Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=3LFEAAAAYAAJ (the University of VirginiA)
2. Chapters misnumbered going from III. to V.

One in a Thousand
or
The Days of Henri Quatre

One in a
THOUSAND
By
G. P. R. JAMES

LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS LIMITED
MDCCCCIII

The Introduction is written by Laurie Magnus, M.A.; the Title-page is designed by Ivor I. J. Symes.

INTRODUCTION.

George Payne Rainsford James, Historiographer Royal to King William IV., was born in London in the first year of the nineteenth century, and died at Venice in 1860. His comparatively short life was exceptionally full and active. He was historian, politician and traveller, the reputed author of upwards of a hundred novels, the compiler and editor of nearly half as many volumes of letters, memoirs, and biographies, a poet and a pamphleteer, and, during the last ten years of his life, British Consul successively in Massachusetts, Norfolk (Virginia), and Venice. He was on terms of friendship with most of the eminent men of his day. Scott, on whose style he founded his own, encouraged him to persevere in his career as a novelist; Washington Irving admired him, and Walter Savage Landor composed an epitaph to his memory. He achieved the distinction of being twice burlesqued by Thackeray, and two columns are devoted to an account of him in the new "Dictionary of National Biography." Each generation follows its own gods, and G. P. R. James was, perhaps, too prolific an author to maintain the popularity which made him "in some ways the most successful novelist of his time." But his work bears selection and revival. It possesses the qualities of seriousness and interest; his best historical novels are faithful in setting and free in movement. His narrative is clear, his history conscientious, and his plots are well-conceived. English learning and literature are enriched by the work of this writer, who made vivid every epoch in the world's history by the charm of his romance.

"The Man at Arms" tells the story of Jarnac and Moncontour, and ends with the fatal day of St. Bartholomew. "Henry of Guise" takes up the history of the Religious Wars, with sympathy chiefly for the Catholics, and closes with the assassination of that great soldier; then "One in a Thousand" resumes the tale just before the murder of Henry III. and the battle of Ivry. The two former are rather short and remarkably brisk in movement, this one is somewhat longer and much more elaborate. It has a complex plot, a large crowd of characters from both factious, and has evidently been worked out with, perhaps, less vivacity but more pains. "Willingly" says the novelist, "we turn once more from the dull, dry page of history ... to the more entertaining and instructive accidents and adventures of the individual characters which, with somewhat less skill than that of a Philidore, we have been moving about on the little chess-board before us." There is an ironical undermeaning here; but so far as James suggests that his flagrant romanticism, mysterious dwarfs, princesses disguised as pages, and battles prefigured in the thunder-clouds are more interesting than his retelling of historical events and careful portraiture of historical people, we must venture to dissent from him. The fiction is simply his favourite story of a wealthy heiress held out as a bait by the heads of rival factions to attract the allegiance of two powerful nobles. We feel not the slightest anxiety as to the ultimate happiness of the fair lady and the blameless lover, or the appropriate fate of their enemies. On the other hand, the intimate picture of the Leaguers at Paris, of the headquarters of Henry Quatre, and more particularly the speaking likeness of the Duke de Mayenne, the head of the Guises, are keenly interesting and real contributions to the history of those times. Though the stage effects are well done, this shows far more talent. With all his fierce ambition, his lack of scruple, and his froward temper, the Duke stands out as a man, and is infinitely more alive than the purely romantic characters; furthermore, the family likeness between the various members of that powerful house, the Guises, is admirably brought out in this series of romances, and the figure of Henry of Navarre is not less well done, though he is a personage that we meet with less rarely either in James's novels or in those of other historical raconteurs.

ONE IN A THOUSAND;

OR,

THE DAYS OF HENRI QUATRE.

CHAPTER I.

Oh the confines of the two beautiful provinces of Maine and Touraine, lies one of the sweetest valleys that the foot of man ever trod. The hills by which it is formed are covered on one hand by a wood of venerable oaks, while the other side offers a green slope only broken occasionally by rocky banks; and on the summit of every eminence stands out, in bold relief, a group of two or three young trees, casting their deep, soft shadows on the velvet turf below.

The eye of a traveller, placed at the northern extremity of the valley, may trace its course winding on in varied beauty for nearly a league to the southward; till at length the hills between the acclivities of which it lies, seem to end abruptly in that direction, but still without meeting; the one side terminating in a high rugged rock, cutting clear and distinct upon the sky, and the other fringed by the branches and foliage of the trees. Far away beyond--enframed, as it were, by the opening of the valley--lies a rich, splendid landscape, showing bright Touraine, with its plains, and woods, and dells fading off in long misty lines of light and shade, till earth and heaven blend in the blue obscurity of distance.

Washing the roots of the trees on one side, and edged with a bank of soft green moss on the other, a small limpid stream runs swiftly along over a shallow bed of rocks and pebbles, and, like some spoiled child of fortune, winds rapidly on amidst a thousand sweets and beauties, still hurrying forward, careless of all the bright things that surround its path. Such is the picture of that valley as I have seen it within the last twenty years; but the tale I have to tell refers to a period more remote.

Down the steep, rugged bridle-road, which, descending sharply from the brow of the more exposed hill, crossed the course of the valley and the stream at nearly a right angle, and then, mounting the opposite slope, made its way through the forest;--down that road, somewhere near the end of April, 1589, a very handsome boy, seemingly about sixteen years of age, took his path on foot. He was just at the time of life when childhood and manhood meet--when sports, and pastimes, and sweet innocence are cast away like faded flowers, and when we first set the naked foot of inexperience on that burning and arid path through the fiery desert of desire and disappointment, which each man must tread, ere he reach the night's resting-place of the tomb. Not a shade of down yet tinged his upper lip with the budding of the long-coveted mustachio, and his face was smooth and soft; but there was a flash and a fire in his splendid dark eye, which told that the strong and busy passions that beset man's prime had already taken possession of his heart.

He was dressed in a vest of dark murrey-coloured cloth, bound with a light edging of gold, and in large trunk breeches descending to his knee, made of the same stuff, and ornamented in the same manner. His cloak, which was more ample than was usual in those days, or than the time of year required, was fastened by a buckle to the right shoulder, and, being brought round under his left arm in the Italian mode, was wrapped across his chest, without opposing any obstacle to the free passage of his hand towards the hilt of his dagger or his sword. He was, if anything, below the middle height, and slightly made; but in his countenance there were all those signs and features from which we are accustomed to argue the presence of high and daring courage: and, perhaps, it might have been a safer task to attack many a man of greater personal strength, and much more warlike appearance, than that slight boy, with his light active limbs, and quick remarking eye.

On the summit of the hill he paused for a moment, and gazed over the country which he had left behind, as if looking anxiously for some expected sight; and then, muttering the words, "Negligent varlets!" he resumed his path down the side of the hill. After wandering for a short space along the margin of the shallow stream, seeking for a place where he might cross its fretful waters, without wetting the light buskins that covered his feet, he sat down upon the mossy bank under the shade of a clump of oaks, seemingly wearied with his walk, and, pulling off his boots and stockings, dipped his feet in the rivulet to cool and refresh them. Laying his broad-plumed hat by his side, he leaned back against the broken bank, from which sprang the oaks that shaded him; and, with the water still rippling over his feet, and the chequered light and shade of the green leaves above playing on his broad fair brow, he seemed to give himself up to one of those fanciful dreams ever so busy with the brain of youth.

It was certainly a spot and an hour to dream in. It was the noon of a bright spring day. Every bird of the season was singing its sweetest song in the forest opposite or in the trees above his head; and his seat was carpeted with the meek-eyed wood anemone, the soft blue periwinkle, the daisy, the primrose, and the violet, together with a thousand other flowers, the sweetest children of the early year, whose very birth and being are one of the brightest themes that nature offers to imagination. And yet the youth's meditations did not appear to be pleasant ones. Whatever was the chain of thought that bound his mind, there was upon his countenance an expression of sad and painful gloom, which gradually changed, like the hues of a red and stormy sunset, to the deeper signs of wrath and indignation. Sometimes he gazed heavily upon the stream, with an eye all unconscious of the flashing waters before it; and then again, as some sterner feeling seemed to take possession of his heart, his brow would knit, his lip would quiver, and his eye would flash like a young tiger in its spring. Soon, however, the thoughts--whatever they were--which gave rise to such emotions, passed away; and, hanging down his head, sadder sensations seemed, in turn, to occupy his breast. A bright drop rose and glittered in his eye, and the quick blood mounted hastily into his cheek, as if ashamed of the passion he had shown, though he knew not that any one was near to witness its expression.

Whether the passing emotions by which he had been agitated were marked or not, his progress from the top of the hill to the spot where he sat had not been unobserved; and the next moment a rustling sound, proceeding from the bushes on the opposite side of the stream, startled him from his reverie. Bounding up like a frightened fawn, he fixed his eyes upon the trees in the direction from which the noise had proceeded; but the thick foliage concealed for the time the object which alarmed him; though, by the continuance of the sound, and the waving of the boughs, it was evident that some large body was making its way towards the side of the river. The next instant the figure of a man emerged from the wood, and then that of a horse, whose bridle, cast over the stranger's arm, afforded the means of leading it forward along the narrow footpath which they had been treading. The leisurely pace at which both man and horse proceeded gave no signs of intentions actively hostile towards any one; and although those were days in which dangers were to be found in every field and in every road, yet a moment's thought seemed to have made the youth ashamed of the timid start which the stranger's approach had occasioned. Colouring highly, he sat down again upon the bank, and applied himself busily to replace his boots and stockings, without vouchsafing a look towards the other side of the stream.

"When you have done, my fair youth," said the stranger, after gazing at him for a minute from the opposite bank, "will you answer me a question?"

"If it suit me, and if I can," replied the youth, looking up into the stranger's face for the first time.

That face was not one to be seen without exciting in those who beheld it, more and more agreeable sensations than are usually called up by the blank countenances of the great mass of mankind--too often unlettered books, where mind and feeling have scarcely written a trace. The features on which the lad now gazed were strongly marked, but handsome; the broad expanse of the high, clear forehead, the open unbent brow, the bright speaking eye, and the full arching lips, conveyed at once to the untaught physiognomist which watches and reasons at the bottom of every man's heart, the idea of a candid and generous mind. There was much intelligence, too, in that countenance--intelligence without the least touch of cunning--all bright, and clear, and bold.

The stranger was about the middle height, and, apparently, had seen four or five and thirty summers: they might be less or more; for circumstances, so much more than time, stamp the trace of age upon the external form, as well as upon the heart and feelings, that it is often difficult to judge whether the wrinkles and furrows, which seem to have been the slow work of years, are not, in reality, the marks of rapid cares or withering passions. In his face were several lines which might well have borne either interpretation; but still, neither his dark brown hair, nor his thick glossy beard, offered the least evidence of time's whitening hand. His dress was a simple riding suit, the green hue of which appeared to bespeak, either for profit or amusement, a devotion to the chase. The same calling seemed denoted by a small hunting-horn, which hung by his side; and his offensive arms were no more than such sport required. He wore, however, a hat and high white plume, instead of the close unadorned bonnet generally used in the chase; and his horse, too, a deep bay barb, had less the air of a hunter than of a battle charger.

"My question is a very simple one, good youth," he said, while a slight smile curled his lip, excited by a certain degree of pettish flippancy which the boy displayed in replying to his first address:--"Did you meet a troop of reitters just now, as you came over the hill? and which way did they take?"

"I did meet a troop of Dutch vagabonds," replied the boy, boldly: "villains that foolish Frenchmen hire to cut foolish Frenchmen's throats! and as to the way they took, God 'a mercy! I watched them not."

"But from yon hill you must have seen which road they went," replied the stranger. "I am one of those foolish Frenchmen whom you mention, and an inoffensive person to boot, whose throat would have but small security under the gripe of these worthy foreigners. One of them I might deal with--ay, two--or three, perchance; but when they ride by scores, and I alone, I see not why the green wood should not cover me, as well as many a brave boar or a stout stag. I pray thee, therefore, good youth, if thou sawest the way they took, let me know it, for courtesy's sake; and if thou sawest it not, why, fare thee well! I must take my chance."

For a moment or two the boy made no reply, but measured the stranger from head to foot with his eye; somewhat knitting his brow, as he did so, with a look of some abstraction, as if his mind were too busy with what he saw to heed the incivility of his long-protracted stare. "Yes," said he, at length, speaking apparently to himself, "yes;" and then, addressing the stranger, he demanded abruptly, "whither go you?"

"Nay, good youth! nay!" replied his companion; "these are not times--nor France the country--nor this the spot of all France--in which a man would choose to trust the first person he meets, with where he goes or what he goes for. I ask you not your road--ask me not mine. If you can answer my question, whether the band of reitters took the path to Tours, or wound under the hill towards La Fleche, do so, and I will thank you; if not, once more farewell!"--and, without putting foot in stirrup, he sprang upon his horse's back.

"Answer your question I cannot," replied the boy, with a degree of calm earnestness that seemed to speak greater interest in the stranger than he had at first evinced; "but I can do more for you," he proceeded. "Where the reitters went I did not see, for I hid myself behind the rocks till they were past; but I can show you paths where no reitters will ever come. Often have I flown my hawk across those plains," he added in an explanatory tone, as if he wished to recommend his guidance to the stranger by showing how his acquaintance with the country had been acquired;--"often have I followed my hound through these valleys, in other days long gone; and I know their every turning better than my father's house."

"In other days!" said the stranger; "why thou art now but a boy!"

"True," replied the youth; "yet I may have known other days, and happier ones--but to my purpose. What I offer you, I offer knowing what I am doing:" and he fixed Ins eyes upon the stranger's face with a meaning, but not a disrespectful, glance, and then proceeded: "Tell me whither you would go. I will conduct you thither in safety, and will not betray you, upon my honour!"

"In faith, I believe I must even trust you," replied the stranger. "There are many who, with wise saws and cautious counsels, would fain persuade me to be as prudent, and as careful of my life, as a great-grandmother of eighty years and upwards. But life, at best, is but as gold, a precious thing given to be spent. Whip me all misers, whether of their purse or of their safety, say I; and, therefore, boy, you shall be my guide, though you should give me over to all the reitters that ever the factious house of Lorraine brought to back the treason which they call piety."

"I will give you over to no reitters," replied the boy; "so be your mind at ease."

"Odds life! it is seldom otherwise than at ease," rejoined the other: "my heart is a light one, and will not be heavy now, as I ride on beside thee; though I may have caught thy tongue tripping, my fair boy. Thou art no Frenchman, or thine accent sorely belies thee."

"Now do you think me both a German and a reitter, I warrant!" replied the youth, with a playful smile, and a toss back of his dark hair. "But cannot your ear distinguish between the hoggish twang of the Teutonic gutturals, and the soft music of the Italian liquids?"

"Methinks it can," replied the stranger; "but, whether German or Italian, Switzer, or even Spaniard, thou shalt be my guide. Knowest thou the chateau of the Marquis of St. Real?"

The youth started. "Do I know it!" said he, "do I know it!" then suddenly seeming to check, in full career, some powerful feelings that were in the very act of bursting from his heart to his lips, he added, more calmly, "I know it well! I know it well! Willingly will I show you your road thither, and, perhaps, may name my guerdon by the way; but it is too far a journey for me on foot in one day."

"We will buy thee a horse, my fair boy," replied the stranger: "I must be at St. Real this night, and at Tours ere noon to-morrow; so we will buy thee a horse at the first village where we can find one."

"An ass will serve my turn as well as the best Barbary steed," said the youth; "and the one will be more easily found than the other; for, what between the League and the Huguenots, there are more asses in France than any other kind of beast--so now let us on our way."

