Amid all this, we were somewhat flurried, when, one morning in August, Madame de Bourgneuf unexpectedly drove up the long avenue to the gate of the chateau, in her old-fashioned carriage, which resembled a huge game-pie, or an antique tea-caddy on wheels, and brought tidings that the coast, from the Isle d'Ouessant to Ostend, was more than ever closely watched, as another descent of those insolent heretics, the English, was expected, for the express and envious purpose of demolishing the elegant fortifications erected by Marshal Vauban at Cherbourg, and burning his Most Christian Majesty's fleet, then ignobly blocked up in Brest by the squadrons of Lord Anson, Sir Edward Hawke, and Commodore Howe, who, as an additional insult to France, carried brooms at their mastheads, in token that they swept the sea!
From the Governor of Brittany she had obtained all this intelligence at St. Malo, and I immediately received it from Angelique, who, being somewhat addicted to waggery and mischief, informed me in a whisper, that "although madame, our aunt, had resided so long at St. Malo, ostensibly to pay her devotions at the famous shrine of the cathedral, it was more probably because the Duc d'Aiguillon had appointed as Governor and Commandant of St. Malo, the old Comte de Boisguiller—father of the chevalier—who, thirty years before, had been madame's most devoted though unsuccessful lover: and now as both were free, she was not without hope of kindling his passion again—hence the old lady's devotion to the blessed bones of St. Malo; but (added the soubrette, in the words of Jean Jacques Rousseau) who ever heard of a pair of grey-haired lovers sighing for each other?"
Now, what the deuce was to be done with me?
Madame was very strict about her domestics, and had rather austere views on the subject of men in general and lovers in particular (M. le Commandant excepted), yet, added Angelique, she always prefers as a spiritual adviser the handsome young Abbé St. Servand to old Père Celestine, of St. Solidore.
Terrified by the prospect of immediate discovery, of my ignominious expulsion, perhaps punishment, poor Jacqueline became quite paralysed, but her spirited abigail rose superior to the occasion, and resolved that a more complete disguise, and an entirely new plan of operations were at once necessary; so she insisted that I should become, like herself, a soubrette in the household.
Her clever little fingers—for she was neat and ready handed as all Frenchwomen are—soon prepared a dress of her own for me, by letting out a tuck or two in the skirts, altering the body and so forth. Then she proceeded at once to have me attired, a feat I could never have performed for myself.
She laced me up in a pair of her own stays, a merciless process, which nearly suffocated me, and certainly caused a determination of blood to the head; "but it was absolutely necessary," as she stated, "that I should have a figure;" adding, as she fastened the lace, "in time I shall make you quite pretty, monsieur, and then, if Boisguiller's hussars come this way we shall be rivals for the handsome sub-brigadier."
"Angelique, how you talk!"
"But the hussars——"
"Don't talk of them, pray. The thought of meeting hussars in this absurd dress makes my blood run cold."
"Then, think of mademoiselle. Ma foi! a Parisian girl like her required some one to interest, to excite her, amid the gloom of this old chateau, with its big rats and terrible legends, so you came just in time to prevent her dying of ennui. But for Jacquot I should have fallen in love with you myself."
She took great pains with me; a few false curls adroitly pinned on, and one of her own tall, coif-like Breton caps, of spotless white linen, completed my head gear. She patted my chin, and thanked Heaven I wore neither beard nor moustache; then I joined her in a hearty fit of laughter, on surveying myself in a mirror.
"What would Jack Charters, Tom Kirkton, or other fellows of ours, say if they could see me thus!" was my first thought.
Angelique taught me how to seat myself, and how to hold myself when seated; how to spread or gather my skirts when ascending or descending stairs; and she burst again and again into ringing fits of laughter at the length of ankle I exhibited. At last, after being well drilled, I was taken to the drawing-room, and with a heart that certainly palpitated, and a cheek that blushed truly with shame and ridicule, I was presented to madame, as the new attendant of mademoiselle—a girl from the wild marshes of the Morbihan.
My costume was perfect, even to the black velvet necklet, which no Breton girl is ever without.
Jacqueline grew very pale, but a smile twinkled in her tearful dark eyes, when she retired behind the chair of her aunt, who bowed politely, and surveyed me through her eyeglass, as I advanced, courtseying at every second step, my hands folded meekly across my breast, and my eyes cast modestly down, in a manner taught me by that pretty rogue, Angelique.
The idea occurred to me that a candid confession of who I was, and the weight of the mutual service Jacqueline and I had rendered each other, would have been better than the adoption of this absurd and most dangerous disguise, which could only serve to complicate the perils of my present position; but there was no resource—I was in for it now!
"Approach, girl," said the countess, "come nearer me. You have a very fair skin for a girl from the Morbihan."
"My mother, madame, was an English woman," said I, courtseying lower; to have said a Scots woman would have served my purpose better in France, for the countess said, sharply—
"So much the worse—so much the worse, girl! You have, however, I hope, been well instructed in all religious duties, and never omit mass or confession."
"Mon Père Celestine will answer for me," said I, confident that the good priest would protect me, whatever came to pass.
"Très bien! I expect him to visit us in a few days, together with the Comte de Boisguiller, Commandant of St. Malo." (This reply, like a double-headed shot, was not very restoring), "but why do you require a second attendant, Jacqueline—is not Angelique enough for you? What is your name?"
"Basile, madame, so please you."
"Basile what?"
(The deuce take it! I had not thought of a name.)
"Basile Gantelet," said Angelique, replying for me.
"Your parents and family?——"
"Were poor fisher people, all carried off by the English fleet, and are now in some horrid prison."
"The English, as Comte de Boisguiller says, it is always those pestilent English, we can neither move for them by land or sea. Tres bien! my good girl, I am pleased with mademoiselle's choice, and like your modest appearance so much, that I think I shall retain you about my own person. If you please me, I shall have your ears pierced, and present you with a pair of my own earrings at the next feast of St. Malo."
"Oh, madame, how happy I shall be to attend so dear, so delightful, so handsome a lady!" said I, courtseying thrice, but feeling, nevertheless, in no way delighted by the prospect of the ear-piercing process.
"Adieu, my child," replied the countess, with a gratified smile. "Angelique will instruct you in your new duties; and, as you are from the melancholy district of the Morbihan—the land of salt marshes, and the Montagues Noires, of old feuds, solemn pilgrimages, and ruined castles, I shall expect you to entertain us with some droll legends of especially those wicked little fiends the Courils and Torrigans, who infest the roads at nightfall, and make travellers dance till they die of fatigue."
