CHAPTER XIV.
It may seem strange, very strange, that with such suspicions on my mind, I should accept an invitation to visit the man who had excited them. Nevertheless I did, and what is perhaps still more strange, those very suspicions were in some degree the cause of my doing so.
When the Marquis first proposed that I should spend a day or two with him at his pavilion de chasse, in the neighbourhood of Bagneres, I felt a doubt in regard to it, of which I was ashamed--I was afraid of feeling afraid of anything, and I instantly accepted his invitation. I know not whether this may be very comprehensible to every one, but let any man remember his feelings when he was nineteen--an age at which we have not learned to distinguish between courage and rashness, prudence and timidity--and he will, at least, in some degree, understand, though he may blame my having acted as I did.
I would willingly have suffered the Marquis to be a day in advance before I fulfilled my engagement, longing for that promised half-hour of conversation with Helen, which was to me one of those cherished anticipations on which the heart of youth spends half its ardour. Oh, how often I wish now-a-day that I could long for anything as I did in my childhood, and fill up the interval between the promise and the fulfilment with bright dreams worth a world of realities. But, alas! the uncertainty of everything earthly gradually teaches man to crowd the vacancy of expectation with fears instead of hopes, and to guard against disappointment instead of dreaming of enjoyment. However, as the Marquis was only to remain three days at his pavilion ere he set out for Paris, he insisted on my accompanying him when he left the Château de l'Orme.
The ride was delightful in itself, but he contrived to withdraw my attention from the scenery by the charms of his conversation. The first subject that he entered upon was my proposed visit to the court; and he drew a thousand light, yet faithful sketches of all the principal courtiers of the day.
"Amongst others," said he, after specifying several that I now forget, "you will see the Duke of Bouillon, brave, shrewd, yet hasty, always hurrying into danger with fearless impetuosity, and then finding means of escape with a coolness which, if exerted at first, would have kept him free from peril. He puts me in mind of a rope-dancer, whose every spring seems as if it would be his last, and yet he catches himself somehow when he appears inevitably gone. In his brother, Turenne, a very different character is to be met with, or rather, perhaps, the same character without its defects. What in Bouillon is rashness, in Turenne is courage; what is cunning in the one is wisdom in the other. I believe Turenne would sacrifice himself to his country; but if Bouillon were to erect an altar to any deity, it would be, I am afraid, to himself. Then there is the young and daring Jean de Gondi, who is striving for the archbishopric of Paris; the most talented man in Europe, but gifted or cursed with that strange lightness of soul which sports with everything as if it were a trifle--who would overthrow an empire but to re-model it, or raise an insurrection but to guide the wild horses that draw the chariot of tumult. Had he lived in the ancient days, he would have burnt the temple of the Ephesian goddess to build, in one olympiad, what cost two hundred years. His mind, in short, is like the ocean, deep and profound; that plays with a feather, or supports a navy; that now is rippling in golden tranquillity, and now is raging in fury and in tumult; that now scarce shakes the pebble on the shore, and now spreads round confusion, destruction, and death. In regard to the Count de Soissons, to whom you go, his character is difficult to know: but yet I think I know it. He has many high and noble qualities, and though at present he appears intolerably proud, yet that is a fault of his education, not of his disposition; he has it from his mother, and will conquer it, I doubt not. But there is one virtue he wants, without which talents, and skill, and courage are nothing--he wants resolution. He is somewhat obstinate, but that does not imply that he is resolute; and a man without resolution may be looked upon in the light of a miser: all the riches that nature can give are useless to him, because he has not the courage to make use of them."
"You must have been a very keen observer," said I, "of those persons with whom you have mingled, and doubtless also of human life in general."
"Life," replied he, "as life, is very little worth considering. It is a stream that flows by us without our knowing how. Its turbulence or its tranquillity, I believe, depend little upon ourselves. If there be rain in the mountains, it will be a torrent; if it prove a dry season, it will be a rivulet. We must let it flow as it will till it come to an end, and then we have nothing to do but die."
"And of death," said I, "have you not thought of that? As it is the very opposite of life it may have merited some more thought."
"Less, far less!" said he: "with some trouble, we may change the course of the rivulet, but with all our efforts we cannot alter the bounds of the sea. Look on death how we will, we can derive nothing from it. The pleasures and pains of existence are so balanced, we cannot tell whether death be a relief or a deprivation; and as to the bubble of something after death, it is somewhat emptier than that now floating down the stream."
I started, and said nothing, and gradually the conversation dropped of itself. After a pause, he again turned it into other channels, speaking of pleasure, and the excesses and gratifications of a court; and though he recommended moderation, as the most golden word that any language possessed, yet it was upon no principle of virtue, either moral or religious. It was for the sake of pleasure alone--that it might be more durable in itself, and never counterbalanced by painful consequences.
