I felt some difficulty in articulating; but I replied as well as I could, "You must be aware, sir, that it is my duty to refuse answers to all such questions."
"Certainly," he rejoined, "if by so doing you contributed to put us on our guard, or to afford any facility for opposing the enemy; but I give you my honour that we have neither means nor inclination to make any farther preparations than we have done for the defence of the place, and my sole purpose in asking the question is, to send away, out of pure compassion, a number of the poor and needy citizens, who must die of starvation if Monsieur de Turenne attempts to reduce the place by famine; which must be his plan if he have any design against Ypres, as I find he has no battering train with his army. As a good soldier, and a worthy gentleman, you will see at once that every principle of humanity requires me to clear the town of all unnecessary mouths. You yourself, and all the other wounded and prisoners, must be sent off to Brussels, at all risks, if such should be the intention of the French general: so answer me candidly, I entreat you."
"Sir," I replied, "you must judge of what your duty requires of you--mine is straightforward. If it be the intention of Monsieur de Turenne to starve you out, the more persons you have to feed, the better for his purpose; and although, I confess, I would fain escape being sent to Brussels in my present state, yet I can give you no information."
"I must even send you thither, then," replied the Prince; and in a brief conversation with the other officers present, I heard him say, "Oh! depend upon it, if they were not determined to attack the place, he would say so, to avoid the journey."
"No, indeed, Monsieur le Prince!" I exclaimed. "You are mistaken. I would not give you one tittle of intelligence if I knew that Monsieur de Turenne was going to retread his steps to-morrow."
The Prince smiled, and left the room; and after having been tended carefully during the rest of that evening and the following night, I was put into a carriage early the next morning, and, with a number of other wounded persons, as well as prisoners, and all those who were desirous of quitting the town, was sent on, not indeed to Brussels, but to Tournay.
Fearful that a report of my being killed might reach Laura, I sat up at the first halting-place, and--in spite of all remonstrances from a surgeon who accompanied us--wrote a letter to the Prés Vallée, assuring her, that though a prisoner, and slightly wounded, I was in no danger. Of this letter the commander of our little escort, a gallant young Spaniard, who spoke French very tolerably, took charge, promising to despatch it to France by the very first opportunity.
Whether it was the heat of the weather, the fatigue of the journey, or, as the surgeon predicted, the exertion of writing which irritated my wound, I cannot tell, but, ere I reached the end of our second day's march, I was in all the raving delirium of a high fever. For nearly three weeks the days passed over my head without leaving any remembrance behind them; and when I recovered my senses, I found myself reduced to infant weakness, and lying in a chamber which was evidently not the ward of an hospital, as my last recollections induced me to believe would be the case. It was a small neat room, cool and shady; and I found a nurse constantly by my bedside, while a surgeon visited me three times each day.--At first I was much too feeble to ask any questions; but, on the second or third morning after I began to recover, I begged the nurse to toll me where I was, when, to my surprise, I was told that I was in Tournay, and in the quarters of the Prince de Condé. The next day I was visited by several French officers, who had accompanied his Highness into exile; and when I was well enough to sit up for a short time, the Prince himself condescended to visit me, and remained with me alone for a full hour, making me tell him my whole history. The fate of Monsieur de Villardin, of which he had not yet heard, seemed to grieve him much; and when he left me he said, with one of those frank, brilliant smiles, which sometimes illuminated a countenance that usually was more striking than prepossessing, "Well, well, De Juvigny, I will think of what I can do to serve you; and as hostilities are suspended, and a treaty of peace is under negotiation, I may have it more in my power to show you that I have not forgot Vincennes, than I have yet had since we met there."
I trusted that it might be so, especially as I had candidly told the Prince my situation in regard to Mademoiselle de Villardin, only hoping when I did so, to obtain my liberty more speedily. The news, however, that hostilities were suspended, and that peace was likely to be concluded, gave me the hope of soon holding my beloved Laura to my heart once more, as no pretext for separating us again would then exist. Having now shown my obedience to the monarch I served, and fully done my duty as a soldier, I determined to yield no more; and resolved, as a last resource, if any attempt should be made to reject my claim to Laura's hand, to beg her to unite her fate to mine, without the consent of any monarch on the earth, and try our fate in my native land, where the prospects were now brightened by the death of the usurper.
From that day till I had completely recovered my health, I did not again see the Prince de Condé; and, on inquiring for him when I was well enough to go out, I found that he was absent from Tournay, and not likely to come back for more than a week. These tidings vexed me a good deal, as I was now most anxious to return to France. No opposition, however, was made to my going out into the town, or even beyond the gates; and I found every facility of obtaining money amongst the merchants of the place. Thus I might at any time have effected my escape, had I been so inclined. But although my parole had never been even asked, the kindness which had been shown me by the Prince was a surer bond than links of iron; and I lingered on in Tournay with some degree of fretful impatience, but still gaining additional strength and health every hour. Had I known where to address a letter to his Highness, I certainly would have written to him; but he was moving from place to place, and even the French officers who remained in Tournay could not give me the necessary information. Thus passed nearly four weeks; and the world again began to assume the aspect of spring. It was now more than a year since I had seen Laura, and fully four months since I had heard from her or from Father Ferdinand; and there was a sort of dim uncertainty about the events which might have taken place in the interim that made my heart sometimes feel sick with apprehension.