"Assuredly, Sir," answered the trumpeter; "but perseverance comes to the aid of all. I thought I never should have got to Chartres this morning; for there are all sorts of bands roving the country, who have no more respect for a trumpet or a flag of truce, than they have for an old cheese, or a maid's modesty."
De Montigni remained silent for several minutes; but at length he said, "I wish I could meet with one of those bands you speak of."
"By my faith and honour, Sir," replied his companion with a laugh, "you may meet with one of them sooner than you would find pleasant. They are as easy to be found as cow-slips in the spring, but not quite so fragrant."
"They might answer my purpose, however," said the young Baron. "I suppose they would take service with any one who would pay them?"
"Ay, that they would," rejoined the trumpeter; "though you might find some honour amongst them too, notwithstanding all that Monsieur de Nemours said just now. Your furious Leaguer--unless he were a gentleman--would not sell himself to the King, for any money; and your stiff Protestant would not go over to the League for gold and roast meat. But there are plenty of birds between those two flights, who care not a straw on which side they appear, so that they fight, plunder, and get paid."
In such conversation De Montigni and his companion rode on for about an hour and a half, the young nobleman every now and then falling into a fit of thought, and revolving, with doubt and hesitation, the course he had to pursue. Lose Rose d'Albret, he was resolved he would not, without using every effort in his power; and yet he feared that, in the lawless state to which France had been reduced by long years of civil contention, she might be driven, if not to wed Chazeul--for that he believed nothing would induce her to do--at least to take those monastic vows which would place as impassable a barrier between them. To his just claims, he knew a deaf ear would be turned by those who had her in their hands; and no means seemed feasible to deliver her but force; and yet his heart revolted at the idea of taking arms against him by whom he had been nurtured and protected in his early years, and of attacking the dwelling where all his young and happy days had been passed. Yet "desperate evils," he thought, "require a desperate remedy; and that which is refused to justice, must be obtained by force." His mind then again reverted to the means; and, at length, he settled upon the plan of endeavouring to join the band of the Commander de Liancourt, of whose death it must be remembered he was ignorant. He knew that his uncle had been upon the way to join the King; and though he had not seen him in the fight of Ivry, the old soldier might well have been there, he thought; for, in the hurry and confusion of the field, and the disguise which the arms then worn afforded, two brothers might stand within a few yards of each other, without the slightest recognition taking place. As he thus meditated, he turned to his companion and inquired, if he had been at the field of Ivry.
"To be sure I was," replied the man; "and blew till I thought I should have burst my cheeks. The first thing that made Mayenne's standard begin to flap backwards and forwards, was the wind of my trumpet."
"Did you chance to hear of or see the old Commander de Liancourt?" asked the young nobleman; "and if you did, can you tell me what has become of him?"
"See him, I did not," said the man, "for he was boxed up in his arms like a crab in his shell. But when he came up behind the Cornette Blanche, I asked who he was, and they told me. As to what became of him, I do not know, for I lost him in the battle."
"Did you hear anything, then, of one Monsieur de Chasseron?" asked De Montigni.