In the Day of Adversity

by John Bloundelle-Burton

He threaded his way through the streets, still filled with their crowds of saltimbanques and quacks, though the fashionable world, having seen Le Roi Soleil, had gone or was going home, for the wintry evening was setting in. And as he rode slowly, for his poor beast was now quite spent, he tried to think of what he should do—go to Marly at once, that evening, as he had said to Louvois (although with scarcely the intention of doing so, since he doubted seeing the king without preparation), or find a roof for himself and a stall for his horse for the night.

Then he decided suddenly, promptly, that the former was what he would do. If he could get the king's ear first, before Louvois, he might save himself. Louis was great of heart, in spite of his childish belief in his kingly attributes, of his love of splendour, and his vanity. Who could tell? A word with him—above all, a word breathed as to whom St. Georges believed himself to be—and he was safe. His father had been Louis's companion; he would not slay the son. Safe—even though dismissed the army and stripped of his commission—able to stay in France, to return to Troyes, to seek and find his darling again!

He was resolved; he would go to Marly that night.

Only—how to get there. Marly lay beyond Versailles, four leagues from Paris, and his horse could go no further. The marvel was that it had done so much, and it was only by the most assiduous care and merciful treatment—by sometimes walking mile after mile by its side, and by resting it hourly—that St. Georges had been able to assist it to reach Paris. Now it could do no more.

However, ere long he espied an écurie and found that the owner had horses for hire, while one, a red roan with a shifty eye and bright-blooded nostril, took St. Georges's fancy. He knew a good horse the moment he saw one, and read by this creature's points that it would be troublesome for the first mile, and then carry him swiftly for the remainder of his journey. So, leaving his own horse—though not before he had seen it attended to, fed, and rubbed down, and taken into a comfortable, fresh-littered stall—he set out once more, tired, worn, and travel-sore as he was, for his fresh destination. Yet he knew his object, if he could attain it, would be worth a hundred times the extra fatigue. And when it was attained he could rest. Time enough then.

The red roan behaved exactly as he expected it would: it first of all bounded half across the road when once he was in the saddle, knocking down a scaramouche and a toothdrawer in doing so—the latter, fortunately, having no customer in his hands at the moment; it next proceeded sideways up the street, and then, finding it had a master to deal with, danced along in a canter until the West Gate of Paris was reached, after which, and being now sure that its exuberance was useless, it settled down into a long, easy stride, and bore its rider as smoothly as a carriage might toward his goal.

The moon, which a few nights back had shown beneath its young rays the corpse hanging on the gibbet outside the city of Troyes, lit up now the road along which he passed, disturbing on his way sometimes a deer in a thicket, sometimes a scurrying rabbit—they disturbing, too, the fiery creature he bestrode, and frightening it into a swifter pace. Still, each moment brought him nearer to his destination, to the arbiter in whose hands his destiny was held; and, for the rest, he sat like a rock upon its back. Its gambades could not unseat him.

So the twelve English miles were nearly passed; he was on the new road that branched off to Marly—the strangest route that any man living in those days ever, perhaps, rode along. On either side it was bordered by small forests of enormous trees, mostly covered with dead branches, since these trees had died unnaturally long months ago, when transported from Compiègne to where they now stood. Also he saw beneath the moon's gleams fountains from which no water could be forced to flow—great basins to which water could not be brought, or only brought by depriving Versailles of its natural supply. Louis had thought that he could force Nature—uproot trees from one spot, where they had flourished for a hundred years and cause them to flourish equally well in another; had imagined that even the waters on which his gondolas, brought from Venice, might float, could be forced into existence at his command. It was a monstrous impertinence offered to Nature, and it cost him four million and a half of livres, with but little profit to any but the frogs and toads.

There rose now before his eyes—where the road branched off in different directions, on the right to Versailles, and, a little to the left, to Marly—the white-washed walls of an auberge known as Le Bon Pasteur, a place soon to be pulled down, since Louis had bought out the owner, and was about to build a pavilion upon it. But it stood up to this time untouched, as it had done since the days of Henri III—long, low, thatched, and weather-beaten, three old poplar trees in front of it, a mounting-block also, and, of course, the usual heap of filth by its side where the stables were.

Approaching it, he felt the roan stagger beneath him, halt in its strides, then falter; and, shrewd horseman as he was, knew that it had either cast a shoe, or had got a stone in one. And as he dismounted close by the inn, though still some twoscore yards from the mounting-block, he heard behind him the clatter of other hoofs coming on, and the light laugh of a woman, also the deeper tones of a man.