CHAPTER XL.
I was standing at the window of my bedchamber, in one of those meditative, almost sad moods, which often fill up the pauses of more active and energetic being, when the mind falls back upon itself, after the stir and bustle of great enterprises, and the silent moral voice within seems to rebuke us for the worm-like pettiness of our earthly struggles, and the vain futility of all our mortal endeavours.
Nothing could be more lovely than the scene from the window. The sun was setting over the dark forest of Ardennes, which, skirting all round the northern limits of the view, formed a dark purple girdle to the beautiful principality of Sedan; but day had only yet so far declined as to give a rich and golden splendour to the whole atmosphere, and his beams still flashed against every point of the landscape, where any bright object met them, as if they encountered a living diamond. Running from the south-east to the north were the heights of Amblemont, from the soft green summit of which, stretching up to the zenith, the whole sky was mottled with a flight of light high clouds, which caught every beam of the sinking sun, and blushed brighter and brighter as he descended. A thousand villages and hamlets with their little spires, and now and then the turrets of the châteaux, scattered through the valley, peeped out from every clump of trees. The flocks of sheep and the herds of cattle, winding along towards their folds, gave an air of peaceful abundance to the scene; and the grand Meuse wandering through its rich meadows with a thousand meanders, and glowing brightly in the evening light, added something both solemn and majestic to the whole. I was watching the progress of a boat gliding silently along the stream, whose calm waters it scarcely seemed to ruffle in its course; and, while passion, and ambition, and pride, and vanity, and the thousands of irritable feelings that struggled in my bosom during the day were lulled into tranquillity by the influence of the soft, peaceful scene before my eyes, I was thinking how happy it would be to glide through life like that little bark, with a full sail, and a smooth and golden tide, till the stream of existence fell into the dark ocean of eternity--when my dream was broken by some one knocking at my chamber-door.
Though I wished them no good for their interruption, I bade them come in; and the moment after, the Duke of Bouillon himself stood before me.
"Monsieur de l'Orme," said he, advancing, and doffing his hat, "I hope I do not interrupt your contemplations." I bowed, and begged him to be seated; and after a moment or two he proceeded: "I am happy in finding you alone; for, though certainly one is bound to do whatever one conceives right before the whole world, should chance order it so, yet of course, when one has to acknowledge one's self in the wrong, it is more pleasant to do so in private--especially," he added with a smile, "for a sovereign prince in his own castle. I was this morning, Monsieur de l'Orme, both rude and unjust towards you; and I have come to ask your pardon frankly. Do you give it me?"
Although I believed there was at least as much policy as candour in the conduct of the Duke, I did not suffer that conviction to affect my behaviour towards him, and I replied, "Had I preserved any irritation, my lord, from this morning, the condescension and frankness of your present apology would of course have obliterated it at once."
I thought I saw a slight colour mount in the Duke's cheek at the word apology; for men will do a thousand things which they do not like to hear qualified by even the mildest word that can express them; and I easily conceived, that though the proud lord of Sedan had for his own purposes fully justified me in the use of the term, it hurt his ears to hear that he had apologised to any one.
He proceeded, however: "I was, in truth, rather irritable this morning, and I hastily took up an opinion, which I since find, from the conversation of Monsieur le Comte, was totally false; namely, that you were using all your endeavours to dissuade him from the only step which can save himself and his country from ruin. Our levies were nearly made, our envoy on his very return from the Low Countries, all our plans concerted, and the Count perfectly determined, but the very day before your arrival. Now I find him again undetermined; and though I am convinced I was in error, yet you will own that it was natural I should attribute this change to your counsels."
"Your Excellence attributed to me," I replied, with a smile, at the importance wherewith a suspicious person often contrives to invest a circumstance, or a person who has really none--"Your Excellence attributed to me much more influence with Monsieur le Comte than I possess: but, if it would interest you at all to hear what are the opinions of a simple gentleman of his Highness's household, and by what rule he was determined to govern his conduct, I have not the slightest objection to give you as clear an insight into my mind, as you have just given me of your own."
The Duke, perhaps, felt that he was not acting a very candid part, and he rather hesitated while he replied that such a confidence would give him pleasure.
"My opinion, then, my lord," replied I, "of that step which you think necessary to the Count's safety, namely, a civil war, is, that it is the most dangerous he could take, except that of hesitating after once having fully determined."
"But why do you think it so dangerous?" demanded the Duke: "surely no conjuncture could be more propitious. We have troops, and supplies, and allies, internal and external, which place success beyond a doubt. The Count is adored by the people and by the army--scarcely ten men will be found in France to draw a sword against him. He is courage and bravery itself--an able politician--an excellent general--a man of vigorous resolution."
This was said so seriously, that it was difficult to suppose the Duke was not in earnest; and yet to believe that a man of his keen sagacity was blind to the one great weakness of the Prince's character was absolutely impossible. If it was meant as a sort of bait to draw from me my opinions of the count, it did not succeed, for I suspected it at the time; and replied at once, "Most true. He is all that you say; and yet, Monsieur de Bouillon, though my opinion or assistance can be of very little consequence, either in one scale or the other, my determination is fixed to oppose, to the utmost of my power, any step towards war, whenever his highness does me the honour of speaking to me on the subject--so long, at least, as I see that his mind remains undetermined. The moment, however, I hear him declare that he has taken his resolution, no one shall be more strenuous than myself in endeavouring to keep him steady therein. From that instant I shall conceive myself, and strive to make him believe, that one retrograde step is destruction; and I pledge myself to exert all the faculties of my mind and body, as far as those very limited faculties may go, to assist and promote the enterprise to the utmost of my power."
