"Monsieur le comte," said the marquis to Mario with admirable gravity, "I confess that I have doubted your word on two occasions. If I were not your best friend, you would be entitled to demand satisfaction; but I hope that you will deign to accept your father's apologies."
Mario leaped on his neck, and that same evening Bellinde, being paid and discharged without a word of explanation, left the oasis of Briantes and her fine shepherdess's name, to return to the realities of life under her true name of Guillette Carcat, pending the time when she should assume a more sonorous and mythological one, as we shall see in the sequel.
While these tragical events gradually faded from the memory of our characters, Monsieur Poulain did not fall asleep in his zeal.
It was on the 18th or 19th of December, when the abbé, cold as to the nose and feet, but with his brain warmed by the hope of a triumph at which he had long been aiming, arrived at Saint-Amand, a pretty town of Berry, situated in a verdant valley, between two streams, and overlooked by the gigantic and wonderful castle of Montrond, the residence of the Prince de Condé.
The abbé dismounted at the Capuchin convent, whose vast enclosure, shaped like a cross, lay under the protection of the princely abode. He avoided seeing the prior, whose attentions and good offices he dreaded; he preferred to do his work himself and to travel alone. He simply accepted a frugal repast from one of the monks, his kinsman, shook off the snow with which he was covered, and presented himself at one of the wickets of the castle, where he exhibited a passport in proper form.
"Thanks to the works undertaken by Sully, and especially to the improvements made by Monsieur le Prince," who had purchased that domain from the fallen minister, "the castle of Montrond, which assumed more importance at a later date, in the wars of the Fronde, had become a most luxurious abode as well as an impregnable fortress. It was more than a league in circumference; it comprised numerous buildings, an enormous and magnificent château of three floors, a huge tower or donjon a hundred and twenty feet high, the walls of which were crenellated, and which was surmounted by a platform whereon was a statue of Mercury."[1]
"As for the fortifications, they were so abundant, arranged in the shape of an amphitheatre and in tiers, that even one who had scrutinized and studied them for a long time could hardly understand them."[2]
In that labyrinth of stone, that powerful vassal's lair, that significant mystery, dwelt Henri de Bourbon, second of the name, Prince de Condé, who, after three years of captivity for rebellion against the crown, had become reconciled with the court and resumed his post as governor of Berry.
In addition to that office he held those of lieutenant-general, bailiff of the province, and captain of the great tower of Bourges: that is to say he monopolized the political, civil and military power of the whole centre of France, since he enjoyed the same privileges and held the same offices in the province of the Bourbonnais.
Add to this power an enormous fortune, increased by the sums which, under the form of an indemnity, each rebellion of the Condés cost the crown, that is to say France; by the almost forced purchase of the magnificent estates and châteaux which Sully possessed in Berry, and which he had no choice but to surrender to Monsieur le Prince at a great sacrifice, by reason of the pitilessness of the time and the misfortunes of the province; by the secularisation, that is to say the suppression, to the prince's profit, of the richest abbeys of the province, that of Déols among others; by the gifts which the rich bourgeoisie of the cities were compelled by custom, flattery or cowardice to make; by the heavy bowls of gold and silver filled with Berry sheep in the form of gold and silver coins; by the azure chariots, carved and decorated with silver satyrs, drawn by six beautiful horses with harnesses of Russia leather trimmed with silver; by taxes, exactions and vexations of every sort imposed upon the common people: money under all names, under all forms, under all pretexts—that was the sole motive, the sole aim, the sole grandeur, the sole joy, and the sole talent of Henri, grandson of the great Condé of the Reformation, and father of the great Condé of the Fronde.