"Perhaps you are right in choosing small attendance," said the duke. "I will send you a stout fellow to accompany you, who knows every rood of the road. He is but a courier, but he makes no bad man-at-arms in case of need; and, though I would not have you go fully armed, I think it were as well if you wore a secret; beneath your ordinary dress."
"I have no arms of any kind with me but my sword and dagger, sir," replied Jean Charost, "and I do not think I shall need more."
"Yes--yes, you may," replied the duke. "Stay; I will write a word to Lomelini. He will procure you all that is needful;" and, drawing some paper toward him, the duke wrote, with a hand which shook a good deal, the following words: "Signor Lomelini, put Armand Chauvin under the orders of Monsieur De Brecy upon a journey which he has to take for me. Command the armorer to furnish him with what ever arms he may require, and the chief écuyer; to let him take from the stable what horses he may select, with the exception of gray Clisson, the Arab jennet, my own hackney, and my three destriers. Orleans."
"There," said the duke, "there. Here is an order on the treasurer, too, for your expenses; and now, when will you set out?"
"In an hour," replied Jean Charost.
"Can you get ready so soon?" the prince inquired.
"I think so, your highness," replied the young secretary. "I shall be ready myself, if the two men are prepared."
"So be it, then," said the Duke of Orleans. "I will go lie down on my bed again, for I am weary in heart and limb."
CHAPTER XV.
No season is without its beauty, no scene without its peculiar interest. If the great mountain, with its stony peak shooting up into the sky, has sublimity of one kind, the wide expanse of open country, moor, or heath, or desert, with its limitless horizon and many-shaded lines, has it of another. To an eye and a heart alive to the impressions of the beautiful and the grand, something to charm and to elevate will be found in almost every aspect of nature. The storm and the tempest, as well as the sunshine and the calm, will afford some sources of pleasure; and, as the fading away of the green leaf in the autumn enchants the eye by the resplendent coloring produced, decay will be found to decorate, and ruin to embellish.