Returning into the road from which he had strayed to wash his feet, the boy stepped lightly, from stone to stone, across the stream, and soon stood on the same side with the traveller. He, on his part, as if unwilling to save himself fatigue by continuing to ride while the youth walked by his side on foot, once more dismounted; and they then turned their steps up the broad way which led through the forest to the top of the hill, descanting, as they went, on the fineness of the day, the beauty of the scene, and all the ordinary topics which furnish conversation to those who have few subjects in common; but each avoiding, as if by mutual consent, any allusion to the purpose or station of his companion.

It was, as we have said, as fair and sunshiny an April day as ever woke since first the beautifying will of the Almighty robed the hills with verdure, and spread out loveliness as a garment over earth. The trees that, springing from the high broken banks on either side, canopied the road with their green boughs, were living and tuneful with all the birds of spring. There is not a cheerful feeling in the heart of man that might not there have found some sweet note to wake it into harmony. The air was balm itself--soft, yet inspiring like the breath of hope; and the dancing light and shade, that chequered the long perspective up the hill, had something in it gay and sportive, which--joined with the song of the birds, and the sparkling glee of a small fountain that, bursting from the midst of the road, rushed in a little diamond rivulet down to the stream below--addressed itself to all the purer sources of happiness in the human breast, and spoke of peace and joy. Both the journeyers, however, were grave; although the one was in the early spring of youth--that bright season of man's life where every pulse is light; and although each line in the countenance of his companion spoke that constitutional cheerfulness which is the most blessed auxiliary that this world can afford to aid man in maintaining his eternal warfare against time and circumstance.

At the top of the ascent, a wide and magnificent scene lay stretched beneath their eyes. The hill was not sufficiently high, indeed, to afford one of those map-like views, in which we see all the objects spread out over a vast extent in harsh and unshadowed distinctness, like the prospect of life and of the world which we take, when in mature age, after having passed through the illusions of youth and the passions of manhood, we gaze upon the past and the present, and see the hard, cold, naked realities of existence without a softening shade or an enlivening hue. Still the elevation was sufficient to let the eye roam wide over scenes where line after line, in sweet variety, presented a continual change of beautiful forms, softening in tint, in depth of colour, and in distinctness of outline as the objects became more remote, and forming a view such as that which is offered to the eye of youth, when after having climbed over the light ascent of boyhood, the joys of existence, grouped together without its cares, are first presented to the sight, one beyond another, to the very verge of being, all lighted up by hope, and coloured by imagination.

"Run your eye," said the youth, "over that ocean of green boughs which lies waving below us, to that tree-covered mound which starts high above the rest. In a straight line beyond you catch the spire of Beaumont en Maine, at the distance of nearly four leagues; and a little farther to the right, upon a woody hill, you may see the dark towers of the chateau of St. Real."

His companion gazed on in the direction which he pointed out, and then replied, "I once knew this land well, and could have marked out in it many a fair field either for the chase or the battle; but other scenes have made me forget it. Our memory is but like a French crown-piece, since so many kings have been called, one after another, to rule this unhappy land. First, one figure is strong upon it; then it goes to the mint, and a new king's head drives out the other, and keeps its place, till something fresh is stamped upon it again; while, all the time, traces of former impression may be seen below, but indistinct and meaningless. Ay! there is Beaumont en Maine, and there the chateau of St. Real; I remember them now: but what is that massive building, with that large square keep, still farther to the right?"

The youth fixed his eyes upon it, and remained silent for more than a minute: he then replied, abruptly, "That chateau belongs to the Count d'Aubin. Let us on!"

CHAPTER II.

Memory is like moonlight, the reflection of brighter rays emanating originally from an object no longer seen; and all our retrospects towards the past times, as well as our individual remembrances, partake in some degree of the softening splendour which covers small faults and imperfections by grand masses of shade, and brings out picturesque beauties and points of interest with apparently brighter effulgence than even when the full sunshine of the present beaming upon them, suffers at the same time the eye to be distracted, and the mind otherwise engaged by a thousand minor particulars. Nothing gains more, perhaps, from the impossibility of close inspection than the manners, the customs, and the things of the past; and, in some instances, even Nature herself, and Time, that enemy of man's works, in general so remorseless, seem to take a fanciful pleasure in assisting the illusion. That which was in itself harsh and rude in form, acquires as it decays, a picturesque beauty which it never knew in its prime; and the rough hold of the feudal robber, which afforded but small pleasure to behold, and little convenience to its inmates, is now seen and painted with delight, fringed with wild flowers scattered from Nature's bountiful hand and softened with the green covering of the ivy.

The old chateau of St. Real, to which the two travellers we have just left were bending their steps, and to which, for a moment, we must now shift the scene, was one of those antique buildings, few of which have outlasted the first French revolution--buildings which, however we may love to look upon any that do remain, from the magical illusion regarding former days to which I have just alluded, were, nevertheless, much better suited to the times in which they were built, than to the more luxurious present.

Tumults, feuds, insurrections, civil wars, rendered every man's house his castle in no metaphorical sense; and thus the old chateau of St. Real, which had been originally built more than 400 years before the opening of this history, and had been repaired and improved at least a hundred times during the intervening ages of strife and bloodshed, was naturally, in almost all respects, much better calculated for defence against assault than for comfortable habitation. The woody chase, which swept for many a mile round the base of the little hill on which it stood, was cleared and opened in the immediate vicinity of the chateau; and the various avenues were defended with all the accuracy to which the art of war had arrived in those times. The very garden was a regular fortification; the chateau itself a citadel. From the reign of Louis VI., in which its walls had first been raised from the ground, to the reign of Henry III. with which this tale begins, although repairs and improvements had, as we have said, been often made, they were solely military, and nothing had in the slightest degree been permitted which could change the antique aspect of the place. Indeed, its proprietors, the Marquises of St. Real, springing from the most ancient race of French nobility, clung to the antiquity of their dwelling as if it formed a part and parcel of the antiquity of their family. Their habits, their manners, their characters, smacked all of the ancient day; and it was ever with pain that they suffered any of their old customs to be wrenched from them by the innovating hand of improvement.

At their gate, even in the times I speak of, hung, for the purpose of summoning the warder to the wicket, the last horn which, perhaps, was ever used on such occasions in France; and, though the mouthpiece had been renewed, and the chain frequently mended, the horn itself was averred to be the very same which had been hung there in the days of Philip Augustus. But if the lords of St. Real still maintained some tinge of the rudeness of their ancestors, it must by no means be forgotten that it was to the nobler and brighter qualities of former times that they adhered most strongly. They were a proud but a chivalrous race, bold, hospitable, courteous, generous, unswerving in faith and in honour. Their talents, which were by no means inconsiderable, had been principally displayed in the field; and some of the sneerers of the court had not scrupled to call them the Simple St. Reals: but, notwithstanding a degree of simplicity, which certainly did characterise them, they had ever been distinguished, from father to son, by that discriminating discernment of right and wrong which is worth all the wit in the world. Never had their word been pledged without being redeemed; never had their voice sanctioned a bad action; never had their sword supported an evil cause.

The present Marquis of St. Real, who was an old man who had borne arms under Francis I. had during the whole of the wars of the League remained obstinately neuter. He had declared, at the commencement of these unhappy wars, that he would not unsheathe his sword against his lawful sovereign, though friendly to the King of Navarre, and allied remotely to the house of Bourbon; but at the same time he added, that nothing should ever induce him to join in an unjust and cruel war against a portion of his countrymen, who were but defending one of the dearest and most unalienable rights of mankind--their religious liberty.

Too powerful for either party to entertain the hope of forcing him from his neutrality by any violent measures, both the League and the Huguenots spared no means of conciliation, which either wisdom or cunning could suggest, to win him to their side; for vast domains, in which the feudal customs of former times remained in full force, rendered his alliance a thing to be coveted even by the strongest. He remained unmoved, however; and neither a strong personal friendship which existed between himself and the Duke of Mayenne, nor the instigations and artifices of his confessor, could induce him to join the League, any more than gratitude to the King of Navarre for several personal favours, horror at the crimes of Saint Bartholomew, or even a strong belief that the Protestants were right in their warfare, if not in their religion, could bring him over to the party of the Huguenots.

To avoid wearisome solicitation, he had entirely abandoned the capital, and remained in the solitude of his paternal estates, wholly occupied in the education of his son, into whose mind, as principles, he endeavoured to instil, not knowledge of the world, or of courts, but all the firm and noble feelings of his own heart. He succeeded; the Chevalier de St. Real grew up to manhood everything that his father's fondest hopes could have anticipated: bold as a lion, skilled in all warlike exercises, and full of every sentiment that does honour to human nature. But yet, in many things, he was as simple as a child. Cut off from the general society of Paris, he wanted entirely that knowledge of the world which was never more necessary than in the days in which he lived.

On one occasion, indeed, when the infamous Catherine de Medicis, and her beautiful but licentious train, had visited the chateau of St. Real for the purpose of winning its lord to the party she espoused, more than one of her fair syrens had striven, by various arts, to initiate the handsome Chevalier of St. Real into the libertine mysteries of that debauched court; but he met them uniformly with that perfect simplicity which, though joined with much natural good sense, raised many a secret laugh at his expense, and yet guarded him effectually from their worst artifices.

The general current of his time flowed on in the various amusements of the country, as they existed in that age. The chase of the boar, the stag, and the wolf afforded active exercise for the body, while the large and ancient library of the chateau--a rare treasure in those days--yielded occupation to a quick imagination and an energetic mind, in poring over many a printed tome and many an illuminated manuscript. Besides these employments, however, both the old lord of St. Real and his son felt a keen interest in pursuits seldom much attended to by the feudal nobility of France. They not only lived in the country, and amongst their peasantry, but they also loved the country and their peasantry, and delighted in watching and superintending all those agricultural operations which formed the daily relaxation of many of the noblest Romans, but which were, in general, looked upon with indifference, if not contempt, by the new class of chieftains who sprung from the élite of their barbarous conquerors. The lords of St. Real delighted in all: they held to the full the opinion of the old orator, when he exclaimed--"Nec vero segetibus solum et pratis, et vineis, et arbustis res rusticæ lætæ sunt, sed etiam hortis et pomariis, tum pecudum pastu, apium examinibus, florum omnium varietate;" and, though they followed not precisely all the directions of Liebaut in his Maison Rustique, the garden that lay within the flanking walls of the castle, the orchard which extended from the outer balium to the barbacan, and the trellised avenue of vines which ran to what was called the lady's bower, showed taste as well as skill in those who had designed and executed them.

During several years previous to the precise epoch at which we have commenced our tale, the old lord of St. Real had seldom, if ever, slept a night without the walls of his own dwelling. His son, however, when either business, or that innocent love of a temporary change, which every man may well feel without meriting the charge of being versatile, afforded a motive for his absence from home, would often spend a day or two in the great city of Tours, or at the castles of the neighbouring nobility. Some communication with the external world was thus kept up; but the chief companionship of the Chevalier of St. Real was with his cousin-german the Count d'Aubin, who, though attached to the court, and very different in mind and character from his relations, often retired for a while from the gay and busy scenes in which he mingled, to enjoy the comparative solitude of his estates in Maine, and the calm refreshing society of his more simple cousin.

The character of Philip Count d'Aubin was one that we meet with every day. Endowed with passions and talents naturally strong, his passions had been pampered, and his talents misdirected, by an over-indulgent parent. A doubt had been at one time entertained of the legitimacy of his birth, but no one had contested his title; and the early possession of wealth, power, and influence, with the unrestrained disposal of himself and of the property which the death of his father left in his hands, had certainly tended in no degree to curb his desires or extinguish his vanity. His heart had, perhaps, been originally too feeling; but the constant indulgence of every wish and fancy had dulled the former brightness of its sensations; and it was only at times that the yet unextinguished fight shone clearly up to guide him through a maze of errors. His very talents and shrewdness often led him onwards in the wrong: for, possessing from education few fixed principles of action, the energies of his mind were generally turned to the gratification of his passions; and it was only when original rectitude of heart suggested what was good, that reason too joined her voice to urge him on the road of virtue. He was, in fact, the creature of impulse; but, as he had unfailing gaiety, and wit at will, and as a sudden turn of feeling would often lead him to some noble or brilliant action, a sort of false, but dazzling, lustre hung about his whole conduct in the eyes of the world: his powers were overrated, and his weaknesses forgotten. He was the idol and admiration of the young and unthinking, and even the old and grave often suffered the blaze of some few splendid traits to veil the many spots and blemishes of his character.

On the night following that particular day at which it has appeared necessary to commence this history, the two cousins spent some time together pacing up and down the great hall of the chateau of St. Real. The Count d'Aubin had come hastily from Paris, on receiving tidings of the severe illness of his uncle; and their conversation was of a wandering and discursive nature, originating in the increasing sickness of the old Marquis, who was then, for the first time during many days, enjoying a few hours' repose.

"Faith, Huon, thy father is ill," said D'Aubin, as they descended the stairs to the hall, "far worse than I deemed him till I saw him."

"He has, indeed, much fallen in strength during the day," replied the Chevalier de St. Real; "yet I hope that this slumber which has come upon him may bring a change for the better."

The Count shook his head. "I know not," said he; "but yet I doubt it. Your father, Huon, is an old man, and old men must die!" His cousin bent his eyes upon the ground, and slightly contracted his brow; but he did not slacken his pace, and the Count d'Aubin went on: "Yes, Huon, however we may love them, however we may wish that they could live to govern their own vassals and enjoy their own wealth, till patriarchal longevity were no longer a wonder; and I know," he added, pausing, and laying his hand upon his cousin's arm--"and I know, that if the best blood in your noble heart could add to your father's life, you would pour it forth like useless water;--still, whatever ties may bind them to us, still they are, as the old men amongst the ancients did not scruple to call themselves, pabulum Acherontis--but food for the tomb: and none can tell when death may claim his own. I say this because I would have you prepared in mind for an event which I see approaching; and I would also have you prepared to take some quick and immediate part in the great struggle which every day is bringing towards its climax in this land. Your father's neutrality has lasted long enough--nay, too long; for it is surely a shame that you, as brave a youth as ever drew a sword, should have lived to five-and-twenty years without ever having led his followers to any nobler strife than the extermination of those miserable Gaultiers who came to ravage our fair plains. True, they were ten times your number--true that you defeated them like a very Orlando; but that is only another reason why your valour and your skill should not lie rusting in inactivity. Should your father die, give sorrow its due; then call your vassals to your standard, and boldly take one part or another. Faith, I care not which it be--Harry of Navarre and his Huguenots, Harry of France and his chevaliers, or Mayenne's brave Duke and the factious League: but for Heaven's sake, Huon, should fate make you Marquis of St. Real, cast off this idle, sluggardly neutrality."

Huon de St. Real had listened attentively to his cousin, though every now and then the flash of some painful emotion broke across his countenance, as if what he heard contained in each word something bitter and ungrateful to all his feelings. "Philip! Philip!" said he, pausing in his quick progress through the hall, as soon as the other had ceased speaking, "I know that you wish me well, and that all which you say proceeds from that wish; but let us drop this subject entirely. My father is ill--I feel too bitterly that he is in danger; but the bare thought of what I would do with his vassals, in case of his death, has something in it revolting to every feeling of my heart. Let us change the topic. Whatever misfortune Heaven may send me, I will endeavour to bear like a man, and whenever I am called to act, I will endeavour to act rightly. When that time comes, I will most willingly seek your advice; but I trust it will be long, very, very long, before I shall need the counsel of any other than of him who has heretofore guided and directed me."

The lip of the Count d'Aubin slightly curled at this reply; and, glancing his eye over the tall, graceful form of his cousin, while he compared the simple mind and habits of St. Real, with his own worldly wisdom, and wild erratic course, he mentally termed him an overgrown baby. Nevertheless, although he was often thus tempted to a passing scoff or an ill-concealed sneer, yet there was a sort of innate dignity in the very simplicity of the Chevalier of St. Real, which had its weight even with his world-read cousin; and, whenever temporary disappointment, or disgust, or satiety weaned D'Aubin awhile from the loose society in which he mingled, gave time for quiet thought, and re-awakened better feelings, leading him to seek, in the advice of any one, support against the treacherous warfare of his own passions, it was to none of his gay companions of the capital, nor to monk, nor priest, nor confessor, that he would apply for counsel; but rather to his simple, frank-hearted, unsophisticated cousin, St. Real.

