"Please, Mrs. Courthope," said Lady Clementina, "will you give orders that when this young woman comes to see me to-day she shall be shown up to my room?"
Then she turned to Lizzy and thanked her for her kindness, and they parted—Lizzy to her baby, and Clementina to yet a dream or two. Long before her dreams were sleeping ones, however, Malcolm was out in the bay in the Psyche's dinghy catching mackerel: some should be for his grandfather, some for Miss Horn, some for Mrs. Courthope, and some for Mrs. Crathie.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
CHÂTEAU COURANCE.
During the earlier years of the reign of Napoleon III., Fontainebleau was a favorite resort of the emperor and the court, and consequently was much frequented by good republicans from this democratic land of freedom. When, in the later time, De Morny's speculation at Biarritz called the court to the seaside, the sightseeing fraternity followed. Fontainebleau was deserted, and has since been almost unknown to Americans, few caring to crowd into the little cabarets save the faithful community of artists, who still go there to study the grand old trees of the finest forest in France. But among the elder generation of our fellow-citizens who have "done the Continent" there must be many who, in the palmy days of Fontainebleau, have seen the imperial hunt winding through the greenwood aisles in much magnificence of environment, and heard the blare of horn and bay of hound dying away in the distance as the splendid assembly pursued the gorgeous if somewhat theatrical and spiritless pleasures of the chase. It may have happened on such an occasion that an early return of the green-and-gold-clad cortége has indicated a failure of the day's sport, and the word "Courance" has passed from lip to lip as explaining the disappointment. And then, perhaps, Madame Busque, the polite mistress of the Hôtel du Sol, has communicated the information that the obstinate pig of a stag had the stupidity to run toward Le Courance, and the chase was therefore abandoned. Why? Mais, because Le Courance is an impenetrable wilderness, and besides—this with significant shrug and gesture—besides, one goes not there. Not His Majesty? No, not even His Majesty.
Continued inquiry may have elicited the fact that Château Courance, with its wide park, situated some three leagues south-west from Fontainebleau, had once been a splendid feudal residence, but was now supposed to be in ruins, having been abandoned and wholly closed to the world for the greater part of a century. The resident artists, if appealed to, may have told of legends heard among the foresters and peasantry of old-time tragedies, and of supernatural appearances haunting the deserted place. They may have repeated, too, the gossip of the studios touching rare and curious works of art, paintings by great masters, plate by Cellini and early Sèvres porcelain lost to the world within the walls of the château. But as rumor, while giving these details, also maintained that no human creature except a few faithful descendants of the household had been even within the limits of the park for nearly a hundred years, the practical American mind may not have found much in these tales worth remembering.
Attempts, however, have not been wanting to penetrate the mysteries surrounding Château Courance, but it is believed that none ever met with success until a very recent period. The authorities always interfered by virtue of a royal mandate, still on the statute-books of France, which forbids any entry to the demesne of Courance without the express consent of the count or his intendant. Furthermore, a superstitious dread of any approach to the place prevails among the people, and this feeling has been strong enough to defeat the several secret explorations known to have been undertaken.
Courance, then, remained but a name and a shadow for many and many a year, drifting slowly back to the sole dominion of Nature and out of the very memory of mankind. But the late war, sweeping over the land and destroying so much of old France, made a break at last in the barriers surrounding the ancient demesne—not, indeed, by direct assault, as Fontainebleau and its neighborhood were not in the line of the Prussian march, but by one of those little eddies of reaction by which great movements affect distant currents of event.
Among the first to fly from Paris when the gates opened at the end of the war were the artists. More hungry to feast their eyes than to satisfy physical cravings, many hastened to Fontainebleau, content with Madame Busque's thin pottage if they could but spend their days among the trees. Two American painters were of their number—Perry from Boston, and Johnston from Baltimore. Belonging to the Can't-get-away Club, they had stood the siege manfully, and been very helpful at our legation when the whole establishment was turned into a hospital. On receipt of the fund from the United States for the relief of sufferers from the war, Minister Washburne appointed these gentlemen on the sub-commission of distribution in the district of the Loiret. The active and enthusiastic young men were instrumental in doing a vast amount of good, and were the recipients of endless ovations of the gratitude which poured out in effusion at that time toward all bearing the American name. It is impossible to overstate the hearty good-will entertained by all classes and manifested on all occasions, an opportunity to do a service or afford a pleasure being looked upon as a piece of enviable fortune.