"If that be the case," replied the Duke, "I feel sure that I shall this very night be able to show that war is now inevitable; and to determine the Count to pronounce for it himself. A council will be held at ten o'clock to-night, on various matters of importance; and I doubt not that his highness will require your assistance and opinion. Should he do so, I rely upon your word to do all that you can to close the door on retrocession, when once the Count has chosen his line of conduct."
The noble duke now spoke in the real tone of his feelings. To do him justice, he had shown infinite friendship towards his princely guest; and it was not unnatural that he should strive by every means to bring over those who surrounded the Prince to his own opinion. When as now he quitted all art as far as he could, for he was too much habituated to policy to abandon it ever entirely, I felt a much higher degree of respect for him; and, as he went on boldly, soliciting me to join myself to his party, and trying to lead me by argument from one step to another, I found much more difficulty in resisting than I had before experienced in seeing through and parrying his artifices.
It is in times of faction and intrigue, when every single voice is of import to one party or the other, that small men gain vast consequence; and, apt to attribute to their individual merit the court paid to them for their mere integral weight, they often sell their support to flattery and attention, when they would have yielded to no other sort of bribery. However much I might overrate my own importance from the efforts of the Duke to gain me--and I do not at all deny that I did so--I still continued firm: and at last contenting himself with what I had at first promised, he turned the conversation to myself, and I found that he had drawn from the Count so much of my history as referred to the insurrection of Catalonia, and my interview with Richelieu.
I felt, as we conversed, that my character and mind were undergoing a strict and minute examination, through the medium of every word I spoke; and, what between the vanity of appearing to the best advantage, and the struggle to hide the consciousness that I was under such a scrutiny, I believe that I must have shown considerably more affectation than ability. The conviction that this was the case, too, came to embarrass me still more; and, feeling that I was undervaluing my own mind altogether, I suddenly broke off at one of the Duke's questions, which somewhat too palpably smacked of the investigation with which he was amusing himself, and replied, "Men's characters, monseigneur, are best seen in their actions, when they are free to act; and in their words, when they think those words fall unnoticed; but, depend upon it, one cannot form a correct estimate of the mind of another by besieging it in form. We instantly put ourselves upon the defensive when we find an army sitting down before the citadel of the heart; and whatever be the ability of our adversary, it is very difficult either to take us by storm, or to make us capitulate."
"Nay," replied the Duke, "indeed you are mistaken. I had no such intention as you seem to think. My only wish was to amuse away an hour in your agreeable society, ere joining his highness, to proceed with him to the council: but I believe it is nearly time that I should go."
The Duke now left me. I was not at all satisfied with my own conduct during the interview that had just passed; and, returning to my station at the window, I watched the last rays of day fade away from the sky, and one bright star after another gaze out at the world below, while a thousand wandering fancies filled my brain, taking a calm but melancholy hue from the solemn aspect of the night, and a still more gloomy one from feeling how little my own actions were under the control of my reason, and how continually, even in a casual conversation, I behaved and spoke in the most opposite manner to that which reflection would have taught me to pursue.
Sick of the present, my mind turned to other days. Many a memory and many a regret were busy about my heart, conjuring up dreams, and hopes, and wishes passed away--the throng of all those bright things we leave behind with early youth and never shall meet again, if it be not in a world beyond the tomb. All the sounds of earth sunk into repose, so that I could hear even the soft murmur of the Meuse, and the sighing of the summer-breeze wandering through the embrazures of the citadel. The cares, the labours, the anxieties, and all the grievous realities of life, seemed laid in slumber with the day that nursed them; while fancy, imagination, memory, every thing that lives upon that which is not, seemed to assert their part, and take possession of the night. I remembered many such a starry sky in my own beautiful land, when, without a heart-ache or a care, I had gazed upon the splendour of the heavens, and raised my heart in adoration to Him that spread it forth; but now, I looked out into the deep darkness, and found painful, painful memory mingling gall with all the sweetness of its contemplation. I thought of my sweet Helen, and remembered how many an obstacle was cast between us. I thought of my father, who had watched my youth like an opening flower, who had striven to instil into my mind all that was good and great, and I recollected the pain that my unexplained absence must have given. I thought of my mother, who had nursed my infant years, who had founded all her happiness on me--who had watched, and wept, and suffered for me, in my illness; and I called up every tone of her voice, every glance of her eye, every smile of her lip, till my heart ached even with the thoughts it nourished; and a tear, I believe, found its way into my eye--when suddenly, as it fixed upon the darkness, something white seemed to glide slowly across before me. It had the form--it had the look--it had the aspect of my mother. My eyes strained upon it, as if they would have burst from their sockets. I saw it distinct and plain as I could have seen her in the open day. My heart beat, my brain whirled, and I strove to speak; but my words died upon my lips; and when at length I found the power to utter them, the figure was gone, and all was blank darkness, with the bright stars twinkling through the deep azure of the sky.
I know--I feel sure, now, as I sit and reason upon it--that the whole was imagination, to which the hour, the darkness, and my own previous thoughts, all contributed: but still, the fancy must have been most overpoweringly strong to have thus compelled the very organs of vision to co-operate in the deceit; and, at the moment, I had no more doubt that I had seen the spirit of my mother than I had of my own existence. The memory of the whole remains still as strongly impressed upon my mind as ever; and certainly, as far as actual impressions went, every circumstance appeared as substantially true as any other thing we see in the common course of events. Memory, however, leaves the mind to reason calmly; and I repeat, that I believe the whole to have been produced by a highly excited imagination; for I am sure that the Almighty Being who gave laws to nature, and made it beautifully regular even in its irregularities, never suffers his own laws to be changed or interrupted, except for some great and extraordinary purpose.
I do not deny that such a thing has happened--or that it may happen again; but, even in opposition to the seeming evidence of my senses, I will not believe that such an interruption of the regular course of nature did occur in my own case.