"Well, well," said he, "let us change our theme;" and then, after taking two or three more turns in the hall, he went on; though there was mingled in his manner a certain natural hesitation with an affected frankness, which might have shown to any very close observer of human nature that the Count d'Aubin was touching upon matter in regard to which, desire was in opposition to some better principle, and that he feared to hear even the opinion which he courted. "I spoke but now," he continued, "of Mayenne and the League; and you will think it strange when I tell you, that I--I, who have ever been as staunch a royalist as Epernon, or Longueville--would now give a chateau and a pint of wine, as the vulgar have it, to change my party and go over to the League, did not honour forbid it."

He spoke slowly and meditatively, fixing his eyes upon the ground, without once looking in his cousin's face; yet walking with a firm, strong step, and with somewhat of a sneer upon his lip, as if he scoffed at himself for the reprehension which--while he acknowledged wishes that he felt to be wrong--his proud spirit suffered by comparison with the calm, upright integrity of the Chevalier.

"I do not see that anything could justify such a step," replied St. Real, far more mildly than the other had expected. "However wrongly the King may have acted, however unwarrantable the manner in which he has put to death the Duke of Guise, yet--"

"Pshaw!" interrupted his cousin: "Guise was a traitor--a great, brave, noble, ambitious, unscrupulous traitor! And though the mode of his death was somewhat unceremonious, it little matters whether it was an axe or a dagger which did the work of justice: he was born for such a fate. I thought not of him; it was of Eugenie de Menancourt I thought."

"Ha!" exclaimed St. Real, with a start; "no one has injured her?"

"Injured her! No, i'faith!" replied the Count. "Why, my good cousin, by your grim look, one would deem you her promised husband, and not me. No, no; had she been injured, her injury had been well avenged by this time. However, she is in the hands of the League. Her father, as you know, was wounded on the day of the barricades, and died soon after the flight of the court. His daughter, of course, would not leave him while he lived, and, at his death, the Duchess of Montpensier would fain have had her at the Hotel de Guise; and, though Eugenie wisely stayed in her father's own house, they would not suffer her to quit Paris, where she still remains--treated with all honour and courtesy, mark you, but still a sort of honourable prisoner."

His cousin paused in thought for a moment, and then replied, "But, surely, if you were to demand her from the Duke of Mayenne, informing him of the engagement between her father and yourself, she would be given up to you at once."

"I have done more," replied the Count; "whenever I heard of her situation, I required, of course, that she should be placed in the hands of the King, as her lawful guardian, till such time as her marriage with myself could be celebrated. After many an evasion and delay, the Duke replied to my application, that the throne of France was vacant, by a decree both of the Sorbonne and the Parliament of Paris; that, by the same authority, he himself was lieutenant-general of the kingdom till such time as a meeting of the three estates should regulate the government; and that, therefore, none other was for the time the lawful guardian of Eugenie de Menancourt. In the same letter he informed me, that the recent death of the young lady's father would prevent her from thinking of marriage for some time."

D'Aubin paused, shutting his teeth and drawing in his lips, evidently unwilling to show the full mortification and anger which these remembrances awoke; and, yet apparently leaving his tale unfinished.

"In regard to the latter part of the Duke of Mayenne's reply, it seems to me reasonable enough," answered the Chevalier de St. Real; "the loss of such a father is not to be forgotten in a day."

"Tut, man!" exclaimed his cousin, impatiently. "Wilt thou never understand a little of this world's ways? Huon, Huon! shut up in these old walls, thou art as ignorant of the present day as if thou hadst been born in the times of the first crusade. Nothing modern dare blow that rusty horn at thy gate--far less walk into the hall. Know, then, my most excellent, simple cousin, that since the ninth century a great quarrel has taken place between words and realities, and that they have separated, never to meet again; that now-a-days promises are of air, honour is a name, virtue a bubble, religion a mask; and while falsehood, hypocrisy, and folly walk about in comely dresses, and make bows to each other in every street, truth lies snug in the bottom of her well, secure in the narrowness of her dwelling, and the depth that covers her. The first thing that every one thinks of now is his own interest; and, sure that if he secures that, the world will give him credit for all high qualities, he works straight for that one object. Interest, interest, interest, is his waking thought and his sleeping dream. Mark me, Huon! Mademoiselle de Menancourt is an heiress--one of the most wealthy in France; young, beautiful!--you know how beautiful, Huon; for, by my faith, I could once have been almost jealous of you."

"Of me!" exclaimed the other, stopping suddenly, and looking full in his cousin's face, while a flush of surprise and indignation, all unmixed with shame, spread scarlet over his cheek and brow. "Of me! Philip, you do me great injustice! By my honour, if my hand or my word could advance your marriage by a single day, you would find both ready for your service. Tell me, when did I ever give you a moment's cause for jealousy?"

"Nay, nay! you are too quick!" replied the Count; "I said not that I was jealous of you; I merely said I could have been so, had I not known you better. I speak of the time when our late excellent and easy-virtued queen was here with her ladies. Many a bright eye was bent upon you, and many a sweet lip was ready to direct you through the tangled but flowery ways of love, without seeking to plunge you into the mire of matrimony; yet, in all our rides, there were you, always at Eugenie's bridle rein."

"Because she was the only pure thing present," interrupted St. Real, quickly; "and because, Philip--if you will press me--I thought that she might feel hurt that her promised husband should make love before her face to one of an infamous queen's infamous followers. Ay, even so, Philip! Frown not on me, good cousin; for such was the only interpretation that even I, who am not apt to see actions in their worst light, could place upon your conduct to Beatrice of Ferrara."

"Beatrice of Ferrara," replied the Count d'Aubin, with a degree of vehemence which might have made some of his loose companions smile to hear him use it in the vindication of any woman's virtue under the sun--"Beatrice of Ferrara was no infamous follower of an infamous queen; she was, I believe from my soul, as pure as snow, notwithstanding all the impurity that surrounded her. I knew not that I had shown her any such marked attention as you tell me; but let all that pass," he added, musing, "let all that pass: what were we speaking of before? O! I remember. To return, then, to my tale: Eugenie de Menancourt is an heiress, with a dowry of beauty and sweetness far beyond even her wealth; and wily Mayenne well knows that her hand is a prize for the first man in France. Now, think you, my good Huon," he continued, growing more and more eager, while the bright flashing of his eye told that he was moved by some stronger passion than the mere scorn with which he attempted to clothe his lips--"now, think you, my good Huon, though he talks so loudly about religion and zeal, and the state's welfare, that Mayenne has one other wish, one other object, than to vault into an empty throne, or play maire du palais to the old idiotic Cardinal de Bourbon! Ambition--'tis all-snatching ambition, Huon! that is the idol he worships; and whoever serves him in his schemes shall have the hand of Eugenie de Menancourt, notwithstanding her father's plighted word to me."

"But Eugenie will never consent," replied St. Real, calmly. "Doubt it not, Philip! I have known her from her childhood, as well as you; and I have often remarked, that, notwithstanding her gaiety--notwithstanding her seeming lightness of feeling, there was, when she knew herself to be right, an unchangeable determination in all her resolves, even in her childhood, that nothing could shake."

"Fie! you know nothing of human nature," replied D'Aubin, with a scoff; "or rather, I should say, of woman's nature. They are light--light, Huon, as a dry leaf borne about upon the breath of every wind that blows. The best of them, believe me, is firm in nothing but her caprices. Mark me, Huon!" he added, laying his hand upon his cousin's arm, and speaking with bitter emphasis, "within these ten days I have seen Mademoiselle de Menancourt. I demanded a pass from Mayenne; he granted it without a scruple, and free speech also of his fair ward, as he called her. He was sure of the impression he had made, and, therefore, kept up all fair seeming. I saw Eugenie; and she calmly and coldly refused to ratify the promise that her father had made me. Do you hear? She refused me! She rejected me! She told me she did not, she could not love me!" And, giving way to a violent burst of passion, totally opposed to the calm and contemptuous tone in which he had before been speaking, he dashed his glove angrily down upon the floor, as if it were the object that offended him.

His cousin looked down in silence. He imagined, and not without probability, that Mademoiselle de Menancourt must have seen the licentious manner in which D'Aubin had trifled with the ladies of Catherine's libertine court, and that she had resented it accordingly. But, however culpably he might deem that his cousin had acted, he would not have pressed it on him then for the world; and, besides, there were sensations in his own bosom, at that moment, which forcibly called upon his attention, and both surprised and alarmed him.

It is a strange thing the human heart; and, amidst the multitude of its inconsistencies and its weaknesses, there is none stranger than that principle which, as a French wit has remarked, is always ready to point out to us, in the sorrows and misfortunes of our friends, some topic of consolation for ourselves. As a general rule the sneer is unjust, though with many it holds good always, and with most at times, even with the highest and the most conscientious. Good, noble, generous, with chivalrous ideas of honour and virtue, the Chevalier of St. Real would sooner have laid his head upon the block than entertained a thought of doing anything to his cousin's detriment; and yet there was a degree of vague, undefined satisfaction in his feelings, when he heard the declaration made by Eugenie de Menancourt, that she did not and could not love the Count d'Aubin--satisfaction of which he himself felt ashamed. "Good God! was it for him," he thought, "to rejoice in his cousin's mortification? What matter for pleasure ought he to find in the pain of a person he loved? None, surely none. What is it, then, I feel?" he asked himself; "is it the triumph of having foreseen that Eugenie de Menancourt would resent the slight put upon her? Oh, no! Such a vanity can surely afford no gratification to any reasonable being." Such was the interrogation which St. Real rapidly addressed to his heart; but an instinctive apprehension of finding unknown and dangerous matter at the bottom of his own sensations prevented him from going deep enough.

Whatever it was that he felt, the blood rushed into his face as if he were committing some evil action; and he remained silent. The keen, suspicious eyes of the Count d'Aubin fixed upon him, in surprise at emotions that he did not comprehend; but he said nothing; and just as St. Real was struggling to speak, the whole place echoed with two such blasts upon the old horn at the gate, as had not rung amongst those halls for many a year.

"By heavens! that must be some drunken huntsman, St. Real," exclaimed the Count, "blowing the horn at the gate, as if he was sounding for his dogs."

"No, no! it is the ill-favoured dwarf you gave me," replied his cousin. "He heeds no decencies, and, I verily believe, would blow a flourish if we were all dying. Many a time have I thought to fell him with my gauntlet for his insolence; but he is so small, that it would seem a cruelty to crush such an insect."

"Nay, nay; crush him not, I beseech thee," replied the Count d'Aubin. "Remember, Huon, it was agreed between us, that when he seeks to quit thee, or thou growest tired of him, he comes to me again."

"I believe, in truth, the creature loves me," answered St. Real; "and, were it not for his stupid insolence, I might love him too; for there are traits of good about him which would redeem many a dark spot."

The Count's lip curled; but he replied, "Call it not stupid insolence, good cousin--call it, rather, clever insolence, for, on my soul, he was occasionally too clever for such a service as mine, and such a place as Paris. I know not well how it happened, but many a deep secret of my bosom seemed somewhat too familiar to his high ugliness; and so I gave him to you, who had no secrets to trust or to conceal."

"Thank God for that, at least!" answered St. Real, "for they are ever a heavy burden. But here comes the incubus:" and as he spoke, the low door of the hall was opened by a personage of whom it may be necessary to speak more fully.

CHAPTER III.

The personage concerning whom the last sentences were spoken, and who now entered the hall, was not more than three feet six inches in height,[^[1]] but perfectly well formed in every respect, except that the head, as is very usual with persons of his unfortunate description, was somewhat too large for the size of the body it surmounted. His former lord had spoken of his ugliness; but although his face was certainly by no means handsome, yet there was nothing in it approaching deformity. Between "the human face divine" and that of the monkey, our great original, there are a thousand shades and varieties of feature; and the countenance of the dwarf, it must be admitted, was at the very far extreme of the chain, and at the end nearest the ape. A pair of sparkling black eyes, and two rows of very fine white teeth, however, rendered the rest of his features less disagreeable, but by no means diminished his resemblance to the animal. Whether from a consciousness of this likeness, and a desire to hide it as far as possible, or from a sort of conceited foppery not uncommon, the dress of this small man was as scrupulously elegant as the taste of that day would admit. His beard and mustachios, which were soft and silky, were most accurately trimmed. His hair, thrust back from his face, exposed his large and somewhat protuberant forehead; while his pourpoint, composed of deep blue cloth, was slashed with primrose silk, to favour a somewhat dingy complexion. Sword and dagger he wore at his girdle; and all the chronicles of those days bear witness that he well knew how to use--and to use fearlessly--the weapons intrusted to his small hands.

His whole appearance produced a strange and not pleasant effect upon those who saw him. The want of harmony between his size and his form was constantly forcing itself upon attention. Could one have magnified him, he would have appeared a very well-dressed cavalier, according to the fashions of the times; and, had there not been something in his whole form and air that bespoke manhood, one might have looked upon him as a smart child; but, as it was, one felt inclined to smile as soon as the eye fell upon him, though there was in his demeanour but few of those absurdities by which many of his class of beings render themselves ridiculous. He had neither strut nor swagger, smirk nor simper; and the only thing which in any degree tended to render his aspect peculiar, besides the fact of his diminutive form, was a certain cynical smile which ever hung more or less about his lips, as if, from a consciousness of superior talent or superior cunning, he scorned the race which, for their superior corporeal qualities, he hated; or rather, perhaps, as if he were ever prepared to encounter their contempt for his inferior size by contempt for their inferior acuteness.

He entered the hall with ease, if not with grace; but, perhaps, with more of what may be termed boldness than either. To St. Real, as his actual master, he bowed low, and to the Count d'Aubin still lower, accompanying the inclinations of his head, in this instance, with a keen and significant glance, which, had the Chevalier de St. Real been of a suspicious nature, might have made him place but little confidence in an attendant of his cousin's recommending. But he himself had nothing to conceal, and, as yet, feared not that any one should see his inmost thoughts; for he was one of those few men who know no other use for words than to express their feelings.

"Why did you blow the horn so loud, Bartholo?" demanded St. Real, "when you well knew that my father lies so ill?"

"I did it, noble sir," replied the dwarf, "lest the cooks, and the pages, and the concierge at the door should lose a jest and fit of laughter--rare things in the castle of St. Real. I knew full well that some one would cry out, 'Hear what a great sound can be made by a little body!' and it would be unjust to disappoint the poor fools in the offices, for fear of disturbing the rich gallants in the hall. But, by my faith, I had another reason, too, which is worth looking to. There was a traveller came with me, and an ass, and an ass's burden."

"Was it the surgeon for whom I sent you?" asked St. Real, eagerly; "the new surgeon from Tours?"

"Seeing that my eyes and the surgeon are innocent of all intercourse," replied the other, "I cannot tell you, noble sir, whether it be he or not. The man was not in his dwelling when I reached it, so I left my message, and rode further; and, as I came back, what should I see, half a mile hence, but the white feather of this man's hat waving in the dark night, and not knowing its way to the chateau of St. Real. I asked him what party he was of, whither he was going, and if he had passport or safe conduct. He answered, short enough, that he belonged to his own party, had no passport but his sword and his right hand, and was coming hither. So, whether he were surgeon or not, let those judge that are wise! I asked no further, but brought him hither, and left him in the green arras room, as he seemed no way dangerous, and wished to see either the Marquis or the Marquis's son in private."

"It is either a reitter seeking service, or a quack-salver seeking the sick," cried the Count d'Aubin. "Go to him--go to him quick, Huon! He will whip you the gold lace off the hangings, either for his pocket or his crucible. So go to him, and leave me the dwarf to jest withal."

