The Chevalier's daughter

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"Tut, tut! Petite! Remember that we are not now in England where every clown can bring his lord to justice, but in France where nobles have privileges. But I wonder where the owner is. Where is your husband, my good woman?" he called out, as we came opposite the workers.

"Alas, monsieur, I do not know," answered the poor woman, with streaming eyes. "Monsieur the marquis was hunting yesterday and took a short cut through our vineyard to arrive the sooner, and my husband was so ill-advised as to utter some harsh words and maledictions which the marquis overheard; so he bade the huntsmen take him away and teach him better manners. Since then I have not seen him, and Heaven knows what has become of him. Oh, monsieur, if you would but intercede for us; I am sure my husband meant no harm."

"He should be more careful with his words," returned my uncle. "My good woman, I am not acquainted with your marquis, and cannot therefore take the liberty of speaking for your husband; but there is some money for you. Drive on, postilion."

My heart was sick with the injustice and tyranny, the effects of which I had just seen, but my aunt and uncle seemed to think little of it, and indeed I saw enough more sights of the same kind before we reached Paris. The simple truth was and is, that in France the common people have no rights whatever, but are absolutely at the mercy of their lord. Their crops, the honor of their families, their very lives, depend upon his humor, and how great soever may be the wrong, there is no redress.

I had seen little of this sort of thing in Normandy. The only great proprietor near the tour, besides my father and Monsieur Le Roy, who were both Huguenots, was a gentleman of great kindness, and one who made a conscience of dealing justly with his people. I was heart-sick before we reached our destination, and wished twenty times I were back in England.

We arrived in Paris at last, and I found myself dazzled by the splendid buildings and the grand equipages which met my eyes on every hand. The streets, it was true, were quite as dirty as London, but there was no fog or coal smoke to obscure the air or blacken the house fronts. My aunt was in the best of spirits at being once more in her dear native city, but I could not help thinking my uncle rather grave and preoccupied. As to Father Martien, he was always the same under every circumstance, and I have no doubt would have preserved the same calm countenance whether he were watching the agonies of a heretic on the wheel, or being himself served with the same sauce by the Iroquois.

My uncle had a fine hotel in a fashionable situation, and as a courier had been sent before us we found everything ready for our reception. I was assigned a small room which looked into a court, and had no exit but through my aunt's reception-room. It was prettily furnished enough, but I took a dislike to it from the first, because it reminded me of my little turret-room at the Tour d'Antin, which I would have preferred of all things to forget.

I had looked forward to Paris as a scene of gaiety and splendor far beyond anything I had ever seen, and so it was, but I very soon found that the gaiety and splendor were not for me. It was not that my aunt meant to be unkind; on the contrary, at that time she was amiability itself, but in France a young lady of good family lives before her marriage in a state of as much seclusion as if she were in a convent. In fact, almost every French young lady is placed in a convent at a very early age, from which she only emerges to be married to the man not of her own, but of her parents' choice, whom she perhaps never saw more than twice and never a moment alone, till she was married to him.

I could not complain of being treated as other girls were, but I must confess I found the life a very dull one. My aunt lost no time in securing for me the services of a music and a dancing master, and she often took me out with her in the coach, but I had no companions of my own age. I was not at all well. I had been accustomed to a great deal of exercise all my life, and that in the fresh air, and the state of excitement in which I had been kept for such a length of time began to tell on me.

I slept very little and was troubled by frightful dreams, which almost always took me back to the Tour d'Antin, and the dangers I had undergone there, or, what was still worse, I read and worked and prayed with my mother, and then waked to an intolerable sense of want and desolation. I told Father Martien of these dreams. He looked grave, pronounced them direct temptations of the devil, and said he feared I had some sin or some concealment yet upon my conscience which gave the evil spirit power over me. I assured him that such was not the case; but he still looked grave, bade me search my conscience anew, advised a retreat, and gave me to read the "Four Weeks' Meditations of Saint Ignatius."