CHAPTER II.
To the Duke of Montpensier's words I made no reply, as there were several persons not far off at the time, and I feared that whatever I might say at such a moment would be less calm and temperate than I could have wished it. The duke added nothing more, but led me on past the spot where the body of the Prince de Condé lay, to the lower story of the building, where we found, not far from the room in which I had been at first confined, a considerable body of his attendants, with his son, the Prince d'Auvergne. The moment the young man saw me, he started forward and grasped my hand, exclaiming, "He is safe, he is safe!"
"He is so," replied the duke; "but it is not his own fault that he is not now lying stark and cold as some others that I could name. Take him away with you, D'Auvergne, to our quarters, and, for Heaven's sake, teach him to be cautious where he is. Monsieur de Cerons," he continued, turning to me, "I need not ask you whether I have your parole."
"Of course, my lord," I replied, "of course; I surrendered voluntarily to Monsieur Martigue, and by the same right that I claim my life, not as a matter of grace, but as a matter of justice, I consider myself as a prisoner till my ransom is granted and paid."
The duke bowed his head and left me, and the Prince d'Auvergne, with his attendants, led me out into the streets of Jarnac, where, with several torches before us, we proceeded to the lower part of the town, and entered a large dwelling which had been taken possession of by the Duke of Montpensier. A good deal to my surprise, for I had as yet seen nothing but the Huguenot camp, I found nearly as much splendour and luxury reigning in the temporary abode of the Catholic commander as if he had been in the mansion of his ancestors. There were servants in splendid dresses, there were lights in all the rooms, and the prince led me into a great hall, where a large table was set out as if for the supper of some twenty or thirty persons.
"My father," he said, "Will soon return; but, till he does so, Monsieur de Cerons, let us go into this little room beyond, and converse for a few moments quietly."
He then led me in, asked after the wounds I had received, spoke to me of the different events of the late battle, and mentioned the death of the Prince de Condé with so much kindly and noble feeling, that, had not my mind been altogether prepossessed in his favour before, those words would have attached me to him for ever. He then gave me several cautions with regard to my conduct during my stay in the Catholic camp.
"Neither my father nor myself," he said, "Would wish you to abandon your opinions except upon full conviction; but, at the same time, it will be much better for you, as far as possible, to restrain any expression of those opinions, for there are dangerous men around us all, and you might place yourself in situations from which it might be difficult, if not impossible, to extricate you."
I promised to follow his counsel; and then, judging from his conversation that he must have more experience in the ways of courts and camps than I had imagined, I asked him if this was the first campaign in which he had served.
"Oh, no!" he replied; "I am older than I appear, Monsieur de Cerons."
And I found that such indeed was the case, but that in him there was the extraordinary combination of high powers of mind and considerable experience, with unpresuming modesty, and all the frank, quick emotions of boyhood. There was something fine and noble, too, in the demeanour of the father to the son and the son to the father. The duke felt all the eager apprehensions and tender anxiety for the young prince that he had felt when he was a boy, flew always to his succour in the battle-field, and seemed to feel unwilling to yield the affectionate privilege of guiding, guarding, and defending his boy; but, at the same time, he was aware and proud of his son's high qualities, had every confidence in his mind and judgment, and treated his opinions with that respect which ensured the respect of others. The son, on his part, though well aware of his own capability of directing and defending himself, ever showed the deepest gratitude for his father's tenderness, and reverence for his authority and advice.
Not long after our conversation had begun, there were some steps heard in the hall, and the voice of the Duke of Montpensier was heard exclaiming, "Where are you, Francis? Where is Monsieur de Cerons?"
In another moment the duke entered the room, before his son could go to meet him. He was accompanied by Martigue, who entered the little room with him, and by several others, who remained behind in the supper-room.
The moment he entered, Martigue seized me roughly by the collar on both sides of my buff coat, and gave me a little but friendly shake, exclaiming, "You young scoundrel, you owe me double ransom, I swear." And, as he spoke, the old soldier looked me over from head to foot with the eye of a connoisseur, as if calculating what portion of strength there was in my limbs.
"Upon my honour, Monsieur de Martigue," I replied, "I think I do; for you have certainly once spared my life and once saved it."
"You are honest, you are honest!" replied Martigue, in the same tone: "but here I and Monsieur de Montpensier have been quarrelling for you. He says he will keep you here till your wounds are whole, to try if he cannot cure you of Calvinism, or, at all events, teach you to serve the king in another way than fighting his troops and cutting the throats of his subjects. I want you to be put to ransom directly, in order that you and I may, some day or another before long, have a fair opportunity of trying our right hands; for we have not had it out yet, seeing that you got off in such a shabby way this morning by shooting my horse."
