“Your majesty presses a man of honour too far,” said the marshal impatiently.
“Would to God it were so,” rejoined Henry the Fourth sadly; “reflect ere you reply.” The general remained silent, and the king walked slowly to the door; and, as he reached it, said, still more in sorrow than in anger: “Adieu, Baron de Biron.” He was tried and condemned; and beheaded within the gates of the Bastille.
The Cour du Cheval Blanc, silent as it is now, calls back Napoleon’s adieus to his old guard, which took place here.
April 6th.
Notwithstanding the most bitter of east winds, we have ridden over great part of the forest, the wildest and finest I ever saw. Its groves of old oak, interspersed with tracts clothed with black firs, and hills, and valleys of barren stone; the Hermitage of Franchard; the wonderful Roche qui pleure, through which filters water, which the good peasants still collect as a sovereign remedy against disease, are on the Paris side of the forest. Shortly before arriving at Franchard, there is a plain iron cross raised on a heap of flints, the scene of some old murder. Our road from the town lay through oaks in their hundred years’ majesty: the box forming dark thickets everywhere, and the ground between already blue and white with periwinkles and anemones. In summer it is one carpet of flowers. Franchard had a hermitage even in the time of our Richard Cœur de Lion; it became afterwards a monastery which was also deserted: shortly after the battle of Castelnaudary, its last inhabitant arrived thither, and lived and died alone in its ruins. It was whispered at the time, that the Comte de Moret, who (some said) had perished in the battle, had on the contrary received but some slight wounds which in no way endangered his life; he had disappeared: and the recluse who hid himself in poverty and solitude at the same period was believed to conceal from the vindictive cardinal the companion in arms of the unhappy Montmorency.
The valley of La Solle is on the other side of the grande route. The steep road dips suddenly down, winding among fantastic rocks, piled one on the other, overgrown with brilliant mosses, trees growing luxuriantly on or among them. I noticed some whose trunks shot upwards from so narrow a place of support, that the branches on either side seemed extended to poise them, as a bird spreads its wings for the air to bear it up; and others, whose roots stretched themselves over the bare granite platform, casing it to its edge, and thence dropped down to plant themselves in the earth which nourishes them scantily. In this part of the forest the holly grows everywhere, and is gay with red berries even now. We were doubtful of the way back; and Fanny, whose sagacity has been so often proved, was called on to assist. When the reins are laid on her neck, she is perfectly aware of her own importance, and stops and snuffles at each road she sees, often choosing short-cuts and footpaths. To-day, after leaving the valley, we came suddenly on one of the abrupt rocky hills which we have met with often here; there was a broad alley on each side, but Fanny chose neither, and taking a little track through the trees, trotted on and up, climbing like a cat, and when I dismounted to ease her, pulling me on by the rein I held. Arrived at the top, from the little arid plain we found a view worth our trouble; down the other side she led again, emerging in a bridle-road, from which branched eight others. She considered a moment, and then, hurrying as she does when her mind is made up, she chose one of these alleys, and in five minutes we passed a finger-post, which marked it, “Chemin de Fontainebleau.”
On the Paris road is the Croix du Grand Veneur: he is the hero of terrible tales, being a spectre, who often and on various occasions has appeared to the kings of France. The last who saw him was Henry the Fourth. One day of the year 1599 he had been hunting unsuccessfully, for his hounds had twice lost the scent, and he was slowly riding back through the forest on the Moret side, when his ill-humour was increased by suddenly hearing the cry of dogs and the flourish of hunting horns, which seemed to sound a triumphant blast. The king, who rode at some distance from his attendants with the Count of Soissons, turned angrily to him, “Note who the bold intruder may be,” he exclaimed, and the count, with several of the courtiers, spurred towards the sound. As they disappeared, the king started back, for a tall huntsman,—tall beyond human height,—attired in black, with a shining eye and livid cheek, stood before him. He accosted the monarch in a voice of thunder, and said, “Amendez-vous.” Henry’s look for a moment quailed before him; and when he fixed it on the spot where the huntsman had stood, he was gone. The Count of Soissons and his companions returned, said they had seen, but at a distance, a dark huntsman, at the head of a numerous hunt, mounted on horses which seemed to feel the rocky soil no obstacle. Whether he came to warn the king of a darkening future and bloody close, I cannot tell; some say he spoke more than the monarch told; he rode the rest of the way in silence. After this apparition the Grand Veneur continued to be heard at times, though he was not seen again. Once, (Sully says,) when he waited impatiently for Henry’s return to communicate some important affair, he heard the horns and horses’ hoofs close to the chateau, and ran out to meet him, but nothing was visible; and when the king had really come, he learned he had been at the time four leagues away.
7th April.
Walked to-day (the east wind sharper than ever) to the church at Avon, where Monaldeschi lies, under the bénitier. The crime for which Christina murdered him was never precisely known; but it was hinted that he had been a favoured and then fickle lover. Taking the right road through the park, and along the canal made by Henry the Fourth, it is hardly distant the quarter of a league it is called; we took the wrong and a much longer way. The little old edifice was built in the tenth century, and stands at the end of the unpaved dirty village. A washerwoman and a dozen children came to see what we wanted. We wanted to get into the locked-up church, and were desired to apply at the seminary, which is nearly opposite. The porter issued with the key. He was the roundest, merriest, ugliest, piece of human nature imaginable; I should think he acted cook as well as porter, and he is quite out of keeping with the spot where he stood. With its low gloomy arches, and damp irregular pavement of worn tombstones, it seems the fitting place for the hurried interment of a murdered man, in the dusk of a winter’s evening. One of the flags of the choir is marked with the fleurs-de-lis, and a half-effaced figure; below is the heart of Philip le Bel’s queen, who died here about 1304. Two old painted windows light the church dimly; near the entrance door, just in front of the antique vessel for holy water, is the narrow stone inscribed with ancient letters, “Ci gît Monaldexi.” The porter told a strange story.
Three years since, (the village church being then always left open,) a party of Englishmen came to visit it. They arrived with a number of workmen, hired in the cottages, and whom they had paid beforehand, and liberally, for the work to be done. By their employers’ order these men opened the grave, to take possession of the skeleton, for the English gentlemen asserted that Monaldeschi was their relation. The curé had been absent, but returned during this extraordinary operation, and flew to forbid sacrilege! The workmen ceased, but they had been so diligent that the bones were already uncovered, and the Englishmen insisted on carrying them away; and, despite of the curé, held the skull fast. Finding his remonstrances useless, the priest hurried away, and returned with some gens-d’armes, when the skull was replaced in the coffin.