Angelique hurried me away; our interview had been most successful! Madame de Bourgneuf was now in her sixtieth year. Few women, even in blooming England, are charming at that age; but in France they are frequently horrible! She could never have been beautiful at any time, and though her hazel eyes were large and bright, her shrivelled skin had the hue of an old drumhead, that had undergone the rain and marches of three campaigns; yet, strange to say, she bore a resemblance to her beautiful niece, which made me ask tremulously in my heart, would Jacqueline ever become so plain, even if she lived to the years of old Parr?
The countess had a profusion of real and false hair, all of snowy whiteness, always dressed à la Marquise, and by her ornaments, and general style of attire, it was evident that she knew not the art of growing gracefully old; but was resolved to be young, and to keep her colours flying to the last. With all this, she was a perfect repertory of old stories of the court of France, legends of the saints, and historic memories of Brittany.
I soon found that my new attire entailed upon me many annoyances. I strove to avoid all the domestics of the chateau; but the jealousy and curiosity of the women to see and to converse with the new comer—this wonderful paysanne of the Morbihan, who was constantly with their young mistress, who could sketch in her album, and knew when to turn over the leaves of her music when she played—together with the delicate attentions paid to me by Urbain the gardener, Bertrand the porter, the valets and the coachman, became so alarming that I could scarcely quit Jacqueline's suite of apartments, or leave the chateau alone for a moment.
To all, I was a puzzle! Some said I was a clumsy Norman—a phlegmatic Fleming—a Navarrese; the men declared my bearing odd; the women, my accent to be more so; but the gardener, with his bouquets, was an admirer so devoted, that I dared never venture into the garden, or into the avenue, when he was clipping the yews, or tending his orange tubs.
Then judge of my alarm, when one day the mischievous Angelique, with her black eyebrows arched to the roots of her hair, her large eyes dilated with mock dismay, and a smile of drollery on her rosy mouth, began thus—
"Oh, Mademoiselle Basile—oh, how unfortunate you are!"
"What has happened?" I exclaimed.
"Madame has conceived a greater fancy for you than ever!"
"Indeed!" said I, drily, while smoothing my front hair, before a glass; "then I suppose she is going to have my ears pierced at last?"
"Ma foi! what do you think? as she is too much afraid of ghosts to repose alone, you must take the place of mademoiselle and me."
"What! ridiculous—I shall sell out—resign—desert from the chateau!" I exclaimed, while ready to sink with alarm and anger, until the wicked wag who had invented the whole story, burst out into a fit of laughter, at the dreary expression of my face.
The absurdity and annoyance entailed by my new character, together with the study and trouble it cost me to play such a part, would have been intolerable but for the facilities it afforded me for enjoying with perfect freedom the society of Jacqueline. Thus, together we could ramble for hours, in the shady walks of the garden, and the green leafy turnings of the labyrinth, or sit in the bowers of fragrant roses, which were trained, trimmed, and cultured by my admirer, the gardener, whose name I shall long remember, was Urbain.
In the labyrinth we lost ourselves so often that the countess one day, somewhat to the confusion of poor Jacqueline, named it the Val sans retour, after that in the Breton forest of Broceliande—a mysterious path, out of which no false or fickle lover can ever return, for there the fairies raise up an impenetrable and impassable barrier. In that forest, too, say the legendaries, lies the tomb of Myrddyna, beneath a fatal and enchanted stone.
If the curé of St. Solidore actually paid madame the visit she spoke of, discovery was certain. I did not fear the good man much, save a severe rebuke for conduct that was unseemly; but then there was that devil of a commandant coming also from St. Malo, and already in anticipation, I felt myself a prisoner in its dreary casemates that overhung the sea!
This idea filled Jacqueline with terror.
"Give me up and leave me," said she, with hands clasped upon her forehead, while her tears fell fast, "to what end do we love each other, Basil?"
"True, Jacqueline—to what end indeed! But to give you up is impossible. To love you has become a part of my nature, my existence—myself; and being with you daily, has made that which was a passion, a confirmed habit."
"In mercy do not speak thus, I love you—love you dearly; yet our marriage is impossible, and I can see no future but despair."
"I know it," said I, gloomily and with clenched teeth. "Cursed be the fate that threw us together—the folly that kept me lingering here."
"Better would it have been that we had never met."
"That I had never rescued you, do you mean?"
"Or I you?" she would exclaim with a sad smile; and then a long, long kiss would close these interviews of mingled passion, joy, and pain.
One evening, after escorting Jacqueline to the door of the chateau, instead of entering with her I returned to the garden, for the purpose of dreaming over all that had passed between us, and also considering seriously the future, and what could be the end of a love so rash and desperate as ours. Twilight had set in, and from the garden I issued to the long avenue that led to the Rennes-road. It was dark and gloomy, and the clipped yews assumed all kinds of quaint and terrible forms. While loitering there, I became conscious that a man was observing me from behind one of the orange tubs, one of which, I have said, stood between each of the yews. Having no desire to meet any one, I was turning off hastily towards the chateau, when suddenly the lurker stepped before me, saying—
"Pardieu, my pretty one, it seems that he you wait for is not likely to come. Permit me to offer you my arm."
He was a tall, swinging fellow of a repulsive aspect, with a long knife in his belt and a broad hat slouched over his gloomy eyes.
"Stand back, monsieur," said I, firmly; "back, or it may be the worse for you. I am one of the household of Madame la Comtesse de Bourgneuf."
"I know that well enough; but don't be alarmed, my fair one—I am only a sportsman."
"Then permit me to pass."
"Oui—but I am a sportsman who looks for better game than a clumsy soubrette," said the fellow, whom I now perceived to be tipsy.
"Indeed, monsieur."
"Vraiment—perhaps Mademoiselle de Broglie herself. Does she often promenade here in the evening?"
Gathering my skirts up to my knees, as they sorely impeded me, I was running quickly away, encumbered by my stays and the paddings with which Angelique in her zeal had furnished them, when this man, who was both strong and active, overtook and confronted me again.
"Stop—speak!" he thundered out with a strange oath which I had somewhere heard before. "Pardieu, my saucy one, I shall teach you that I have not dragged a chain in the casemates of St. Malo, and at the aqueducts of Dol, for nothing."
"You are——" said I, gasping.
"Theophile Hautois," said he, closing the question.
I was thunderstruck, and the memory of Captain Brook, of the outrage he had contemplated with regard to Jacqueline, and my own narrow escape from his deadly couteau de chasse, flashed at once upon my memory. I was unarmed, defenceless, and sadly encumbered by my new costume, though at the same time it effectually disguised me.
I paused for a moment to recover my breath, and then concentrating all my strength and fury in one decisive blow, dealt fairly between the eyes, I knocked the ponderous ruffian down like a nine-pin, and, darting off towards the chateau, reached the vestibule in a state so breathless and excited, that any one who saw me would have deemed me a most timid and gentle woman in reality.
