“Innocence makes one incautious,” replied De Blenau; “but I will own, I was surprised to find that the business had been put upon you.”
“So was I,” rejoined the other. “I was astonished, indeed, when I received the lettre de cachet. But a soldier has nothing to do but to obey, Monsieur de Blenau. It is true, I one time thought to make an excuse; but, on reflection, I found that it would do you no good, and that some one might be sent to whom you would less willingly give your sword than to old De Thiery. But here we are at the Palace, Sir. There is a carriage in waiting; will you take any refreshment before you go?”
The prospect of imprisonment for an uncertain period, together with a few little evils, such as torture, and death, in the perspective, had not greatly increased De Blenau’s appetite, and he declined accepting the Count de Thiery’s offer, but requested that his Page might be allowed to accompany him to Paris. The orders of Richelieu, however, were strict in this respect, and De Thiery was obliged to refuse. “But,” added he, “if the boy has wit, he may smuggle himself into the Bastille afterwards. Let him wait for a day or two, and then crave of the gaoler to see you. The prison is not kept so close as those on the outside of it imagine. I have been in more than once myself to see friends who have been confined there. There was poor La Forte, who was afterwards beheaded, and the Chevalier de Caply, who is in there still. I have seen them both in the Bastille.”
“You will never see the Chevalier de Caply again,” replied De Blenau, shuddering at the remembrance of his fate. “He died yesterday morning under the torture.”
“Grand Dieu!” exclaimed De Thiery; “this Cardinal Prime Minister stands on no ceremonies. Here are five of my friends he has made away with in six months. There was La Forte, whom I mentioned just now, and Boissy, and De Reineville, and St. Cheron; and now, you tell me, Caply too; and if you should chance to be beheaded, or die under the torture, you will be the sixth.”
“You are kind in your anticipations, Sir,” replied De Blenau, smiling at the old man’s bluntness, yet not particularly enjoying the topic. “But having done nothing to merit such treatment, I hope I shall not be added to your list.”
“I hope not, I hope not!” exclaimed De Thiery, “God forbid! I think, in all probability, you will escape with five or six weeks imprisonment: and what is that?”
“Why, no great matter, if considered philosophically,” answered De Blenau, thoughtfully. “And yet, Monsieur de Thiery, liberty is a great thing. The very freedom of walking amidst all the beauties of the vast creation, of wandering at our will from one perfection to another, is not to be lost without a sigh. But it is not that alone—the sense, the feeling of liberty, is too innately dear to the soul of man to be parted with as a toy.”
While De Blenau thus spoke, half reasoning with himself, half addressing his conversation to the old soldier by his side, who, by long service, had been nearly drilled into a machine, and could not, consequently, enter fully into the feelings of his more youthful companion, the carriage which was to convey them to Paris was brought round to the gate of the Palace at which they stood. Figure to yourself, my dearly beloved reader, a vehicle in which our good friend, the Giant Magog, of Guildhall, could have stood upright; its long sides bending inwards with a graceful sweep, like the waist of Sir Charles Grandison in his best and stiffest coat; and then conceive all this mounted upon an interminable perch, connecting the heavy pairs of wheels, which, straggling and far apart, looked like two unfortunate hounds coupled together against their will, and eternally struggling to get away from each other. Such was the chaise roulante which stood at the gate of the Palace, ready to convey the prisoner to Paris.
The preparations that had been made for De Blenau’s journey to Chantilly, now served for this less agreeable expedition; and the various articles which he conceived would be necessary to his comfort, were accordingly disposed about the vehicle, whose roomy interior was not likely to suffer from repletion.