These motives I have only, of course, assigned upon guess; but they were the fruits of my reflections after I was left alone, and very much they certainly did console me, as I lay helpless enough in the house of my bitter enemy, with the door locked upon me, and no means of making my situation known to any friend in the world. Many a time, however, did I wish that Suzette had left me where she found me, to take my chance of death or recovery; but all such wishes were in vain, and, as the best thing I could do, I banished thought as soon as I could, and fell asleep, feeling, at the same time, very doubtful as to what world I should wake in when I next opened my eyes.
No one, however, disturbed my slumber, and I was roused only by the daylight streaming into my room. I felt myself better and stronger for my long sleep, and much need, indeed, had I to be so, for after lying for two or three hours without any one bringing me meat or drink, a trooper entered my room, and told me that I must get up and dress myself. It was vain to resist, and therefore I made the attempt; but I was far too weak to accomplish the task myself; and it was only with the continual assistance of the soldier, who acted as a valet-de-chambre, that I was enabled to put on the same torn and bloody habiliments in which I had been brought thither.
When this unpleasant sort of toilet was completed, the progress of which had perfectly satisfied my attendant that I was not capable of walking even across the room, one of the servants was called in, and between him and the trooper I was carried out through the saloon into the court-yard, in which a light carriage, with two horses, was standing ready prepared. Although I was certainly not in the very best condition for travelling, yet, well knowing that opposition would be in vain, of course I offered none to the proceedings of those into whose hands I had fallen; and was speedily lifted into the chaise, without much ceremony or consideration. Gaspard de Belleville, however, seemed to think that my companions were showing me too much lenity, and I heard his voice from an upper window, ordering them, in no very measured terms, to put me in any how, and, above all things, to make haste.
As soon as I was finally thrust into the machine, the trooper got in beside me, the man who had aided to carry me took his seat on the coach-box, and away we went, at a pace more fitted for a cavalry regiment at the charge than for the carriage of a wounded man. While undergoing the operation of being dressed, I had discovered that the purse which was on my person when I was wounded had, by some fortunate accident, been suffered to remain in my pocket; but this had been perceived by my new attendant also, and, though he did not absolutely transfer the purse at once from my hands to his own, he soon gave me notice that he intended to make a gradual appropriation of its contents. Beyond all doubt, Gaspard de Belleville, who could not tell whether I had any money about me or not, had given the man a sufficient sum to defray his expenses on the road, and, equally beyond doubt, as the fellow was evidently a trooper in some regiment of horse, he was paid for his services as usual. Nevertheless, scarcely had we proceeded three miles, when he informed me that Monsieur le Capitaine de Belleville expected me to discharge the score at all the cabarets where we stopped on the road, and likewise to give him, my guard and attendant, the reasonable sum of four crowns per diem for his good company and assistance.
Weak and uncomfortable as I was, this method of proceeding amused me. An English blackguard would have committed robbery, and taken the purse without more ado; the Frenchman, however, was more moderate, and contented himself with cheating me out of the greater part of its contents. Though the result appeared likely to be much the same, yet there were conveniences attending the Frenchman's mode of proceeding of which I did not fail to take advantage; and representing to him civilly my weak state, and the pain and discomfort which I suffered from the furious jolting of the carriage, at that quick rate of progression, I pointed out to him that the more days we were upon the journey the greater would be the amount of crowns to be given to him; and, having discovered that his orders were to carry me to Stenay, a town on the Meuse, belonging to the Prince de Condé, I did not scruple to assure him that, if he would turn the horses' heads the other way, and drive to the quarters of Monsieur de Turenne, wherever they might be, a thousand crowns and a Serjeant's post in my troop should be his immediate reward.
