Jean Charost thought so likewise; but that conversation brought upon him fits of thought which lasted, with more or less interruption, during the whole evening.
Society, in almost every country, has its infancy, its youth, its maturity, and its old age. At least, such has been the case hitherto. These several acts of life are of longer or shorter duration, according to circumstances, but the several epochs are usually sufficiently marked The age in which Jean Charost spoke was not one of that fine, moralizing tendency which belongs to the maturity of life; but it was one of passion and of action, of youth, activity, and indiscretion. Nevertheless, feeling often supplied a guide where reason failed, and from some cause Jean Charost felt pained that he could not find one character among those who surrounded him sufficiently pure and high to command and obtain his whole esteem. He asked himself that painful question which so often recurs to us ere we have obtained from experience, as well as reason, a knowledge of man's mixed nature, "Is there such a thing as virtue, and truth, and honor upon earth?"
The next day was passed as a day of mourning; but on the following morning early, all the nobles in the castle of Espaly met together in the great hall, and some eager consultations went on among them. There were smiles, and gay looks, and many a lively jest, and lances were brought in, and bucklers examined, as if for a tournament.
Jean Charost asked his companion, Du Châtel, the meaning of all that they beheld; and the other replied, with a grave smile, "Merely a boy's frolic; but one which may have important consequences."
A moment after, the young king himself, habited in scarlet, entered the hall, followed by a number of the ladies and gentlemen of the court, and received gracefully and graciously the greetings of his subjects. But an instant after, La Hire and two or three others surrounded and pressed upon him so closely, that Jean Charost thought they were showing scanty reverence toward the king, when suddenly a voice exclaimed, "Pardon us, sire;" and in an instant spears were crossed, a shield cast down upon them, and the young monarch lifted to a throne which might have befitted one of the predecessors of Charlemagne. Dunois seized a banner embroidered with the arms of France, and moving on through the doors of the hall into the chapel, the banner was waved three times in the air, and the voices of all present made the roof ring with the shout of, "Long live King Charles the Seventh!"
Almost at the same time, another personage was added to the group around the altar, and Jacques Cœur himself repeated heartily the cry, adding, "I have brought with me, sire--at least, so I trust--the means to make you King of France, indeed. It is here in this château, and all safe."
"Thanks, thanks, my good friend," said the young king. "We must take counsel together how it may be used to the best advantage; and our deep gratitude shall follow the service, whatever be the result of the use we make of it. And now, lords and ladies, to Poictiers immediately--ay, to-morrow morning, to be solemnly crowned in the Cathedral there. That city, at least, we can call our own, and there we will deliberate how to recover others."
CHAPTER XLI.
What a wild whirlpool is history, and how strange it is to gaze upon it, and to see the multitudes of atoms that every instant are rushing forward upon the whirling and struggling waters of Time, borne fiercely along by causes that they know not, but obey--now catching the light, now plunged into darkness, agitated, tossed to and fro, turned round in giddy dance, and at length swallowed up in the deep centre of the vortex where all things disappear! It is a strange, a terrible, but a salutary contemplation. No sermon that was ever preached, no funeral oration ever spoken, shows so plainly, brings home to the heart so closely, the emptiness of all human things, the idleness of ambition, the folly of avarice, the weakness of vanity, and the meanness of pride, as the sad and solemn aspect of history--the record of deeds that have produced nothing, and passions that have been all in vain. But there is a Book from which all these things will at one time be read; and then, how awful will be the final results disclosed!
To men who make history, however, while floating round in that vortex, and tending onward, amid all their struggles, to the one inevitable doom, how light and easy is the transition, how imperceptible the diminution of the circle, as onward, onward they are carried--how rapid, especially in times of great activity, is the passage of event into event. Time seems to stop in the heat of action, and energy, like the prophet, exclaims, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon!"