"I speak the truth, upon my honour," replied I; "and more, I warn you that, if you do not speedily retreat, you will have the cavalry of the Prince upon you."
"We must take you with us, however," answered the other. "Some one look to the young gentleman's wounds, for I see he is bleeding."
My sword was now taken from me, my wounds were bandaged up, as well as the circumstances permitted; and being placed upon my horse, I was carried to the end of the road, where I found that the soldiers who had made me prisoner were only the advance party of a regiment that had been hurrying to join the army of the king. The old officer with whom I had spoken was the Count de Langerot, their commander, who, having heard the distant report of cannon, together with the rumours which spread fast among the peasantry, had ridden forward to gain some farther information, and had come up just before the death of the Marquis de St. Brie.
The regiment immediately retreated to Le Chesne, and during the time I remained with it, I was treated with every sort of lenity and kindness by its commander; but this only lasted for a day; for the Maréchal de Chatillon having joined the regiment at Le Chesne, and collected together the scattered remnants of his army, sent me prisoner to Mezières, under a large escort, making me appear, by his precautions, a person of much more consequence than I really was, probably thinking that a prisoner of some import might do away, in a degree, the humiliating appearance of his defeat. Perhaps, however, I did him wrong; but I must confess, at the time, I could see no other object in sending me from Rethel to Mezières under a strong detachment of cavalry.
At Mezières I was consigned to a small room in the château, which, though not a dungeon, approached somewhat near it in point of comfort; and here plenty of time had I to reflect at my leisure over the hopelessness of my situation. With the death of the Count de Soissons, every dream of my fancy had died also; and all that I could do, was to turn my eyes upon the past, and brood despairingly over the delights of the years gone by, with thoughts cold, unfruitful, agonising--as the spirits of the dead are said sometimes to hover round the treasures they amassed in their lives, at once regretting their loss, and grieving that they had not used them better.
Thus hour after hour slipped away, each one a chain of heavy, painful minutes, gloomy, desolate, deathlike. My gaoler was a gaoler indeed. For several days he continued to bring me my food, without interchanging with me one word; and his looks had anything in them but consolation. At length, on the seventh morning, I think it was, he came with another like himself, bearing a heavy set of irons, and told me I must submit to having them put on my legs and arms.
Of course I remonstrated against the degradation, urged my rank, and asked the reason of the change.
"Because you are condemned to death," replied he. "That is enough, is not it?"
"Condemned to death!" I exclaimed, "without a trial? It is false--it cannot be."
"You'll find it too true, when they strike your head off," replied the gaoler; and without farther information left me to my own thoughts. I had before given up life, it is true--I had fancied that I cared not for it, now that I had lost all that made life deal--but, nevertheless, I found that the love of being lingered still, and that I could not think, without a shudder, on the fond fellowship betwixt body and soul being dissolved for ever.--For ever! the very word was awful; and that fate which I had never shrunk from, which I had often dared, in the phrensy of passion or the folly of adventure, acquired new strange terrors when I viewed it face to face, slowly advancing towards me, with a calm inevitable step.