Agnes Sorel: A Novel

by G. P. R. James

Several of the late duke's knights, with whom Jean Charost had formed no acquaintance, came also to express their approbation; but praise fell upon a faint and heavy ear; for all he had passed through was not without consequences more serious than were at first apparent.

Martin Grille overflowed with joy and satisfaction so sincere and radiant at the escape of his master, that Jean Charost could not help being touched by the good valet's attachment. But, as a true Frenchman, he was full of his own part in the young gentleman's deliverance, attributing to himself and his own dexterity all honor and praise for the result which had been attained. He perceived not, for some time, in his self-gratulations, that Jean Charost could neither smile nor listen; that a red spot came in his cheek; that his eyes grew blood-shot, and his lip parched. At length, however, a few incoherent words alarmed him, and he determined to sit by his master's bedside and watch. Before morning he had to seek a physician; and then began all the follies of the medical art, common in those times.

For fourteen days, however, Jean Charost was utterly unconscious of whether he was treated well or ill, kindly or the reverse; and at the end of that time, when the light of reason returned, it was but faint and feeble. When first he became fully conscious, he found himself lying in a small room, of which he thought he recollected something. The light of an early spring day was streaming in through an open window, with the fresh air, sweet and balmy; and the figure of a middle-aged man, in a black velvet gown, was seen going out of the door.

The eyes of the young man turned from one object around him to another. There was a little writing-table, two or three wooden settles, a brazen sconce upon the wall, a well-polished floor of brick, an ebony crucifix, with a small fountain of holy water beneath it--all objects to which his eyes had been accustomed five or six months before. The figure he had seen going out, with its quiet, firm carriage, and easy dignity, was one that he recollected well; and he asked himself, "Was he really still in the house of Jacques Cœur, and was the whole episode of Agnes, and Juvenel de Royans, and the imprisonment, and the torture, and the Duke of Orleans nothing but a dream?"

CHAPTER XXX.

A week, a fortnight, a month; what are they in the long, long, boundless lapse of time? A point--a mere point on which the eye of memory hardly rests in the look-back of a lifetime, unless some of those marking facts which stamp particular periods indelibly upon the heart have given it a durable significance. Yet, even in so brief a space, how much may be done. Circumscribe it as you will--make it a single hour--tie down the passing of that hour to one particular spot; and in that hour, and on that spot, deeds may be written on eternity affecting the whole earth at the time, affecting the whole human race forever. No man can ever overestimate the value of the actions of an hour.

Within the period of Jean Charost's sickness and recovery, up to the time when he fully regained his consciousness, events had been going on around him which greatly influenced, not only his fate, but the fate of mighty nations. The operation, indeed, was not immediate; but it was direct and clear; and we must pause for a moment in the more domestic history which we are giving, to dwell upon occurrences of general importance, without a knowledge of which our tale could hardly be understood.

In confusion and dismay, accompanied by few attendants, and in a somewhat stealthy manner, John of Burgundy fled from Paris, after making his strange and daring confession of the murder of his near kinsman, and the brother of his king.

When informed of the avowal, the Duke of Bourbon, his uncle, and many other members of the king's council, expressed high displeasure that the Duke of Berri and the King of Sicily had suffered him to quit the door of the council-chamber, except as a prisoner; and perhaps those two princes themselves saw the error they had committed. Had they acted boldly and decidedly upon the mere sense of justice and right, France would have been spared many a bloody hour, a disastrous defeat, and a long subjugation. But when the time of repentance came, repentance was too late. The Duke of Burgundy was gone, and the tools of his revenge, though he had boldly named them, had followed their lord.

All had gone, as criminals flying from justice, and such was their terror and apprehension of pursuit, that they threw down spiked balls in the snow behind them as they went, to lame the horses of those who might follow. In the course of his flight, however, the Duke of Burgundy recovered in part his courage and a sense of his dignity. His situation was still perilous indeed; for he had raised enmity and indignation against him in the hearts of all the princes of the blood royal, and of many of the noblest men in France. Nay more, he had alienated the most sincere and the most honorable of his own followers, while the king himself, just recovered from one of his lamentable fits of insanity, was moved by every feeling of affection, and by the sense of justice and of honor, to punish the shameless murderer of his brother.