There were about twenty persons present, but the greater number consisted of various attendants attached to the household of all French noblemen of that period, under the names of grooms, piqueurs, valets de chiens, chefs de relais, &c. Three out of the group, however, are worthy of greater attention, not alone because they were higher in rank, but because with them we shall have to deal throughout the course of this tale, while most of the others may well be forgotten. The eldest of the three, bore the robe of an ecclesiastic, though in his deportment, as he sat a spirited, and somewhat fretful horse, he seemed fully as well suited to play the part of a gay cavalier as that of a sober churchman.
His features were fine, though not strongly marked; the nose straight and well cut; the chin rounded; the brow broad and high, and the mouth well formed. But with all these traits of beauty, there were one or two drawbacks, both in feature and expression, which rendered his aspect by no means so prepossessing as it otherwise might have been. The eyes, which were remarkably fine, large, dark, and powerful, were sunk deep under the sharp cut, overhanging brow, looking keenly out from below their long fringed lids, as if in ambush for each unguarded glance or gesture of those with whom he conversed. The lips, though, as we have said, well formed, closed tight over the teeth, which were as white as snow, never suffering them to appear, except when actually speaking. Even then those lips parted but little, and gave one the idea of their being, as it were, the gates of imprisoned thoughts, which opened no farther than was necessary to give egress to those which they were forced to set at liberty. The nostril, though it was finely shaped, was even stiller and more motionless than the lips. No moment of eagerness, no excited passion of the bosom, made that nostril expand, and if it ever moved at all, it was but when a slight irrepressible sneer upon the lip drew it up with a scornful elevation, not the less cutting because it was but slight.
The age of this personage at the time we speak of might be about forty-five; and if one might judge by the clear paleness of his complexion, a considerable portion of his life had been spent in intense study. The marks of his age were visible, too, in his beard and mustachios, which had once been of the deepest black, but were now thickly grizzled with grey. No sign, however, of any loss of strength or vigour was apparent; and though still and quiet in his demeanour, he seemed not at all disinclined to show, by an occasional exercise of strength or agility, that stillness and quietude were with him matters of choice and not of necessity. He kept his horse a very small pace behind those of his two younger companions; but he so contrived it that this very act of deference should not have the slightest appearance of humility in it, but should rather seem an expression of what he owed to his own age and character rather than to their superior rank.
The other two were both young men in the very early outset of life, and were so nearly of the same age, that it was difficult to say which was the elder. Both were extremely handsome, both were very powerfully and gracefully formed; and the most extraordinary similarity of features and of frame existed between them, so that it would have been difficult to distinguish the one from the other, had it not been that their complexions were entirely different. The one was dark, the other fair: in one the hair curled over the brow in large masses, as glossy as the wing of the raven; in the other, the same profuse and shining hair existed, but of a nut brown, with every here and there a gleam as if the sun shone upon it. The eyes of the one were dark, but flashing and lustrous; the eyes of the other of a deep hazel, and in them there mingled, with the bright bold glances of fearless courage, an occasional expression of depth and tenderness of feeling, which rendered the character of his countenance as different from that of his brother as was his complexion.
Notwithstanding the great similarity that existed between them, they were not, as may have been supposed, twins, the fairer of the two being a year younger than his brother. They were both, indeed, as we have said, in their early youth, but their youth was manly; and though neither had yet seen three-and-twenty years, the form of each was powerful and fully developed, and the slight pointed beard and sweeping mustachio were as completely marked as the custom of the day admitted.
On the characters of the two we shall not pause in this place, as they will show themselves hereafter; and it is sufficient to say that there was scarcely a little word, or action, or gesture, which did not more or less display a strong and remarkable difference between the hearts and minds of the two. During their whole life, hitherto, notwithstanding this difference, they had lived in the utmost friendship and regard, without even any of those occasional quarrels which too often disturb the harmony of families. Perhaps the secret of this might be that the elder brother had less opportunity of domineering over the younger than generally existed in the noble families of France, for their mother had been an heiress of great possessions, and according to the tenour of her contract of marriage with their father, her feofs and riches fell on her death to her second son, leaving him, if any thing, more powerful and wealthy than his elder brother.
The fortune of neither, however, though each was large, was of such great extent as to place them amongst the few high and powerful families who at that time struggled for domination in the land of their birth. The territory of each could bring two or three hundred soldiers into the field in case of need: the wealth of each sufficed to place them in the next rank to the governor of the province which they inhabited; but still their names stood not on the same list with those of Epernon, Joyeuse, Montmorency, Guise, or Nemours; and, contented hitherto with the station which they enjoyed, neither they themselves, nor any of their ancestors, had striven to obtain for their house a distinction which, in those times, was, perhaps, more perilous than either desirable or honourable. Neither of them, indeed, was without ambition, though that ambition was, of course, modified by their several characters; but it had been controlled hitherto, perhaps, less by the powers of their own reason than by the influence of the personage who now accompanied them, and whom we have before described.
Not distantly connected with them by the ties of blood, the Abbé de Boisguerin had been called from Italy, where he had long resided, to superintend their education shortly after their mother's death. His own income, though not so small as that of many another scion of a noble house in France, had, nevertheless, proved insufficient through life to satisfy a man of expensive, though not very ostentatious, tastes and habits; and the large emoluments, offered to him, together with the prospects of advancement which the station proposed held out, induced him without hesitation to quit his residence in Rome, and revisit a country, the troublous state of which gave the prospect of advancement to every daring and unscrupulous spirit.
It may seem strange to say, as we have said, that the influence of an ambitious man had been directed to check their ambition: but he was ambitious only for the attainment of certain ends. He valued not power merely as power, but for that which power might command. Personal gratification was his object, though the pursuit of that gratification, as far as the objects of sense went, was also restrained, like his ambition, by other qualities and feelings. Thus, as an ambitious man, at the time we speak of, he was neither fierce nor grasping; as an epicurean, he was not coarse nor insatiable; and yet with all this apparent--nay, real, moderation--there lay within his breast, unexcited and undeveloped, passions as strong and fierce, desires as eager and as fiery, as ever burned within the heart of man. He controlled them by skill and habit, he covered them, as it were, with the dust and ashes of his profession, but it needed only an accidental breath to blow them into a flame, which, in turn, would have given fire to every other aspiration and effort of his mind.
He had found it in no degree difficult to obtain a complete ascendency over the minds of the two young men he was called upon to govern. Their father had plunged deeply, after his wife's death, into the wars and troubles of the times, and he left his two sons entirely to the care and direction of the Abbé de Boisguerin. Thus he had every opportunity that he could desire; and he brought to the task most extensive learning, which enabled him to direct in every thing the inferior teachers. His manners were graceful, polished, and captivating, his temper calm and unruffled: hiding his own thoughts and feelings under an impenetrable veil, never alluding to his past life or his future purposes, he skilfully, nay, almost imperceptibly, made himself master of the confidence of others, and gained every treasured secret of the hearts around him, without giving any thing in exchange. His learning, his wisdom, his acuteness, his impenetrability, won respect and reverence, and almost awe, from the two youths yet in their boyhood: his courtesy, his kindness, his consideration for the errors and the desires of their youth, gained greatly upon their regard; and their admiration and love was increased by some events which took place towards their seventeenth and sixteenth years.