Had not one known the painful and angry feelings which were then excited, it would have been a pleasant and a cheerful scene. The sun had by this time got sufficiently round to the westward to throw long shadows from the irregular gable-ended houses more than half way across the wide open road that conducted from the valley to the top of the hill. The perspective, too, was strongly marked by the lines of the buildings; the other side of the road was in bright light; there was a beautiful prospect of hill and dale seen out beyond the town; numerous booths and stalls, kept by peasant women with bright dresses and snowy caps, chequered the whole extent; and up the centre of the street, approaching slowly, were the officers of the district, with a small party of military, followed on either side by a much more considerable number of the lower order of town's people and peasantry.
Such was the scene upon which the eyes of the Count de Morseiul fell; and it must be admitted, that when he saw the military his heart beat with considerable feelings of indignation, for we must remember that in towns like that which was under his rule the feudal customs still existed to a very great extent. It was still called his town of Morseiul. The king, indeed, ruled; the laws of the land were administered in the king's name; but the custody, defence, and government of the town of Morseiul was absolutely in the hands of the Count, or of the persons to whom he delegated his power during his absence. It was regularly, in fact, garrisoned in his name; and there were many instances, scarcely twenty years before, in which the garrisons of such towns had resisted in arms the royal authority; and if not held to be fully justified, at all events had passed without punishment, because they were acting under the orders of him in whose name they were levied. The attempt, therefore, of any body of the king's troops to penetrate into the Count's town of Morseiul, without his having been formally deprived of the command thereof, seemed to him one of the most outrageous violations of his privileges which it was possible to imagine; and his heart consequently beat, as we have said, with feelings of high indignation. He suppressed them, however, with the calm determination of doing what was right; and turned to gaze upon the people who surrounded him, in order to ascertain as far as possible by what feelings they were affected.
His own attendants had congregated immediately behind him; on his right hand stood his friend the Chevalier; on his left, about half a step behind, so as to be near the Count, but not to appear obtrusive, was a personage of considerable importance in the little town of Morseiul, though he exercised a handicraft employment, and worked daily with his own hands, even while he directed others. This was Paul Virlay, the principal blacksmith of the place. He was at this time a man of about fifty years of age, tall, and herculean in all his proportions. The small head, the broad muscular chest and shoulders, the brawny arms, the immense thick hands, the thin flanks, and the stout legs and thighs, all bespoke extraordinary strength. He was very dark in complexion, with short-cut curly black hair, grizzled with grey; and the features of his face, though short, and by no means handsome, had a good and a frank expression, but at all times somewhat stern.
At the present moment his brow was more contracted than usual; not that there was any other particular mark of very strongly excited passions upon his countenance; and the attitude he had assumed was one of calm and reposing strength, resting with his right hand supported by one of the common quarter-staffs of the country, a full inch and a half thick, much in the same position which he frequently assumed when, pausing in his toil, he talked with his workmen, leaving the sledge hammer, that usually descended with such awful strength, to support the hand which wielded it at other times like a feather.
Behind him again, was a great multitude of the town's people of different classes, though the mayor and the municipal officers had thought fit to absent themselves carefully from the scene of probable strife. But the eyes of the Count fell, as we have said, upon Paul Virlay; and knowing him to be a man both highly respected in his own class, and of considerable wealth and importance in the city, he addressed him in the first instance, saying,--
"Good morrow, Virlay, it is long since I have seen you all. What is all this about?"
"You don't forget us, Count Albert, even when you are away," replied the blacksmith, with his brow unbending. "We know that very well, and have proofs of it too, when any thing good is to be done; but this seems to me to be a bad business. We hear that the king has suppressed the chamber of the edict, which was our greatest safeguard; and now my boy tells me, for I sent him down to see when they first came to the bottom of the hill, that this is a proclamation forbidding us from holding synods; and be you sure, sir, that the time is not far distant when they will try to stop us altogether from worshipping God in our own way. What think you, my lord?" he said, in a lower tone, "Were it not better to show them at once that they cannot go on?" and his looks spoke much more than even his words.
"No, Virlay," replied the Count; "no, by no means. You see the people are in tumult below evidently. Any unadvised and illegal resistance to the royal authority will immediately call upon us harsh measures, and be made the pretext by any bad advisers who may surround the king for irritating his royal mind against us. Let us hear what the proclamation really is; even should it be harsh and unjust, which from the king's merciful nature we will hope is not the case: let us listen to it calmly and peaceably, and after having considered well, and taken the advice and opinion of wise and experienced men, let us then make what representations to the king we may think fit, and petition him in his clemency to do us right."
"Clemency!" said the blacksmith. "However, my lord, you know better than I, but I hope they will not say any thing to make our blood boil, that's all."
"Even if they should," replied the Count, "we must prevent it from boiling over. Virlay, I rely upon you, as one of the most sensible men in the place, not only to restrain yourself, but to aid me in restraining others. The king has every right to send his own officers to make his will known to his people."