What Master Hautois thought, on receiving such a knock on the head from a fair hand, it may be difficult to conceive; but I saw no more of him for some time, nor could he be found, though the whole of the grounds were immediately and rigorously searched by Urbain and a party of armed men.
That this daring outlaw should prowl so near the chateau filled Jacqueline and her maid with the greatest alarm; and for myself, I took the precaution to carry about with me a small pistol, the charge of which I frequently renewed.
In the boudoir of the countess (a charming little circular chamber which opened off the drawing-room, and was entirely hung with rose-coloured silk, and had long windows which overlooked the garden and labyrinth), I was detailing to her my adventure in the avenue, and was also employed in the manly occupation of winding a skein of silk for some piece of work which her niece and Angelique were manufacturing for the cathedral of St. Malo, when the countess said to me—
"Basile, my child, you look very sad."
"Do I seem so, madame?"
"Yes," she continued, surveying me through her glass—a process which always made me wince; "I can read a sad expression in your eyes."
"It may be so, madame, there are few hearts without some hidden sorrow—some veiled secret."
"But you are so young! Ah, I see, you are in love!"
"It may be so," said I again, with a furtive glance at Jacqueline, near whom I was kneeling, and who grew pale as her aunt spoke.
"With some one far away?"
"Do not press me, madame; suffice that it is a mad and almost hopeless love—hopeless as regards its future," said I, bitterly, while Jacqueline gave me a secret and imploring glance. "I love, madam, how dearly and how deeply, is known only to Heaven and myself. There—that is my secret—that my hidden sorrow and joy—joy for the delight it gives me, and sorrow for its future."
The face of Jacqueline beamed with pleasure, and her eyes sparkled as she bent her flushed face over her needlework.
"I would that M. Jacquot would speak thus of me," said Angelique, "I shall pull his ears some day, till he does so."
The old lady politely asked pardon of me for her curiosity, and was proceeding to detail some of her own early experiences and to rehearse the number of Counts, Abbés, Chevaliers, and Grand Crosses of St. Louis, who had sighed and died for her, when a servant suddenly announced the Chevalier de Boisguiller; then we heard the clank of a sabre with the jingle of spurs, and that gay hussar in his brilliant uniform, all gold braid and bell buttons, with his fur cap in one hand, and the other caressing his dearly cherished moustache, entered, bowing and smiling to us all.
He was en route, he said, with his troop, from Rennes to the coast, and as he would pass near St. Malo, he had galloped on in front to pay his respects at the chateau, and obtain the honour of conveying any message for his father, the commandant, from the Countess Ninon—one who far excelled the Ninon of the preceding age.
There was mischief lurking in the handsome fellow's eyes as he said all this. He soon detected an impudent smile on the lips of Angelique, and, ere long, I found him eyeing me sharply through his glass, and I felt a horrible dread lest he should recognise me, or discover my sex.
I was certain the crisis had come, when the hussar captain said—
"By-the-by, my dear mademoiselle, what did you make of the Englishman, whose life you saved from my fellows, when we were last here?"
"The young man who saved my life from Hautois?" asked Jacqueline, slowly.
"Yes, 'twas turn about, it would seem."
"Monsieur le Chevalier, he was taken to St. Malo," said Angelique, who came to the rescue of her mistress.
"And since then, my girl?"
"We have heard no more of him."
"'Tis well," said the chevalier, who, as his eye chanced again to fall on me, caused my heart to swell alternately with alarm and anger. "Those English folks are about to pay us a visit again."
"Again—O mon Dieu!" we all exclaimed together.
"More shipping and troops are being concentrated at their rendezvous of both Portsmouth and Plymouth," said he, while playing with the gold tassels of the cord which held the furred pelisse on his left shoulder; "but my father is ready for them at St. Malo, and Brest and Cherbourg are in excellent hands."
Though reflection or thought evidently but seldom troubled our hussar, he now proceeded to make some remarks with which I, mentally, coincided.
"Parbleu! what did the King of Great Britain propose to gain by invading France with a force of about twelve thousand men? He takes a town or so, which he cannot keep—he effects a landing under great difficulties on our most dangerous coast, and lands only to embark again."
"The British did not invade France with the hope of conquest," said Jacqueline; "but to harass us and destroy our arsenals it would appear."
"Well, fair cousin, it may be so; but as the Duc de Marlborough is not like his namesake who fought against the Grand Monarque, I don't believe our courtiers at Paris or Versailles were very much alarmed by this recent landing of a handful of British at Cancalle Bay. At Versailles, they quite laughed at the idea of John Bull's vast armament to burn some fifteen or twenty old crazy hulks at St. Solidore."
"Fifteen or twenty, monsieur," said I, with unwise pique; "I thought the British destroyed eighty-six vessels of all kinds, and sank or destroyed two hundred and thirty-four pieces of cannon."
"Peste! you are well informed, my fair soubrette," said the captain, fixing his glass in his eye, and giving me a steady stare, while Jacqueline looked at me imploringly, and with intense alarm.
"Peace, Basile," said the countess, severely.
"But so many troops are now entering Brittany from all points," resumed the chevalier, "to strengthen the hands of the Duc d'Aiguillon, that I don't think our island neighbours will be so rash as to visit us again."
Kettledrums were now heard in the distance. I felt my cheek flush—my ears tingle at the sound; and when I looked up from my skein of silk, the keen eyes of Boisguiller were still regarding me.
"Already I must tear myself away, countess," said he, rising; "my troop will be here immediately."
"Why not halt for a time?"
"Nay, madame, a hundred men and horses are too many to trespass on your generosity, as our advanced party did before. Adieu, mademoiselle!" said he, kissing the hand of Jacqueline with a tenderness that certainly was not bestowed upon the yellow fingers of the Aunt Ninon; "adieu, pretty Angelique—and you, what is your name, mademoiselle?"
"Basile."
"Have you any tender messages for the Queen's Own Hussars? Believe me, girls, you are both too pretty to become the helpmates of charcoal-burners, and Breton woodcutters; so think of us sometimes."
Then with a low bow the chevalier pirouetted out of the room, and my heart beat more freely when I heard his horse galloping down the avenue.
From a window I saw the hussars defiling by threes, past the end of the long and stately avenue of yews—along the road that led from Rennes. I heard the patter of the kettledrums, and saw the glittering sabres, the rich uniforms, the waving plumes, the braided pelisses, the gaudy housings of the horses, the sky-blue standard with the three fleurs de lys, that waved in the centre of the troop; and my heart swelled with proud and regretful emotions, as I thought of my present absurd and dangerous position, of my absent comrades—the lads who boasted themselves "second to none," and with whom I had twice ridden sword in hand, through the ranks of Boisguiller's Hussars.
