‘Well, then, fresh horses.’
‘There’s not a horse in the place; it’s a little village near the Meuse, surrounded with tall granite rocks, and only remarkable for its ruined castle, the ancient schloss of Philip de Bouvigne.’
‘How interesting!’ said I, delighted to catch at anything which should give the conversation a turn; ‘and who was Philip de Bouvigne?’
‘Philip,’ said the lady, ‘was the second or third count, I forget which, of the name. The chronicles say that he was the handsomest and most accomplished youth of the time. Nowhere could he meet his equal at joust or tournament; while his skill in arms was the least of his gifts—he was a poet and a musician. In fact, if you were only to believe his historians, he was the most dangerous person for the young ladies of those days to meet with. Not that he ran away with them, sur la grande route.’ As she said this, a burst of laughing stopped her; and it was one I could really forgive, though myself the object of it. ‘However,’ resumed she, ‘I believe he was just as bad. Well, to pursue my story, when Philip was but eighteen, it chanced that a party of warriors bound for the Holy Land came past the Castle of Bouvigne, and of course passed the night there. From them, many of whom had already been in Palestine, Philip heard the wondrous stories the crusaders ever brought back of combats and encounters, of the fearful engagements with the infidels and the glorious victories of the Cross. And at length, so excited did his mind become by the narrations, that he resolved on the spot to set out for the Holy Land, and see with his own eyes the wonderful things they had been telling him.
‘This resolution could not fail of being applauded by the rest, and by none was it met with such decided approval as by Henri de Bethune, a young Liégeois, then setting out on his first crusade, who could not help extolling Philip’s bravery, and above all his devotion in the great cause, in quitting his home and his young and beautiful wife; for I must tell you, as indeed I ought to have told you before, he had been but a few weeks married to the lovely Alice de Franchemont, the only daughter of the old Graf de Franchemont, of whose castle you may see the ruins near Chaude Fontaine.’
I nodded assent, and she went on.
‘Of course you can imagine the dreadful grief of the young countess when her husband broke to her his determination. If I were a novelist I’d tell you of tears and entreaties and sighs and faintings, of promises and pledges and vows, and so forth; for, indeed, it was a very sorrowful piece of business, as she didn’t at all fancy passing some three or four years alone in the old keep at Bouvigne, with no society, not one single friend to speak to. At first, indeed, she would not hear of it; and it was only at length when Henri de Bethune undertook to plead for him—for he kindly remained several days at the château, to assist his friend at this conjuncture—that she gave way, and consented. Still, her consent was wrung from her against her convictions, and she was by no means satisfied that the arguments she yielded to were a whit too sound. And this, let me remark, en passant, is a most dangerous species of assent, when given by a lady; and one she always believes to be something of the nature of certain Catholic vows, which are only binding while you believe them reasonable and just.’
‘Is that really so?’ interrupted I. ‘Do you, indeed, give me so low a standard of female fidelity as this?’
‘If women are sometimes false,’ replied she, ‘it is because men are never true; but I must go on with my tale.—Away went Count Philip, and with him his friend De Bethune—the former, if the fact were known, just as low-spirited, when the time came, as the countess herself. But, then, he had the double advantage that he had a friend to talk with and make participator of his sorrows, besides being the one leaving, not left.’
‘I don’t know,’ interrupted I at this moment, ‘that you are right there; I think that the associations which cling to the places where we have been happy are a good requital for the sorrowful memories they may call up. I ‘d rather linger around the spot consecrated by the spirit of past pleasure, and dream over again, hour by hour, day by day, the bliss I knew there, than break up the charm of such memories by the vulgar incidents of travel and the commonplace adventures of a journey.’