"Ha! ha! my young lord and master," he exclaimed, "do not excite my jealousy within the first fortnight of my marriage; for I have but lately found out that you are an old friend and high favourite of my dear better half."
These tidings surprised me more, perhaps, than they might have done at a later period of my life; for at that time the extent of my female acquaintance was very limited, and perhaps the most decided fragment of my boyhood that then remained to me was a lingering dislike to the generality of female society, and a very juvenile contempt for women in general.
"Indeed!" exclaimed I, in reply to Jacques Marlot's information, "indeed! you make me but the more curious. Let me offer my adorations with all speed to the first of your household divinities."
"Well, well; enter, enter, by all means," he cried: "I am not made of jealous stuff, thank God; and as our love has already lasted five long years, I trust it will not break short at matrimony."
I was now conducted in form into the house; and on the first floor we found the bride and her coadjutrix, when my surprise was still more excited, by beholding in Madame Marlot the pretty brunette whom I had seen at the inn near St. Aubin, on my first arrival in Brittany, and who had warned me of what was passing between her father and the groom who then accompanied me. After the first salutation, I returned her my thanks in set form, although I had nearly lost my life in consequence of her information; and I then enquired after her worthy and respectable father as tenderly as my conscience would permit me to do. In reply, she informed me that her parent had most unjustly been suspected of having given information to the same band of robbers who had plundered me, that the courier for St. Malo was about to pass within their hospitable neighbourhood, on a certain day and hour; and that, in consequence, he had been arrested and thrown into prison, where, within one fortnight, he died, just as the authorities were about to liberate him, having become convinced of his innocence, and judging that a fortnight's imprisonment was a sufficient punishment for being suspected. The prisoner having thus liberated himself, his daughter was left, according to her own account, sole heiress of her father's wealth, which proved a burden less weighty than she had anticipated. She also found so many persons in this generous world willing to relieve her of it, that she saw very clearly it would soon be no burden at all; and therefore, she set herself to consider what she might best do under such circumstances, when suddenly her ancient lover, Jacques Marlot, appeared one night at the inn, and presented her with an expedient that she did not fail to adopt.
In reply to this communication, I paid her my compliments upon her wisdom; and, as I found that the kind-hearted brunette and her bridegroom were both bent upon my staying to partake of their first dinner in their new dwelling, I yielded to my fate, and found that neither Jacques Marlot's taste for friandise, nor the skill which Madame had acquired in the kitchen of an inn, had abandoned them. During our meal, my philosopher gave me a sketch of his wandering life in the guise of a pedlar; and then related the means he had employed to obtain his pardon, which were ingenious enough. It appears that in France the presence of the King is always mercy, and that if he but set eyes upon a condemned criminal his punishment is remitted. Well knowing this fact, and trusting to his disguise, Jacques Marlot made his way towards Paris, and having heard that the King and Court were about to make their public entrance into the capital on a certain day, he prepared to take advantage thereof, to obtain his pardon. This plan succeeded to his wish. Bribing some of the guards at the palace with a considerable portion of what he had gained in his petty traffic, he placed himself in a spot where the royal party were sure to pass, in descending from their carriages; and, as the young King and the Queen came on together, he struggled forward to cast himself at their feet. One of the ushers, indeed, opposed his progress, and knocked the poor printer down to make him clear the way; but this only brought him literally to the King's knees; and the young monarch's first impulse was to stoop in order to raise him, reproving, at the same time, the usher for his violence.
Jacques Marlot rose no farther than his knees, however, and in that position besought pardon for his offences. It being now ascertained who the intruder really was, the guards were ordered by Mazarin to take him into custody; and poor Marlot was removed, trembling, as he acknowledged, for the consequences of his bold attempt. The rule, however, was suffered to prevail even in his case, although the Queen and the Cardinal were both exasperated in a high degree against the unfortunate printer. After remaining in one of the rooms of the palace for more than an hour, his pardon was brought him, but coupled with the condition that he should quit Paris immediately, never to return, and should never more exercise the trade of printing in any part of France. "And thus, my dear benefactor," he added, "I turned my steps hither, determined to become a new Cincinnatus, and, abandoning the government of Roman capitals, to dwell upon my farm and put my hand to the plough."
In such conversation we passed an hour or two very cheerfully; at the end of which time I took my leave, and left the pair to conclude their evening alone. It was now about two o'clock, on a fine April day; and, walking slowly along, I meditated over all the strange turns of that strange and unaccountable thing, fate, which, principally by the means of a complete stranger, had conducted the ci-devant printer in less than a year from the foot of the gallows to a peaceful retirement in a beautiful country.
On entering the park, I took the shady walk by the bank of the stream, both because the warmth of the day made a shelter from the sun not unpleasant, though the year was yet so young, and because I always had an indescribable pleasure in sauntering by a running water, and gazing upon the current gushing brightly by me. The banks here were irregular, sometimes high and overhanging, sometimes sloping softly down, and dipping their turf into the stream; and, as I often paused to gaze, and ponder, and revolve a number of sweet sunshiny dreams that were now very common to my mind, I was at least twice the length of time in the walk that I needed to have been.
Luckily did it happen that I was so. When I had got about half way to the château, I perceived that there were others in the walk besides myself; and, straining my eyes a little, I saw that it was Madame de Villardin, with a servant a step behind her, and her little girl running on before. The Duchess approached but slowly, with her fine eyes, as usual now, bent pensively upon the ground, and her hands, which were very beautiful, clasped together, and resting on her waist. The little girl, full of the joy and vivid life of youth, ran backwards and forwards before her mother, now gathering a flower, now peeping over at the stream, and receiving, from time to time, a grave caution from the soubrette, who walked behind, against approaching too near the water. As soon as she saw me, however, the little Laura had a new object of attention, and running along the walk like light, she came towards her playfellow. The impulse, however, was soon over; and, ere she had half reached me, she slackened her pace on hearing the voices of her father and the Confessor in one of the other paths hard by, and was turning gaily to seek them, when an early butterfly started up from the bosom of a flower and caught her notice. The painted insect fluttered on before her with that sort of faint impotent flight which leads so many a child to follow on for miles, still hoping to catch it at every step. Eagerly she pursued, with her whole young soul beaming out of her beautiful eyes. For some way the butterfly flew on down the alley, and Laura de Villardin was close upon it; when rising a little in the air, it turned its course towards the opposite bank of the river. With a bound forward, Mademoiselle de Villardin strove to catch it ere it escaped for ever, slipped her foot on the bank, and plunged over at once into the stream.