With the quick and impatient step which anxiety produces in the young and active, St. Real bent his steps towards the chamber to which he had been directed by the dwarf, hoping, notwithstanding the description which had been given of the person who awaited him, that he might prove the surgeon who had been sent for in aid of the ordinary medical assistance attending upon his father.

The room which he now entered was a small one, hung with arras of a dark-green hue, that served to absorb the greater part of the light afforded by a single lamp. The stranger had cast himself into a large chair at the farther end of the chamber, and, in the half obscurity, his person and features were but faintly seen; but nearer, and in the full light, sat the youth whom we first found washing his feet in one of the neighbouring streams. He seemed fatigued with journeying, and leaning listlessly against a small table under the lamp, suffered his head to rest upon his hand, showing a profusion of jetty curls falling thick round his brow, while the cap and feather which he had worn without was now thrown upon the ground beside him. The person whom he had accompanied, however, retained his hat and high white plume, and made no movement to rise as St. Real entered.

The eyes of the young noble first rested upon the boy; but immediately turning towards the elder of his two visitors, he advanced towards him, without noticing the apparent incivility of his demeanour. When he had taken two steps forward, however, St. Real paused; and then, with an exclamation of surprise, was again advancing, when the stranger rose, saying, "Ha, Monsieur St. Real, I did not know you at first. Ventre Saint Gris! I had forgot that ten years makes a boy a man."

"If I am not mistaken, I see his Majesty of Navarre," said the Chevalier; "and only grieve that my father is not capable of bidding him welcome, with all the goodwill that we entertain towards himself and his royal house."

"Henry of Navarre, indeed!" replied the monarch; "as poor a King as lives, St. Real, but one who grieves sincerely at your father's illness. I trust that it is not dangerous, however, and that I shall yet see him ere I depart; for to that purpose I have been forced to steal me a path amidst bands through which I should have found it hard to cut me a way, and to do that singly which I dared not attempt with many a stout soldier at my back."

"My father sleeps, my lord," replied St. Real; "'tis the first sleep that he has known for many a day, and I would fain----"

"Wake him not--wake him not for me!" interrupted the King. "To-morrow I must hie me back to Tours; but in the meanwhile I can well wait his waking, and will crave some refreshment for myself and this good youth, who has guided me hither, and who seems less able to bear hunger and long riding than Henry of Navarre."

"I will order such poor fare as our house affords to be placed before your Majesty directly," replied St. Real, "though I fear me much that the two surgeons and a priest, together with a gentilhomme serjent from La Fleche, are even now busy in despatching all that is already prepared."

"Let us join them! let us join them by all means!" cried the King; "by my faith I would never choose to dine where better cheer is usually to be found, than in company with surgeons and with priests. The first are too much accustomed to the care of other people's bodies to neglect their own; and the others, though they limit their special vocation to the preparation of souls for the other world, are not without care for the preservation of the corporeal part in this. But our horses, St. Real--they stand in the court-yard: that is to say, my horse, and this good youth's more humble charger in the shape of an ass."

St. Real turned his eyes upon the youth while the King spoke; and after having replied that he would give instant orders for Henry's equipage of all kinds to be attended to, added, still looking at the boy, "Your Majesty's page, I suppose?"

"If so, but the page of a day," replied the King; "but, nevertheless, though of so short an acquaintance, I can say that he seems as good a boy as ever lived, has guided me here through many dangers, with more wit and more courage too than most would have shown, and is by far too wise to prefer the service of a poor king to that of a rich lord. In short, St. Real, it seems that he was coming here when I met with him; and as his sole guerdon for the pains he has taken, he required me to advocate his cause with your father, to have him received as a page in your household."

"My father," said St. Real, in reply, "has a mortal aversion to pages, ever since the Queen was here with more than half a score, and will only suffer two in his household--his own stirrup page, and mine, a dwarf given me by my cousin Philip."

"Nay, nay, you must not refuse my first request, St. Real," said the King; "for I have many another to make ere I have done, and if I halt at the first step, I shall never be able to walk through the rest of the list."

"Oh! I never dreamed of refusing your Majesty so trifling a thing," replied the other; "but we must give him some other name than page. What will you be, my boy? You are too young and too gay-looking for a valet in such a dull house as this."

"And too noble," added the youth, "or too proud, if you will. I seek not, sir, to take wages of any man; but I seek to pass a time in some house where the hearts are as noble as the blood they contain, where old feelings are not forgot in new follies; and I would fain that that house were the chateau of St. Real."

"You speak well, good youth, and more like a man than a boy; but somewhat too haughtily too," replied St. Real.

"I will speak more humbly when I am your follower," answered the youth, colouring a good deal; "to those who would raise me up, I can be as humble as the dust, and to those who would cast me down, as proud as a diamond. I sought to be your father's page, my lord," he added, in a softer tone; "because I heard much of him, and because all that I did hear showed him as a man blending so equally in his nature goodness and nobility, that love and reverence must be his followers wherever he bend his steps."

Something very like a tear rose in St. Real's fine clear eye, and the youth proceeded. "I am grieved that aught should have grieved you, sir, on his account; but still let me beseech you to take me into his service. You know not," he added, eagerly, "how kindly I can tend those I love; how I can amuse the weary hours of sickness, and while away the moments of pain. I can read him stories from ancient lore, and from many a language that few pages know. I can tell him tales of other lands, and describe places, and things, and nations that he has never seen. I can sing to him sweet songs in tongues that are all music, and play to him on the lute as none in this land can play."

"Enough! enough!" cried Henry; "by my life, St. Real, if you do not conclude your bargain with the boy quickly, I will step in and try to outbid you in your offers; for if he but perform his undertaking with you as well as he has done with me, you will have a page such as never was since this world began."

"He was ours, my lord, from the first moment that your Majesty expressed a wish that he should be so," replied St. Real. "There is my hand, good youth, and it shall ever give you aid and protection at your need. But tell me, what is your name? for although, as in the old times, we let our guests come and go in the chateau without question; yet, of course, I must know what I am to call you."

"Leonard," answered the youth; "Leonardo, in my own land; but here in France, men call me Leonard de Monte."

"I thought I heard a slight Italian accent on your lips," said St. Real; "but tell me, have I not seen you as one of the pages of Queen Catherine's court?--a court," he added, almost regretting that he had yielded to the King's request, "a court, not the best school for----" But there again he paused, unwilling to hurt the feelings of any one, and seeing a flush come over the boy's face, as if he already anticipated the bitter censure that court so well deserved. The youth's answer made him glad that he had paused.

"I know what are in your thoughts, sir," he replied; "but I beseech you speak no evil of a mistress who is now dead, and who was ever kind to me. Let her faults lie in the grave where she lies, and let men forget them as soon as they forget virtues. As for myself, I may have faults too; but they have never been those of the persons amongst whom I mingled; I have neither learned to lie, nor to flatter, nor to cheat, nor to run evil messages, nor give sweet hints. If, then, I have lived amidst corruption and come out pure----"

"You are gold tried in the fire," rejoined St. Real, laying his hand upon his shoulder; "and I will trust you, my good youth, as much convinced by the tenderness of your speech towards her who is no more, as by your defence of yourself----. But this matter has kept your Majesty too long," he added, "and by your permission I will now conduct you to the lesser hall, where these four persons are at supper; though I cannot but think that you had better suffer me to order you refreshments here."

"Nay, nay, I will sup with chirurgeons by all means," replied Henry, laughing, "and we will forget that there is such a thing as a king, if you please, St. Real; for I would not have it blazed abroad that I am wandering about without an escort, or I might soon find myself in the castle of Amboise. Call me Maitre Jacques, if you please, for the present time, and let us make haste; for if I am to gauge the appetite of those worthy doctors by my own, they will have devoured the supper ere we reach the hall."

"Permit me, then, to show the way," replied St. Real; "seek out my dwarf, Bartholo, good youth," he added, turning to the page, "and bid him find you lodging and refreshment, as he values my favour. But I will see more to your comfort myself shortly; for the villain is sometimes insolent, and may be spiteful too, like most of his race, though I never have marked it."

The youth bowed his head without other reply, and St. Real proceeded to conduct Henry of Navarre, afterwards so well known as the frank and gallant "Henri Quatre," along the many long and dimly lighted passages of the chateau of St. Real, towards a small hall in one of the farthest parts of the building.

"Maitre Jacques! remember I am Maitre Jacques!" said Henry, as the young noble laid his hand upon the lock; "and you must not only make your words call me so, but your demeanour also, St. Real."

"Fear not! fear not!" answered St. Real, in a low tone; "I will be as disrespectful as you can desire, sire."

Thus saying, he opened the door, exposing to view the interior of what was called the little hall, which presented a scene whereon we may dwell for a single instant; for, though the picture which it displayed of the callous indifference of human nature to the griefs and sufferings of others, is not an agreeable one, it was not new enough even then to excite wonder, and is not old enough now to be omitted. The master of the house was dying, and his family full of sorrow at the approaching loss of one who had been a father to all who surrounded him; but there, in the little hall, was collected, in the persons of the surgeons, the priest, and the lawyer, attendant upon the dying man, as merry a party as it had ever contained. The hall, though it was called little, was only so comparatively; for its size was sufficient to make the table at which the feasters sat look like a speck in the midst. Nevertheless, it was well lighted; and St. Real and his royal companion, as they entered, could plainly see the man of law holding up a brimming Venice glass of rich wine to one of his two shrewd eyes, while the hall was echoing to some potent jest that he had just cast forth amongst his companions. Even the carver at the buffet, and the serving man who was filling up the wine for the rest, were shaking their well-covered sides at the joke; and the priest, though repressing as far as possible the outward signs of merriment, was palating the bon mot with a sly smile, and had perhaps a covert intention of using it himself secondhand, whenever he could find occasion. For a minute or two the party at the table did not perceive the entrance of any other persons, or concluded that those who did enter were servants; and their conversation went on in the same light tone which had evidently predominated up to that moment.

As soon, however, as St. Real and his guest appeared, matters assumed a different aspect; and solemn ceremony and respect took the place of merriment. Seats were soon placed; and Henry, while engaged in satisfying the hunger that a long day's journey had occasioned, failed not by some gay and sportive observations to bring back a degree of cheerfulness: but the natural frank liveliness of the King's heart was controlled, or rather oppressed, by many an anxious thought for himself, and by feelings of kindly and sincere sympathy with the young noble who sat beside him. St. Real, on his part, did not affect to feel aught but deep anxiety; and, after their entrance, the merriment of the party in the hall was very much sobered down from its previous elevated tone, giving way, indeed, in the breasts of the lawyer and the surgeons, to many a shrewd conjecture in regard to the profession and object of their new comrade Maitre Jacques.

In the meantime, the page stood where St. Real and the King had left him, supporting himself against the table in an attitude of much grace, but one which spoke deep and somewhat melancholy thought. His head leaned upon his bosom, his hand fell listlessly by his side, his eyes strained with the deep and intense gaze of anxious meditation upon one unmeaning spot of the marble floor; and thus, without the slightest motion, he continued so long in the same position, that he might have been taken for some fanciful statue tricked out in the gay dress of that time, had not every now and then a deep sigh broke from his bosom, and evinced the conscious presence of life and all its ills.

Near a quarter of an hour elapsed without his taking the slightest notice of the lapse of time. The steps of his new master and the prince had long ceased to sound through the passages, other noises had made themselves heard and died away again; but the youth remained apparently unconscious of everything but some peculiar and absorbing facts in his own situation. His reverie was, however, at length disturbed, but apparently not unexpectedly, though the stealthy step and silent motions with which the dwarf Bartholo advanced into the room in which the youth stood, had brought him near before the other was aware of his presence. For a moment after their eyes had met neither spoke, though there was much meaning in the glance of each; and at length the youth made a silent motion of his hand towards the door. The sign was obeyed at once; and the dwarf, closing the door cautiously, returned with a quick step, suddenly bent one knee to the ground, and kissed the hand the boy extended towards him.

"So, Bartholo," he said, receiving this somewhat extraordinary greeting as a thing of course, "so! you see that I am here at length!"

"I do," replied the dwarf, rising; "but for what object you are come I cannot conceive."

"For many objects," answered the youth; "but one sufficient to myself, is that I am near those that I wish to be near; and can watch their actions--perhaps see into their thoughts. If I could but make myself sure that St. Real really loves the girl! that were worth all the trouble."

"But the risk! the risk!" exclaimed the dwarf.

"The risk is nothing, if my people are faithful to me," answered the youth sharply; "and woe be to them if they are not! Why came you not as I commanded, but left me to wait and wander in the neighbourhood of Beaumont, and nearly be taken by a party of reitters, in the pay of Mayenne?"

"I could not come," answered the dwarf; "for I was sent to seek a chirurgeon from Tours for the old man, who lies at the point of death. I made what haste I could; but missed you, and could not overtake you till you had nearly reached the chateau."

"And is the old Marquis, then, so near the end of a long good life?" asked the youth. "There are some men whose deeds are so full of immortality, that we can scarce fancy even their bodies shall become food for worms. But so it must be with the best as well as with the worst of us."

"Even so!" answered the dwarf; "but as to this old man, I have not seen him with my own eyes for this many a day; but the report runs in the castle that he cannot long survive."

"His death would come most inopportunely for all my plans," replied the youth; "it would place me in strange circumstances: and yet I would dare them, for I have passed through still stranger without fear. I feel my own heart strong--ay, even in its weakness; and I will not fear. Nevertheless, see you obey my orders better. You should have sent some other on your errand, and not have left me to the mercy of a troop of reitters."

"Crying your mercy," said the dwarf, with a significant grin, "I should have thought that your late companion might have proved as dangerous."

"Dare you be insolent to me, sir?" cried the youth, fixing his full dark eye sternly on the dwarf. "But, no; I know you dare not, and you know me too well to dare. But you are wrong. Whatever may be the faults of Harry of Navarre--all reprobate heretic as he is--nevertheless he is free from every ungenerous feeling; and although I might think I saw a glance of recognition in his eyes, yet I harbour not a fear that he will betray me or make any ill use of his knowledge, even if he have remembered me."

"Are you aware, however," asked the dwarf, lowering his voice and dropping his eyes--"are you aware that the Count d'Aubin is here?"

"No, no!" cried the youth, starting. "No, no! Where--where do you mean? I know that he is in Maine, but surely not here."

"In this very house," answered the dwarf--"in the great hall, not a hundred yards from the spot where we now stand."

"Indeed!" said the other, musing. "Indeed! I knew that he was near, and that we should soon meet; but I did not think to find him here. Look at me, Bartholo! look at me well! Think you that he would recognise me? Gold, and embroidery, and courtly fashions, are all laid aside; and I might be taken for the son of a mechanic, or, at best, for the child of some inferior burgher."

"I knew you at once!" answered the page emphatically.

"Yes, yes; but that is different," replied he whom we shall take the liberty of calling by the name he had given himself, although that name, it need scarcely be said, was assumed; "but that is different," replied Leonard de Monte. "You were prepared to know me; but I think that I am secure with all others. Why, when I look in the mirror, I hardly know myself."

The dwarf gazed over the person of him who was evidently his real master, however he might, for some unexplained purposes, affect to be in the service of others--and after a moment, he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders, "It may be so indeed. Dusty, and travel-soiled, and changed, perhaps he would not know you; and were you to put on a high fraise, instead of that falling collar, it would make a greater difference still in your appearance."

"Quick! get me one, then" cried the youth; "I will pass before him for an instant this very night, that his eye may become accustomed to the sight, and memory be lulled to sleep. See, too, that all be prepared for me to lodge as you know I would."

"I have already marked out a chamber," answered the dwarf, "and have curried favour with the major-domo, so that he will readily grant it to the new page at my request."

"Where is it?" demanded the youth. "You know I am familiar with the house."

