Like a gold embroidered thundercloud, the hunting-party whirled out of the distance and drew nearer. Horns sounded and rapid hoof-beats vibrated on the air. As they approached, a good chance was afforded to see the costly apparel of the ladies, and also of the gentlemen, of whom an old chronicler of the times avers, not without point, that some among them wore their lands and castles on their shoulders.
They fluttered by like a glittering swarm of birds of paradise. Blanche stretched her little head forward--there he was--one of the first!
He did not even look up--but rushed by like a storm-wind, his face turned to a blonde, regal lady, and looking proud and imposing indeed. Blanche staggered back. What could there have been in that brilliant throng of further interest to her? Dame Isabella, however, lingered at the window, and grinned and bowed with might and main, while her huge head-gear rocked comically back and forth.
And now the king approached on a milk-white steed with scarlet velvet, gold-embroidered housings. He looked up, and was reminded of an amusing picture which De Lancy, on his return to court, when questioned by the ladies as to the adventure which had detained him so long away, had drawn of a worthy old scarecrow who tended his wounds in Montalme. The existence of the lovely maiden Blanche he had deemed it wisest to conceal. Stifling a laugh, Francis returned Dame Isabella's greeting with roguish exaggeration, then turning, whispered to those nearest him, whereupon they also looked up, and being greeted by her, the entire retinue stopped a minute to inspect the self-satisfied old monstrosity. But they did not all possess the amiable courtesy which distinguished the king even in his unrestrained naughtiness. One of the ladies smiled, another laughed, and, like a spark in a ton of powder, this laugh was enough to set off the kindling stuff of repressed hilarity which at once exploded.
So pointed were the looks--so hearty the laughter of the party--that even the self-admiring Isabella could not in the slightest degree be deceived as to the cause of their merriment. Mortified, she drew back out of sight, and the hunting party passed on. Yet at a distance the sound of the continued laughter was audible. Dame Isabella was furious. "They laughed at me, they pointed at me with their fingers!" she repeated, over and over again, her corpulent figure, and especially her double chin, trembling in a remarkable way; and utterly forgetting her former admiration of the court, she added, "The disorderly mob! the base women!"
Blanche, who, with her elbows in her hands, was staring straight before her like one stunned, thought, "Perhaps he is laughing at me too!" and thought these words aloud; since she had been so absorbed in sorrow and longing she had often uttered whole sentences like one in a feverish dream.
"That you may be sure of!" said Dame Isabella, in a huff, and rustled out of the room to lay aside once and for all the ugly headgear which she had had a chance to observe was in appalling contradiction to the prevailing style. She distinctly recalled Henri de Lancy's expressed admiration for this same head ornament. Now she knew that he had been making fun of her, and anger and resentment gnawed at her heart.
It chanced that on the following day two mendicant friars sought admission to the castle. Dame Isabella asked to have these bare-footed martyrs conducted to her room, welcomed them hospitably and in the most respectful manner; in the first place because she was pious, but in the second because these wandering monks served as a kind of peripatetic newspaper; for which their roving life afforded them sufficient variety of material. Thus the lady obtained the most precise information about the frivolities of the king and his rollicking companions, especially the handsome De Lancy, who, she was told, among all these lawless revellers was the worst. He was not only following the royal example to the last extent (the monks exaggerated perhaps a trifle, seeing how much it pleased their listener), but of late he had actually formed a liaison with a married woman, the Countess de Sologne, whom, as she was carefully guarded by her husband's jealousy, he visited secretly at night. And they ended by saying, "It would not surprise us if the castle lady heard the reckless knight ride by, since it was the shortest way to Laemort, the hereditary seat of the Solognes."
We may rest assured that Dame Isabella gave the monks for this precious communication plenty of money to spend on their way. Possessed of her glorious bit of knowledge, she was dying to tell it, and seeing Blanche at the chess-board, opposite her uncle, who exerted himself all the time to try to distract her thoughts, she began immediately to relate what she had heard. They were not prudish in those days, and if here and there one cared to preserve the innocence of a young girl, that blissful ignorance was by no means maintained which to-day is held peculiarly sacred and inviolate.
Dame Isabella repeated word for word all she had heard of the shameful proceedings which hourly went on in the Castle of Amboise, and of the startling depravity of Henri de Lancy. In vain Gottfried attempted, by his displeased looks, to silence her; she went on further, and advised Blanche to rejoice that she had escaped the danger of becoming the wife of this vicious fellow. Blanche sat stiff and straight, not uttering a word, and continued to shove the little ivory figures slowly over the board--that she made the castle execute the peculiar leaps of the knight, Isabella did not notice. But when she finished by saying that they might hear Henri de Lancy ride by nightly, since the nearest way to his beloved duchess led by Montalme, they suddenly heard a painful quiver like the dropping of a little bird which had been shot through the heart. Blanche had fainted and fallen.