"I trust it may be found so, Monsieur Pelisson," replied the Count gravely, turning his eyes from the Abbé de St. Helie, who said nothing. "I trust it may be found so;" and though it was evident that some damp was thrown upon his good spirits, he turned the conversation courteously and easily to other subjects: while Jerome Riquet, satisfied in regard to the nature of the packet, made a thousand apologies to the Curé of Guadrieul, loaded his plate with delicacies, and then returned to his master's elbow.
After supper, for so the meal was then called, the party separated. The Chevalier d'Evran, for motives of his own, attached himself closely, for the time being, to the Abbé de St. Helie, and engaged him in a party at trick track; the young Count strolled out in the evening light with Pelisson, both carefully avoiding any religious subjects from the delicacy of their mutual position; the fat priest went to gossip with Maître Jerome, and smoke a pipe in the kitchen of the inn; and the serving men made love to the village girls, or caroled in the court-yard.
Thus ended the first day's journey of the Count de Morseiul towards Poitiers. On the following morning he had taken his departure before the ecclesiastics had risen, leaving the servants, who were to follow with the horses, to make them fully aware that they had been his guests during their stay at the inn; and on the third day, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, he came under the high rocky banks which guard the entrance to the ancient city which was to be the end of his journey.
CHAPTER VI.
[THE LADY AND HER LOVERS.]
The city of Poitiers is a beautiful old town, at least it is a town in which there is much to interest; the memories of many remote periods cross and intersect each other, like the arches of a Gothic church, forming a fretwork over head of varied and solemn, though dim, associations. The Roman, and the Goth, and the Frank, and the Englishman, have all there left indelible traces of their footsteps; and each spot through the streets of that city, and through the neighbouring country, is shadowed or brightened by the recollection of great and extraordinary deeds in the past. There is something in it, also, unlike any other town in the world; the number and extent of its gardens, the distance between its various houses, would make it look more like an orchard than a town, did not, every here and there, rise up some striking edifice, some fine church, bearing in its windows the leopards, or the fleurs de lis, as the case may be; a townhouse, a broken citadel, or a Roman amphitheatre in ruins, and all amidst rich green gardens, and grapes, and flowering shrubs.
The Count de Morseiul and his train, after passing the gates of the city, which were then duly watched and warded, rode on to the house of the governor, which was, at that time, in the great square. It had probably been a Roman building, of which part of the portico had been preserved, forming the end of one of the wings; for, during three or four centuries, a tall porch had remained there supported by three columns. Though the principal gate was in the centre of the house, it was usual for the people of the town to enter by this porch; and such was the only purpose that it served. The whole aspect of the place has been altered long since; the governor's house has been changed into an inn, where I have slept on more than one occasion; and of the three columns nothing more remains but the name, which has descended to the hotel. It was in that time, however, a large brick building, with an immense arched gateway in the centre, under which Goliath of Gath himself might have passed on horseback with a feather in his cap. Beyond this was the inner court, with the usual buildings around it; but upon a large and magnificent scale, and on the left, under the arch-way, rose a wide flight of stone steps, leading to the principal apartments above.
Throughout the whole town, and especially in the neighbourhood of the governor's house, there appeared, on the day of the Count's arrival, a greater degree of bustle and activity than Poitiers generally displays; and as he drew up his horse under the archway, to ascend the stairs, several peasant girls, after pausing to look at the cavaliers, passed on into the courts beyond, loaded with baskets full of flowers, and fruit, and green branches.
As he had sent on a messenger the day before to announce his approach, the Count de Morseiul knew that he was expected; and it was evident, from the sudden rushing forth of all the servants, the rapid and long ringing of the great bell, which went up stairs, and a thousand other such signs, that orders had been given to treat him with especial distinction. While some of the masters of the stable took possession of his grooms and horse-boys, to show them to the place appointed for them, two other servants, in costumes which certainly did honour to the taste of M. le Marquis Auguste de Hericourt, marshalled the Count and the Chevalier--followed by their respective valets and pages, without which men of their rank and fortune travelled not in that day--to the vestibule at the top of the staircase.
A step beyond the door of the vestibule, which was also a step beyond what etiquette required, the governor of the province was already waiting to receive the Count de Morseiul. He was a frank, amiable, and kind-hearted old gentleman, as tall, and as thin, and as brown as a cypress tree; and grasping the Count's hand, he welcomed him to Poitiers as an old friend, and the son of an old friend, and likewise, perhaps we might say, as one whose high character and fame, as a soldier, he greatly and sincerely admired. While speaking to the Count so eagerly that he saw nothing else, the governor felt a hand laid upon his arm, and, turning, beheld the Chevalier, whom he welcomed also warmly, though in a peculiar tone of intimacy which he had not used towards the Count de Morseiul.