That the chevalier was an ardent admirer of Jacqueline I perceived but too plainly; yet I did not dread him much as a rival, especially as the Catholic Church will not—unless in very particular instances—permit the marriage of cousins, and they were both within the forbidden degrees. But I dreaded his discovering me—his probable revenge for the insult implied by my residence so near his cousin; and yet this chevalier was a handsome, brave, and gallant fellow.
I was roused from my reverie by a soft hand that was laid caressingly on mine. I turned, and met the pretty face and dark eyes of Angelique.
"Twice, monsieur," said she, "I thought our rogue of a chevalier had discovered you; what eyes he has!"
"Tell me, Angelique: this chevalier, who was so anxious to have me knocked on the head when I first came here, does he—does he——"
"What, kiss me occasionally? Of course, every one does so sometimes—that is, except you."
"I can soon make amends for this unpardonable omission."
"That will do; one is enough, in that dress especially. Well?"
"Does he love your mistress?"
"He is her cousin. Of course he loves her."
"The devil!"
"But every one does."
"Does she love him?"
"Can you ask me that?" said the Breton girl, turning on me with her black eyes flashing.
I was silent, for I now knew that the prudent Angelique was completely the mistress of our dangerous secret.
"Well has propinquity done its work!" thought I.
I found the Countess Ninon very amusing (though fond of recurring with sorrowful recollections to her first love, a Scottish captain in the Irish Dragoons of Lord Clare, who had fallen in battle somewhere); and notwithstanding the little vanities incident to her years, sex, and country, her conversation was instructive. Thus, while attending her and her niece in their walks, &c., I listened with pleasure to her anecdotes of the court of Louis XIV., and even of that of Louis XIII., which she had gleaned from her mother.
At night, when the perfumed wax-candles were lighted in her boudoir, and I was busy with my skeins of silk, while she and Angelique plied their needles on the embroidery for that Right Reverend Father, the Bishop of St. Malo, she would tell us many a strange old story of the Breton wars between Guy of Thouars and Philip Augustus; of the enchanted sea-ducks that were neither fish nor flesh, but grew between the planks of ships that sailed in Breton waters; of the toad-stones that were found in the mountains, and proved a sovereign remedy for all manner of poisons; of the terrors of the Black Forest of Hunandaye; of the buried cities of Is and Douarnenez; of the ghosts that shrieked in the ancient vaults that lie between Rieux and Redon, and the subterranean torrent of St. Aubyn du Cormier.
She knew also many strange and wild legends of the great stones that stud all the land so thickly from Lorient to Quiberon—rising out of lonely heaths that are covered with holly and thistles, like that great block which marks, near Morlaix, where a peasant was devoured by the Moon, for blaspheming her. She told of the dreadful shipwrecks the Point of Raz had witnessed; of the Bay of the Dead, and the island of Sein, a melancholy sandholm, whereon neither grass nor trees will grow, and which was, of old, the abode of Celtic witches, who sold fair winds or foul to the Breton mariners.
I remember being particularly struck with a strange story which she related of the famous Ninon de L'Enclos, who is said to have preserved her beauty until she numbered ninety years.
We were seated in her boudoir. It was the fourth evening of my obnoxious masquerading. The eternal piece of embroidery for the bishop was finished at last, and Angelique was busy with the soft, silky, and luxuriant black hair of Jacqueline, which she had unloosed, and was pinning up for the night, before a large mirror, while I sat on a tabourette at some distance, contemplating with secret joy and admiration the beauty of one I loved so much, and envying her soubrette, a service which I could neither imitate nor perform.
It would seem as if the beautiful girl felt some coquettish joy in the contemplation of herself, for after a pause she said to her aunt—
"Tell me honestly, my dear aunt, am I as pretty as you could wish?"
"Quite so, Jacqueline."
"And you, Basile?"
I could only clasp my hands in silence.
"Yet," resumed Madame, "you are not half so pretty as I was at the same age."
"When Milord Clare's Irish dragoons lay at Versailles?" said Jacqueline, quickly adding, "of course not, dear aunt; I could not hope to excel you. The old Comte de Boisguiller is always polite enough to tell me so."
"Does he indeed? Dear M. le Comte!" said Madame, applying a gold vinaigrette to her nose to conceal a gratified smile. "You are charming, Jacqueline. But remember that faces which are pretty in youth often become hideous in age."
"You were beautiful, aunt?"
"Like yourself, Jacqueline. When Lord Clare's——"
"I do not care; I shall marry when young and lovely, and when old and hideous my husband cannot put me away."
"But he may love some one else."
Jacqueline glanced at me coquettishly between the masses that overhung her face, and her smile made my heart beat lightly and joyously.
"Oh, to be like Ninon de l'Enclos," said she; "always lovely!"
"Always?"
"Yes, dear aunt."
"Do you know the true, the terrible story of the reckless woman you speak of?" asked the countess, gravely.
"No; does it convey a moral?"
"A most severe one; shall I tell it you?"
"If you please, dear aunt, and if it is not too dreadful," replied Jacqueline, as she ran her slender white fingers through the masses of dark hair that overhung her shoulders.
Then without further preamble, the garrulous old countess commenced the following narrative, which, to say truth, I thought a very strange one; but the subject of it was the bosom-friend of Madame de Maintenon, of the Marquise de Sévigné, and moved in the best society of the very singular Paris of her day.
Ninon, I have said, had lovers when verging on her ninetieth year! Whence came this mystery? Like Poppæa Sabina, the second wife of Nero, Ninon is averred to have preserved her wondrous beauty unimpaired to extreme old age, by using baths of asses' milk; but it was neither these, nor the famous cosmetic, so long known among our Parisian belles as Crême de l'Enclos, the component parts of which are milk, lemon-juice and brandy, which preserved the dazzling complexion and delicate skin of Ninon for so many years untouched by Time; but a spell wrought upon her by the great master of evil, whom she served throughout a long and wasted life.
It would seem as if Time, the destroyer of all things, failed to impair the charms of Ninon, at least entirely, for he could not deprive her of her marvellous power to win and seduce; thus, at her age of ninety, does not the Abbé Chaulieu say? "that Cupid had retreated even into the lines of her forehead." Hence in age she was worshipped for her beauty, by the grandsons of those who had loved her in the bloom of her youth!
