One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre

by G. P. R. James

"Yes, but beyond them again all is clear and bright," rejoined Eugenie, as the sun and the wind gained the mastery, and the last wreaths of mist were swept away, leaving nothing but a thin filmy veil upon the expanse of sea. "See, Beatrice, how bright it looks!"

"And, on the other hand, gaze on the dark cloud of the past," replied Beatrice, with a smile which was not without its share of hopefulness; "and as you, dear Eugenie, have read me my coming lot, and would fain make me believe that it is to be so bright, I will tell you shortly, very shortly, the history of the past; that you may judge how much cause I have to augur well of the approaching hours from my experience of those gone. I cannot dwell long upon such painful things, but I will speak them briefly."

Sitting down together, and still gazing out upon the golden sea, Beatrice began her tale; and as she told it in as few words as it could well be told, so shall it be repeated here.

"I was born amongst the lovely Euganean hills," she said, "where nature has compressed into one small space all that is beautiful and all that is grand; mountain and valley, stream and lake, profuse abundance, vegetation and cultivation, an atmosphere of magic light, and an air of balm. My father was the sovereign prince of----, but that matters not; though we were of the house of Ferrara, which has given sovereigns to many another land, and has allied its princes to the highest upon earth. My father's dominions were small, but they were rich and beautiful; and he himself, born of a warlike race, kept well with the sword those territories which, doubtless, the sword had first acquired. He, when the sovereigns of Ferrara were closely allied to the house of France, visited this court; and wedded, more for her beauty than her wealth, and more for her virtues than her beauty, the heiress of a noble house, whose lands lie not far from your own in Maine. He carried her to Italy, where they ever after lived; his rights to his lady's lands in France being still respected by the sovereigns of this country, though the management of them was somewhat neglected by those in whom he trusted. Still, however, those lands were rich, and made no small addition to the revenues of an Italian prince. His favourite residence was amongst the Euganean hills; and there, where he had collected everything that was beautiful to the eye, or pleasant to the ear, where the wise and the good, the poet and the sculptor, the painter and the musician, ever found a home, I, his first-born child, saw the light, now some four-and-twenty years ago. About four years after, a brother was born, and, in his birth, my mother died; but though my father never wedded again, but buried his heart in the tomb of her he had loved, yet we were well, carefully, fondly nurtured, both by our surviving parent himself, and by an uncle, who, high in the church of Rome, looked on both my brother and myself as if we had been children of his own. Abandoning the paths of ambition for our sake, he left the ancient capital of empires for our peaceful castle in the Euganean hills; and there, while my father was often absent fulfilling the duties of a prince or a soldier, he devoted himself to the cultivation of our young minds, and to the strengthening of our young hearts against the sorrows and the temptations of the world. He was, he is, one man out of a multitude. But, Eugenie, we had another uncle, who, through life, had followed a different path, and who was destined to act a different part. He was bred a soldier, and lent his sword, and the troops he had contrived to raise, to any one who held out to him the prospect of wealth or aggrandisement. His expeditions, fortunate to others,--for he was brave and skilful,--were not fortunate to himself; for the artful and deceitful men he served generally contrived to withhold from him his promised reward. From my father he always met kindness and protection; and often did my parent support his cause, and avenge his quarrels, to the detriment of his own best interests. How that uncle acted in return, you shall hear. His heart was corrupted by dealing with the base, and he became base himself, from believing that all others were so.