My mind naturally turned to my many conversations with the Chevalier, and, by comparison, I found his morality of a very different quality. I merely replied, however, that I believed, if people had no stronger motives to moderation than the expectation of remote effects, they would seldom put much restraint upon their passions.
Soon after, we arrived at the pavilion de chasse; and, I must own, that never did a more exquisitely luxurious dwelling meet my eye. It was not large, but all was disposed for ease and pleasure. Piles of cushions, rich carpets, easy chairs, Persian sofas, exquisite tapestries, filled every chamber. Books, too, and pictures were there, but the books and the pictures were generally of one class. Catullus, Ovid, Petronius, or Tibullus, lay upon the tables or on the shelves; while the walls were adorned with many a nymph and many a goddess, liberal of their charms: though, at the same time, Horace and Virgil appeared cast upon one of the sofas; and, every now and then, the eye would fall on one of the sunshiny landscapes of Claude de Lorraine, and dream for a moment amidst the sleepy splendour of his far perspectives.
"And is it possible," said I, turning to the Marquis as he led me through this luxurious place--"is it possible that you can quit such a spot willingly, for the dangers and hardships of war?"
"There are various sorts of pleasure," replied he, "and without varying, and changing, and opposing them one to another, we cannot enjoy any long. Every man has his particular pleasures, and his particular arrangement of them. I, for instance, require the stimulus of war, to make me enjoy these luxuries of peace. But you have yet seen little of the beauties of the place. Let us go out into the park. The perfection of a house of this kind depends, almost entirely, upon the grounds that surround it."
The two days that I spent at the pavilion of Monsieur de St. Brie passed like lightning. Not a moment paused, for he contrived to fill every hour with some pleasure of its own; but it was all too sweet. One felt it to be luscious. Like the luxurious Romans, he mingled his wine with honey, and the draught was both cloying and intoxicating.
On the third morning, I rose early from my bed to take a review of the beautiful grounds which surrounded the house; and after wandering about for half-an-hour, I turned to a river that ran through the park, resolving to take my way towards the house by the side of the waters. The path that I followed was hidden by trees, but there was a transverse alley that came down to the water, and joined the one in which I walked, about one hundred yards farther on. As I advanced, I heard the voice of the Marquis talking earnestly with some other person; and though at first what he said was very indistinct, yet I soon heard more without seeking to do so, or, indeed, wishing it. "Hold him down," said the Marquis, "when you have got him safely on the ground, and cut his throat just under the jaws--if you go deep enough he is dead in a moment."
As he gave this somewhat bloody direction, he turned into the same path with myself, accompanied by another person, whose appearance is worthy of some description. He was about my own height, which is not inconsiderable, but, at the same time, he was remarkably stout--I should say even fat, with a face in which a great degree of jollity and merriment was mingled with a leering sort of slyness of eye, and a slight twist of the mouth, that gave rather a sinister expression to the drollery of his countenance. He wore short black mustachios, and a small pointed beard; and from his head hung down upon his shoulders a profusion of black wavy hair. His dress also was somewhat singular. Instead of the broad, low-crowned plumed hats which were then in fashion, his head was surmounted with an interminable beaver, whose high-pointed crown resembled the steeple of a church. We have seen many of them since amongst the English and the Swiss, but, at that time, such a thing was so uncommon, and its effect appeared so ridiculous, that I could scarce refrain from laughing, though my blood was somewhat chilled with the conversation I had just overheard. The rest of this stout gentleman's habiliments consisted of a somewhat coarse brown pourpoint, laced with tarnished gold, and a slashed haut de chausse, tied with black ribands; while a huge sword and dagger ornamented his side, and a pair of funnel-shaped riding-boots completed his equipment.
The Marquis's eye fell upon me instantly, and, advancing without embarrassment, he embraced me, and gave me the compliments of the morning. Then turning, he introduced his friend, Monsieur de Simon. "The greatest fisherman in France," said he: "we were speaking just now about killing a carp," he continued, "which, you know is dreadfully tenacious of life. Are you a fisherman at all?"
I answered, "Not in the least;" and the conversation went on for some time on various topics, till at length Monsieur de Simon took his leave.
"I am sorry you cannot take your breakfast with us," said the Marquis; "but remember, when I am gone, you are most welcome to fish, whenever you think fit, upon my property."
"I thank you, I thank you, most noble Marquis," said the other, with a curious sort of roguish twinkle of the eye; "I will take you at your word, and will rid your streams of all those gudgeons which you dislike so much, but which I dote upon. Oh, 'tis a dainty fish--a gudgeon!"
At about one o'clock my horse was ready, and I took leave of the Marquis--I cannot say with feelings either of reverence or regard; and I have always found it an invariable fact, that when a man has amused us without gaining our esteem, and pleased without winning our confidence, there is something naturally bad at the bottom of his character, which we should do well to avoid.
