Читать книгу One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre - G. P. R. James - Страница 7

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.