The good old man did not require to be twice told; he rushed in with open arms, Raoul meeting him half-way.
“Now, if you please, we will go into the garden, Raoul. I will show you the new lodging I have had prepared for you during your leave of absence; and whilst examining the last winter’s plantations, and two saddle-horses I have just acquired, you will give me all the news of our friends in Paris.”
The comte closed his manuscript, took the young man’s arm, and went out into the gardens with him.
Grimaud looked at Raoul with a melancholy air as the young man passed out; observing that his head nearly touched the traverse of the doorway, stroking his white royale, he slowly murmured:—“How he has grown!”
Chapter V. In which Something will be said of Cropoli.
Whilst the Comte de la Fere with Raoul visits the new buildings he has erected, and the new horses he has bought, with the reader’s permission we will lead him back to the city of Blois, and make him a witness of the unaccustomed activity which pervades that city.
It was in the hotels that the surprise of the news brought by Raoul was most sensibly felt.
In fact, the king and the court at Blois, that is to say, a hundred horsemen, ten carriages, two hundred horses, as many lackeys as masters—where was this crowd to be housed? Where were to be lodged all the gentry of the neighborhood, who would gather in two or three hours after the news had enlarged the circle of its report, like the increasing circumferences produced by a stone thrown into a placid lake?
Blois, as peaceful in the morning, as we have seen, as the calmest lake in the world, at the announcement of the royal arrival, was suddenly filled with the tumult and buzzing of a swarm of bees.
All the servants of the castle, under the inspection of the officers, were sent into the city in quest of provisions, and ten horsemen were dispatched to the preserves of Chambord to seek for game, to the fisheries of Beuvron for fish, and to the gardens of Cheverny for fruits and flowers.