"It is," replied the dwarf, "one of the small chambers, with a little ante-chamber, in the garden tower."

"Quick, then! Haste and ask it for me," exclaimed Leonard de Monte. "The young lord bade me apply to you for what I needed; so you can plead his order to the master of the chambers. Then bring me the fraise speedily, ere I have time to think twice, and to waver in my resolutions."

With almost supernatural speed the dwarf did his errand, and returned, bearing with him one of those stiff frills extended upon whalebone which are to be seen in all the portraits of those days. The youth instantly took it from his hand; and, concealing the falling collar of lace, which was for a short period the height of the fashion at the court of Henry III., and which certainly did not well accord with the simplicity of the rest of his apparel, he tied the fraise round his neck, and advanced to a small mirror in a silver frame that hung against the arras. "Yes, that does better," he exclaimed--"that does better. Now, what say you, Bartholo?"

"That you are safe," answered the page--"that I should not know you myself, did I not hear your voice."

"Well, then, lead through the hall, if Philip of Aubin be there." replied the youth; "and when I am in my chamber, bring me a wafer and a cup of wine; for I am weary, and must seek rest."

The dwarf opened the door, and led the way, conducting his young companion across the great hall, up and down which the Count d'Aubin was pacing slowly and thoughtfully.

"Who have you there, Bartholo?" demanded the young noble as they passed.

"Only a page, my lord," replied the dwarf; and they walked on. The Count looked at the page attentively; but not the slightest sign of recognition appeared on his face; and, though the youth's steps faltered a little with the apprehension of discovery, he quitted the hall, satisfied that his disguise was not seen through. As soon as they reached the door of the small chamber, which was to be thenceforth his abode, Bartholo left him, to bring the refreshment he had ordered; and as the dwarf passed by the door of the hall once more, and heard the steps of the Count pacing up and down, he paused an instant, as if undecided. "Shall I tell him?" he muttered between his teeth, "shall I tell him, and blow the whole scheme to pieces? But no, no, no; I should lose all, and with him it might have quite the contrary effect. I must find another way;" and he walked on.

CHAPTER V.

The Chevalier de St. Real, according to the ideas of hospitality entertained in those days, pressed the King of Navarre to his food, and urged the wine upon him; but scarcely had Henry's glass been filled twice, ere the sound of steps hurrying hither and thither was heard in the hall, and the young noble cast many an anxious look towards the door. It opened at length, and an old servant entered, who, approaching the chair of his young lord, whispered a few words in his ear.

"Indeed!" said St. Real; "I had hoped his sleep would have lasted longer. How seems he now, Duverdier?--is he refreshed by this short repose?"

"I cannot say I think it, sir," replied the servant; "but he asks anxiously for you, and we could not find you in the hall."

"I come," answered St. Real; and then turning to the King, he added, "My father's short rest is at an end, and I will now tell him of your visit, sir. Doubtless he will gladly see you, as there is none he respects more deeply."

"Go! go! my young lord," cried Henry; "I will wait you here, with these good gentlemen. Let me be no restraint upon you. Yet tell your father, my good lord, that my business is such as presses a man's visits on his friends even at hours unseasonable, else would I not ask to see him when he is ill and suffering."

The young lord of St. Real bowed his head and quitted the apartment; while Henry remained with the other guests, whose curiosity was not a little increased in regard to who this Maitre Jacques could be, by the great reverence which seemed paid to him. They had soon an opportunity of expressing their curiosity to each other, in the absence of the object thereof; for in a very few minutes the Chevalier of St. Real returned, and besought Henry to "honour his father's chamber with his presence." The King followed with a smile; and when the door of the little hall was closed behind them, laid his hand upon St. Real's arm, saying, "You are no good actor, my young friend."

"I am afraid not," replied St. Real, in a tone from which he could not banish the sadness occasioned by his father's illness; "yet I trust what I said may in no degree betray your Majesty."

"No, no," answered Henry, "I dare say not; and should you see any suspicions, St. Real, you must either--in penance for having shown too much reverence for a king, in an age when kings are out of all respect--you must either keep these gentry close prisoners here till I have reached Tours, and thence made a two-days' journey Paris-ward, or you must give me a guard of fifty men to push my way through as far as Chartres."

"It shall be which your Majesty pleases," replied St. Real; "but here is my father's chamber."

The spot where they stood was situated half way up a long passage traversing the central part of the chateau of St. Real, narrow, low, and unlighted during the day by anything but two small windows, one at each extreme. At present two or three lamps served to show the way to the apartments of the sick man, at the small low-framed doorway of which stood an attendant, as if stationed for the purpose of giving or refusing admittance to those who came to visit the suffering noble. The servant instantly threw back the plain oaken boards, clasped together by bands of iron, which served as a door, and the next moment Henry found himself in the ante-chamber of the sick man's room. The interior of the apartment into which he was now admitted was much superior in point of comfort to that which one might have expected from the sight of such an entrance. The ante-chamber was spacious, hung with rich though gloomy arras, and carpeted with mats of fine rushes. One or two beds were laid upon the ground for the old lord's attendants; and on many a peg, thrust through the arras, hung trophies of war or of the chase, together with several lamps and sconces which cast a considerable light into the room. The chamber beyond was kept in a greater degree of obscurity, though the light was still sufficient to show the King, as he passed through the intermediate doorway, the faded form of the old Marquis of St. Real, lying in a large antique bed of green velvet, with one thin and feeble hand stretched out upon the bed-clothes. At the bolster was placed one of those old-fashioned double-seated chairs which are now so seldom seen, even as objects of antiquarian research; and, from one of the two places which it afforded, an attendant of the sick rose up as Henry entered, and glided away into the ante-room. St. Real paused and closed the door between the two chambers; and Henry, advancing, took the vacant seat, and kindly laid his hand upon that of his sick friend.

"Why how now, lord Marquis?" he said, in a feeling but cheerful tone; "how now? this is not the state in which I hoped to find you. But, faith, I must have you better soon, for I would fain see you once more at the head of your followers."

The Marquis of St. Real shook his head, with a look which had neither melancholy nor fear in its expression, but which plainly conveyed his conviction that he was never destined to lead followers to the field again, or rise from the bed on which he was then stretched. Nor, indeed, although the young monarch spoke cheerful hopes--did he entertain any expectations equal to his words. The Marquis of St. Real was more than eighty years of age; and though his frame had been one of great power, and in his eyes there was still beaming the light of a fine heart and active mind, yet time had bowed him long before, and many a past labour and former hardship in the Italian wars had broken the staff of his strength, and left him to fall before the first stroke of illness. Sickness had come at length, and now all the powers of life were evidently failing fast. The features of his face had grown thin and sharp; his temples seemed to have fallen in; and over his whole countenance--which in his green old age had been covered with the ruddy hue of health--was now spreading fast the grey ashy colour of the grave.

"Your Majesty is welcome!" he said, in a low, faint voice, which obliged Henry to bend his head in order to catch the sounds; "but I must not hope, either for your Majesty or any one else, to set lance in the rest again. I doubt not," he continued, after a momentary pause--"I doubt not that you have thought me somewhat cold-hearted and ungrateful, after many favours received at your hands, and at those of your late noble mother, that I have not long before this espoused the cause of those whom I think unjustly persecuted. But I trust that you have not come to reproach me with what I have not done, but rather to show me now how I can serve you in my dying hour; without, however, even then forgetting the allegiance I owe to the crown of France, and my duty to her monarch."

"To reproach you I certainly have not come, my noble friend," answered Henry; "for I have ever respected your scruples, though I may have thought them unfounded. Nevertheless, what I have now to tell you will put those scruples to an end at once and for ever. The cause of Henry of Navarre and of Henry III. of France are now about to be united. My good brother-in-law, the King, has written to me for aid----"

"To you!--to you!" exclaimed the Marquis, raising his head feebly, and speaking with a tone of much surprise.

"Ay, even to me," answered Henry. "He found that he had misused a friend too long, that too long he had courted enemies; and, wise at length, he is determined to call around him those who really wish well to him and to our country, and to use against his foes that sword they have so long mocked in safety. I am now on my way to join him with all speed, while my friends and the army follow more slowly. As I advanced, I could not resist the hope that enticed me hither--the hope that, when justice, and friendship, and loyalty are all united upon our side, the Marquis of St. Real, to whom justice, and friendship, and loyalty were always dear, will no longer hesitate to give us that great support which his fortune, his rank, his renown, and his retainers enable him so well to afford."

"When Henry of Navarre lends his sword to Henry of France, how should I dream of refusing my poor aid to both?" answered the Marquis. "When you refuse not to serve an enemy, sir, how should I refuse to serve a friend? But my own services are over. This world and I, like two old friends at the end of a long journey, are just shaking hands before we part; but I leave behind me one that may well supply my place. Huon, my dear son, are you there?"

"I am here, sir," said the young lord, advancing: "what is your will, my father?"

"My son, I am leaving you," replied the Marquis. "I shall never quit this bed; another sun will never rise and set for me. I leave you in troublous times, Huon, in times of difficulty and of sorrow; but that which now smoothes my pillow at my dying hour, and makes the last moments of life happy, is the fearless certainty that, come what may, my son will live and die worthy of the name that he inherits; and will find difficulty and danger but steps to honour and renown. So long as injustice stained the royal cause, and cruelty and tyranny drove many a noble heart to revolt, I would take no part in the dissensions that have torn our unhappy land; though God knows I have often longed to draw the sword in behalf of the oppressed; but now that the crown calls to its aid those it once persecuted, in order to put an end to faction and strife, my scruples are gone, and, were not life gone too, none would sooner put his foot in the stirrup than I. But those days are past; and on you, my son, must devolve the task. A few hours now, and I shall be no more; yet I will not seek to command you how to act when I am gone. Your own heart has ever been a good and faithful monitor. Let me, however, counsel you to seek the Duke of Mayenne ere you draw the sword against him. Show him your purposes and your motives; and tell him that he may be sure those who have been neutral will now become his enemies--those who have been his friends will daily fall from him, unless he follow the dictates of loyalty and honour."

The old man paused, and a slight smile curled the lip of Henry of Navarre. His nature, however, was too frank to let anything which might pass for a sneer remain unexplained; and he said, "You know not these factious Guises well enough, my friend. They strike for dominion; and that game must be a hopeless one indeed, which they would not play to gratify their ambition. But let your son seek Mayenne! More! If he will, let him not decide whose cause he will espouse till he have heard all the arguments which faction can bring to colour treason. I fear not. Strong in the frank uprightness of a good cause, and confident both of his honesty and clear good sense, I will trust to his own judgment, when he has heard all with his own ears. Let him call together what followers he can; let him march them upon Paris; and, under a safe conduct from the Duke and from the King, visit both camps alike. True, that with Henry of Valois he will find much to raise disgust and contempt; but there, too, he will find the only King of France, and with him all that is loyal in the land. With Mayenne, and his demagogues of the Sixteen, he will find faction, ambition, injustice, and fanaticism and I well know which a St. Real must choose."

"Frank, noble, and confiding, ever, sire!" said the Marquis, "nor with us will your reliance prove vain. Oh, that we had a King like you! How few hearts then could, by any arts, be estranged from the throne!"

"Nay, nay," said Henry, smiling, "you forget that I am a heretic, my good lord--a Huguenot--a maheutre! They would soon find means to corrupt the base, and to persuade the weak against me, were I King of France to-morrow--which God forfend!--and, by my faith, were I a great valuer of that strange thing, life, I should look for poison in my cup, or a dagger in my bosom at every hour."

"And yet, my lord, you are going to trust yourself where daggers have lately been somewhat too rife," said the Chevalier de St. Real; "and that, too--if I understood you rightly--with but a small escort."

"As small as may be," answered the King, "consisting, indeed, of but this one faithful friend, who has never yet proved untrue;" and he laid his finger on the hilt of his sword, adding, gaily, "but no fear, no fear: my cousin brother-in-law could have no earthly motive in killing me but to make Mayenne King of France, which, by my faith, he seeks not to do. He knows me too well, also, to think that I would injure him, even if I could; and, perhaps, finds now, that by making head against the Guises, and their accursed League, I have been serving him ever, though against his will."

"Would it not be better, my lord," asked the old man, in a feeble voice--"would it not be better to wait till you are accompanied by your own troops?"

"No, no," replied Henry; "Mayenne presses him hard. He is himself dispirited, his troops are more so. Still more of the Spanish catholicon--I mean Spanish mercenaries--are likely to be added to the forces of the League; and I fear that, if some means be not taken to keep up his courage, more speedily than could be accomplished by the march of my forces, he may cast himself upon the mercy of the enemy, and France be lost for ever."

"The Duke of Guise went as confidently to Blois as your Majesty to Tours," said the Chevalier; "and the Duke of Guise was called a friend: you have been looked on as an enemy."

"But Guise was a traitor," answered Henry, "and met with treachery, as a traitor may well expect. He went confiding alone in his own courage, but knowing that his own designs were evil. I go, confiding both in myself and in my honesty; and well knowing, that in all France there is not one man who has just cause to wish that Henry of Navarre were dead."

"He has violated his safe conduct more than once," said the Marquis, "and may violate it again."

"It will not be in my person, then," answered the King; "for safe conduct have I none, but his own letter, calling for my aid in time of need. Two drops of my blood, I do believe, spilled on that letter, would raise a flame therewith in every noble bosom that would set half the land a-fire. But I fear not: kings have no right to fear. My honesty is my breastplate, my good friend; and the steel must be sharp indeed that will not turn its edge on that."

"And the hand must be backward indeed," said the Marquis, "that would refuse its aid to such a heart. However, my lord, I give you my promise, and I am sure that my son will give you his, that the followers of St. Real shall be in the field within a month from this very night. Willingly, too, would we promise that they should join the royal cause; but, it is better, perhaps, as you have offered, that he who leads them should go free, till he shall have spoken his feelings freely to the leaders of the League."

"So be it! so be it, then!" answered Henry. "I apprehend no change of feeling towards me. My cause is that of justice, of loyalty, and of France. So long as I opposed your king in arms, I could hardly hope that a St. Real would join me, however great the private friendship might be between us; but, now that his cause is mine, and that the sword once drawn to withstand his injustice is drawn to uphold his throne, I know I shall meet no refusal. But I weary you, lord Marquis," he continued, rising; "and, good faith, I owe you no small apology for troubling you with such matters at such a time. Yet, I will trust," he added, laying his hand once more on that of the sick man--"yet I will trust that this is not our last meeting by very many, and that I shall soon hear of you in better health."

The Marquis shook his head. "My lord," he said, "I am a dying man; and though, perhaps, were the choice left to us, I would rather have died on the battle-field, serving with the last drops of my old blood some noble cause: yet, I fear not death, even here in my bed; where, to most men, he is more terrible. I have lived, I trust, well enough not to dread death; and I have, certainly, lived long enough to be weary of life. For the last ten years--though they have certainly been years of such health and strength as few old men ever know--yet, I have daily found some fine faculty of this wonderful machine in which we live, yielding to the force of time. The ear has grown heavy and the eye grown dim, my lord; the sinews are weak and the joints are stiff. Thank Heaven! the great destroyer has left the mind untouched: but it is time that it should be separated from the earth to which it is joined, and go back to God, who sent it forth. Fare you well, sir; and Heaven protect you! The times are evil in which your lot is cast; but if ever I saw a man who was fitted to bring evil times to good, it is yourself."

"Fare you well! fare you well, my good old friend!" answered Henry, grasping his hand; "and though I be a Huguenot, doubt not, St. Real, that we shall meet again."

"I doubt it not, my lord," replied the old man, "I doubt it not; and, till then, God protect your Majesty!"

