemed now-a-days to a solemn, mortal conflict, it was then deemed neither singular nor monstrous; and in this gay pavilion Armand de Laguy, the challenged in the coming duel, had summoned all the nobles of the court to feast with him, after he should have slain—so confident was he of victory—his cousin and accuser, Charles Baron de La-Hirè.
The entrances of the tiltyard were guarded by a detachment of the king’s sergeants, sheathed cap-à-pie in steel, with shouldered arquebuses and matches ready lighted. The lists were strewn with sawdust, and hung completely with black serge, save where the royal gallery afforded a strange contrast by its rich decorations to the ghastly draperies of the battle-ground. One other object only remains to be noticed: it was a huge block of black oak, dinted in many places as if by the edge of a sharp weapon, and stained with plashes of dark gore. Beside this frightful emblem stood a tall, muscular, gray-headed man, dressed in a leathern frock and apron, stained like the block with many a gout of blood, bare-headed and bare-armed, leaning upon a huge two-handed axe, with a blade of three feet in breadth. A little way aloof from these was placed a chair, wherein a monk was seated—a very aged man, with a bald head and beard as white as snow—telling his beads in silence until his ministry should be required.
The space around the lists and all the seats were crowded well-nigh to suffocation by thousands of anxious and attentive spectators; and many an eye was turned to watch the royal seats, which were yet vacant, but which it was well known would be occupied before the trumpet should sound for the onset. The sun was now nearly at the meridian, and the expectation of the crowd was at its height, when the passing-bell ceased ringing, and was immediately succeeded by the accustomed peal announcing the hour of high noon. Within a moment or two, a bustle was observed among the gentlemen-pensioners; then a page or two entered the royal seats, and, after looking about them for a moment, again retired. Another pause of profound expectation, and then a long, loud blast of trumpets followed from the interior of the royal residence; nearer it rang and nearer, till the loud symphonies filled every ear and thrilled to the core of every heart: and then the king—the dignified and noble Henry—entered with all his glittering court, princes, and dukes, and peers, and ladies of high birth and matchless beauty, and took their seats amid the thundering acclamations of the people, to witness the dread scene that was about to follow, of wounds, and blood, and butchery!
All were arrayed in the most gorgeous splendor—all except one, a girl of charms unrivalled (although she seemed plunged in the deepest agony of grief) by the seductive beauties of the gayest. Her bright, redundant auburn hair was all dishevelled; her long, dark eyelashes were pencilled in distinct relief against the marble pallor of her colorless cheeks; her rich and rounded form was veiled, but not concealed, by a dress of the coarsest serge, black as the robes of night, and thereby contrasting more the exquisite fairness of her complexion. On her all eyes were fixed—some with disgust, some with contempt, others with pity, sympathy, and even admiration. That girl was Marguerite de Vaudreuil—betrothed to either combatant; the betrayed herself, and the betrayer; rejected by the man whose memory, when she believed him dead, she had herself deserted; rejecting, in her turn, and absolutely loathing him whose falsehood had betrayed her into the commission of a yet deeper treason—Marguerite de Vaudreuil, lately the admired of all beholders, now the prize of two kindred swordsmen, without an option save that between the bed of a man she hated and the lifelong seclusion of the convent.
The king was seated; the trumpets flourished once again, and at the signal the curtain was withdrawn from the tent-door of the challenger, and Charles de La-Hirè stepped calmly out on the arena, followed by his godfather, De Jarnac, bearing two double-edged swords of great length and weight, and two broad-bladed poniards. Charles de La-Hirè was very pale and sallow, as if from ill health or from long confinement, but his step was firm and elastic, and his air perfectly unmoved and tranquil. A slight flush rose to his pale cheek as he was greeted by an enthusiastic cheer from the people, to whom his fame in the wars of Italy had much endeared him; but the flush was transient, and in a moment he was as pale and cold as before the shout which hailed his entrance. He was clad very plainly in a dark, morone-colored pourpoint, with vest, trunk-hose, and nether socks of black-silk netting, displaying to admiration the outlines of his lithe and sinewy frame. De Jarnac, his godfather, on the contrary, was very foppishly attired with an abundance of fluttering tags, and ruffles of rich lace, and feathers in his velvet cap.
