Richelieu: A Tale of France, v. 2/3

by G. P. R. James

It matters little how De Blenau relished his meal; suffice it, that the civility and attention he experienced, greatly removed his apprehensions for the future, and made him imagine that no serious proceedings were intended against him. In this frame of mind, as soon as the Governor’s servants had taken away the remains of his supper, and the bolts were drawn upon him for the night, he took a book from the shelf, thinking that his mind was sufficiently composed to permit of his thus occupying it with some more pleasing employment than the useless contemplation of his own fate. But he was mistaken. He had scarcely read a sentence, before his thoughts, flying from the lettered page before his eyes, had again sought out all the strange uncertain points of his situation, and regarding them under every light, strove to draw from the present some presage for the future. Thus finding the attempt in vain, he threw the book hastily from him, in order to give himself calmly up to the impulse he could not resist. But as the volume fell from his hand upon the table, a small piece of written paper flew out from between the leaves, and after having made a circle or two in the air, fell lightly to the ground.

De Blenau carelessly took it up, supposing it some casual annotation; but the first few words that caught his eye riveted his attention. It began.

“To the next wretched tenant of these apartments I bequeath a secret, which, though useless to me, may be of service to him. To-day I am condemned, and to-morrow I shall be led to the torture or to death. I am innocent; but knowing that innocence is not safety, I have endeavoured to make my escape, and have by long labour filed through the lock of the iron door near the bed, which was the sole fastening by which it was secured from without. Unfortunately, this door only leads to a small turret staircase communicating with the inner court; but should my successor in this abode of misery be, like me, debarred from exercise, and also from all converse with his fellow prisoners, this information may be useful to him. The file with which I accomplished my endeavour is behind the shelf which contains these books. Adieu, whoever thou art! Pray for the soul of the unhappy Caply!”

As he read, the hopes which De Blenau had conceived from the comforts that were allowed him fled in air. There also, in the same apartment, and doubtless attended with the same care, had the wretched Caply lingered away the last hours of an existence about to be terminated by a dreadful and agonizing death. “And such may be my fate,” thought De Blenau with an involuntary shudder, springing from that antipathy which all things living bear to death. But the moment after, the blood rushed to his cheek, reproaching him for yielding to such a feeling though no one was present to witness its effects. “What!” thought he, “I who have confronted death a thousand times, to tremble at it now! However, let me see the truth of what this paper tells;” and entering the bed-room, he approached the iron door, of which he easily drew back the bolts, Caply having taken care to grease them with oil from the lamp, so that they moved without creating the smallest noise.

The moment that these were drawn, the slightest push opened the door, and De Blenau beheld before him a little winding stone staircase, filling the whole of one of the small towers; which containing no chambers and only serving as a back access to the apartments in the square tower, had been suffered in some degree to go to decay. The walls were pierced with loopholes, which being enlarged by some of the stones having fallen away, afforded sufficient aperture for the moonlight to visit the interior with quite enough power to permit of De Blenau’s descending without other light. Leaving the lamp, therefore, in the bed-room, he proceeded down the steps till they at once opened from the turret into the inner court, where all was moonlight and silence, it being judged unnecessary, after the prisoners were locked in for the night, to station even a single sentry in a place which was otherwise so well secured.

Without venturing out of the shadow of the tower, De Blenau returned to his apartment, feeling a degree of satisfaction in the idea that he should not now be cut off from all communication with those below in case he should desire it. He no longer felt so absolutely lonely as before, when his situation had appeared almost as much insulated as many of those that the lower dungeons of that very building contained, who were condemned to drag out the rest of their years in nearly unbroken solitude.

Having replaced the paper in the book, for the benefit of any one who might be confined there in future, De Blenau fastened the iron door on the inside, and addressing his prayers to Heaven, he laid himself down to rest. For some time his thoughts resumed their former train, and continued to wander over his situation and its probable termination, but at length his ideas became confused, memory and perception gradually lost their activity, while fatigue and the remaining weakness from his late wounds overcame him, and he slept.

CHAPTER III.

Which shows a new use for an old Castle; and gives a good receipt for leading a man by the nose.

NOW if the reader imagined that I wrote the whole of the twelfth chapter of the last volume for the sole purpose of telling a cock and a bull story about a country innkeeper and conjuror’s first cousin, he was very much mistaken. Let him immediately transport himself back to the little village of Mesnil St. Loup, and let him remember the church, and the old trees, and the ruined castle beyond, with all the circumstances thereunto appertaining; and if any thing that has since passed has put the particulars out of his mind, let him return to the aforesaid twelfth chapter, and learn it by heart, as a penance for having forgotten it. But if, on the contrary, he remembers it fully—I will go on with my story.