Henry echoed the prayer, and quitted the sick man's chamber, followed by the young lord of St. Real. He suffered not his attendance long, however; but, retiring at once to rest, drank the sleeping cup with his young friend, and sent him back to the chamber of his father. He had judged, and had judged rightly, that the end of the old Marquis of St. Real was nearer than his son anticipated. After the King had left his chamber, he was visited by the surgeon and the priest, and then again slept for several hours. When he awoke there was no one but his son by his bed-side, and he gazed upon him with a smile, which made the young lord believe that he felt better.

"Are you more at ease, my father?" asked the young man, with reviving hopes.

"I am quite at ease, my dear Huon," replied his father. "I had hoped that in that sleep I should have passed away; but, by my faith, I will turn round and try again, for I am drowsy still." Thus saying, he turned, and once more closing his eyes, remained about an hour in sweet and tranquil slumber. At the end of that time, his son, who watched him anxiously, heard a slight rustle of the bedclothes. He looked nearer, but all was quiet, and his father seemed still asleep. There was no change either in feature or in hue; but still there was an indescribable something in the aspect of his parent that made the young man's heart beat painfully. He gazed upon the quiet form before him--he listened for the light whisper of the breath; but all was still--the throbbing of the heart was over, the light of life had gone out! St. Real was glad that he was alone; for, had any other eye than that of Heaven been upon him, he might not have given way to those feelings which would have been painful to restrain. As it was, he wept for some time in solitude and silence; and then, calling the attendants, proceeded to fulfil all those painful offices towards the deceased which in those days were sadly multiplied. When these were finished, the morning light was shining into the dull chamber of the dead; and St. Real, retiring to his own apartments, sent to announce his loss to his cousin and to the King of Navarre. The first instantly joined him, and offered such consolation as he thought most likely to soothe his cousin's mind. Henry of Navarre, however, was not in his chamber; and, on further inquiry, it was found that he had taken his departure with the first ray of the morning light.

CHAPTER VI.

A month and some days succeeded--full of events important to France, it is true, but containing nothing calculated to affect materially the course of this history; and I shall, therefore, pass over in my narrative that lapse of time without comment, changing the scene also without excuse.

There is in France a forest, in the heart of which I have spent many a happy hour--which, approaching the banks of the small river Iton, spreads itself out over a large tract of varied and beautiful ground between Evreux and Dreux, sweeping round that habitation of melancholy memories called Navarre, filled with the recollections of Turennes and Beauharnois. Over a much greater extent of ground, however, than the forest, properly so called, now occupies, large masses of thicket and wood, with, occasionally, much more splendid remnants of the primeval covering of earth, show how wide the forest of Evreux must have spread in former years; and, in fact, the records of the times of which I write compute the extreme length thereof at thirty-five French leagues; while the breadth seems to have varied at different points from five to ten miles.

In the space thus occupied, was comprised almost every description of scenery which a forest can display; hill and dell, rock and river, with sometimes even a meadow or a corn-field presenting itself in different parts of the wood, which was also traversed by two high roads--the one leading from Touraine, and the other from Alençon, Caen, and the northern parts of Normandy. These high roads, however, were, from the very circumstances of time, but little frequented; for the eloquent words of Alexis Monteil, in describing the state of France in the days of the League, afford no exaggerated picture:--"France, covered with fortified towns, with houses, with castles, with monasteries enclosed with walls within which no one entered, and from which no one issued forth, resembled a great body mailed, armed, and stretched lifeless on the earth."

Nevertheless, interest and necessity either lead or compel men to all things; and along the line of the two high roads already mentioned were scattered one or two villages and hamlets--the inhabitants of which had little to lose--and a number of detached houses, the proprietors of which were willing to risk a little in the hopes of gaining much. The fronts of these houses, by the various signs and inscriptions which they bore, gave notice to the wayfaring traveller, sometimes that man and horse could be accommodated equally well within those walls; sometimes that the human race could there find rest and food, if unaccompanied by the four-footed companion whose greater corporeal powers we have made subservient to our greater cunning. According to the strict letter of the existing laws, we find that the auberge for foot passengers was forbidden to lodge the equestrian, and that the auberge for cavaliers had no right to receive the traveller on foot. But these laws, like all other foolish ones, were neglected or evaded in many instances; and he who could pay well for his entertainment was, of course, very willingly admitted to the mercenary hospitality of either the one or other class of inns, whether he made use of the two identical feet with which nature had provided him, or borrowed four more for either speed or convenience.

Notwithstanding the turbulent elements which rendered every state of life perilous in those days, the landlord of the auberge, however isolated was his dwelling, did not, in fact, run so much risk as may be supposed; for by a sort of common consent, proceeding from a general conviction of the great utility of his existence, and the comfort which all parties had at various times derived from his ever-ready welcome, the innkeeper's dwelling was almost universally exempt from pillage, except, indeed, in those cases where the party spirit of the day had got the better of that interested moderation in politics which is such a distinguishing feature of the class, and had led him to espouse one of the fierce factions of the times with somewhat imprudent vehemence. Nevertheless, it need hardly be said, that between the several villages, and the several detached houses which chequered the forest of Evreux, large spaces were left without anything like a human habitation; and the traveller on either of the two highways, or on any of the multifarious cross-roads which wandered through the woods, might walk on for many a long and weary mile, without seeing anything in the likeness of mankind. Perhaps, indeed, he might think himself lucky if he did find it so; for--as there then existed three or four belligerent parties in France, besides various bodies who took advantage of the discrepancy of other people's opinions upon most subjects, to assert their own ideas of property at the point of the sword--there was every chance that, in any accidental rencontre, the traveller would find the first person he met a great deal more attached to the sword than to the olive branch.

A little more than a month, then, after the funeral of the old Marquis of St. Real, in a part of the forest where a few years before the axe had been busy amongst the taller trees, there appeared a group of several persons, two of whom have already been introduced to the notice of the reader. The spot in which they were seated was a small dry grassy strip of meadow by the side of a clear little stream, which at a hundred yards distance crossed the high road from Touraine. From the bank of the stream the ground rose very gradually for some way, leaving a space of perhaps fifty yards in breadth free of underwood or bush. It then took a bolder sweep, and became varied with manifold trees and shrubs; and then, breaking into rock as it swelled upwards, it towered into a high and craggy hill, diversified with clumps of the fine tall beeches which the axe had spared, and clothed thickly, wherever the soil admitted it, with rich underwood, springing up from the roots of larger trees long felled. On the other side again, the ground sloped away so considerably, that had the stream flowed straight on, it would have formed a cataract; and as the eye rested on the clear water, winding in a thousand turns within a very short distance of the edge of the descent, and seeming to seek a way over without being able to find it, one felt as we do in gazing upon a child in a meadow looking for something it has lost, which we ourselves see full well, yet cannot resolve to point out, lest the little seeker should desist from all the graceful vagaries of his search. Various bends and knolls, however, confined the rivulet to the course it had taken; but still the whole ground on that side was low, and at one point sunk much beneath the spot where the travellers before mentioned were seated, affording--over the green tree-tops--a beautiful view of a long expanse of varied ground, lying sweet in the misty light of summer, with many a wide and undulating sweep, fainter and more faint, till some grey spires marked the position of a distant town, and cut the line of the horizon.

The party here assembled consisted of five persons: the first of whom was the page already described under the name of Leonard de Monte, and who, now stretched upon the ground, seemed making a light repast, while the dwarf Bartholo, standing beside him, filled a small horn cup with wine from a gourd he carried, and presented it to the young Italian with a low inclination of the head. The other three personages who made up the group were evidently servants. The colours of their dress, however, were very different from those of the Marquis of St. Real, and they were also armed up to the teeth, though their garb bespoke them the followers of some private individual, and not soldiers belonging to any of the parties which then divided the land. Besides the human denizens of the scene, five horses were browsing the forest grass at a little distance. Three of these were equipped with saddles; while two still bore about them the rough harness, if harness it could be called, by means of which they had been attached to a small vehicle, somewhat between a carriage and a car, which, with its leathern curtains and its wicker frame, might be seen peeping out from amongst the bushes hard by.

While the page concluded his repast, two of the servants--the other seemed the driver of the carriage--stood behind him with their arms folded on their bosoms, but still in an attitude so common in those times of trouble as to have found its way into most of the pictures which have come down from that epoch to the present. The same movement which crossed the right and left arms over the chest had easily brought the hilt of the sword, and the part of the broad belt in which it hung, up from the haunch to the breast, where the weapon was supported by the pressure of the left arm and the right hand, and was ever ready for service at a moment's notice. The youth, however, who was the principal person of the party, and the dwarf, who seemed to ape his demeanour, wore their swords differently, following the extravagant court fashion of the day, and throwing the weapon which, in those times, might be needed at every instant, so far behind them, that the hilt was concealed by the short cloak then worn, and would have been out of the reach of any but a very dexterous hand.

When the page had concluded his repast, he wiped his dagger on the grass, and returned it to the sheath; and then, making the dwarf mingle some water from the stream with the wine he offered, he asked, ere he drank, "Are you sure, Bartholo, right sure, that we have passed them?"

"Certain! quite certain!" answered the dwarf; "unless, noble----"

"Hush!" cried the youth, holding up his hand impetuously; "have I not told thee to forget, even when we are alone, that I am any other than Leonard the page. Some day thou wilt betray me; and, by my troth, thou shalt repent it if thou dost. Go on! go on! What wert thou saying?"

"Nothing, then, Signor Leonard," answered the dwarf, with his usual sardonic grin; "but that I am certain we have passed them, quite certain: for I saw each day's march laid down before they set out; and though we were two days behind them, and had to take a round of ten leagues to avoid their route, yet we have done five leagues more than they each day that we have travelled."

"Well, then, well!" said the youth; "dine, and make these varlets dine. If I am in Paris three days before them, it is enough. Yet lose no time; for I would fain be on far enough to-night to be beyond their utmost fourriers ere I stay to rest. I go up yon hill to look over this woody world. When all is ready, whistle, and I will come." Thus saying, he turned away with a slow step, and, climbing the banks, was quickly lost amongst the trees and underwood.

As soon as he was gone, the dwarf beckoned to the servants; and, making them sit down beside him on the grass, did the honours of the feast, but still taking care to maintain that air of superiority with which a master might be supposed to portion out their meal to his domestics, on some of those accidental expeditions which level, for the time, many of the distinctions of rank. The servants, too, submitted to this sort of assumption as a matter of course; and though the eye of each might be caught running over the diminutive limbs of the dwarf with a glance in which the contempt of big things for little was scarcely kept down by habitual deference, yet, in their general demeanour, they preserved every sort of respect for their small companion, keeping a profound silence in his presence, and treating him with every mark of reverence.

Scarcely had they concluded their meal, however, and were in the act of yawning at the horses they were about to harness, when the rustling of the bushes on the hillside, and the fall of a few stones, gave notice of the approach of some living being. The moment after, the light and graceful form of their young master appeared, bounding down the slope like a scared deer, with his cheek flushed, and all the flashing eagerness of haste and surprise sparkling in his dark eye. "Quick!" he cried, as he came up, "quick as lightning! Draw the carriage into that brake, and lead the horses in amongst the bushes. Scatter as far as possible, and come not hither again till you hear my horn."

"But the carriage!" cried the dwarf, looking towards the spot to which the page pointed--"the brake is deep and uneven."

"We must get it out afterwards as best we may," replied the youth; "do as you are bid, and make haste! They are not half a mile from us, when I thought they were leagues. I saw them coming up, on the other side of the hill, and they will be here in five minutes. Quick! quick as lightning, Bartholo!"

The dwarf and his companions obeyed at once, and in a few moments the carriage was drawn into a woody brake that completely concealed it from view; the horses were led into the forest; Bartholo betook himself one way, and the attendants another; and their young lord, climbing the hill, sought himself out a place amongst the shrubs and larger trees, where he could see all that passed upon the high road, without running any risk of being seen himself. A quick and impatient spirit, however, gauging all things by its own activity, had, as is often the case, deceived him as to the movements of others; and instead of five minutes, which was the utmost space that his imagination had allowed for the arrival of the persons he had beheld, full half an hour had elapsed ere any one appeared.

At length, however, the trampling of horses sounded along the road; and the moment after, winding round from the other side of the hill, was seen a party of six horsemen, each bearing in his hand a short matchlock, with a lighted match, while three other weapons of the same kind hung round at the different corners of the steel saddle with which every horse was furnished. After a short interval, another small party appeared; and, succeeding them again, might be seen, first moving along above the interposing shoulder of the hill, and then upon the open road, the dancing plumes of a large body of officers and gentlemen, in the midst of whom rode the young Marquis of St. Real, and his cousin, the Count d'Aubin. The eyes of Leonard de Monte fixed eagerly upon that party, and followed its movements for many a minute, till a new bend of the road concealed it from his sight; and he turned to gaze upon the strong body of troops that then appeared. Two companies of infantry, each consisting of two hundred men, came next; and a gay and pleasant sight it was to see them pass along with their shining steel morions, and tall plumes, and rich apparel, in firm array and regular order, but all gay and cheerful, and singing as they went. Amongst them, but in separate bands, appeared the various sorts of foot soldiers then common in France; the musketeer with his long gun upon his shoulder, and the steel-pointed fork, or rest, used to assist his aim in discharging his piece, while, together with the broad leathern belt which supported his long and heavy sword, hung the innumerable small rolls of leather, in which the charges for his musket were deposited. The ancient pikeman, too, was there, with his long pike rising over the weapons of the other soldiers, and one or two bodies of arquebusiers, armed with a lighter and less cumbersome, but even more antique kind of musket, here and there chequered the ranks. A troop of cavalry, still stronger in point of numbers, succeeded, consisting of two companies of men-at-arms, which old privileges permitted the two houses of St. Real and D'Aubin to raise for the service of the crown, and of about four hundred of more lightly armed horse of that description which, from having been first introduced from Germany and Flanders, had acquired the name of reitters, even when the regiment was composed entirely of Frenchmen. The first body contained none but men of noble birth, and consisted principally of young gentlemen attached to the two great houses who raised it. Each carried his lance, to which weapon the men-at-arms of that day clung with peculiar tenacity, as a vestige of that ancient chivalry which people felt was rapidly passing away before improved science, but from which they did not like to part. Each also was splendidly armed; and gold and polished steel made their horses shine in the sunbeams.

The reitters, however, were more simply clothed, and were composed of such persons from the wealthier part of the classe bourgeoise as the love of arms, the distinctions generally affixed to military life, or feudal attachment to any particular house, brought from the very insecure tranquillity then afforded by their paternal dwellings, to the open struggle of the field. This corps, however, was not distinguished by the lance: a long and heavy sword, which did terrible execution in the succeeding wars, together with a number of pistols, each furnished with a rude flint lock, composed the offensive arms of the reitter. His armour, too, and his horse were both somewhat lighter than those of the man-at-arms; but his movements were, in consequence, more easy, and his march less encumbered.

The whole body wound slowly on with very little disarray Of confusion, till, one by one, the several bands turned the angle of the wood, and disappeared in the distant forest. A few scattered parties followed; then a few stragglers, and then all was left to solitude, while nothing but a cloudy line of dust, rising up above the green covering of the trees, and two or three notes of the trumpet, told that such a force was near, or marked the road it took. Leonard de Monte gazed from the place of his concealment upon each party as it passed, and then waited for several minutes, listening with attentive ear till the trumpet sounded so faintly that it was evident his own small hunting-horn might be winded unheard by the retiring squadrons. He descended, however, in the first instance, to the bank of the stream where he had been previously sitting, and then gave breath to a few low notes, as of a huntsman recalling his dogs. The sounds were heard by his attendants, and instantly obeyed. The horses were led forth from the wood; and, while the two servants bestirred themselves to draw out the carriage from the brake in which it had been concealed, the youth beckoned the dwarf towards him, demanding--"Now, Bartholo! now! what think you of this?"

"Why, I think it a very silly trick, sir," replied the dwarf: "I could forgive a raw youth like the Marquis for leading his men through such a wood as this; but how an experienced soldier, like my good lord the Count, could let him do it, I cannot fancy. Why, the League might have taken them all like quails in a falling net!"