These two had scarcely stood a moment in the lists, before, from the opposite pavilion, De Laguy and the duke de Nevers issued, the latter bearing, like De Jarnac, a pair of swords and daggers. It was observed, however, that the weapons of De Laguy were narrow, three-cornered rapier-blades and Italian stilettoes; and it was well understood that on the choice of the weapons depended much the result of the encounter—De Laguy being renowned above any gentleman in the French court for his skill in the science of defence, as practised by the Italian masters; while his antagonist was known to excel in strength and skill in the management of all downright soldierly weapons, in coolness, in decision, presence of mind, and calm, self-sustained valor, rather than in sleight and dexterity. Armand de Laguy was dressed sumptuously—in the same garb, indeed, which he had worn at the festival whereon the strife arose which now was on the point of being terminated, and for ever!
A few moments were spent in deliberation between the godfathers of the combatants, and then it was proclaimed by De Jarnac that “the wind and sun having been equally divided between the two swordsmen, their places were assigned, and that it remained only to decide upon the choice of the weapons: that the choice should be regulated by a throw of the dice, and that with the weapons so chosen they should fight until one or other should be hors de combat; but that in case that either weapon should be bent or broken, the seconds should cry, ‘Hold!’ and recourse be had to the other swords; the use of the poniard to be optional, as it was to be used only for parrying, and not for striking; that either combatant striking a blow or thrusting after the utterance of the word ‘hold,’ or using the dagger to inflict a wound, should be dragged to the block and die the death of a felon!”
This proclamation made, dice were produced, and De Nevers winning the throw for Armand, the rapiers and stilettoes which he had selected were produced, examined carefully, and measured, and delivered to the kindred foemen.
It was a stern and fearful sight; for there was no bravery nor show in their attire, nor aught chivalrous in the way of battle. They had thrown off their coats and hats, and remained in their shirt-sleeves and under-garments only, with napkins bound about their brows, and their eyes fixed each on the other’s with intense and terrible malignity.
The signal was now given, and the blades were crossed, and on the instant it was seen how fearful was the advantage which De Laguy had gained by the choice of weapons; for it was with the utmost difficulty that Charles de La-Hirè avoided the incessant longes of his enemy, who, springing to and fro, stamping, and writhing his body in every direction, never ceased for a moment with every trick of feint, and pass, and flourish, to thrust at limb, face, and body, easily parrying himself with the poniard, which he held in his left hand, the less skilful assaults of his enemy. Within five minutes the blood had been drawn in as many different places, though the wounds were but superficial, from the sword-arm, the face, and thigh of De La-Hirè, while he had not as yet pricked ever so lightly his formidable enemy. His quick eye, however, and firm, active hand, stood him in stead, and he contrived in every instance to turn the thrusts of Armand so far at least aside as to render them innocuous to life. As his blood, however, ebbed away, and as he knew that he must soon become weak from the loss of it, De Jarnac evidently grew uneasy, and many bets were offered that Armand would kill him without receiving so much as a scratch himself.
And now Charles saw his peril, and determined on a fresh line of action. Flinging away his dagger, he altered his position rapidly, so as to bring his left hand toward De Laguy, and made a motion with it as if to grasp his sword-hilt. He was immediately rewarded by a longe, which drove clear through his left arm close to the elbow-joint, but just above it. De Jarnac turned on the instant deadly pale, for he thought all was over; but he erred widely, for De La-Hirè had calculated well his action and his time, and that which threatened to destroy him proved, as he meant it, his salvation: for as quick as light, when he felt the wound, he dropped his own rapier, and grasping Armand’s guard with his right hand, he snapped the blade short off in his own mangled flesh, and bounded five feet backward, with the broken fragment still sticking in his arm.
“Hold!” shouted each godfather on the instant; and at the same time De La-Hirè exclaimed, “Give us the other swords, give us the other swords, De Jarnac!”
The exchange was made in a moment: the stilettoes and the broken weapons were gathered up, and the heavy horse-swords given to the combatants, who again faced each other with equal resolution, though now with altered fortunes. “Now, De La-Hirè,” exclaimed De Jarnac, as he put the well-poised blade into his friend’s hand, “you managed that right gallantly and well: now fight the quick fight, ere you shall faint from pain and bleeding!”
And it was instantly apparent that such was indeed his intention. His eye lightened, and he looked like an eagle about to pounce upon his foe, as he drew up his form to its utmost height, and whirled the long new blade about his head as though it had been but a feather. Far less sublime and striking was the attitude and swordmanship of De Laguy, though he too fought gallantly and well. But at the fifth pass, feinting at his head, Charles fetched a long and sweeping blow at his right leg, and, striking him below the ham, divided all the tendons with the back of the double-edged blade; then, springing in before he fell, plunged his sword into his body, that the hilt knocked heavily at his breast-bone, and the point came out glittering between his shoulders! The blood flashed out from the deep wound, from nose, and ears, and mouth, as he fell prostrate; and Charles stood over him, leaning on his avenging weapon, and gazing sadly into his stiffening features. “Fetch him a priest,” exclaimed De Nevers, “for by my halydom he will not live ten minutes!”