"I could not help it, Monsieur de Martigue," I replied, "or I would not have done it. I was in the midst of your people; and if I had not taken that moment to escape, I must have surrendered to them, even if I had got the better of you. However, I surely made up for it afterward."
"What! in the village?" cried Martigue. "Oh, I never got near you there."
"No," I replied; "after that unfortunate mêlée, I made up my mind that I would surrender to none but you if I could help it, and lay still there, while twenty people passed, till I saw you come up."
"By the Lord, you might have done worse!" cried Martigue. "If Montluc had got hold of you, he would have given you a pistol-shot for your pains. By-the-way, it was shrewd of you, Monsieur de Montpensier, to send Montluc away towards Cognac; for, by Heavens! if he had been at the ear of monseigneur to-night, instead of quiet people like ourselves, there is no knowing what would have come of it."
"The streets of Jarnac would have flowed with blood," replied the duke; "however, Monsieur de Cerons, you are now safe, and I have to inform you that Monsieur de Martigue consents to receive your ransom from me, so that you are now my prisoner. I trust I may add, also, that you are my son's friend, and therefore will beg you to remain with us some few weeks, as I have every reason to believe that, ere long, matters will assume a more pacific aspect, and the contentions which now desolate France be brought to an end without your taking any farther share therein."
I had no choice but to obey; for, of course, I could not compel them to set me at liberty before they thought fit. I knew also that, for the time, I was unable to do any effectual service in the field, and therefore I regretted less to be thus detained a prisoner.
When all this was settled, the duke informed me that he intended to send a flag the next morning to the admiral, and that, if I chose it, I could communicate at the same time with any of my friends in the camp, and give any orders concerning my baggage and attendants that I might think fit. This information was gratifying to me in several respects, but in none more than inasmuch as it showed me that the admiral had been enabled to save a large portion of the Huguenot army and all the baggage. I took advantage of the duke's offer, then, to send word to Moric Endem to take the command of my troop till my return, and to send me three horses and two horse-boys; to carry the small chest, in which I had placed the ransom of Monsieur de Jersay, with other money, to the admiral, and desire him to open it, with a request that he would divide a thousand crowns among the men of my troop, and, sending me a thousand crowns, would put the rest in safety for me till the Catholics admitted me to ransom. I wrote these directions down at once by the duke's desire, as the messenger was to set off early on the following morning; and, ere I had done, for it took me some time to write with my left hand, one of the servers announced to the duke that supper was upon the table.
"You look pale and worn, Monsieur de Cerons," said the duke. "My principal officers sup with me to-night; pray come and take some refreshment, after which you shall retire to a chamber prepared for you, and I will send my own surgeon to attend you, for I see you are somewhat hurt."
Thus saying, he left me; and, finishing what I was writing, I directed it to Moric Endem, with a note stating that, if he was not to be found, it was to be given to the admiral. I then followed to the supper-table, which I found surrounded by a number of distinguished men, but with a seat reserved for me among them; and I must say that I never in my life met with more kindness and courtesy than greeted me there, while a prisoner, at the Duke of Montpensier's table.
The duke and the prince both pressed me to eat, but the wound in my arm had given me excessive pain during the whole evening; my shoulder was burning and inflamed; I felt bruised, feverish, sick, and weary; and before my eyes, as I sat at the table, were floating continually vague images of all the terrible scenes and events that I had been witness of during that day. It may well be conceived, therefore, that I loathed the very sight of food, and yet every moment I felt myself becoming more and more faint. I saw the eyes of the Prince d'Auvergne upon me from time to time, and at length he sent round one of the attendants, who was pouring out for him some choice wine, to carry the flagon to me. I held the cup for him, thinking that the wine might revive me; but, as I did so, and turned my head somewhat suddenly, all the objects in the room seemed to swim around me, and I fell back senseless upon the floor of the hall.
When I recovered in some degree, I found myself in bed in a very comfortable room, with a gentleman in the dress of a surgeon beside me, and two or three attendants around. I have only a vague recollection, however, of what passed on that occasion, for I was during the whole night in a state approaching delirium, with wild images of the battle and its consequences rising up before my mind the moment I closed my eyes to sleep. Now I was in the midst of the enemy, again fighting hand to hand with Martigue; then he suddenly changed to the Prince de Condé, and by some strange process of the imagination I became Montesquieu, and was about to shoot him under the bank, hating myself all the time for what I was doing, yet hurried on irresistibly to accomplish it. Then suddenly a strong hand seemed to seize me, and I found myself a prisoner; and at other times I beheld the gallant prince who had fallen, as he sat before the last fatal charge, raising his hand towards the white banner above his head, and addressing those last, terrible, memorable words to us who surrounded him.
