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THE NEW “BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.”
Marshal Mont-Jean was as respectable a soldier as good king Francis had in his army. It was currently reported in his troop that he had once been young, although his hair was now grey, and that he had once been alert, although the wounds from sword, lance, and bullet, which cicatrised his body all over, had rendered him fit only for garrison duty. He was entrusted with an important fortress on the frontiers of Piedmont, for his royal master knew that his stiff and shrivelled body would as little think of budging from before an enemy as the stone and lime he was set to guard.
Marshal Mont-Jean had a young wife—a lineal descendant of the noble family of Chateaubriant—a girl in her seventeenth year, of a clear car-nated complexion, through which the eloquent blood shone forth at every word she spoke, with dark eyes at once penetrating and winning, and with an elastic, buoyant, coquettish sort of a gait. Owing to family politics, she had been married to the marshal before she very well knew what marriage was. Naturally of an affectionate disposition, she loved the tough old soldier—who, imperative and stern to all others, was gentle to her—as a daughter might have done. Her little thoughts ran more upon her gowns, headtires, and feathers, than any thing else. She would have had no objections, had it lain in her power, to have displayed these objects of her affections before the eyes of young French gallants, but unluckily there were none such within reach. The soldiers of the garrison were old and grizzled as their commander, or the walls they tenanted. The Marquis of Saluzzo visited the marshal sometimes, to be sure; but although not exactly old, he was ugly. His features were irregular, his eyes dull and bleared, his complexion a yellowish black: he had a big belly and a round back, and was heavy and lumpish in all his motions. So the pretty lady had no one to please by her dresses but herself, her handmaidens, and her venerable husband. And yet she was daily dressed like the first princess of the land. It had been a fair sight to see the delicate ape attired like unto some stately queen, and striving to give to her petite figure, mincing steps, and laughing looks, an air of solemn and stately reserve.
Every thing has an end, at least the life of Marshal Mont-Jean had. His little widow was sincerely sorry, but her grief was not exactly heartbreaking. She had respected him, but love was out of the question; and with all her esteem for the man, and resignation to her fate, there was something unnatural in the union of persons so widely differing in age. But had she been ever so inclined to lament him, she would not have had time. She was under the necessity of transporting herself immediately, with all her own and her late husband’s retainers, to her estates in France, and she had not a single sol left in her possession. Her estates were large, but even had there been time to await the arrival of money from them, the times were too unsafe to hazard its transmission. The country around her was too mountainous, and its air too pure and keen to nourish usurers. Her dresses were of immense value, but there was no one near who cared for such frippery, or could or would advance money upon its pledge. The little lady was at her wit’s end.
She felt no great alleviation of her troubles, when one day—after wondering for a quarter of an hour what was the meaning of the tan tara of trumpets before the gate, and the clattering of horses’ hoofs in the court-yard—the Marquis of Saluzzo was ushered into her presence. He was gaily apparelled in a tunic and hose of white silk, laced with silver, and a hat of the same materials, with bushy white plumes waving over his head. This costume communicated to his countenance—which rivalled in colour the feet of a duck that has all day been wading in the mud—a yet more repulsive expression. The young widow thought—when she saw the portly belly come swagging into the hall before its owner, and the worshipful marquis panting after it, with a multitude of ungainly bows—that she had never seen any thing half so hideous.