Ninon was born at Paris in May, 1616, during the reign of Louis XIII. Her father was a gallant, but dissipated gentleman of Touraine, who had fought in the battles of Henry the Great. Her mother was Mademoiselle de Raconis, a lady of Orleans, from whom she inherited her beauty and gaiety of disposition. Monsieur de l'Enclos was passionately fond of music, and inspired his daughter with the same taste, so that in girlhood she became mistress of the lute, the harp and guitar; but Madame de l'Enclos, who destined her for a convent, was averse to such accomplishments as frivolities, and was careful to take her daughter to Notre Dame twice daily—that is, to morning mass and to evening vespers; but little Ninon always substituted for her missal some little volume of poetry, or a romance which she read under her veil, as she knelt before the altar, thus her responses were often very odd ones.
Before she was ten years of age she had all Charron and Montaigne by heart, and spoke with fluency the Spanish and Italian languages.
In her fifteenth year, the death of her parents left Ninon the mistress of her own actions, with a fortune of ten thousand livres per annum.
Her loveliness was then divine! Her form was finely proportioned, her complexion singularly delicate; her face was a fine oval, and long dark lashes with drooping lids gave a charming softness to her sparkling hazel eyes. Her hair was a rich golden brown, and fell about her neck in wavy profusion. Her little nostrils, her rosy mouth and chin were perfect!
In temper she was at times violent and imperious, and her disposition had this peculiarity, that while even eager and lively about trifles that affected herself, she was too often carelessly cold and selfishly indifferent about all that concerned others.
She was born to be a coquette, and the spirit of gallantry, with the desire to charm, win and enslave, pervaded her whole existence. She was the centre of Parisian fashion; lovers she had in plenty, and if she desired to marry, some of the proudest titles in France were at her disposal; but Ninon, whom her mother had destined for the service of God, preferred a life of perfect freedom—such freedom as the days of Louis "the Just" permitted, with independence and intrigue—to live, not for others, but for herself alone.
We shall see how all this ended.
One night in the year 1633, she was seated alone in a room of her house in the Rue de Parlement, behind the Palais-Royal. Her lovers, the Counts de Coligné and Jersey, and her favourite friends, the Comtesse de la Suze, D'Olonne, and the Duchesse de Bouillon-Mancini, the cripple Abbé Scarron, M. de Sévigné, and others, had all retired and departed in their carriages or sedans, and Ninon was now seated before a mirror in that famous boudoir, the walls of which, as history tells us, were decorated with frescoes, that illustrated the story of Cupid and Pysche.
Ninon was now only in her seventeenth year. She observed that she was very pale, that her round cheeks were colourless, and some remarks made by the Abbé Scarron on the decay of youth, the fading of beauty, the gradual advance of years, made the young girl thoughtful; and she was too intelligent and too well-read to be without reflection, so she thought of the future with forebodings, for already had late hours and gaiety robbed her of her roses.
Arrayed for conquest, who at that time could have competed with Ninon? Round her slender neck she wore the collet-monti, or standing collar, which disappeared with Louis XIV.; her fine hair was delicately sprinkled with perfumed maréchal powder; a kissing-patch, like a tiny star, was in one of the dimples at the corner of her rosy mouth, and her robe of silver gauze was looped in ample festoons, to display the petticoat of crimson brocade beneath.
Would a time ever come when she would be covered with wrinkles, like the Comtesse de la Suze, or when her most passionate lover, the gay young English Count of Jersey* would weary of her? Oh, mon Dieu! it was not to be thought of with patience.
* William Villiers, Viscount Grandison, then known in France by that title.
At that moment Guillot, her valet, tapped at the door of her boudoir.
"Who is there?" she asked, impatiently.
"A stranger, who would speak with you, mademoiselle," replied Guillot.
"A stranger, and at this hour! What is his name?"
"He declines to give it."
"Ridiculous! Is he armed?"
"No, mademoiselle."
"Is he young or handsome?"
"No, mademoiselle; he is very old and shabbily dressed."
"Then say I am ill, weary, busy, engaged with company, or what you please, Guillot; only do not trouble me with him."
The valet bowed and retired, but soon returned.
"He says, mademoiselle, that he knows you are alone, that you are neither ill nor weary, nor busy, for which reason he has chosen to visit you at present. That he has come from a long distance, and has a secret of vast importance to communicate to you."
"A pertinacious old fool!" muttered Ninon; "but admit him."
The stranger entered, and with a cunning leer in his eyes surveyed the chamber, particularly the frescoes of Cupid and Pysche, and then they rested on Ninon, who for a moment, she knew not why, felt the young blood curdle in her heart beneath his sparkling glance.
Her visitor was a little, decrepit old man with shrunken limbs. His coat and breeches, "a world too wide," were of black serge, and large black japanned buckles covered three-fourths of his shoes. He wore a high conical hat with a very narrow brim. This he removed on entering, but still retained on his head an old-fashioned calotte cap of black velvet, the lappets of which hung down by his withered cheeks.
His appearance betokened extreme old age, but one that was healthy and vigorous withal; for his eyes, which glittered and sometimes glared through his black horn spectacles, were wondrously large, keen, and bright; and his hair, instead of being grey or thin, was stuffed in masses, coal-black and coarse, under the calotte cap.
"Good evening, my dear Mademoiselle de L'Enclos," said this singular little personage, with a blunt and familiar, but smiling nod.
"It is almost morning, monsieur," replied Ninon, with petulance; "the clock of the Palais Royal has just struck midnight, so pray what is your business with me at such an hour?"
"That you shall learn, mademoiselle, when your valet retires, but not till then," replied the little man, with a withering glance at Guillot.
Ninon was somewhat alarmed on hearing this; but being impelled by an irresistible power, she made a sign to the wondering valet, who withdrew and closed the door. Then the quaint old man immediately opened it, and on finding that Guillot lingered with an ear at the keyhole, he gave him a glance so piercing, that he retired with considerable precipitation.
"Now, monsieur, your business?" said Ninon.
"Were I young and handsome, like the Count de Jersey, perchance you would be less impatient," replied the impudent old man, with a horrible grin, while applying the forefinger of his right hand to the side of his hooked nose, and winking one of his wicked eyes; "yet confess, my beauty, that your heart sinks when you look on me?"
"It does," murmured Ninon, who felt, she knew not why, on the verge of fainting, and fascinated by the dark stranger's glittering eyes.
"Be not alarmed," he resumed, blandly, and with an expression in those serpent-like orbs that was not a smile; "you have nothing to fear from me—as yet."
"As yet!" repeated Ninon, breathlessly.
"Listen, mademoiselle," said he, striking his long silver-headed cane on the floor; "you see before you one whom all mankind—yea, and womankind, too—obey and fear; one whom Nature hath endowed with the rare power of dispensing wondrous gifts. I was present at your birth——"
"You?"
