At first, it was supposed, she did but faint: but the truth was soon ascertained; and when Chazeul rose from his knee, and turned round to the rest of the party, he beheld what was to him a more painful sight than even that on which he had been just gazing. It was Rose d'Albret in the arms of Louis de Montigni: while Monsieur de Liancourt, with all his assumed firmness gone, was apparently making amends to the King by courtesy and explanation, for the tone which he had at first assumed towards him.
But, in another part of the hall stood Helen de la Tremblade, with her hand in that of her uncle, while her eyes were buried on the old man's shoulder; and around,--at each door of the hall, and filling up the whole of one side,--were seen the scarred and weather-beaten faces of the veteran royalist soldiery, with their white scarfs over their shoulders, and their naked swords in their hand.
Chazeul turned again to the form of his dead mother, and then once more bent his eyes on Helen de la Tremblade. "It is the hand of God!" he murmured. "It is the hand of God!" and then, as the captain of the guard advanced to arrest him, he said, "Wait one moment," and strode across the room towards the priest and his niece.
"Helen," he said in a low tone, "Helen, I have done you wrong.--I am ready to make atonement.--Will you be my wife?"
"No!" cried Helen, turning round towards him, "No!--My fate is fixed. The cloister is the only shelter for one whose heart has been trampled on like mine."
"Nay, nay!" cried Henri Quatre stepping forward. "Remember, my fair friend, penitence should be always accepted. Were it not so, how should I ever find grace, as I yet hope to do?--Nay, suffer me to be the mediator. Here, Monsieur de Chazeul," he continued, taking Helen's hand, and placing it in that of the Marquis. "Take her: and if she have loved you too well heretofore, it is a thousand chances to one that you soon teach her to mend that fault, when you are her husband.--However, you shall have fair room to try; for we must not cage so promising a bridegroom. Captain, we shall not want your good offices for the present."
The augury of the King was unhappily but too correct; and two years had barely elapsed, when Helen, Marchioness of Chazeul, retired for ever from the busy world, with the consent of her husband, to the convent of a sisterhood of cloistered nuns.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1]: This phenomenon was seen distinctly by many persons in both armies, immediately before the battle of Ivry, and was visible over an extent of more than twenty leagues.
[Footnote 2]: The duel of one to one, without seconds or witnesses, was not uncommon at this time in France, especially when men were of high rank, and wished to void a serious quarrel without danger of interruption. They often also took place on horseback with the pistol, but Monsieur de Monteil is wrong in stating under the reign of Henry IV., that it was a new custom to introduce seconds into duels. During the reign of Charles IX. and Henry III., the practice of fighting with a number of seconds who all took part in the affray, was general; and in the famous challenge of Henry IV. himself, when King of Navarre, to the Duke of Guise, he offered to fight him one to one, two to two, or ten to ten.