"My uncle Albert, the Cardinal, saw more deeply into his heart than my father; and I remember well that it was when speaking of his brother, my other uncle, that he took pains to impress upon my mind a truth that struck me as a child, and which I have never forgotten. 'True virtue,' he said, 'comes out the brighter for shining amidst vice. It is only those who feel themselves weak that fear the contagion of corruption. We may hate evil, and not willingly mingle with those who practise it; but, if forced to do so, my child, we shall only hate it the more if we be really virtuous at heart. Meaner stones derive a lustre from that which lies beneath them: we set the diamond upon black, and it shines by its own light.' My father died, Eugenie; and the manner of his death was not altogether without suspicion; but as, in his territories, it was a doubtful question, whether the coronet, where there were male and female children, descended to the eldest of either sex, or was the portion of the first-born son, my uncle Ferdinand came hastily to settle the succession; and, to prevent all dispute, he took the inheritance unto himself. For fear of greater evils to us, and greater crimes to his brother, my other uncle, Albert, sent my young brother and myself, with speed and secrecy, to the court of France. I was then but thirteen years of age, and my brother nine, and with us were some attached dependants, who had either followed my mother to Italy, or had dwelt long in my father's house. My brother instantly received my mother's inheritance in France, burdened only with a small portion for myself; but, to better my fallen fortunes, the late Queen-mother, Catherine of Medicis, received me as one of her women, and, to do her but right, showed me, through life, unvarying tenderness. I will not offend your ears, Eugenie, by telling all that I saw in that corrupt court; but I had three great safeguards, dear friend--a heart naturally not easily moved; firm principles of truth and virtue, implanted in my earliest years; and one faithful woman, who had nursed my mother and myself, and who to vestal purity of heart added a daring courage, which strengthened her to do what she judged right in defiance of all dangers, and would speak truth to the highest of God's creatures upon earth. Yet I must not take credit to myself for any great powers of resistance. I do not say that there were not many who sought me, some in marriage, and some with lighter vows; but so deep and thorough was the contempt I felt for the vain and idle butterflies of that vicious court, that my scorn extended to the whole sex, and I fancied I should never give one thought to any man in the whole world. You know, Eugenie, and I know too well, how much I was mistaken. At length came one who sought my love as others had not sought it. Four years, or more, have since passed, my friend, and those years have changed him not for the better. There was a freshness of young feeling about him then, that is now gone, and it was that which first won a way to my heart. I now found that, if my heart had been difficult to move, when once it was moved, like a rock broken by some earthquake from the Alps, it was likely to bear all away before it. Oh, how I loved him, Eugenie! and when, after having, I own, made him sigh for many a month, to prove his love for me, I at length let him know that I did not feel towards him as towards the rest of men, and that he might, at some distant time, hope for the hand of Beatrice of Ferrara, the relief, alas! was greater to my heart than his. Then came the change over him, Eugenie. I believe he had injured his fortune with those hateful dice; the hope of obtaining your hand was held out to him; ambition and interest called him loudly to pursue that prospect; for I was poor, comparatively, and had no hope of better fortunes; and I heard that he was offering his vows to Eugenie de Menancourt. I resolved to see with my own eyes if this was true; and as the queen was then about to undertake one of her gay and politic progresses through Maine, I joined her, with my young brother; for my faithful nurse was by that time dead, and I did not choose to dwell in that court alone. You remember well, Eugenie, those days, and how my truant lover seemed chained, like a slave, to my bridle-rein. My pride was satisfied, if my heart was not, and I returned to Paris. He remained some months behind, and when he came, I found that he was changed indeed. He fled my society, and yet he seemed struggling with himself; full of passion and tenderness when we met, his words were wild and strange: he plunged deep into the vices of the court; and, though I saw and knew he loved me still, yet I resolved, by appearing to despise his conduct, and to forget himself, to recall him, if possible to better deeds. I went down to the dwelling of my brother in Maine, and there, roaming wildly over the country, I soon heard enough to show me that, notwithstanding all his large possessions, the Count d'Aubin was struggling vainly with the consequences of his own follies. There was then a contagious disease raging here in France, and my brother caught it, and died. His possessions fell to me. I had it now in my power to raise up again him I loved, and to sweep his embarrassments away; and it became my favourite dream to reclaim him from all evil, to lead him back to virtue and to right, to restore him to honour and to station, and to make him owe to me at once peace of mind and ease of fortune. For the last two years I have laboured for this object, Eugenie, by many a different means. I have been thwarted by accident, and by his own perversity; but I cling the more tenaciously to those hopes, the weaker becomes the foundation on which they rest. Sad and sorry I am to say he has weakened it more and more every hour; but yet, Eugenie, I hope. I have had him watched, Eugenie, not that I might know his weaknesses, for to those I have ever shut my ears, but in order to seize the moment, if ever the moment should come, for snatching him from his follies or from his evil fate. To himself I have pretended to hate and despise him, the better to conceal my views, and also to make him feel my kindness the more when my time comes. Sometimes I think, however, that he suspects me; and a dwarf page, who has been attached to me from my childhood, and whom, in other days, I gave to him to be his cupbearer, he sent away, a year or more ago, to his cousin St. Real. I had directed that page to give me notice of all that passed in Philip d'Aubin's household; but the tidings he gave were scanty, even while he was there, and as soon as he was gone, I formed a bold resolution, which I executed boldly. Shortly after you had come to Paris with your father, and I had contrived to gain your love and confidence, you may remember that Philip d'Aubin went down to Maine; and I did hope, that, in companionship with so noble a heart as his cousin St. Real, and under the eye of the good old Marquis, who was then living, his better feelings might expand, like flowers in the sunshine; and I resolved, at any risk, to go down thither and watch him myself; for I knew that men, to whom he owed large sums, were pressing him hard, and that, had it not been for these sad wars, his estates would long ago have suffered from their claims. I thought that the moment might come when the full and tender generosity, which is so often to be found in woman's heart, might have room to act, that I might save him from the consequences of his own faults, and thus, perhaps, save him from those faults themselves. I contrived, by means of the dwarf, to force several of my own servants into the household of St. Real; and I was following down rapidly myself, to try whether I could not, for a time, obtain admission there also, when messengers from my uncle Albert, telling me of the death of Ferdinand, the usurper of my little state, conveying to me considerable treasure, and beseeching me to return, and take possession of territories which were now universally acknowledged as my own, reached me at Orleans, and brought me back to Paris.

