LOUIS OF NASSAU
Leipsic was unfamiliar to Rénèe le Meung, she did not know where the
sunny streets she chose would lead her, but as she knew no one and had
no object in her walk, this did not trouble her. She walked slowly,
enjoying the sun, which was the only thing left her to enjoy.
She did not seem a lady of the court, so simple and even poor was her
dark green kirtle and mantle, so unpretentious her whole appearance;
even if she had wished to follow some degree of fashion she was unable
to, for her sole resource was what was given her as waiting-woman to the
Elector's niece, and that was little enough.
But she was utterly unconscious of her plainness of attire as she walked
unnoticed by the hurrying crowd that now and then pushed her against the
wall or the street posts in their haste.
Every one was full of the wedding and the subsequent festivities; the
name of Anne and of her groom was on every lip; there seemed no room in
Leipsic for anything but rejoicing. The air of gaiety, of idleness, and
holiday was accentuated by the great glory of the late afternoon sun
which filled the air with golden motes, blazed in golden flame in the
casement windows, gleamed on the weathercocks, and filled the upper
boughs of the elms and chestnuts in the squares and gardens.
As Rénèe was turning into one of these squares she met the Elector's
alchemist walking thoughtfully under the shade of the trees with a small
brass-covered book in his hand.
She would have passed and left him to his meditations, but he chanced to
see her and instantly paused and saluted her. He had a kindness for her;
she had always been gentle and interested in his work when they had
chanced to meet.
"This may remind you," he said, holding out the little volume, "of that
wonderful Book given by a Jew to the great Nicolas Flamel by which he
finally discovered the secret of secrets. Does he not describe it as
with brass covers, leaves of bark engraved with an iron pencil, and
symbolic pictures finely coloured?"
"And he discovered the stone?" asked Rénèe.
"Ay," answered Vanderlinden wistfully, "and in evidence of it may be
seen his statue to this day in Paris, together with fourteen churches
and seven hospitals that he founded with the gold he manufactured."
"And the secret died with him?"
"He disclosed it to no one," admitted the alchemist. "I bought this book
in memory of his—it cost but two florins and I doubt it is worth more."
He put the book under his arm and asked Rénèe if she would see his
house, which was but a few yards away; he had taken, he said, for his
stay in Leipsic, the dwelling of another alchemistral philosopher who
had lately gone travelling; this man had had a shop for perfumery,
soaps, and engraved gems which he—Vanderlinden—was continuing to hold
open, and where he did some little trade among those gathered in Leipsic
for the wedding.
"I would rather have stayed in Dresden," he added, "and concluded my
experiment there, but His Princely Grace insisting on my coming hither,
though not paying my expenses of the road, so I am obliged to make what
I can with these washes and unguents."
"I am sorry the experiment failed," said Rénèe gently. The occupation of
the alchemist seemed to her more worthy than that of most other men; at
least he had set his aim high, and was searching for what would benefit
mankind as much as it would himself.
"Perhaps the next may succeed," answered the alchemist diffidently, "but
I doubt if God hath reserved this great honour for me—this high favour."
They turned towards the house, which was situated at the corner of the
square, and entered the shop—a room which was opposite the parlour where
Vanderlinden had received the Elector.
This room faced west, and the full light of the setting sun poured
through the broad low window on to the shelves where stood the pots,
bottles, cases, boxes, vases containing the alchemist's wares, and on to
the long smooth counter where the glittering scales gleamed, and where
two men were leaning over a tray of engraved gems such as are used for
signet rings.
He behind the counter was the alchemist's foremost assistant, the
companion of all his wanderings, and the sharer of his fortunes—a lean,
silent Frenchman, named Duprès, who was a noted spirit raiser, and
possessed a mother-of-pearl table on which he could bring the angels to
discourse with him, and a tablet of polished jet in which he could
foresee future events.
He was now engaged in holding a violet stone, clear and pure as crystal
and engraved with the first labour of Hercules, against the strong
sunlight, which flashed through it, giving a glorious strength of colour
to the little square gem.
The customer was a young cavalier, not much over twenty, splendidly
vested in black velvet cross cut over stiff white satin; a cloak of
orange cloth hung from one shoulder, fastened across the breast with
cords of gold, three ruffs encircled his throat, the topmost or master
ruff being edged with silver lace and touching his ears.
His appearance was singularly charming; though rather below the average
height, he was extremely graceful, and he carried his small, well-shaped
head with the noble carriage of a fine stag; his features were
aristocratic and aquiline, and expressed gaiety, frankness, and good
humour; his thick, dark-brown hair fell in waves on to his ruff, and was
curled low on to the brow.
His well-formed right hand lay open on the counter, palm upwards, and
was filled with the sparkle and light of yellow and red stones.
Rénèe knew this young seigneur well; he was Louis of Nassau, the brother
and envoy of Anne's bridegroom, whose mouthpiece and proxy he had been
during the three years of the negotiations.
The waiting-woman, with her instinct and training of self-effacement,
was drawing back at sight of the young Count, but with his usual gay
friendliness he rose and addressed her, asking her opinion of the jewels
before him.
"I am a poor judge of such things," smiled Rénèe. "I do not know why I
am here at all, save that I was asked very courteously."
She came and stood by the counter, looking, with her habitual utter
indifference, at Louis of Nassau; she did not know much of him nor had
they ever spoken together further than a few words, but she did not like
him despite his courtesy, his charm, his undeniable attraction.
And this dislike was because he, a Protestant himself, had been eagerly
forwarding the marriage of his Papist brother with Protestant Anne,
because he was known to be looking for a wealthy bride himself, and
because she judged him frivolous, extravagant, and thoughtless.
"Will you be glad, seigneur," she asked with a flicker of curiosity,
"when His Highness, your brother's wedding is really accomplished?"