In such wild visions passed the whole night; but an hour or two before daybreak I fell into a somewhat sounder sleep, and when I woke, just after dawn, I found the Prince d'Auvergne sitting beside me, and speaking to one of the attendants.
"Oh, is that you, monseigneur," I said, turning partly towards him.
"Yes, Monsieur de Cerons," he replied, "I did not like to disturb you, because the attendant tells me you have had a bad night; but, as you are awake, I may as well ask you if there is anything that I can do for you this morning, as I am going with the rest of the officers to the field of battle, to see the loss on either side, and to make arrangements in regard to the wounded and the dead. I fear that you must, like most of us, have some friend there."
"Several, I doubt not, my lord," I replied; "but, of course, my principal care must be for my own people. Should you find among the prisoners or the wounded any men belonging to my band, I trust you will have them kindly treated for my sake. There is one poor lad, indeed, for whom I am anxious to make inquiries. He is named Andriot, and followed me to the field, not as a man-at-arms, but merely as an attendant; he fell upon the slope of the hill, about half a mile from Triac, in face of Monsieur de Brissac's arquebusiers."
"I will not fail to make inquiries for him," replied the prince, "and for the others also; and I will report to you, as soon as I return, what has been done. It may be late, however, before I come back; and, in the mean time, I understand the surgeon has left especial orders that you should not quit your bed on any account whatever."
I would fain have risen, but the prince insisted so strongly upon my obeying the surgeon's commands to the letter, that I promised him to do so, and soon found the benefit of yielding to better knowledge than my own.
After remaining for an hour, or somewhat more, in sorrowful but more tranquil thoughts than during the preceding evening I had been able to obtain, exhaustion and weakness again brought on sleep, but of a far more calm and beneficial character; and, till nearly four o'clock in the evening, I enjoyed a long lapse of peaceful slumber.
At length I awoke, and found a servant still with me, with whom I talked for some time on the rumours of the day, and found, much to my satisfaction, that a large force of Protestants occupied Cognac, and that the rest of the army had effected its retreat in complete safety to the town of Sainctes. Very few prisoners were said to have been taken, and the whole baggage of the Protestant army had, it seems, been saved. The attendant, however, spoke confidently of Cognac being attacked the next day; talked of the Protestant cause as utterly ruined and hopeless, and exalted the virtues, skill, and courage of the Duke of Anjou to the very skies. Remembering the warning I had received on the preceding night, I made no reply, but only asked questions, to which he very willingly returned an answer.
In the midst of our conversation, however, I heard irregular footfalls without, as if of some lame person approaching the chamber, and in a moment or two after, not a little to my satisfaction, poor Andriot hobbled in, supporting himself upon a stick. The same ball, it seems, which had killed his horse, had wounded him also in the leg; and though the man was by no means a coward, and, I believe, was perfectly insensible of anything like nervous agitation, he avoided from that moment every scene of strife, declaring deliberately that wounds in the leg were not comfortable.
I was visited on the same night by the Prince d'Auvergne, and on the following day was permitted to rise, and spent an hour in the morning with the Duke of Montpensier. The duke and his son both showed me the greatest kindness; but there was not the slightest word said about admitting me to ransom, and I remarked that the subject was carefully avoided. In the evening, my horses and the grooms I had sent for arrived, together with the money and a letter from Moric Endem, which was couched in the following terms:
"Monseigneur,
"I have never seen any one comport himself better in a hot mêlée than you did yesterday, which must console you for being taken prisoner and for having to pay a ransom, which is always, of course, the most unpleasant thing that can happen to any gentleman adventurer. I dare say, for a gentleman of your kidney, it would have been pleasanter, take it upon the whole, to be killed outright by the side of our brave prince. I have often heard gentlemen--that is to say--young gentlemen, say such things; but I never could manage to feel anything of the kind myself, always looking upon a live ass to be a great deal better than a dead lion. I have not the slightest doubt, therefore, that some time or another hereafter you will find it a very comfortable thing indeed to be alive; and you will have the advantage, too, of being able to get yourself killed another time in case you like it.
"In the mean time, I will do my best to lead the troop as you have done, and trust we shall have plenty of plunder to give an account of when you come back again. The enemy are not so successful at that work as we are, and you will be glad to hear that all the baggage is quite safe. I have taken the chest to the admiral, as you commanded; and have distributed the thousand crowns among the men, who are very grateful; and I send you the thousand that you require for yourself, together with the admiral's receipt for the remainder, amounting to three thousand seven hundred and sixty crowns of the sun, with two livres tournois, six sous, and two derniers. I am sorry to tell you that we have lost no less than thirteen men, of whom nine were killed or disabled before you quitted us on the hill. Poor Moriton we got off, but he died last night, having been shot very funnily by two arquebus balls at the same moment, which must have touched each other, for they made a long wound just like a keyhole. I have kept his cuirass, poor fellow, for one may live many a day without seeing such a thing as that. I myself have lost the tip of my right ear, which is no great loss after all, for it only makes that one match the left, the end of which was shot off some years ago by a mad fellow called Chicot. I send you below a list of our killed and wounded, and am, Your devoted servant,
"Moric Endem."