"I; and from that hour I have watched your career, sedulously, and with satisfaction, though unseen."
"This is folly or raving!" exclaimed Ninon, gathering courage, and stretching out her beautiful hand towards a bell; but a sharp, fierce glance from the old man's great goggle eyes restrained her, and she said, gently, "What is your object?"
"To inquire what lot you wish for yourself in life."
"My present one is brilliant enough. I have an income of ten thousand livres, a house here in Paris, another at the Cordeliers, a circle of delightful friends, and lovers in plenty."
"Friends change and lovers too; beauty fades, youth becomes age, and age becomes wearisome and hideous."
"True; but I am only seventeen—for seventeen years more, at least, I shall be beautiful."
"You will then be four-and-thirty, mademoiselle, when beauty begins to fade and the ripe bloom of youth is past. Then old age will come, and that is what my friend De la Rochefoucault terms 'the hell of women.'
"Your object, I repeat, monsieur?" asked Ninon, glancing at the clock and yawning without disguise.
"I come to give you the choice of three gifts; firstly, the highest honours in France; secondly, splendid wealth; and thirdly, eternal beauty. The world does not possess another being who could make you the same offers as I."
"You are either a quack or a fool," said Ninon, imperiously, as she laid her hand on the bell to summon Guillot; but again the great eyes of the quaint old man daunted her.
"Choose," said he, emphatically; "I have no time for trifling; rank, wealth, or a beauty that shall endure without change for four score years at least."
"Then give me the latter—eternal beauty, that I may have lovers and adorers for ever," said Ninon, laughing; "but pray, my dear old man, how is such a gift to be acquired?"
"By yourself, mademoiselle; it is very simple. Write your name with your own lovely hand, in this book; swear to me secrecy for life, and the thing is done."
He bowed, and advancing, laid before her a very handsome pocket-book, bound in scarlet, and richly gilt.
Ninon, heedless of the matter, and neither believing in, nor caring for his assumed powers, laughingly gave the promise he required, and wrote her name in his tablets, which he instantly closed, and consigned to his deep breeches pocket.
"Now, mademoiselle," said the little man, with a chuckle and a grimace, as he waved his hands towards her, "receive the power of possessing eternal beauty, the power of controlling every heart, and being beloved for long, long years, after all who know and love you now are consigned to the silent tomb."
"All?" said Ninon, almost sadly, as she thought of the Count de Jersey, while a strange thrill passed over all her body, and a sensation like the pricking of needles. Recovering herself, however, she said, with a pouting lip, "Monsieur, you jest."
"That is not my habit," responded the old man, with a wicked grin; "but when I do jest, few laugh at me, even in Paris, which I can remember when celebrated for the extreme gravity of its inhabitants."
"When was this?"
"In the days of my friend Julian the apostate, who says, in his amusing book, the 'Misopognon,' that he loves our dear Parisians on account of their gravity."
"Who are you that say such things, and pretend to so much power?" asked Ninon, with displeasure.
"I am one who has known this lower world, its heartlessness and trickery, its crooked ways and its wickedness, for exactly six thousand years, six months, fourteen days, eleven hours, and fifty-five minutes—the clock of the Palais Royal is ten minutes fast, mademoiselle. Adieu; I shall keep faith with you. Your beauty shall last as I have said, and we shall meet twice again."
"When?"
"Once at your house of the Cordeliers, and again in Paris, during the next century."
"The next century!" repeated Ninon, with a laugh; "and this is but 1633."
"Exactly—adieu, mademoiselle," and placing his conical hat jauntily on one side of his moplike head of coarse black hair, the old man put his cane under his arm and bowed himself out.
How the enchanting Ninon slept that night we have no means of knowing. In the morning she would have deemed the whole affair a dream, but for the solemn and reiterated assertions of her valet, who had ushered in the nocturnal visitor; and a dream she might ultimately have thought it, had she not found that, beyond all doubt, as years rolled on, as her young companions became old, faded, and withered, and were gathered to the tomb, she still remained youthful, blooming, full of health and spirit, and the possessor of unimpaired loveliness.
The Count de Jersey joined King Charles I., and died in 1643 of a wound received at the siege of Bristol. But the heartless Ninon soon forgot him, and others supplied his place.
Louis XIII. and Cardinal Richelieu were taken to their last home; Louis XIV. succeeded—the Augustan age of France—the age which gave her such soldiers as Turenne and Condé, such literati as Racine, Corneille, and Molière, such orators as Massillon, Bossuet, and Lamothe Fénélon, and which saw the exiled Stuarts repining at St. Germain; but still Ninon was young and lovely. She sedulously cultivated the fashions of each age, and wore the extreme of the mode—from the starched ruff of Louis the Thirteenth's time, to the coiffure à la giraffe—the towering head-dresses of the early part of the eighteenth century.
As Le Sage says of Donna Inesilla (under which name he introduces Ninon in his novel of "Gil Blas") "she had been idolized by the noblemen of the old court, and saw herself adored by those of the new. Time, that spares not even beauty, had exerted itself upon hers in vain; he could not deprive her of the power to please, and a noble air, an enchanting wit, and graces that were peculiar to her, made her inspire men with passion, even in her old age."
So was it with Ninon, save that her beauty never decayed.
In her fifty-sixth year she was residing in her little country villa at the Cordeliers. It was delightfully situated, and was surrounded by a beautiful landscape, and there she usually spent the months of summer. During this year she had also spent the autumn there, to avoid a young cavalier, who had followed her constantly about the streets and public places of Paris, and whose attentions thus had caused her serious annoyance—all the more, perhaps, that the young man seemed somewhat poor, though very handsome and extremely well-bred.
One evening Ninon was alone. She was reading "Les Amours du Grand Alcandre," under which name her father's comrade, the gay Maréchal Duc de Bassompierre, narrated some of the love affairs of Henri Quatre, when her page, the grandson of Guillot, announced that a gentleman in black, who would not give his name, desired to speak with her.
She instantly thought of the mysterious visitor of 1633, and tremblingly said that he might be admitted. Contrary to her expectation, there entered a very handsome young man, about four-and-twenty years of age, dressed in a black velvet suit, slashed with white satin, and wearing a steel-hilted rapier slung in a white silk scarf. He knelt before her, and the volume of Bassompierre fell from her hand when she recognised the unknown lover who had followed her like her shadow about the streets of Paris.
"Monsieur," said she, "you weary me! What is the object of your visit—and what is your name?"
"Mademoiselle," said he, in trembling accents, and with a flushing cheek, "I am the Chevalier Guillaume de Villiers."
At this name Ninon started and grew deadly pale.
"A lieutenant in the regiment of Artois?" she asked.