As I mounted my horse, I remarked that my worthy valet, Houssaye, had imbibed as much liquor as would permit him to stand upright, and that it was not without great difficulty and scrupulous attention to the equipoise that he at all maintained his vertical position.
"Your servant is tipsy," said the Marquis; "you had better leave him here till he recovers his intellects."
"I am as sober as a priest," hickupped Houssaye, who overheard the accusation the Marquis brought against him, and repelled it with the most drunken certainty of his own sobriety. "Monseigneur, you do me wrong. I am sober, upon my conscience and my trumpet!" So saying, he swung himself up to his horse's back, and forgetting to wait for me, galloped on before, sounding a charge through his fist, as if he was leading on a regiment of horse.
The Marquis laughed; and once more bidding him adieu, I followed the pot-valiant trumpeter, who, without any mercy on his poor horse, urged him on upon the road to Lourdes as fast as he could go. Very soon, I doubt not, he quite forgot that I was behind, for, following much more slowly, as I did not choose to fatigue my jennet at the outset, I soon lost sight of him, and for half an hour perceived no traces of him whatever.
I have heard that the effect of the fresh air, far from diminishing the inebriation of a drunkard, greatly increases it. Probably this was the case with Houssaye; for at the distance of about four miles from the park of the Marquis, I found him lying by the side of the road, apparently sound asleep, while his horse was calmly turning the accident of his master to the best account, by cropping the grass and shrubs at the roadside.
This accident embarrassed me a good deal, for I had set out late; and, of course, I could not leave the poor drunkard to be gnawed by the bears, or devoured by the wolves, whose regard for a sleeping man might be found of somewhat too selfish a nature. After having shaken him, therefore, two or three times for the purpose of recalling him to himself, without producing any other effect than an inarticulate grunt, I returned to a village about a mile nearer Bagneres, and having procured the aid of some cottagers, I had the overthrown trumpeter carried back, and left him there in security, till he should have recovered from the state of intoxication in which he had plunged himself.
All this delayed me for some time, so that it was near four o'clock before I again resumed my journey. Nor was I sorry, indeed, that the sun had got behind the mountains, whose long shadows saved my eyes from the horizontal rays, which, as my way lay due west, would have dazzled me all along the road had I set out earlier. In about two hours it began to grow dusk, and I put my horse into a quicker pace, lest the family at the château should conclude that I intended to remain another night. There was one person also that, I knew, would be anxious till they saw me return safe; and, for the world, I would not have given Helen a moment's unnecessary pain. What made her suspect the Marquis of any evil designs towards me I knew not, but I knew that she did suspect him, and that was sufficient to make me hurry on to assure her of my safety.
There is a thick wood covers the side of the mountain about five miles from the Château de l'Orme, extending high up on the one hand, very nearly to the crest of the hill, and spreading down on the other till the stream in the valley bathes the roots of its trees. In a few minutes after I had entered this wood, I suddenly heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs close behind me--so near, it must have sprung out of the coppice. I instantly turned my head to ascertain what it was, when I received a violent blow just above the eyebrow, which nearly laid my skull bare, and struck me headlong to the ground, before I could see who was the horseman.
Though bruised and dizzied, I endeavoured to struggle up; but my adversary threw himself from his horse, grappled with me, and cast me back upon the ground with my face upwards. Oh how shall I describe the fearful struggle for life that then ensued?--the agonising grasp with which I clenched the hands wherewith he endeavoured to reach my neck--the pressure of his knees upon my chest--the beating of my heart as I still strove, yet found myself overmastered, and my strength failing--the dreadful, eager haste with which he tried to hold back my head, and gash my throat with the knife he held in his hand--and the muttered curses he vented, on finding my resistance so long protracted.
Five times he shook off my grasp, and five times I caught his hands again, as they were in the act of completing his object. At the same time, I could hear his teeth cranching against each other with the violence of his efforts. My hands were all cut and bleeding, his dress was nearly torn to pieces, the strength of both was well nigh exhausted, when we heard the sounds of voices advancing along the road. Though our struggle had hitherto been silent, I now called loudly for assistance. He heard the noise also. "This then shall settle it," cried he, raising his arm to plunge the knife into my chest, but I interposed my hand; and though the force with which he dealt the blow was such as to drive the point through my palm, yet this saved my life, for before he could repeat the stroke the horsemen had come up, attracted by the cries I continued to utter. One of them sprang from his horse, beheld the deathly struggle going on, and not knowing which was the aggressor, but seeing that one held the other at a fatal disadvantage, called to my assailant instantly to desist or die. The assassin again raised his arm: the horseman saw him about to strike--levelled a pistol at his head--fired--and the murderer, dropping the weapon from his hand, staggered up upon his feet--reeled for a moment, and then fell dead across my chest.