With this curious epistle was a brief note from the admiral, acknowledging the receipt of the money, and telling me that though, of course, it was necessary to arrange the liberation of the elder and more experienced officers in the first instance, he would not forget me when it came to my turn. The words were words of course, and I certainly did not expect that the admiral would think of the matter much more, as in fact he did not do.
Towards night the Duke of Montpensier himself came back to Jarnac, and I saw that he was a good deal mortified, annoyed, and thoughtful. After supper he somewhat recovered himself, and I then found, from what he said, that the efforts of the Catholics upon Cognac had been repelled successfully at every point, and the army obliged to withdraw. Shortly after this, the duke entered my chamber one morning early, saying, "Monsieur de Cerons, I come to take leave of you for a time. The army is about to march, the surgeon thinks it not fit that you should advance as rapidly as we do, and it is therefore my wish that you should proceed by slow stages to my house at Champigny, where a part of my attendants are about to go. You will there find every convenience; I have written to prepare my people for your reception, and I consider you still, you must remember, upon parole."
"It must be, my lord," I replied, "of course, as you think fit: but I trust it will not be long before you kindly name my ransom, and set me at liberty."
The duke turned to me with a kindly expression of countenance, and replied, "Believe me, Monsieur de Cerons, I have your interests nearly at heart. Neither I nor my son are persons whose affections are given by halves. I have consulted with him and with one or two other gentlemen, for whose opinion I have a respect, and they all think with me, that I had better act as I have undoubtedly a right to do, and detain you as a prisoner; though assuredly a prisoner in no very strict sense of the word, than, by permitting you to go on in the course with which you have begun--glorious in a military point of view, as it may be--see you make yourself remarkable by determined rebellion and opposition to the royal authority, and thus exclude yourself for ever from the royal protection. There is my hand. Monsieur de Cerons. Believe me, I wish you well."
I took his hand respectfully, I may say affectionately, and replied, "Your good opinion is, indeed, most deeply valuable to me, my lord; but yet, pardon me for detaining you to hear one word more. In your calculations for my benefit, there are things that you do not know. Are you aware, my lord, that the whole fortune I possess on earth is my sword; that it is an absolute necessity for me to distinguish myself, and make myself a high name by military exertion? It is, of course, impossible for me to fight against those who maintain the same religious opinions as myself, and, consequently, the only field that is open to me is in arms in the Protestant cause."
"But the estate of Cerons?" said the duke, inquiringly. "I remember it a very fair property in the hands of, I think, your father?"
"Alas! sir," I replied, "The estate of Cerons has never been mine. My father, by the necessities of the times in which he lived, was obliged to part with the whole estate, except one rood of land, to preserve the name to his son. It was bought by his more fortunate cousin, the Baron de Blancford, with whom it still remains. Thus, therefore, my lord, if you keep me still a prisoner, though your motives may be most kind ones, you cut me off from every opportunity of advancing my own fortunes and renown; and, let me add in one word, that I have the strongest of all possible motives for seeking to urge my way forward as fast as possible."
"What, love?" said the Duke of Montpensier, laying his hand upon my shoulder, and gazing in my face with a smile. "Nay, never conceal it. I can feel for you well, Monsieur de Cerons. But let me consider for a moment." And he fell into a fit of musing which lasted for several minutes.
"I had thought your circumstances were different," he continued; "but, however, it will only make this difference, that it will induce us to do at once what we intended always to do ultimately."
"To set me at liberty, I trust, my lord?" I replied.
"No," he said, with a smile, "no; the very reason you give is a stronger motive for keeping you. But Francis shall speak to you upon it all. You will make your first day's march with him to-morrow, and remember, I only exact one thing on my part. When you are at Champigny, you are to make yourself as little known by name as possible, and to keep yourself as much concealed as you can. However, I will talk to D'Auvergne about it, and he shall tell you all. He sees me ten miles upon my way to-day, and then returns. Trust to what he tells you from me as if they were my own words." And, thus saying, he left me, grateful indeed for having made such a friend, but still not a little grieved and melancholy at the prospect of remaining a prisoner, confined to the dull neighbourhood of Saumur.