Of course Gaspard de Belleville dared not reply to the severe terms of the Prince; but I saw his eye glare from my face to that of Monsieur de Villardin, with an expression which would have boded neither of us any good had his means of injuring us been equal to his desire of doing so. Monsieur de Villardin declared that he would pay my ransom himself, and immediately gave an order for the sum, which Condé delivered into the hands of my adversary, and bade him retire.
"I am obliged," said the Prince, in a sort of apologetic tone, as soon as we were left without other witnesses--"I am obliged to suffer these fellows to make as much of their trade as they can, or a great number of them would leave me. In other respects, the system of taking ransoms, which, thank God, is becoming less common, is by no means one I like. But, however, I have suffered you to escape at a cheap rate, Monsieur de Juvigny," he added, turning towards me, "and as I find you are determined not to stay with me, I suppose I must even let you go."
As these words might be considered as a hint that our audience was at an end, Monsieur de Villardin rose, and we took our leave, the Prince laying his hand familiarly upon my arm as we were departing, and saying, in a kind tone, "I shall not forget Vincennes."
Without suffering me to return to Paris, Monsieur de Villardin made one of his servants give me up a horse, and we rode together at once to St. Denis, where the Court was then assembled. I now found that some interest had been excited concerning my fate amongst persons whom I had scarcely imagined to be acquainted with my existence. To Monsieur de Turenne, to the Queen, to the young King, and to the Cardinal, I was presented once more by Monsieur de Villardin, on the occasion of my liberation, and I found that--each had something to say to me upon my late adventures. Turenne told me, in his simple manner, that he was very much obliged to me for thinking of the beacons, as the speedy information communicated to him of the march of the Prince de Condé had most likely saved the royal army at Briare. The Queen said that she remembered seeing me at Poitiers, and added, that a long imprisonment must be a more beneficial thing than was generally supposed, as my appearance was very much improved.
The Cardinal said something, with a strong Italian accent; I saw that it was intended to be witty and pointed, and though I did not very well understand it, I smiled, which did quite as well. The young King thanked me gracefully for my services and attachment to his cause, and added, "I trust that means will occur, ere long, of rewarding your exertions and compensating your sufferings in our cause."
All this promised well for my future success in life; and though at that time my ambition was cooped within very narrow limits, I must own that I felt a good deal of joy at the prospect of rising to some station where I might distinguish myself in the profession of arms.
The pleasure, however, of being free, and of meeting applause where I most desired it, was, indeed, a little alloyed by the necessity of communicating to Monsieur de Villardin the confession--for such, in fact, it was--of Suzette. I knew not what effect it might ultimately have upon his mind, whether good or bad--whether the knowledge of having injured an innocent and virtuous woman who had loved him dearly, and was passionately loved by him, might not send the sting of remorse still deeper into his heart--especially if the fearful suspicions which I entertained were just; or, whether, on the other hand, the discovery that he had been worked upon and deceived by designing people and an artful scheme, that he had been cheated into all the acts he had committed, and almost driven mad himself by a plot which he could hardly have divined, might not take away some portion of the responsibility which now weighed so heavy upon him, and cast a part of the load of culpability upon other shoulders. At all events, I knew that the very renewal of a subject which had never been mentioned for several years, would reawaken a world of painful memories, some of which I trusted now slept; and I shrunk from the task I had undertaken, hoping from day to day that something would occur to render its execution less difficult. Monsieur de Villardin, however, seemed also to avoid the topic altogether; and although he knew that I had seen Suzette several times, and must in his own mind have connected her name with the memory of his unhappy wife, yet he never mentioned the circumstance after our arrival at St. Denis, and seemed purposely to turn from any reference to Gaspard de Belleville and his wife. The matter was thus rendered more difficult to me; and, as I could not but remark that the gloom which I have before noticed, had taken a deeper hold of Monsieur de Villardin than ever--as, the moment that any active exertion was over, all energy seemed to abandon his mind, and as it pained me to think of increasing the deep and bitter melancholy in which he passed all his solitary hours, I still, as I have said, put off the task from day to day, till at length the army was ordered to march, and I had scarcely time to attend to anything else than the military duties in which I was now employed.
On my return to the regiment, I found that the troop which I commanded before my imprisonment had been nearly annihilated by the cross fire into which I had so rashly led them at Virmont. Not above twenty men, indeed, had escaped of those of whom it was originally composed. Monsieur de Villardin, however, had recruited it by the addition of about forty more; and, while we stayed at St. Denis, I did all that I could to gain volunteers. Thus, when we marched for Compiegne, the troop amounted to about eighty men; but, I must confess, that it was altogether in a much better state than when I had left it, for the number of marches, skirmishes, and man[oe]uvres, which it had since taken part in under the command of Turenne, had done far more to render the men expert, veteran, and well-disciplined, than all the drilling we could give them before.
It was very necessary, indeed, that our troops should be of the best quality, for, at this time, with less than ten thousand men, we had to make head against the Spanish army and the Duke of Loraine on the frontiers of Flanders, while the force of the Princes was in our rear--not sufficiently powerful, indeed, to meet us in the open field, but quite sufficiently so to render any check that we might receive from the superior numbers of the Spaniards utterly fatal to the royal cause.
It is unnecessary to relate the events that immediately succeeded, for there are few people in the present day who are not well acquainted with the skilful man[oe]uvres by which Turenne, without striking a stroke, compelled the Spanish army to evacuate the French territory; and it would be only wearisome in this place to detail the means which he employed to arrive at such a fortunate result. This having been effected, however, we returned to Gonesse, in order to watch the movements of the Prince de Condé, who remained in the neighbourhood of Paris for the purpose of keeping his party in the capital from the ruin with which it was continually threatened by the dissensions of the leaders.