Although occasionally fond of softer occupations--of music, of reading, and the dance--the young Count of St. Maurice loved the profession in which he was trained. Quick-sighted and talented, brave as a lion, and firm as a rock, he rose in his profession, and obtained several of those posts which, together with the liberality of his benefactor, enabled him, in some degree, to maintain the rank which had come down to him without the fortune to support it. Attaching himself more and more to Biron every year, he followed him in all his campaigns and expeditions, and paid him back, by many a service and many a care, the kindness he had shown him in his infancy: so that twice had he saved the marshal's life, and twice, by his active vigilance, had he enabled his leader to defeat the enemy, before he himself had reached the age of eighteen.
Gradually, however, a change came over the mind of Marshal Biron. Henry IV., his too good master, became firmly seated on the throne of France, and Biron, attributing all the king's success to his own support, thought no recompense sufficient for his services, no honours high enough for his merit and his deeds. Henry was anything but ungrateful, and though, in fact, he owed his throne to his birth, and to his own right-hand, more than to any man on earth, he, nevertheless, loaded Marshal Biron with all the honours in his power to bestow. He was created a duke and peer of France, high-admiral, and lieutenant-general of the king's armies; and many a post of distinction and emolument raised his revenues and his dignity together. But still he was not satisfied: pride, ambition, and discontent, took possession of his heart; and he meditated schemes of elevating himself, till the insanity of ambition led him to thoughts of treason. His manners, too, grew morose and haughty: he was reserved and distant to those he had formerly favoured, and his household became cold and stately.
At the same time, a change, but a very different change, had taken place in the bosom of the young St. Maurice; and to explain what that change was, a fact must be mentioned, which is in itself a key to all the new feelings and the new thoughts, the new speculations and the new hopes, which entered into the bosom of the young, but fortuneless count, about the end of the year 1600. About eight years before that period, there had been added to the family of the Duke de Biron a young niece, of about nine years old, a lively, gentle girl, with bright hair and soft blue eyes, and pretty childish features, that had no look but that of innocence when they were in repose, but which occasionally took a glance of warm, happy eagerness, with which we might suppose an angel to gaze on the completion of some bright and mighty work. In her childhood, she played with the young St. Maurice, till they loved each other as children love; and just at that age when such things become dangerous to a young girl's heart, fluttering between infancy and womanhood, the Duke de Biron was ordered to Brussels on the arrangements of the peace, and taking St. Maurice with him, he sent Mademoiselle de la Roche-sur-Marne to a convent, which she thought very hard, for her father and mother were both dead, and all that she loved on earth the Duke carried away with him.
St. Maurice was left behind at Brussels to terminate some business which Marshal Biron had not concluded, and when, after some lapse of time, he returned to France, and joined the Duke at the Citadel of Bourg, where that nobleman commanded for the King, he found Marie de la Roche no longer the same being he had left her. The bud had at once burst forth into a flower, and a flower of most transcendent loveliness. The form which his arm had encircled a thousand times, in boyish sport, had changed in the whole tone of its beauty. Every line, every movement, breathed a different spirit, and woke a different feeling. The features too, though soft as infancy, had lost the roundness of infancy, and in the still innocent imploring eyes, which yet called up all the memory of the past, there was an eloquent glance beaming from the woman's heart, in which childhood was all outshone.
The young Count felt no alteration in himself, but was dazzled and surprised with the change in her, and felt a sudden diffidence take possession of him, which the first warm unchanged welcome could hardly dispel. She seemed scarce to dream that there was a difference, for the time that she had spent in the convent was an unfilled blank, which afforded scarce a circumstance to mark the passage of a brief two years. The Duke de Biron received his young follower with rough kindness, but there were always various causes which kept him more from the society of St. Maurice than formerly. There were many strangers about him, some of whom were Italians, and St. Maurice saw that much private business was transacted, from a knowledge of which he was purposely excluded. The Duke would take long, and almost solitary rides, or go upon distant expeditions, to visit the different posts under his government, and then, instead of commanding at once the young soldier's company, he left him to escort Mademoiselle de la Roche to this fair sight or that beautiful view. In the pride and selfishness of his heart, he never dreamed it possible that the poor and friendless Count of St. Maurice would dare to love the niece of the great Duke de Biron, or that Marie de la Roche would ever feel towards him in any other way than as the dependent follower of her uncle.
But he knew not human nature. Mademoiselle de la Roche leaned upon the arm of St. Maurice as they strayed though the beautiful scenery near Bourg, or yielded her light form to his grasp, as he lifted her on horseback; or listened to him while he told of battles and dangers when he had followed her uncle to the field, or gazed upon his flashing features and speaking eye while he spoke of great deeds, till her heart beat almost to pain whenever his step sounded along the corridors, and her veins thrilled at the slightest touch of his hand. St. Maurice, too, for months plunged blindly into the vortex before him. He thought not--he hesitated not at the consequences. But one feeling, one emotion, one passion filled his bosom,--annihilated foresight, prudence, reflection, altogether,--took possession of heart and brain, and left the only object for his mind's conception--love!
It went on silently in the bosom of each; they spoke not what was in their hearts; they hardly dared to look in each other's eyes for fear the secret should find too eloquent a voice; and yet they each felt and knew, that loving, they were beloved. They could not but know it, for, constantly together, there were a thousand voiceless, unconscious modes of expression, which told again and again a tale that was but too dear to the heart of each. And yet there is something in the strong confirmation of language which each required for the full satisfaction of their mutual hopes, and there are moments when passion will have voice. Such a moment came to them. They were alone; the sun had just sunk, and the few gray minutes of the twilight were speeding on irrevocable wings. There was no eye to see, no ear to hear, and their love was at length spoken.
They had felt it--they had known it long; but the moment it was uttered--its hopelessness--its perfect hopelessness--seemed suddenly to flash upon their minds, and they stood gazing on each other in awe and fear, like the First Two, when they had tasted the fatal fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. But the never-to-be-recalled words had been breathed, and there was a dread, and a hope, and a tenderness, mingled with every glance that they turned upon one another.
Still the Duke de Biron did not see, for his mind was so deeply engrossed with the schemes of his mad ambition, and the selfishness of his pride, that nothing else rested in his thoughts for a moment. Messengers were coming and going between him and the Duke of Savoy, a known enemy to France, and whenever he spoke with St. Maurice, it was in terms of anger towards the good King Henry IV., and of praise and pleasure towards the cold-hearted monarch of Spain. Often, too, he would apparently strive to sound the disposition of his young follower, and would throw him into company with men of more art and cunning than himself, who would speak of the destruction of the Bourbon line as necessary for the good of France and the tranquillity of Europe, and insinuate that a time might be at hand when such a sacrifice would be completed. St. Maurice frowned, and was silent when the design was covered, as often happened, with much art, and boldly spoke his mind against traitors when the treason was apparent.
At length one day he was called to the presence of the Duke, whom he found alone. "Come hither, St. Maurice," said his friend; "I have brought you up, young Count, from your infancy to your manhood--I have been your friend in fair days and foul--I taught you the duty of a soldier, and the duty of an officer--I have raised you higher than any other man in France could do, or would do--and now tell me--whether do you love best Henry of Bearn or me?"