De L'Orme. / The Works of G. P. R. James, Esq., Vol. XVI.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Achilles, on his return, amused me with the account I have just given, while he rubbed my shoulder with some unguent, bought for the purpose; and, though I was not over well pleased at having been played off as a robber, with so particular a description also as he had given of my person, yet I was not at all sorry that the jeweller had been pinched for his roguery, and not a little rejoiced with the recovery of my ring.

As I have before said, the little player, though as cunning as a sharper in some matters, was in others as simple as a child; and, like a boy with his first crown-piece, fortune never gave him any sum, however small, but he seemed to think it inexhaustible. Thus, from time to time, he found so many delightful ways of employing my hundred louis, that, had I followed his advice, one single day would have seen me at the end of all my riches: but I soon put a stop to the building of his castles in the air, by informing him that I intended to live with the most rigid economy, till such time as I had an opportunity of writing to my father; at the same time begging him to make up his mind to follow my example, if he still held his intention of remaining with me.

"Oh, very well, monseigneur, very well," cried he, gaily, "anything contents me. I can live upon ortolans and stewed eels, but I do not object to onion soup and a crust of bread. Nay, when the soup cannot be had, the crust must serve."

Having arranged in my own mind all my plans for pursuing my economical system as strictly as possible, I sat down to the long-deferred task of writing to my father: for now that I had seen Helen, half the difficulty was removed. No matter what were the contents of the letter which I wrote; it never went. Posts, in those days, were not the regular mechanical contrivances which our present glorious monarch has instituted for the purpose of facilitating the communication of every part of his dominions with the others. Couriers, indeed, passed to and fro from one part of the empire to another, carrying the letters of individuals, as well as the despatches of the state; but all the arrangements concerning them were much in the same state as Louis XI. had left them. Their departure from Paris was at uncertain and irregular times; and their journeys were generally directed towards the principal cities, having either commercial or political relations with the capital. The difficulty, therefore, of conveying anything to a remote and little frequented part of the empire delayed my letter for some time; and before an opportunity presented itself, circumstances had changed.

In the meanwhile, I employed my mornings in searching for the mansion wherein I had seen Helen; but, although aided by all the wit of little Achilles, to whom I communicated enough information to guide him on the search, I wandered through the streets of Paris in vain, watching the opening gates of every large hotel I saw, in the hope of beholding the livery in which the servants I had seen were dressed, and forcing my recollection to recall the appearance of the archway under which I had been carried, till a thousand times I deceived myself into hope, and as often encountered disappointment.

Once only I thought myself sure of the discovery. The porte-cochère of a house near the Place Royale struck me as the very same I had passed, while borne upon the brancard by the servants. Every ornament, every pillar was there, as far as I could remember. There were the curious Gothic mouldings upon which the torch-light had flashed as we passed through--there were the two immense couchant bears carved in stone on each side of the arch, on the back of one of which the bearers had rested the litter, while their companions opened the gates. Everything seemed the same; and, taking my stand under the porch of the monastery of the Minims, I kept watch for two hours, till a servant coming out, showed me, to my surprise, a livery totally different from that which I had both hoped and expected to see.

It may be asked what was my object in thus seeking for Helen, when I knew, when I felt that my union with her was impossible--when at the very thought her brother's spirit seemed to rise up before me, and, with the same ghastly look which he had worn in death, bid me forget such hopes for ever. Why did I seek her? No one that has loved will ever ask. I sought her for the bright brief happiness which the presence of the loved still gives, after every expectation is crushed and withered. I sought her with that dreamy sort of lingering with which a mother hangs over the frail clay of her dead child. My hopes were blighted, my happiness was gone; and yet the very object that most nourished my regret was that on which I could look most fondly, and which I sought with the most anxious, most unremitting care.

Thus passed my mornings, in fruitless search and continual disappointment. My evenings flew in a different manner, not in studying "The Sure Way of Winning," or in practising its precepts, for such a horror had seized me of that hell-invented vice, gaming, and of all that appertains to it, that my first care had been to throw the book I had bought into the fire. The temporary passion which had seized me, I looked upon, and can almost look upon now, as a fit of insanity; for taught as I had been from my infancy to abhor its very name, nothing but absolute madness could have hurried me to a vice at once so degrading and so dangerous--which, as far as regards the mind, is in fact, at best, a combination of avarice and frenzy. I had now bought myself a variety of books on military tactics, and, without any defined purpose in the study, I spent my whole evenings in poring over these treatises of attack and defence--a greater and a nobler species of gambling than that which I had quitted, it is true, but only less mad, inasmuch as it is a game which any one nation can compel another to play, and where those must lose who have not studied to win.

I also went occasionally to a hall that an Italian fencer had fitted up in the Rue Pavée for the purpose of turning a high reputation he had acquired in Europe into ready money. Here the room, which was furnished with all sorts of arms offensive and defensive, was well lighted every night, and the assembled company either formed practising parties amongst themselves, or took lessons from the Italian himself, who was one of the most athletic men I ever beheld, and certainly a most complete master of his weapons.