"You are wrong," said the youth; "you are wrong, Bartholo. He knows full well that the League, close cooped in Paris, have not men to spare, and that Longueville and La Noue keep Aumale in check near Compeigne. St. Real is no bad soldier. At least, so I have heard. But it was not of that I spoke. What are we to do now? You told me that they were a day behind, and now they are right on the road before us. They must have changed their route. What must we do?"

"Why, we must turn back," answered the dwarf, calmly; "and then at Dreux seek out the maître des postes, leave these slow brutes behind us, and on to Paris with all the speed we can."

"But should there be no horses?" said the youth, "as was the case at La Fleche; what must we do then?"

"Oh, beyond all doubt, we shall find horses there," the dwarf replied; "and if the post be broken up, we can but apply to the master of relais, whose horses will take us on for fifteen leagues, while these tired brutes will scarce carry us to Dreux: better go with beasts that have dragged a cart, than halt half way on the road."[^[2]]

The youth paused and pondered; and though his intention was at first directed to the exertions of the servants with the carriage, yet the moment after, his glance began to stray abstractedly over the forest; and it is more than probable that his thoughts wandered much farther than the mere trifling embarrassment in which he found himself; for his brow became clouded and melancholy, his lip quivered, and his eye, which was now again straining vacantly upon the grass, seemed as if it would willingly have harboured a tear. The dwarf gazed at him earnestly with his quick black eyes, while the habitual sneer upon his lip seemed mingled with other feelings, which somewhat changed its character, but rendered it not less dark and keen. Whatever were his own thoughts, however, he seemed perfectly to comprehend that his young lord's mind had run beyond the situation of the moment. "You are sorry you undertook it at all!" he said, keeping his eyes still fixed upon the face of the other.

"Out, knave!" cried Leonard de Monte, turning sharply upon him. "Out! Did you ever know me hesitate in a pursuit that I had once determined, or regret a deed when once it was done? Firm in myself, I am firm to myself, and, whether good or ill happens, I never regret. No, no; think you that I am such a fool or such a child as to start from the first trifling obstacle? To whimper, because I am forced to lie on a hard bed, or fly off indignant because some saucy serving-man breaks his jest upon the page? No, no! I was thinking of my father's house, and of a picture there which some skilful hand had painted of just such a scene as this. There was the little sparkling stream, and there a sweet and tranquil grassy bank like that, with the bright sunshine--even as it does now--streaming through the bushes, and touching the rounded turf with gold. Often, very often, have I stood and gazed upon that landscape, and my fancy has rendered the dull canvass instinct with life. I have dreamed that I could see through those groves, or climb the hill, and wander amongst the rocks; and in infancy--that time of happy hearts--imagination, as I stood and looked, has shaped me out a little paradise in such a scene as that. The palace and its cold splendour has faded away around me, and I have fancied myself wandering in the midst of Nature's beauties, with beings as bright and as ideal as my dream: and now, Bartholo--and now--what are all those visions now?"

The dwarf cast his eyes to the ground, and for a moment, a single moment, the cynical smile passed away from his lip. "You," he said--"you have made your fate! You have sought the bitter well from which you are forced to drink. You have chosen sorrow, and the way to sorrow; for the love of any human thing is but the high road thither, and you must tread it to the end."

"How now, sir!" cried the youth, proudly tossing back his head; "school'st thou me?"

"Nay, I school you not," answered the dwarf; "and less than all sought to offend you. I would have given you consolation. I would have said that you, for a great prize, had played a stake as weighty:--I mean that knowingly, willingly, you had risked happiness for love; and, seemingly having lost, are sorrowful; but still you have the satisfaction of knowing that your fate has been your own deliberate act."

"Would not that make it all the more painful, thou bitter medicine?" asked the youth.

"Not so!" answered the dwarf, "not so! Think, what must be his feelings who is born to disappointment and to scorn; whose heart may be as fine as that which beats in the bosom of the lordliest warrior in the land, and yet whose birthright is contempt, and degradation, and slight; whose mind may be as bright as that of prelate, or of lawgiver, and yet whose doom is to be despised and neglected? Think what must be his feelings, who has no refuge from disappointment, but in the hardness of despair; who has no warfare to wage against insult, but by hurling back contempt and defiance!"

"I am sorry for thee, from my heart," answered the youth. "Indeed, I am sorry for thee."

"Your pity I can bear," replied the dwarf, "because I believe it is of a nobler kind; but the pity of this base degraded world is poison to every wound in my heart. No more of myself, however," he added, resuming at once his usual look; "I have spoken too long about myself already. I cannot change my state, were I to reason on it till the sun grew old and weary of shining; but you can do much to change yours; and, in honesty, it were better to try a new plan, for this is a bad one."

"Care not thou for that," replied the other; "its wisdom or its folly rests upon me. Thou canst not say that there is either sin or crime therein; and till then, be silent."

"You spoke of your father's house," still persevered the dwarf. "Why not return thither, where now, since your uncle's death, peace, and repose, and a princely fortune await you?"

"Return thither!" replied the youth, with a sigh. "Return thither! and for what? to find the voices I used to love silent; the forms that used to cheer it gone; to see in every chamber a memorial of the dead, and in each well-known object a new source for tears. Oh, no! I loved that place once with love far beyond that which we give in general to inanimate things; but it was because the living, and the good, and the kind, were mingled up with every scene and every object; but now they are gone: the fairy spell is broken; the rich gold turned dross; and no place of all the earth is so painful in my sight as that--my father's house."

"Nevertheless," urged the dwarf somewhat anxiously; but the other went on: "But that is not all, Bartholo," he said, "that is not all; though that were fully enough. No, when I last saw my father's halls my bosom was as light as air, and all the thoughts that filled it were as the summer dreams of some sunny, happy child. Since then how many a bitter lesson have I learned; how changed is the aspect of life, and fate, and the world!--No, no! The sunshine that shone in my father's halls is gone for ever--the sunshine of a happy heart; and I will carry back with me a new star to light them, or never see them more."

"Nevertheless," repeated the dwarf, "nevertheless--"

"No more in that tone!" interrupted the youth, "let me hear no more! My resolutions are fixed beyond change. My fate is upon the die in my hand, and I will cast it boldly, let the chance be what it will. Say no more! for no more will I hear! Quick! hasten those laggards with the horses, and let us begone: each word of opposition but makes me the more eager to run my course to the end."

The dwarfs lip curled into a more bitter smile than ever, but he made no reply; and proceeded to obey the orders he had received to hasten the preparations for departure. Those preparations were soon concluded; for while the conversation detailed above had been proceeding, the servants, with the aid of the horses, had dragged the carriage out of the brake. With some difficulty, and some danger of overturning it, it was at length brought to the high road. Leonard de Monte entered; and, wrapping himself in a large cloak, cast himself back with an air of gloomy thought. The rest mounted their horses, and, as fast as the nature of the rude vehicle, and the state of the roads would permit, the little cavalcade wound away towards Dreux, leaving the forest once more to silence and solitude.

CHAPTER VII.

In one of the old houses between the Louvre and the Place Royals, is still preserved in its original state a fine antique saloon of the times of Henry II. No gorgeous hall, no spacious vestibule, impresses you at once with the grandeur of the mansion; but, winding up a narrow and incommodious stair, you find yourself upon a small landing-place, whence two steps--each the segment of a circle, and both turning considerably, as if they had once formed part of a spiral staircase--conduct you, through a deep but narrow passage in the wall, to a door of black oak. On opening this, you find yourself at the threshold of a room some two-and-thirty feet square, panelled with dark and richly carved wood, and possessing a ceiling of the same. At the farther end of the saloon, opposite to the door, is a deep recess, or, rather, a sort of bay, at the entrance of which the floor rises with a high step, forming a sort of little platform capable of receiving a table and two or three chairs. From the distance of about three feet and a half above the ground up to the ceiling, the greater part of this recess or bay is of glass, with only just so much Gothic stone and wood work as serves to support the large casements, which afford the sole light of the room. The form which this projection takes on the outside of the house presents three sides of a regular octagon, and, in ornament and lightness, is not unlike one of the windows of the new part of St. John's, Cambridge, though certainly not near so beautiful as any part of that exquisite specimen of Gothic architecture.

Though, as I have said, from this window is derived the sole light which the room possesses; nevertheless, that light is enough, especially as the sunshine seems to regard that casement with particular favour, and never fails to linger about it when the bright beams visit earth.

At the time to which we must now go back, the floors were not so dingy, the oak was not so black, as they are at present; but the full summer sunshine was pouring through the large oriel, chequering the wood work of the raised flooring with the golden light of the rays and the dark shadows of the leaden frames in which the glass was set. A stand for embroidery appeared on the little platform; and before it sat a lady plying the busy needle and the shining silks; while a maid, seated near, read to her from a book--the Gothic characters of which were fast merging into the round letters of the present day--and another female attendant, a little farther off, followed the industrious example of her mistress, and busied herself at her frame. The principal person of the group was habited in deep mourning, which, in the fashion of that day, was, perhaps, the most unbecoming dress that the vanity of man ever permitted. The sombre hue of the garment was relieved by nothing that could give lightness or grace; and the heavy black veil, hanging from the head, seemed designed purposely to cast a gloomy, unsoftened shadow over the face. But that lady was one of those whom we see sometimes, and dream of often, so lovely by the gift of nature, that art can do nothing either to add to the beauty or diminish it; and she looked as transcendently lovely in the dark wimple and the sable stole, as if she had been clad in jewels and in lace. She was as fair as the morning star, with eyes of the deep, deep blue of the evening sky, full and soft, and overhung with a long fringe of jetty eyelashes, which sometimes made the eyes themselves seem black. Her cheek bore the rosy hue of health, though the colour was by no means deep, and was so softly diffused over her face, that it was scarce possible to say where the warm tint of the cheek ended, and the brilliant fairness of the forehead and temples began. The features, too, were as lovely as if the brightest fancy and the most skilful hand had combined to personify beauty; but they had nothing of the cold, still harshness of the statue, and one looked long in admiration ere one could pause to trace the graceful lines that went to form so fair a whole. The form was in no way unworthy of the face; and even the stiff, heavy folds of the mourning robe were forced into graceful falls by the symmetry of the limbs they covered. All, however, was calm and easy, and every part of the figure was concealed, as far as possible, except the tip of one small foot, and the soft rounded delicate hands, which, with a thousand graceful movements, urged the needle through the embroidery.

Such was Eugenie de Menancourt, whom her father's death in Paris had left one of the richest heiresses of France, and had cast into the hands of the faction called the League, which then ruled in the capital, while the King waged war against it in the field. The possession of Eugenie de Menancourt, indeed, was no slight advantage to that party, for those who have much to bestow will always be followed; and the reward of her hand, and all the wealth that accompanied it, was one well calculated to lure many an aspiring noble to the faction who had the power of awarding it. This the Duke of Mayenne felt fully, and made, indeed, no slight use of his advantage: not that he held out the hope of obtaining her to any one directly, except to the Count d'Aubin, to whom she had been promised by her father, and whom Mayenne was most anxious to gain over from the royal cause; but, nevertheless, he took good care that, when any of his agents busied themselves to bring over an opposite, or confirm a wavering, partisan, the list of the good things which the League could bestow should not be left unmentioned, and amongst the first was the hand of Eugenie de Menancourt, the heiress of near one half of Maine. There was many another poor girl in the same condition; but as, in those days, inclination was the last thing consulted by parents in the marriage of their daughters, there was but little difference between their fate in the hands of the League, and in the hands of their more legitimate guardians. Nevertheless, the circumstances by which she was surrounded, her isolated situation in the house wherein her father had died, and which had been assigned to her by the League as her abode during the time of her honourable captivity in Paris, and the prospect of being forced to wed a man she did not love, all contributed to heighten the gloom which her parent's recent death had cast over her, and to make melancholy the temporary expression of a countenance which seemed by nature born for smiles.

One only consideration tended to make her situation feel more light: the Count d'Aubin was deeply engaged on the side of the King; and on his late journey to Maine, had even been entrusted with the high task of keeping in check that province, and some of the neighbouring districts. So long as he adhered to the King, Eugenie well knew that Mayenne would never consent to his marriage with herself; and though she sometimes doubted the steadiness of D'Aubin's loyalty, she trusted the artful game which she knew that the Duke was playing, in order to detach him from the royal cause, would insure her not being pressed to give her hand to any one else. She hoped, therefore, for a degree of peace till such time, at least, as some change in the political affairs of France delivered her from the chance of force being employed to compel her obedience to a choice made by others.

On such facts and such speculations her mind was often forced to dwell; but Eugenie de Menancourt was too wise to yield full way to painful remembrances or anticipations that could produce no change; and she studiously strove to occupy her thoughts with other things: either reading herself during all the many hours she spent alone, or making one of her maids read to her, when she was employed with any of those occupations which engage the hand without absorbing the attention.

Thus, then, was she employed plying her needle in the sunshine, and listening to some of the poetry of Du Bartas, while, though she attended, and she heard, some melancholy feeling or some gloomy thought, springing from the depths of her own heart, would mingle insensibly with the other matter which engaged her mind, and make all she heard associate itself with the painful circumstances of her situation. In the midst of the reading, however, the door of the saloon opened, and a person entered, of whom we must pause to give almost as full a description as we have been beguiled into writing in regard to Eugenie de Menancourt herself.

The figure that appeared was that of a lady as beautiful as it is possible to conceive, but in a style of loveliness as different from that of her she came to visit as the ruby is different from the sapphire. She might be three or four and twenty years of age, but certainly was not more; and the full rounded contour of womanhood was exquisitely united in her figure to the light and easy graces of youth. Her hair was as jetty as a raven's wing, and her full bright eyes also were as dark. Her skin was fair, however, and her teeth, of dazzling whiteness, were just seen through the half-open lips of her small beautiful mouth. The soft arched eyebrow, the chiselled nose, the rounded chin, the gentle oval of the face, the small white ear, and the broad clear forehead, made up a countenance such as is seldom seen and never forgotten; and to that face and form she might well have trusted to command admiration, had such been her object, without calling in "the foreign aid of ornament." Dress, however, and splendour had not been neglected, though her rich garments sat so easily upon her, that they seemed but the natural accompaniment of so much beauty, worn rather to harmonise with than to heighten the splendid loveliness of her face and person. Her whole apparel, except the mantle and the sleeves, was of the lightest kind of gold tissue, consisting of a small stripe of pink, and a still smaller one of gold. The bodice, or stays, was laced with gold; and the body, or corps de robe, shaped not at all unlike those in use at present, came much higher over the bosom than was customary at a libertine court, and in a libertine age. The sleeves, which were large on the shoulders, and suddenly contracted till they fitted close to the round and beautiful arms, were of white satin, as was also the mantle, which round the edge was richly embroidered with pink and gold. Her girdle was of gold filigree worked upon white velvet; and through it was passed a chaplet of large pearls, with every now and then a sapphire or an emerald, to mark some particular prayer. Jewels were in her ears too, and on the bosom of her dress, though it was but mid-day; and in her hand she held one of the small black velvet masks, which the fair dames of those days very generally wore when in the streets, even in their carriages, under the pretence of guarding their complexions from the sun and wind, but, in fact, more for the sake of fashion than from over-tenderness, and often with views and purposes which might well shun the day.

The lady, however, who now entered, bore no appearance of one likely to yield to the luxurious softness, or the weak vices of the day. There was a light and a soul in her dark eyes, a play and a spirit about her ever-varying lip, a firmness and determination on her fine clear brow, that might, perhaps, speak of passion intense and strong, but could hardly admit the idea of weakness. As soon as Eugenie de Menancourt beheld her, she started up with a look of joy; and, advancing to meet her, pressed her kindly in her arms, exclaiming, "Dear, dear Beatrice! are you better at length? Why would you not let me see you?"