"The same, madame; but how know you that?"
"It matters not how; but proceed."
"I was severely wounded when Turenne forced the Spanish lines at Arras, and again on our retreat from Valenciennes, by the ball of an arquebuss. The viscount sent me on leave to Paris. There I saw you, mademoiselle, and have dared to—to love you in secret—to love you passionately!"
Ninon, who had been regarding the speaker with mournful interest, now arose and sprang back in dismay; for this Chevalier de Villiers—this handsome young man, so pale, so sad, and gentle-eyed, was no other than her own son, whom since his birth she had secluded in the provinces; who never knew either his mother, or his father—the Count de Jersey; and who now by a strange fatality, in ignorance of their relationship, had fallen madly in love with her!
Then followed that terrible episode which is so powerfully reproduced in "Gil Blas."
Perceiving her confusion, and being dazzled by her marvellous beauty, the young officer took her hands in his, and covered them with kisses; but Ninon started back, and exclaimed—
"Beware, rash boy, and listen to me!" Then pointing to the clock on the mantel-piece, she added, "Look there! at this very hour, four-and-twenty years ago, I was secretly delivered of you, Guillaume de Villiers, in this very chamber. I am your mother!"*
* This episode is mentioned in the "Memoirs of Ninon de l'Enclos," 2 vols.; published in 1776. The story of her compact with Satan is an old legend of Paris.
Abashed and terrified, filled with mortification and shame—after a terrible pause—the young man drew his long rapier; and ere Ninon could conceive or arrest his purpose, he placed the hilt on the floor, and sprung upon the blade, which passed through his heart, and killed him on the spot.
Inspired with horror by this sudden catastrophe, Ninon clung to the mantel-piece; but a loud chuckling laugh made her look up,—and lo!
At one of the open windows of her chamber there stood a little old man clad in sad coloured garments of an antique fashion; his shock-head of black hair was surmounted by a conical hat, which he waggishly wore very much on one side, and he was sucking the silver knob of his cane. Through his round horn spectacles his eyes glared on Ninon with a malignant smile she had no difficulty in remembering. He made her a low ironical bow, and hobbled away with another chuckling laugh which made her blood curdle.
Her lively nature survived even this shock! She returned to her house near the Palais Royal, and amid the gaieties of Paris, and her circle of friends and admirers, among whom were some of the greatest wits in Paris, such as Rochefoucault, St. Evremond, La Bruyere, and others—a circle that was ever being renewed, she soon forgot the doubly horrid episode of her house at the Cordeliers.
Christina, Queen of Sweden, became one of her friends when at Paris, and was so charmed by her conversation, that at parting she declared to the whole court that she had "never met with any woman in France to compare with the illustrious Ninon." The latter was in her sixty-fifth year when the famous General Sir John Banier (the comrade of Gustavus Adolphus), who fought at Magdeburg and Leipzig, threw himself at her feet, as the poor Chevalier de Villiers and many more had done; but Ninon only laughed, and said—
"My dear general, you will find that it requires more genius to make love than to make war."
So time passed on, and, as I have said, at the age of fourscore Ninon was still to all appearance young, and so charming, that the Abbé Gedoine, a youth of twenty, who had fluttered about her house in the Rue de Parlement, became madly in love with her; but Ninon was tiring now of lovers, and even of life itself.
"Ah, Ninon," said the abbé, "love has too long been alike your amusement and your occupation."
"My dear abbé," she replied, "the most brief follies are the best. I perceive now, when it is somewhat too late, that it was an absurd step in me to accept of you as an admirer. Let us carry the frolic no farther, but fairly quit each other this instant; and for the term of our natural lives."
Thus, after inspiring a youth of twenty with a real passion for her, was Ninon, in her eightieth year, the first to break off from him. In short, from her first boy-lover, the Count de Coligni, when she was only seventeen, to the advent of the Abbé Gedoine, her long life had been a succession of conquests.
In the first days of October, 1706, an illness of a kind so peculiar that it baffled the best physicians in Paris—a languor, wasting and helplessness fell upon Ninon, but amid it she looked lovelier than ever, though she was then ninety years and five months old!
In succession had the doctors come and gone, surprised and bewildered by a malady for which they had neither a name nor a remedy. At last there came one whom no one knew, and who requested to see Ninon alone.
He was a decrepit, but hale little man, very old apparently, though his hair was coal-black. He wore a dark suit, an absurd conical hat, and large horn spectacles, and leaned on a silver-headed cane, which at every pace he planted firmly on the pavement, as if he had a very good opinion of himself. In his left hand he carried a pocket-book of scarlet morocco, richly gilt—doubtless his book of pharmacy.
Propped upon a pillow, the dying Ninon—for she was dying now—regarded him with an awful expression in her hollow eyes.
"Do you remember me, madame?" he was heard to say, by those who loitered or listened without.
"But too well," moaned the patient.
"Yet fair ladies have often brief memories."
"And I have been your dupe! Begone, fiend—you are powerless, and I defy you!"
The old man uttered his chuckling laugh.
"Begone, I say, to that hell from hence you have come."
"Then I go not alone!" was the strange response, and there rung through the chamber a shriek of agony, and with it mingled the strange demoniac laughter of the little man in black. The listeners heard also the stamping of his feet, and exclamations of rage; then all became still—terribly still.
When the door, which had hitherto defied their efforts to force it, was opened, the stranger could nowhere be found; he had disappeared, hat, stick, spectacles and all; but they found Ninon, and she was no more.
The coverlet and other clothes were disordered, the silk hangings torn; the bed bore evidence that a fierce struggle had taken place; but great was the astonishment of all on beholding the rapid change that came over her remains, even while they gazed on them.
They were no longer those of the seeming young and lovely beauty they had known so long, but were turning fast into those of an extremely aged person. The oval face became haggard; the smooth forehead a mass of wrinkles; the pearly teeth disappeared; the lovely tresses of silky brown turned into a few white straggling hairs, and the plump pretty hands became shrivelled and yellow.
Thus within one minute the remains of the once enchanting Ninon turned into those of an old—hideously old—woman, who had died of strangulation, for on her withered neck remained several marks, made by the ferocious clutch of that black stranger, who could never more be traced.
This was on the evening of the 17th of October, 1706.
I had been disguised us a soubrette for five days when those terrible events, by which I lost my love, and nearly my life, and had to leave the chateau, occurred in rapid succession.
On the evening after we had listened to the story of Ninon, I was seated with Jacqueline in a secluded bower of the garden. The atmosphere was oppressively warm, and I had removed alike the large linen cap and the false curls with which Angelique had supplied me; thus, unfortunately, no one who saw me could for a moment have doubted the sex of Basile, the sham paysanne from the Morbihan.