The man expressed himself highly obliged by my polite offer, as he termed it, but informed me at the same time that he had three strong reasons for acting honestly in the present instance, and obeying the orders he had received. These were, that, in the first place, he would in all probability be hanged if he went near the quarters of Monsieur de Turenne, as he had lately come over from his army to that of the Prince de Condé; in the next place, that the other party, to which he now belonged, might sooner or later hang him if he again changed sides; and lastly, that even if he could make up his mind to run all these risks, the man who was driving had his orders also, and would not suffer him to deviate from the prescribed route.
I could not help acknowledging that these were all potent reasons, and, as I saw that it would be in vain to combat their influence on his mind, I suffered myself to be rolled on towards Stenay, with no farther discussion than merely what was necessary to induce my conductors to give me as much repose as possible. My brief communication with the trooper had, however, established a sort of friendly intercourse between us, which rendered him extremely civil during the rest of the journey; and from him I learned that, although Condé had completely defeated the Maréchal d'Hocquincourt at Blenau, Turenne had, by the most splendid man[oe]uvres that it is possible to conceive, arrested the progress of the victorious army with a force of not one third its number. The Prince had himself turned his steps towards Paris, and Gaspard de Belleville, as well as several superior officers, had been left to bring up a number of scattered parties which had spread over a part of Champagne and the Orleanois, during the unsteady command of the Dukes of Beaufort and Nemours. He could tell me nothing, however, in regard to Monsieur de Villardin, his daughter, or Father Ferdinand, though he had been at no great distance, he said, from the château of Virmont at the time that it was fired, which was done, he declared by the command of the Duke of Nemours, in order to give notice to another division of the army that the Prince was on his march. Notwithstanding this assurance of my companion, I could not help thinking, that Gaspard de Belleville had fully as much to do with the conflagration as the Duke of Nemours.
Five days' journey brought us to Stenay, and in spite of my wounds and my weakness, thanks to a constitution of iron, and an early hardening in the fiery furnace of the English civil wars, I was far better at the end of the time than on the day when we first set out. After being admitted within the walls of the town, which was not permitted without manifold challenges and investigations, the carriage drove direct to the prison, where I was delivered into the hands of a man whose countenance was certainly as rugged as the stone walls amidst which he dwelt. Nor can I boast of having found his heart much softer; for, though the trooper who had accompanied me had recommended me to his notice, in my hearing, as a bon garçon, no sooner were the doors closed upon me, than a course of ill usage began, which was not destined to terminate for some time. My purse, rendered meagre by the frequent demands of the road, was the first thing attacked, and from that moment vanished entirely. I was then thrust into one of the dungeons, with a pile of straw for a bed, and a little grated window of about nine inches square, looking out upon the ramparts, as my only source of light and air. Bread and water became my diet, and, as the floor of the dungeon was not particularly dry, it was with no small difficulty that I kept myself from the effects of the damp.
In reply to all my questions in regard to the authority by which I was there detained, the gaoler merely told me that I was considered as a deserter from the army of the Prince de Condé, found fighting against him, and that I might think myself very well off that I had not been shot immediately. Although this was evidently a pretext, and I very well understood that both Gaspard de Belleville and good Captain Hubert might greatly approve of my detention, yet I could not bring myself to believe that this state of things could continue long; and for the first two or three days of my imprisonment I consoled myself with the expectation of its speedy termination. My health, also, I must confess, improved greatly under the severe regimen to which I was subjected, and the healing of my wounds proceeded more rapidly than I could have at all anticipated. Nevertheless, as day went by after day, and no relief came, my spirits fell, and my heart, hitherto so buoyant under all the adversities and changes which I had met with, sunk oppressed beneath that most horrible of all inflictions, solitary confinement.
No language can describe in the slightest degree the state of my feelings in that prison, by the time that ten days had passed over my head within its walls. The lingering weariness of the moments, the faint chillness of apprehension, the utter vacuity of each heavy day, the changeless, unceasing poring of thought upon one subject, the want of every event, however small, the burning thirst for freedom, and activity, and change, and the fresh air, and the fair face of nature--all combined to make a state of existence which was the very essence of "hope delayed that maketh the heart sick."