"Well! quite well now, Eugenie," replied the other, returning her embrace as warmly as it was given "but my illness, they said, was contagious; and why should I have suffered you to risk your valued and most precious life for such a one as I am?"

"Oh! and your life is precious too, Beatrice," replied her friend; "most precious to those who know you as well as I do."

"But how few do that, dearest friend!" replied Beatrice of Ferrara; for, strange as it may seem, it was she whose name has once before been mentioned in this work, who now stood beside Eugenie de Menancourt, on terms of the dearest intimacy and affection. "How few do that! Do you know, Eugenie, that I regard as one of the greatest and sweetest triumphs of my life, the having conquered all your prejudices against me; having won your love and your esteem, and taught you to know me as I am."

"But indeed, indeed, as I have often told you," replied Eugenie, "I had no prejudices against you."

"Nay, nay," replied the other, with a smile; "you beheld me surrounded by the profligate and the base; you beheld me mingling with the idle and the vain: you beheld the seducers and the seduced of a corrupt court worshipping this pretty painted idol that you see before you; and, doubtless, thought in your own secret heart that it was with pleasure that I bore it all."

"No, no, indeed," replied Eugenie; "quite the reverse! Wherever I went I heard you mentioned as the exception. The malicious and the scandalous were silent at your name; and not even the braggart idlers, whose vanity is fed by their own lies against our sex, ventured to say you smiled upon them."

"They dared not, Eugenie!" said Beatrice, her dark eye flashing as she spoke; "they dared not! There is not a minion in all France who would dare to cast a spot upon my name! Not because they fear to speak falsehood, be it as gross and glaring as the sun; but because they know I hold, that where the honour of Beatrice of Ferrara is assailed, she has as much right as any punctilious man in all the land to avenge herself as best she may. Nay, start not, dear friend! but send away your women, and let us have a few calm moments together, if the idle world will let us."

The women, who had been in attendance upon Eugenie de Menancourt, required no farther commands; but, the one laying down her book, and the other covering up her embroidery-frame, left the room.

"You started but now, Eugenie," continued Beatrice, advancing towards the little platform in the bay window, and seating herself beside her friend; "you started but now, when I said that women have as much right to avenge themselves, when their honour is assailed, as men; but I say so still--ay, and even more right. I have long thought so, and shall ever think so, Eugenie; though Heaven only knows how I should act, were such a case to happen. I might be as weak as women generally are, and let the traitor escape out of pure fear: but I think not, Eugenie--I think not. I believe that I would rather die the next minute after having avenged myself, than live on in the same world with one who had slandered that fair fame which, in spite of circumstances, and my own wild thoughtlessness, I have maintained unstained in the midst of this foul court."

"Nay, but consider, Beatrice," cried Eugenie, earnestly, "this world is not all."

"I know it well, sweet friend," replied Beatrice; "but I think, if there be pardon in heaven for any offence, it would be for that Men claim the right, and die without a fear; and why should not we have the same privilege? They, when their honour is assailed, could clear themselves without revenge; they could call their comrades to judge of their conduct; but, with us, the very whisper is destruction; and no proof of innocence ever gives us back that pure, untarnished name which is our only honour; we can have no exculpation, we can have no redress, and vengeance is all that is left us."

Eugenie was silent, and Beatrice gazed upon her, for a moment or two, with a smile, adding, at last, "But no--no, Eugenie, such thoughts and such feelings are not for you. Your nation, your education, your country, will not let you feel as I feel, or think as I think; and yet, Eugenie, we love each other," she added, twining her graceful arm through that of her fair friend, "and yet we love each other--is it not so?"

"Indeed, it is!" replied Eugenie de Menancourt, turning towards her with a warm smile. "Your company, your affection, your sympathy, dear Beatrice, have been my only consolations since I came within the walls of this hateful city; and all I wish is that I could on some points make you think as I do. I wish it selfishly, and yet for your sake, Beatrice; for, if I could succeed, I should not tremble every moment for your happiness and for your peace, as I do now."

"Thank you, thank you for the wish, dear friend!" replied Beatrice, with more melancholy than mirth in her smile; "thank you, most sincerely, for the wish! but still it is in vain. You can never, with all your kind eloquence, make a wild, ardent, passionate Italian girl, a calm, gentle, yielding being like yourself, all charity and half Huguenot. It is in vain, it is in vain. But you speak of happiness, Eugenie, as if I knew what happiness is. Now listen to me, and you shall hear more of Beatrice of Ferrara than ever you have yet done. There is a subject, I know, on which we have both thought often, and on which we have wished often to speak--I know it, Eugenie! I know it! I have heard it in half-spoken words; I have read it in your manner, and in your tone; I have seen it in your eyes--that, often, often, when we have talked of other scenes and other days, you have longed to ask what is Beatrice of Ferrara to Philip d'Aubin, and what is he to her? Nay, I dream not that you love him, Eugenie; I know better--I know that you love him not; and I feel that Philip d'Aubin, with all his splendid qualities, with all his energies of mind, and graces of person, is the last man on earth that Eugenie de Menancourt could love."

She paused a moment, gazed thoughtfully in her friend's face, and then, leaning her head upon Eugenie's shoulder, while she took her hand in hers, she added, in a low tone and with a deep sigh--"But it is not so with Beatrice of Ferrara!"

A bright blush rushed over her cheek, as she spoke the words which gave to her friend the full assurance of a fact that she had long suspected, perhaps we might say had long known; and she closed her dark bright eyes, as if to avoid seeing whatever expression that confession might call into the countenance of Eugenie. The moment after, however, she started up, exclaiming eagerly, "But mistake me not! mistake me not! I have not loved unsought; I have not called upon my head the well-deserved shame of being despised for courting him who loved me not. No, Eugenie, no! although the blood that flows in these veins may be all fire, yet in my heart there is a well of icy pride--at least, so he has often called it--which would cool the warm current of my love--ay, till it froze in death!--ere the name I bear should be stained even by such a pitiful weakness as that. No! he sought me, he courted me, he lived at my feet, till the proud heart was won. Yes, Eugenie, he lived at my feet, he seemed to feed upon my smiles, till, at length, ambition and interest opened wider views, and vanity was piqued to think that Eugenie de Menancourt could be dull to such high merits as his own----"

"If ambition and interest swayed him," said Eugenie;--but her friend interrupted her ere she could finish. "Hear me out!" she cried, "hear me out, Eugenie! Ambition and interest had much to do therewith. When I and my young brother first sought this court to find protection against the injustice of my father's brother, I possessed little but a small inheritance in France, the dowry of my mother. This he well knew; and though, if there be any truth on earth, he loved me, yet, with men, Eugenie, there are passions that make even love subservient--ambition, interest, vanity, Eugenie, are men's gods!"

"But is it possible, Beatrice," cried Mademoiselle de Menancourt, "that, thinking thus of all men, and of him in particular, you can either esteem or love him, or any of his race?"

"Oh, yes, Eugenie! oh, yes!" she replied. "Love is a tyrant--not a slave: we cannot bind him to the chariot wheels of reason; we cannot make him bow his neck beneath the yoke of judgment. On the contrary, we can but yield and obey. There is but one power on earth that can restrain him, Eugenie--Virtue! but everything else is vain. And, oh! how many ways have we of deceiving ourselves! The sun will cease to rise, Eugenie--summer and winter, night and day, forget their course, ere love, in the heart of woman, wants a wile to cheat her belief to what she wishes. Even now, Eugenie, even now, I believe and hope; and I fancy often that, though misled by things whose emptiness he will soon discover, the time will come when Love will re-assert his empire in a heart that is naturally noble. It may be all in vain!" she added, with a deep sigh; "it may be all in vain! yet, who would willingly put out the last faint, lingering flame that flickers on Hope's altar?"

"Not I!" said Eugenie, echoing her friend's sigh; "not I, indeed!--Would that he were worthy of you, Beatrice! Would that he were worthy of you!" she added, after a momentary pause; during which, perhaps, her mind was struggling back to the real subject of their conversation from some path of association, into which it had been led by her companion's last words. "Would that he were worthy of you! but if his fickle and wayward nature could never be endured by me, who can bear much, how much less would it suit you, Beatrice, who, I am afraid, are calculated to bear but little!"

"You know not how much I have already borne, Eugenie," replied Beatrice; "you know not how much love can bear: though, yes, perhaps you do," she added, in a lighter tone; "at least, there are those who know well how much--how very much--they could bear for love of Eugenie de Menancourt."

The warm blood spread red and glowing over Eugenie's fair face. "I know not whom you mean, Beatrice," she said, gravely: "I know none that love me; and few that are capable of loving at all--if you speak of men."

"Nay, ask me not his name!" said Beatrice, the gaiety of her tone increasing, as she marked, or thought she marked, a greater degree of confusion in her friend's countenance than the subject would have produced in other persons brought up regularly in the sweet and pleasant pastime of deceit. "Nay, ask me not his name! I am no maker of fair matches, nor half so politic, as this world goes, to endeavour to marry my friend to the first person that presents himself, solely to rid myself of the presence of her beauty."

"Nay, but dear Beatrice," replied Mademoiselle de Menancourt, "I know no one who has even seen that beauty, if so it must be called, for many a month: so indeed you are mistaken."

"Nay, nay, not so," answered Beatrice, smiling; "a few hours, a few minutes, a single instant, are enough, you know, Eugenie: and for the rest, indeed I am not mistaken. I would stake my life, from what I have seen--from signs infallible--that you are loved deeply, truly, with all the ardour of a first passion in a young--a very young heart."

"Pray God, it be not so!" cried Eugenie; "for it were but unhappiness to himself and to me."

"Are you so cold, then, Eugenie, that you cannot love?" asked Beatrice, with a smile; "or is that sweet heart occupied already by some one who fills it all?"

Eugenie smiled too, and shook her head; but there was once more a deep blush spread over her face; and though it might be but the generous flush of native modesty, Beatrice read in it a contradiction of her words, as she replied, "No, no, not so, indeed! Perhaps I may be cold; as yet I cannot tell, for no one has ever yet spoken to me of love whose love I could return. But, even could I do so, Beatrice, would it not be grief to both, as here I remain in the hands of others, unable to dispose of myself but as they please?"

"Out upon it, Eugenie!" cried Beatrice; "'tis your own fault if you are not your own mistress in an hour. Never was there a time in France when woman--the universal slave--was half so free."

"But what would you have me do?" demanded Eugenie. "With a thousand eyes constantly upon me, I see not how I could obtain more freedom, or dispose of myself, were I so inclined."

"As easy as sit here and sew," cried Beatrice. "Here is the King claims the disposal of your hand, and the League claims it too; and, between them both, you can give it to whom you will. Fly from Paris! Betake yourself where you will, but not to the court of Henry; for his tyranny might be greater than even that of the League. Then, make your choice. Give your hand to him you love; and be quite sure, that the party that your good lord shall join will sanction your marriage with all accustomed forms."

"But if I love no one?" said Eugenie, with a smile.

"Why then, live in single simplicity till you do," replied Beatrice, with an incredulous shake of the head. "But, at all events, fly from the yoke they now put upon you."

"Fly, Beatrice?" answered Eugenie; "fly, and how? How am I to fly, with a city beleaguered on all sides; a watchful Argus in the League, with its thousand eyes all round me: having none to guide me, and not knowing where to go;--how am I to fly?"

"By a thousand ways," answered her friend, laughing at her embarrassment. "Change your dress, in the first place: put on a petticoat of crimson satin embroidered with green, together with a black velvet body and sleeves, cut in the fashion of the Duchess of Valentinois, of blessed memory!--a cloak of straw-coloured silk, a capuche of light blue cloth broidered with gold, a mass of grey hair under a black cap, and a vertugadin of four feet square. Dress yourself thus, and call yourself Madame la Presidente de Noailles; and, by my word, the guards will let you pass all the gates, and thank God to get rid of you! Or, if that does not suit you, take the gown and bonnet of a young advocate," she continued in the same gay tone; "hide those pretty lips and that rounded chin under a false beard from Armandi's; and be very sure the guards would as soon think of stopping you as they would of stopping the prince of darkness, who, after all, is the real governor of this great city. Nothing keeps you here but fear, my Eugenie! Why, I will undertake to go in and out twenty times a day, if I please."

"Ay, but you have a bolder heart than I have," answered Eugenie de Menancourt; "and I know full well, Beatrice, that a thing which, executed with a good courage, is done with ease, miscarries at the first step when it is attempted by timidity and fear. The very thought of wandering through the gates of Paris alone makes me shrink."

"But I will go with you, Eugenie," replied Beatrice, "and will answer for success whenever you like to make the attempt."

Eugenie paused, and thought for several moments, fixing her fine eyes upon vacancy with a faint smile and a longing look, as if she would fain have taken advantage of her friend's proposal, yet dared not make the attempt. "Not yet, dear Beatrice--not yet!" she answered: "I dare not, indeed, unless some sharp necessity happens to give me temporary courage. As long as they refrain from urging me to wed one I can never love, and from pressing on me any other in his room, so long will I stay where I am."

"But see that your decision come not too late, Eugenie," answered her friend. "They may soon begin to press you on the subject; and, when once they find you reluctant, they may take measures to prevent your flight."

"I do not think they will press me," answered Eugenie. "First, in regard to Philip d'Aubin, they will never favour him, as he is of the party of the King; and, in regard to any other, they know full well that I could, if I would, urge my father's promise to him."

"But you would not do it!" exclaimed Beatrice.

"No, Beatrice, no!" answered Eugenie, laying her hand kindly upon hers; "no, I would rather die!"

"But hear me," said Beatrice, somewhat eagerly; "think of all that may happen. A thousand things may tempt D'Aubin to quit the royal party. He may come over to the League--he may urge your father's promise--he may obtain the sanction of Mayenne:--what will you do then?"

"Fly to the farthest corner of the earth," replied Eugenie, "sooner than fulfil a promise that was none of mine, and against which my whole heart revolts on every account. Listen, Beatrice; I do believe that, in the moment of need, I shall not want courage, and certainly shall not want resolution. Should I have any reason to fear compulsion, but too often used of late, I will take counsel with none but you; you shall guide me as you think fit, and I will fly anywhere, rather than give my hand to one I cannot love."

"Write me but five words," replied Beatrice, "write me 'Come to me with speed,' and send it by a page when you want assistance, and doubt not but I will find means to deliver you, were you at the very altar. But, hark! I hear steps upon the staircase, and horses before the house; and I must resume all my bold and haughty bearing, and put on the mask, which I have laid aside to Eugenie de Menancourt alone."

As she spoke, she drew her chair a little further from that of her friend; and, placing it in the exact position which the ceremonious intercourse of that day pointed out, she remained with the glove drawn off from one fair hand, which, dropping gracefully over the arm of the fauteuil, continued to hold her small black mask, twirling it as listlessly round and round as ever the fair hand of fashionable dame in our own days played with a glove, to show her skin's whiteness or her brilliant rings. Eugenie de Menancourt's eyes sought the door with an expression of anxiety; but Beatrice, on the contrary, gazed vacantly through the window towards the buildings on the opposite side of the river; and the visitors had entered the room, and were already speaking to her friend, before she appeared to be conscious of their presence, or condescended to notice them. Turning her head at length, she fixed her eyes upon a square-built, powerful man, with a somewhat heavy, but not unpleasing, countenance; who, richly dressed, and followed by two or three gentlemen, in a more gay and smart, but not more magnificent, costume, was speaking to Mademoiselle de Menancourt, with all that courteous respect which chivalrous times, then just passing away, had left behind them.

"Good morrow, my lord Duke!" said Beatrice, as the visitor turned towards her: "I anticipated not the pleasure of seeing your Highness here to day. Good faith! have you so much ease in a beleaguered city, as to exercise your horses in visiting ladies before noon? On my honour, I will be a soldier, for 'tis the idlest life I know, and only fit for a woman."