Jacqueline reclined with her head upon my shoulder, and while seated hand in hand, I was speaking of the apparent hopelessness of our future, when she interrupted me by saying,
"Remember, Basil, that at our age nothing is hopeless either in fortune or in love."
"True," I repeated, tremulously, while gazing tenderly into her clear and beautiful eyes; "yet, ere I saw you, love Jacqueline, at times I was already sick of life."
"Sick of life! Your world in England must be a horrid place, if people weary of it so soon."
"You mistake me. Every heart, as I said to your aunt the other night, has some secret sorrow, and I have mine—a lost position. Bravely did I bear the cross till I was taken prisoner——"
"Do you deem yourself such?"
"I mean till I was left here, abandoned in hostile France, thus crushing all the brilliant schemes I had formed for the future."
"Enter the service of France. I have vast interest through my father, through my cousin Bourgneuf, and the Comte de Boisguiller. Who can say how high you may rise? We have still our Irish Brigade and the regiment of Royal Scots, and to be a Scotsman is still a passport to royal favour in France."
"Was, Jacqueline; you should say it was. But that day has gone for ever, nor would such views suit me if it remained. I thank you, my beloved, but this can never be."
A sound as of steps among the shrubbery close by made us pause, and then Jacqueline, after looking hastily round, asked—
"Is the chateau becoming so terrible to you?"
"Ah! do not ask me that, at least in such a tone of pique. With you I should indeed be happy anywhere."
"Should be—are you not?"
"I am happy."
"Then whence this repining, Basil?" she asked, softly, perhaps reproachfully.
"Understand me; it is the ever present question, where will the love I bear you—a love so deep and desperate—end? Would it not have been better that we had never known and never loved each other so?"
"Why, Basil, why?"
"You are the daughter of a peer of France, the Maréchal de Broglie; I—oh, Heaven! you know me but as an unfortunate gentleman—a poor private dragoon. I have not even an epaulette to boast of!"
"Then I shall give you two," said Jacqueline, putting a white hand on each of my shoulders, and kissing me playfully on the check.
"Mon Dieu, it is too much!" exclaimed a piercing voice; the hands of Jacqueline were torn away, and Madame de Bourgneuf, in all the rage of offended virtue, dignity, and nobility, stood with pallid face and flashing eyes before us. "So, so, this is Basile, the paysanne from the Morbihan! A man, a heretic, a foreigner, a soldier in the arms of my niece, of Mademoiselle de Broglie! Oh, what horror is this!" she almost screamed aloud.
The rustling in the shrubbery is quite accounted for now, thought I. But I was wrong, for keener eyes might have detected the figure of a man—of Theophile Hautois—lurking like a panther near us.
Jacqueline covered her eyes with one hand, and clung by the other to the side of the arbour. Indeed, had I not supported her she would have fallen, and now there ensued a long and most painful pause, during which I prayed the earth to open and swallow me.
I was thunderstruck, and poor Jacqueline, overwhelmed by dismay and shame, cowered upon the seat with her sweet face hidden by her hands. Presence of mind alone could save us now. I waited until the first paroxysm of anger was past, and then addressed the too justly offended countess.
Heaven only knows what I said then, but love for poor Jacqueline and the desperation of my own plight lent me eloquence; thus rapidly and briefly I related all my story since the morning on which I had saved her life in the mulberry wood near the well by the wayside that led to our camp at Paramé, down to the present hour. Madame acknowledged that she had overheard enough to convince her that I loved her niece with respect and tenderness, but added almost fiercely that the vast gulf opened by our difference of position rendered that love a madness and a crime.
I acknowledged all this, and in terms that I cannot now recal, urged for the preservation of her family honour and her own high name, the policy of preserving secrecy in the affair; and she evidently felt the force of my argument, as it was a circumstance which would seriously embroil her with her brother the Maréchal, her son the Count de Bourgneuf, and perhaps with French society in general; though as a Frenchwoman she felt that she could almost forgive anything that had love for an excuse. After a time, I begged her to remember that I was an Ecossais, and besought her by the memory of the olden time, and her own early predilections, to pardon Jacqueline, if not me, for all that had passed.
This was assailing madame's weak point, and a hectic flush crossed the pale cheek of Jacqueline, as, no doubt, she thought of "the handsome Scottish Captain of milord Clare's Dragoons," of whom we heard so much every evening.
"Très bien, monsieur; am I then to understand that you are Scottish?" said she, in a gentler tone.
"I am, Madame. Let your favour for one whom you have so often said was dear to you—a soldier of fortune—plead for me now."
"'Tis well that this malheur has occurred here at my sequestered house, and not at the Hotel de Broglie in the Rue St. Dominique at Paris: but let that pass. We Bretons love the Scots as the friends of our forefathers in the olden time, and we all know that it was to the love of a young Scottish girl our brave Du Guay Trouin owed his escape from an English prison, and that in her arms he died in 1736.* But this painful matter must be ended, and a convent may cure mademoiselle of an infatuation which degrades her. To drive you, monsieur, from the chateau—"
* A love for the Scots and dislike for their fellow-subjects still exist in Brittany. See "Wanderings" there, published by Bentley, 1860, &c.
"The fate I own, with all humility, I deserve."
"Would be to ensure your death: but mademoiselle my niece has acted most unwisely—even culpably—in not confiding in me; and now you must be separated, and for ever."
"Alas, madame!——"
"This absurd disguise, monsieur, must be relinquished, and to have you sent at once from hence in safety, if it can be accomplished, shall now be my task."
"I submit to your decision, madame," said I, with a sinking heart. "Deep affection causes deep submission, and to love so fondly as I do, often causes more sorrow than joy. Dear, dear Jacqueline!"
"Enough of this!" interrupted Madame de Bourgneuf, loftily and severely, "Retire to your room, monsieur. When next I see you, let it be in the attire of your sex, and dearly shall that minx Angelique pay for her share in this deplorable—this most unfortunate affair."
I bowed and retired, feeling in my heart that Madame de Bourgneuf treated me with great leniency, and such as I did not deserve; for she might have summoned her servants, and had me hanged on the nearest tree, had such been her will and pleasure.
I paused at the end of the garden-walk, and looked back to the rose-covered bower. The countess was regarding me with a fixed and stern expression; but Jacqueline, unseen by her, waved her hand to me sadly in adieu. My soul was wrung—if I may use such an expression—wrung with agony for the unmerited shame thus brought on one who loved me so well, who was so tender and so true; and I cursed my own selfishness.
I bowed in return, and hurried towards the chateau. Alas! that farewell glance was the last we were doomed to see of each other as lovers.