“If he live five,” cried the king, rising from his seat, “if he live five, he will live long enough to die upon the block; for he lies there a felon and convicted traitor, and by my soul he shall die a felon’s doom! But bring him a priest quickly.”
The old monk ran across the lists, and raised the head of the dying man, and held the crucifix aloft before his glazing eyes, and called upon him to repent and to confess, as he would have salvation.
Faint and half-choked with blood, he faltered forth the words—“I do—I do confess guilty—oh! doubly guilty!—Pardon, O God!—Charles! Marguerite!”—and as the words died on his quivering lips, he sank down, fainting with the excess of agony.
“Ho, there!—guards, headsman!” shouted Henry; “off with him—off with the villain to the block, before he die an honorable death by the sword of as good a knight as ever fought for glory!”
Then De La-Hirè knelt down beside the dying man, and took his hand in his own and raised it tenderly, while a faint gleam of consciousness kindled the pallid features—“May God as freely pardon thee as I do, O my cousin!” Then turning to the king—
“You have admitted, sire, that I have served you faithfully and well. Never yet have I sought reward at your hand: let this now be my guerdon. Much have I suffered: even thus let me not feel that my king has increased my sufferings by consigning one of my blood to the headsman’s blow. Pardon him, sire, as I do, who have the most cause of offence; pardon him, gracious king, as we will hope that a King higher yet shall pardon him and us, who be all sinners in the sight of his all-seeing eye!”
“Be it so,” answered Henry; “it never shall be said of me that a French king refused his bravest soldier’s first claim upon his justice! Bear him to his pavilion.”
And they did bear him to his pavilion, decked as it was for revelry and feasting; and they laid him there, ghastly, and gashed, and gory, upon the festive board, and his blood streamed among the choice wines, and the scent of death chilled the rich fragrance of the flowers! An hour, and he was dead who had invited others to triumph over his cousin’s slaughter; an hour, and the court-lackeys shamefully spoiled and plundered the repast which had been spread for nobles!
“And now,” continued Henry, taking the hand of Marguerite, “here is the victor’s prize! Wilt have him, Marguerite?—’fore Heaven, but he has won thee nobly! Wilt have her, De La-Hirè?—methinks her tears and beauty may yet atone for fickleness produced by treasons such as his who now shall never more betray, nor lie, nor sin, for ever!—”
“Sire,” replied De La-Hirè, very firmly, “I pardon her; I love her yet!—but I wed not dishonor!”
“He is right,” said the pale girl, “he is right, ever right and noble; for what have such as I to do with wedlock? Fare thee well, Charles—dear, honored Charles! The mists of this world are clearing away from mine eyes, and I see now that I loved thee best—thee only! Fare thee well, noble one! forget the wretch who has so deeply wronged thee—forget me, and be happy. For me, I shall right soon be free!”
“Not so, not so,” replied King Henry, misunderstanding her meaning; “not so, for I have sworn it, and though I may pity thee, I may not be forsworn. To-morrow thou must to a convent, there to abide for ever!”
“And that will not be long,” answered the girl, a gleam of her old pride and impetuosity lighting up her fair features.
“By Heaven, I say for ever!” cried Henry, stamping his foot on the ground angrily.
“And I reply, not long!”
A cold and dark northeaster, had swept together a host of straggling vapors and thin lowering clouds over the French metropolis—the course of the Seine might be traced easily among the grotesque roofs and Gothic towers which at that day adorned its banks, by the gray ghostly mist which seethed up from its sluggish waters—a small fine rain was falling noiselessly, and almost imperceptibly, by its own weight as it were, from the surcharged and watery atmosphere—the air was keenly cold and piercing, although the seasons had not crept far as yet beyond the confines of the summer. The trees, for there were many in the streets of Paris, and still more in the fauxbourgs and gardens of the haute noblesse, were thickly covered with white rime, as were the manes and frontlets of the horses, the clothes, and hair, and eyebrows of the human beings who ventured forth in spite of the inclement weather. A sadder and more gloomy scene can scarcely be conceived than is presented by the streets of a large city in such a time as that I have attempted to describe. But this peculiar sadness was, on the day of which I write, augmented and exaggerated by the continual tolling of the great bell of St. Germains Auxerrois, replying to the iron din which arose from the gray towers of Nôtre Dame. From an early hour of the day the people had been congregating in the streets and about the bridges leading to the precincts of the royal palace, the Chateau des Tournelles, which then stood—long since obliterated almost from the memory of men—upon the Isle de Paris, the greater part of which was covered then with the courts, and terraces, and gardens of that princely pile.
