“Roxane. Il faut que je revoie en vous le . . . presque frère,
Avec qui je jouais, dans le parc—près du lac !
Cyrano. Oui, vous veniez tous les étés à Bergerac ! . . .
Roxane. C’était le temps des jeux. . . .
Cyrano. Des murons aigrelets. . . .
Roxane. Le temps où vous faisiez tout ce que je voulais ! . . .”
—Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac. Act II. Sc. vi.
On a certain bleak March afternoon of the year 1774 a solemn, long-legged boy of ten or eleven sat curled up in a window-seat of his father’s château of Chantemerle in Poitevin Vendée, and pressed his nose wistfully against the cold panes. The rain, on the wings of a fitful wind, hurled itself in blurring gusts against the glass, and even hissed now and then on the glowing logs of the great hearth. But the owner of the motionless black head, with its neat ribbon and queue, was not watching for a chance of going out, nor even wishing that the rain would cease; he was awaiting, between doubt and desire, the greatest change of his short young life.
Gilbert-Octavien-Félix-Anne de Chantemerle, Comte de Château-Foix, was an only child, and he had never left the house of his birth, nor had he seen many persons from the outside world come into it—and never one of his own age. To the society of his elders he was well accustomed, owing to it the greater part of his serious demeanour. He had been educated at first chiefly by his father, the student, the follower of the newer lights, and latterly also by the Curé of the parish, who held with the philosophe Marquis a friendship of a very old and tried intimacy. Gilbert was, perhaps, equally fond of both his instructors. When he played—which was seldom—he played alone; but he was not unhappy, and he had no idea that he was lonely. Diligent at his lessons, obedient though not docile to authority, he had one kingdom of which he was absolute master—that of his dreams and his books. He desired no other.
But now everything was changed. He would work and play alone no longer. It was a thought half sad, half delightful, but most of all perplexing, for what would he be like, this mysterious kinsman and playmate? Even Gilbert’s father knew very little about him. The motherless only child of the Marquis’ favourite cousin, confided by the latter on his death-bed to the care of M. de Château-Foix, the boy was not altogether acceptable to the Marquise. But she had to yield to her husband in the matter. Château-Foix did not wish the young Vicomte de Saint-Ermay to be brought up in Paris, where his mother’s relatives were on the way to secure over him an influence which the Marquis did not consider desirable. Like a wise woman, Madame de Château-Foix made in the end something of a virtue of this necessity, and she was really prepared to give the small stranger a warm welcome.