"As soon as I had dispatched them back with other letters, begging my uncle to rule in my stead till my return, I pursued my plan; but D'Aubin had, in the meantime, returned to Paris, and had thence again been summoned to the sick bed of his uncle of St. Real. Of this I knew nothing, however; and, after manifold risks and difficulties, owing, perhaps, to the negligence, perhaps to the malice, of the dwarf Bartholo, I accomplished my object, and found myself established as a page in the house of the lords of St. Real. I had determined, in any great difficulty, to apply at once to the old Marquis, and tell him all my history and all my views; but I found him dying, and soon saw that I must withdraw from the household into which I had thus intruded, or risk detection, and, perhaps, ill repute. To guard my name at home, however, I caused my women to give out that I was ill of the fever; and they played their part with skill. Day by day, however, my disguise produced more and more pain to myself; for I had but hourly proofs of how completely D'Aubin had given himself up to the vices and follies of his comrades of the court; and I determined, soon after St. Real and his cousin reached Paris, to cast that disguise off at once. The wealth which I had now at command in that venal city, and in these venal times, procured me every sort of facility in coming and going between Paris and St. Cloud; and I believe that, for one half the sum which I possessed unknown within the town, I could have procured regular passes for the two kings and all their troops to march quietly in and take possession of the capital. Thus, as soon as I had notice of the last sad and daring means which Philip d'Aubin was about to employ against you, my Eugenie,--the most base and profligate step of any he had yet taken,--I cast myself at the king's feet, who owed me some gratitude for a former service; told him your situation, my own plan for saving you, and besought him to give me his assistance. He did so in a generous manner, and even furnished me with intelligence to give Mayenne from the Prince of Parma, which is certain to mislead and puzzle the Duke regarding all our plans. Learning from an attendant, whom I still have in D'Aubin's service, that the Count had bound himself to set out on the very evening of his marriage for Maine, I conceived the Duke of Mayenne's plans at once; all his views; all his policy. I set every engine to work to gain information. I had his chaplain seized and carried away; I induced a wild drunken Huguenot soldier, not without talents, but without religion or principle, to enact the priest, and brought him to the Hotel de Guise at the moment that a priest was wanted. I took care that your refusal should be witnessed by so many, that, even had the person who performed the ceremony been what he seemed, the whole would have been illegal; but I also ensured that proof of the man's condition, and of all the other facts, should be lodged in the hands of the king, so as to render you free as air. And now, dear Eugenie, here we are, safe and at liberty, with a bark to bear you to England, if the king should lose the approaching battle; and, doubtless, you wonder that, with all I have seen, and with all I know, I can for one moment think again of Philip d'Aubin. Such is the voice of reason, Eugenie, and the voice of sense; but there is another voice in my heart, which drowns them all, and fills my mind with excuses for his conduct--vain and light, indeed, as the changing clouds upon the sky, I know; but still those clouds cast shadows, which alter the aspect of everything whereon they fall; and so, to my weak eyes, the excuses found by love cast an obscuring shade upon his actions, which will not suffer me to see them as I should if the full sun of unbiassed judgment shone upon them. I will make one more effort, dear Eugenie--I will essay one more trial; I will find the means of serving him deeply and truly; and if he be then ungrateful, I can cast him off--and die."

"Oh, not so, Beatrice!" replied Eugenie; "make every effort; try every means; but, even if all should fail, talk not of dying, but seek happiness in some other shape."

"In vain, Eugenie! in vain!" replied Beatrice, "all the feelings of my heart are engaged in this one effort. If it fail, there will be nothing else left for me on earth. The body may live, Eugenie--it perhaps may linger on some few years; but the heart and the soul are dead. Still, let us hope better things, dear friend; you have read me a happy fate in those passing clouds and the sunshine that followed, and I will trust----"

As she spoke, an attendant hurried in. "They are flying, madam!" he said; "they are flying!"

"Who?" demanded Beatrice, eagerly, "who are flying?"