Strong bodies of the household troops were posted here and there about the avenues and gates of the royal demesne, and several large detachments of the archers of the prevôt’s guard—still called so from the arms which they had long since ceased to carry—might be seen everywhere on duty. Yet there were no symptoms of an émeute among the populace, nor any signs of angry feeling or excitement in the features of the loitering crowd, which was increasing every moment as the day waxed toward noon. Some feeling certainly there was—some dark and earnest interest, as might be judged from the knit brows, clinched hands, and anxious whispers which everywhere attended the exchange of thought throughout the concourse—but it was by no means of an alarming or an angry character. Grief, wonder, expectation, and a sort of half-doubtful pity, as far as might be gathered from the words of the passing speakers, were the more prominent ingredients of the common feeling, which had called out so large a portion of the city’s population on a day so unsuited to any spectacle of interest. For several hours this mob, increasing as it has been described from hour to hour, varied but little in its character, save that as the day wore it became more and more respectable in the appearance of its members. At first it had been composed almost without exception of artisans and shop-boys, and mechanics of the lowest order, with not a few of the cheats, bravoes, pickpockets, and similar ruffians, who then as now formed a fraternity of no mean size in the Parisian world. As the morning advanced, however, many of the burghers of the city, and respectable craftsmen, might be seen among the crowd; and a little later many of the secondary gentry and petite noblesse, with well-dressed women and even children, all showing the same symptoms of sad yet eager expectation. Now, when it lacked but a few minutes of noon, long trains of courtiers with their retinues and armed attendants, many a head of a renowned and ancient house, many a warrior famous for valor and for conduct might be seen threading the mazes of the crowded thoroughfares toward the royal palace.
A double ceremony of singular and solemn nature was soon to be enacted there—the interment of a noble soldier, slain lately in an unjust quarrel, and the investiture of an unwilling woman with the robes of a holy sisterhood preparatory to her lifelong interment in that sepulchre of the living body—sepulchre of the pining soul—the convent cloisters. Armand de Laguy!—Marguerite de Vaudreuil!
Many circumstances had united in this matter to call forth much excitement, much grave interest in the minds of all who had heard tell of it!—the singular and wild romance of the story, the furious and cruel combat which had resulted from it—and last not least, the violent, and, as it was generally considered, unnatural resentment of the king toward the guilty victim who survived the ruin she had wrought.
The story was, in truth, then, but little understood. A thousand rumors were abroad, and of course no one accurately true; yet in each there was a share of truth, and the amount of the whole was perhaps less wide of the mark than is usual in matters of the kind. And thus they ran: Marguerite de Vaudreuil had been betrothed to the youngest of France’s famous warriors, Charles de La-Hirè, who after a time fell—as it was related by his young friend and kinsman Armand de Laguy—covered with wounds and honor. The body had been found outstretched beneath the survivor, who, himself desperately hurt, had alone witnessed and in vain endeavored to prevent his cousin’s slaughter. The face of Charles de La-Hirè, as all men deemed the corpse to be, was mangled and defaced so frightfully as to render recognition by the features utterly hopeless; yet, from the emblazoned surcoat which it bore, the well-known armor on the limbs, the signet-ring upon the finger, and the accustomed sword clinched in the dead right hand, none doubted the identity of the body, or questioned the truth of Armand’s story.
Armand de Laguy, succeeding by his cousin’s death to all his lands and lordships, returned to the metropolis, and mixed in the gayeties of that gay period, when all the court of France was revelling in the celebration of the union of the dauphin with the lovely Mary Stuart, in after-days the hapless queen of Scotland.
He wore no decent and accustomed garb of mourning. He suffered no interval, however brief—due to decorum at least, if not to kindly feeling—to elapse, before it was announced that Marguerite de Vaudreuil, the dead man’s late betrothed, was instantly to wed his living cousin! Her wondrous beauty, her all-seductive manners, her extreme youth, had in vain pleaded against the general censure of the court—the world. Men had frowned on her for a while, and women sneered and slandered; but after a little while, as the novelty of the story wore away, the indignation against her inconstancy ceased, and she was once again installed the leader of the court’s unwedded beauties.