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

by G. P. R. James

"I know nothing, sir, that has passed between us," replied Beatrice aloud, "except that once or twice, in a fit of wine or folly, you vowed that you loved Beatrice of Ferrara better than life, or wealth, or rank, or station; and that she received those vows as she has done a thousand others, from a thousand brighter persons than Philip Count d'Aubin, namely, as idle words, which foolish men will speak to foolish women, for want of better wit and more pleasant conversation; as words which you had probably spoken to a hundred others, before you spoke them to me, and which you will yet, in all probability, speak to a hundred more, who will believe them just as much as I did, and forget them quite as soon. Once more, sir, then, will you order the coachman to drive on, or let me do so, and retire from the wheel, lest it strike you, and the Catholic League lose a valiant convert by an ignoble death?"

"Nay, there at least you do me wrong!" replied the Count d'Aubin: "the Catholic League has no convert in me; I am here, under a safe conduct, on matters of no slight importance to my good cousin St. Real: but to his Majesty will I adhere, so long as he and I both live!"

"Indeed!" cried Beatrice, with a light laugh. "Is there anything in which the fickle Count d'Aubin will not be fickle? Nay, nay, make no rash vows; remember, you have not yet heard all the golden arguments which his Highness, the lieutenant-general of the kingdom and the League can hold out. Suppose he offer you the hand of some rich heiress; could you resist, sir Count? could you resist?"

D'Aubin coloured, perhaps because Beatrice had gone deeper into the secrets of his inmost thoughts than he felt agreeable. He answered, however, boldly, "I could resist anything against my honour."

"Honour!" exclaimed Beatrice, with a scoff: "honour! Marguerite, tell the coachman to drive on. Honour!"

D'Aubin drew back, with an air at once of pain and anger, made a silent sign to the coachman to proceed, and, springing on his horse, galloped down the street, followed by his attendants, at a pace which risked their own necks upon the unequal causeway of the town, and which certainly showed but little consideration for the safety of the passengers. The emotions of Philip d'Aubin, however, were such as did not permit of consideration for himself or others. He felt himself condemned, and he believed himself despised, by the only woman that, perhaps, he had ever truly loved. The better feelings of his heart, too, rose against him: he knew that his conduct was ungenerous; and he felt that, had the time been one when faith and honour towards woman were aught but mere names, his behaviour would have been dishonourable in the eyes of mankind, as well as in the stern code of abstract right and wrong: and unhappy is the man who has no other means of justifying himself to his own heart but by pleading the follies and vices of his age. D'Aubin did plead those follies and vices, however, and he pleaded them successfully, so far as in soon banishing reflection went; but there was a sting left behind, which was the more bitter, perhaps, as mortified vanity had no small share in the pain that he suffered. He had believed that he could not so soon be treated with scorn and indifference; he had fancied that his hold on the heart of Beatrice of Ferrara was too strong to be shaken off so easily; and though he had no definite object in retaining that hold, though other passions had for the time triumphed over affection, and placed a barrier between himself and her which he was not willing to overleap, yet still the lingering love that would not be banished was wounded by her bitter tone; and, joined to humbled pride and offended vanity, made his feelings aught but pleasing.

In the meantime, the carriage of Beatrice of Ferrara bore her on with a heart in which sensations as bitter were thronging; though, as we have seen in her conversation with Eugenie de Menancourt, her feelings towards her lover were less keen and scornful than her words might lead him to believe. On the state of her bosom, however, there is no necessity to dwell here, as many an occasion will present itself for explaining it in her own words; and it may be better, also, to let her thus speak for herself, because in endeavouring to depict abstractedly, by means of cold descriptions, that varying and chameleon-like thing, the human heart, one is often led into seeming contradictions, from the infinite variety of hues which it takes, according to the things which surround it.

The carriage rolled on and entered the court-yard of the splendid mansion in which she dwelt. Here Beatrice alighted; but she did not go into the house, for a hand-litter or chair,--one of the most ancient of French conveyances,--waited under the archway, as if prepared by her previous order, with its two bearers, and a single armed attendant; and this new conveyance received her as soon as she set foot out of the other. The door was immediately closed, and the blinds, filled with their small squares of painted glass, were drawn up, Beatrice merely saying to the attendant who stood beside her as she shut out the gaze of the passers-by, "To Armandi's!"

The bearers instantly lifted their burden, and began their course at the same peculiar trot which has probably been the pace of chair-men in all ages; nor from this did they cease or pause till they reached one of the most showy, if not one of the richest, shops in the city. Standing forth from the building, under a little projecting penthouse, to secure the wares against both sun and rain, was along range of glass cases, containing every sort of cosmetic then in vogue, from the plain essence of violets, wherewith the simple burgher's wife perfumed her robe of ceremony, to the rich ointment compounded from a thousand rare ingredients, wherewith the King himself masked his own effeminate countenance against the night air whilst he slept. Behind these cases was the shop itself, hanging in which might be seen a crowd of various objects for the gratification of vanity and luxury,--the black velvet mask, or loupe, the embroidered and many-coloured gloves, the splendid hair-pins and enamelled clasps, the girdles of gold and silver filigree and precious stones, together with many another part of dress or ornament, some full of grace and taste, some fantastic and absurd, and some scarcely within the bounds of common decency. Beyond the shop, again, but separated from it by a partition of glass, covered in the inside with curtains of crimson silk, was the inner shop, or most private receptacle for all those peculiarly rich or fragile wares which Armandi, the famous perfumer of that day, did not choose to expose, to tempt cupidity, or lose their freshness, in the more exposed parts of his dwelling. Here, too, report whispered, were concealed those drugs and secret preparations, his skill in compounding which, it was said, had been much more the cause of his great favour with Catherine de Medicis than his art as a perfumer, which was the ostensible motive of her calling him from Italy to take up his abode in her husband's capital. However this might be, certain it is that, after the sudden death of the Queen of Navarre, the suspicions of the Huguenots turned strangely against Armandi, to whose diabolical skill they very generally attributed the loss of their beloved princess: and it is more than probable that he would have fallen a victim to their indignation, whether just or unjust, had not the horrors of St. Bartholomew shortly after delivered him from the presence of his adversaries in Paris.

Nevertheless, although suspicion might be strong, and the man's character as infamous as such suspicions could render it, yet the shop of Armandi was not less the resort of the beautiful and the fair, and even of the gentle and good: for it is most extraordinary how far female charity will extend towards those who contribute to the gratification of vanity and satisfy the thirst for novelty. The newest fashions, the most beautiful objects of art and luxury, the freshest and most costly rarities were nowhere to be found but at his shop; and no one chose to believe that Armandi dealt in poisons--but those who wanted them.