At our intended resting-place for the night—I forget the name of it—we found every house full of soldiers of the royal army, and but for our passes I do not know what we should have done. Before every door there were dragoons drinking and singing round the tables, and some were dancing with the girls of the village. Some of them shouted at us when they saw we were coming from Paris, and called us runaway rebels; but Eustace showed his pass, told them what it was, for they could not read, and desired their officer to be fetched. He came out of the priest’s house, and was very civil. He said Colonel de Solivet had desired that all assistance should be given to us, but that we had not been expected so soon. He really did not know where to quarter the lady or the mules, and he advised us to go on another league, while he dispatched an orderly with the intelligence to the colonel. There was nothing else to be done, though my brother, after his sleepless night, was becoming much exhausted, in spite of the wine we gave him, while as to the mules, they had an opinion of their own, poor things, as to going on again, and after all sorts of fiendish noises from the coachman, and furious lashings with his whip, the dragoons pricked them with their swords, and at last they rushed on at a gallop that I thought would have shaken Eustace to death.
However, before we had gone very far Solivet rode out to meet us. It was another cause of anxiety, although it was dusk, and he had expected us to have slept at St. Denis and to have arrived the next day, and he asked, what could have made us start so early, just as if we had been criminals fleeing from justice; but he took us to the chateau where he was quartered, and, though they were much crowded there, the family tried to make us comfortable. The master of the house gave up his own bed to my brother, and I shared that of his mother. ‘Jacques’ in his character of valet, was to attend on his master, and sleep on the floor; and this gave the only opportunity of exchanging any conversation freely, but even this had to be done with the utmost caution, for the suite of rooms opened into each other, and Solivet, who was very anxious about Eustace, came in and out to see after him, little guessing how much this added to the inward fever of anxiety which banished all sleep from his eyes.
The kind people thought him looking so ill the next morning that they wanted to bleed him, and keep us there for a few days, but this was not to be thought of, as indeed Eustace declared, when I felt some alarm, that he could not be better till he was out of French territory.
So we pushed on, and Solivet rode beside the window all day, making our course far safer and easier in one way, but greatly adding in others to the distressful vigilance that coloured Eustace’s thin cheeks and gleamed in his eyes, and made his fingers twitch at his sword whenever there was an unexpected halt, or any one overtook us. He conveyed us quite beyond the army, and brought us as far as Beuvais, where he made himself our host at the Lion Rouge, and gave us an excellent supper, which I could hardly swallow when I thought of his barbarous intentions towards Clement, who had to wait on us all the time, standing behind my chair and handing dishes.
I believe Solivet really meant to be a good brother; but his words were hard to endure, when he lectured us each apart, with all the authority of a senior—told me that Eustace was dying, and that every mile he traveled was hastening his end, laughing to scorn that one hope which buoyed me up, the Dirkius could do more for him than any one else, and almost commanding me to take him home again to Paris while it was possible.
And he equally harassed Eustace the next morning with representations of the folly of taking me away to Holland, and breaking off the advantageous Poligny match, to gratify my headstrong opposition and desire for a mesalliance, which would now happily be impossible, the fellow having ruined himself.
The fellow entered at that moment with M. le Baron’s coat and boots, and Eustace could hardly repress a smile. We could not but rejoice when Solivet took leave of us at the carriage door, very affectionate, but shrugging his shoulders at our madness, and leaving a corporal and his party to guard us to the frontier. They prolonged the sense of constraint, and forced us to be very guarded with poor Clement, but otherwise they were very useful. The inhabitants fancied us by turns great princes or great criminals, or both, being escorted out of the country. Once we were taken for the Queen escaping with the Cardinal, another time for the Prince of Conde eloping with Mademoiselle; but any way of soldiers secured for us plenty of civility, and the best food and lodgings to be had. They pricked on our mules with a good-will, and when one of them fell lame they scoured the neighbourhood to find another, for which Eustace endeavoured to pay the just price, but I am afraid it went into the corporal’s pocket, and Clement never so nearly betrayed himself as when he refused to share with the escort the reckoning of which they stripped the landlord. Integrity in a Parisian valet was all too suspicious! However, to us they behaved very well; and, if all we heard were true, their presence may have saved us from being robbed, if not murdered, long before we reached the frontier.
CHAPTER XXXIII. — BRIDAL PEARLS
When once over the border, and our passports duly examined, we breathed freely, and at our first resting-place Clement took out a suit of my brother’s clothes and appeared once more as a gentleman, except for his short hair. He was able, whenever French would serve, to take the management of our journey.