CHAPTER IX
THE HERETIC
The answer from M. de Biron contained flat discouragement. In his words seemed to lurk a smile at the simplicity of Luc: there were no places at Court or even in obscure corners of France that were not already allotted, long before they were vacant, to those who were friends of pensioners of the Court favourites and the Ministers.
It was absurd to hope that anyone with no recommendation above his talents could obtain even a clerk’s place in the Government, added M. de Biron, and he advised Luc to spare himself the fatigue and humiliation of further applications, and suggested that he should abandon ideas that were certain to end in disappointment.
The letter was meant kindly, but it brought a flush of anger to Luc’s cheek; then he laughed, and with the laugh his old serenity returned. M. de Biron should not block his way; there were other channels. He did not show the letter to his father, but merely told him that his former Colonel could be no help.
The Marquis said nothing, but a few days later produced, with much pride, a letter from M. de Caumont to M. de Richelieu, Governor of Languedoc, asking for his interest for Luc, who was touched and moved by his father’s thought.
Yet he was not altogether pleased. He had heard enough of M. de Richelieu from Hippolyte, M. de Caumont’s son, who had never spoken of him with anything but dislike, and he knew the Governor’s reputation as the most famous man of fashion of the moment and a hard persecutor of the Protestants in Languedoc.
But he could refuse neither his own father’s interest nor the help of his dead friend’s father, and M. de Richelieu was a great gentleman who could raise anyone where he would. It happened also that he was now at Avignon, where he seldom enough made his residence, and Luc’s direct enthusiasm resolved him to go there and present his letter himself. His father was for sending it by messenger, and his mother wished to detain him in Aix. He suspected her of tender little schemes with regard to himself and Mademoiselle de Séguy, who had, with such innocent coquetry, been sent in upon him that August evening, when, as it happened, he had first made the resolve to enter politics. He overruled this gentle opposition and left Aix in late September with one servant and a good roan horse. Though his soul was serious it was young. The freedom of the peaceful open country, the freshness of the autumn air, the sight of the fields of grain—these simple things affected his spirits to the height of exaltation. He felt his old health return; he was as light-hearted as if he had never seen Bohemia.
But as they rode farther into Languedoc the surroundings changed: the ground was neglected, the cottages mere huts, the peasantry silent and ragged, the cattle poor and scarce. Luc, noticing this, fell into a kind of gravity.
They took the journey easily. On the second day, when within easy distance of Avignon, they stopped at a humble inn on the high road shaded by a dusty grove of poplar trees.
Luc found two other travellers in the parlour. At the first glance he was interested in them; he had a passion for studying character, and could never observe strangers indifferently. He crossed to the window, which looked on to a herb garden, and seated himself on the chintz-covered window-seat and delicately watched the two, who were engaged in eating omelette and salad at a round table near the fire-place. One was a priest and a conspicuously handsome man, but without attraction, for his dark face was hard and immobile and his eyes, though very brilliant, expressionless; he wore the black robes of a canon, which hung gracefully on his spare, powerful figure.