He raised his fresh young face quickly.
"If I shall be glad?" he said, and for the first time Rénèe noticed the
lines of fatigue and anxiety beneath the brilliant eyes and on the fair
brow.
"We shall all be glad," said Duprès, with the freedom he always assumed,
"when the little lady is safely in the Netherlands."
"Not I," said Rénèe. "I would rather live in Saxony than Brussels."
"Does the Lady Anne hold that opinion?" asked the Count.
The question at first amazed Rénèe, then she swiftly recalled how Anne
had been shut away and guarded by the Elector (her sickly
unattractiveness being more hedged about than beauty, for fear reports
of her should reach and disgust her prospective husband), and that Louis
could only have obtained rare glimpses of her, and never have had an
opportunity to know her temper nor her mind as the waiting-woman knew
both.
"My mistress is very glad to go to Brussels, and very devoted to His
Highness," she answered conventionally, adding, with more feeling, "She
is very young, princely Count, and frail, and the excitement of these
days exalts her spirit."
"She does not regret Saxony, I think," remarked the alchemist, "which is
well for the future tranquillity of His Highness."
"Nor is she afraid of a Papist Court, eh?" asked the young Count with a
frank laugh. "I believe the maiden thinks more of her gowns and her new
titles than of the sermons and prayer books she leaves behind."
He spoke carelessly, slipping a ring with a dark honey coloured stone on
his finger the while. Rénèe wondered at him.
"Her Grace will remain of the Reformed Faith," she said.
"'But she will live Catholicly,'" quoted the Count with a smile. He
spoke as if he was pleased (as indeed he was) that the laborious
negotiations had ended in the Prince getting what he had been striving
for from the first, namely, the lady without any conditions as to her
faith, for a Protestant wife was obviously impossible for a noble of
King Philip. Rénèe had watched the troubled course of the tangled
diplomacies of guardian and suitor with equal disdain for the Elector
who gave his niece to a Papist for his own convenience and the Prince
who took a bride, who was to him a heretic, merely because it suited his
ambitions.
Louis of Nassau noticed her silence; he had remarked before that she was
strangely quiet and also that she was exceedingly comely. His glance,
quick to appreciate and admire fair women, now fell kindly over her
graceful figure, her face so finely coloured and so delicate in line,
the rose carnation of lip and cheek, the glow of the heavy, carelessly
dressed hair.
"I wonder what you think of?" he said.
Rénèe started at the personal address, she had been so long a mere part
of the background that when one treated her as an individual it always
confused her.
"What should I think of, princely Count?" she answered. "Foolish things,
of course."
Louis handed the ring and the violet gem to Duprès, who packed them into
little cases of cedar wood.
"You do not look as if your thoughts were foolish," he replied, with
more gravity than she had ever associated with him.
"Nay, I think she is a very wise lady, noble seigneur," said the
alchemist.
"Your thoughts, then?" smiled Louis of Nassau.
Rénèe's deep-set indifference to all things overcame her momentary
confusion.
"I am too good a Protestant to rejoice at this marriage," she replied
quietly, "and my thoughts were all sad ones, noble Count, and did not in
any way touch your high policies."
Louis of Nassau answered gently; he knew something of her history.
"It is all a question of policy certainly," he paid her the compliment
of sincere speaking. "The marriage suits the Elector and my brother—the
lady too, I think—and religious differences are easily accommodated
among people of sense. The Prince is no fanatic—your faith will be
protected as long as you are in his household. He, too, was bred a
Protestant."
Rénèe could make no answer; she knew the Prince had left his faith when
the splendid heritages, rank, and honours of his cousin René of Orange
had fallen to him—his father had sent the German Protestant to the
Emperor's Court to become a Papist, and almost a Spaniard. Rénèe saw
nothing splendid in any of this—it was a piece with the rest of the
world.
"You dislike my brother?" asked Louis shrewdly.
"I like no one," said the waiting-woman calmly.
"Have you seen the Prince?"
"Nay; when His Highness came to Dresden I was very ill."
"I thought that you had not seen him," remarked Louis. "No one who has
seen him dislikes him."
"You put me in the wrong," protested Rénèe. "Who am I to judge great
ones? Take no heed of me, gracious Count. I am looking for a hero, and
that is as hard to find as the holy stone," she added, with a smile at
the alchemist.
"You have been reading Amadis de Gaul, or Charlemagne and his
paladins—fie, I did not think it of your gravity," jested Louis of
Nassau.
Rénèe flushed into animation, and it was like the sudden blooming of a
tightly closed flower, so did the quick flash of her feeling light her
features into beauty.
"There _were_ such men," she said, "and might be again, surely—do you
not believe so, Magister? And never were they more needed than now——"
She checked herself sharply and the lovely flush faded. She turned away
and picked up one of the slender glass bottles of essences Vanderlinden
had placed before her.
Louis of Nassau looked at her curiously. "She is beautiful," he thought.
"Perhaps one day you will find your hero and Vanderlinden his stone," he
said, and the sun flickered like a caress over his brilliant person and
his pleasant young face.
"Perhaps? Nay, surely," replied the alchemist. "Or if we do not, another
will. For both are there as surely as God is in heaven."
"You, too, think the world needs some knight, some paladin?" asked the
Count, drawing on his white gloves stitched with gold.
"I have travelled much," replied the alchemist, "and could not avoid
seeing, albeit that I was ever engaged in abstruse studies, the great
horrid cruelties and wrongs abroad, especially under the reign of His
Majesty King Philip, in whose dominions God grant me never to set foot
again. I was in England, princely seigneur, while he was King of that
country, and I did see things that made me weary of life. So, too, in
Spain from whence I fled hastily. And, lately, it is no better in the
Netherlands; indeed there are few places where a man can think as he
please and speak freely, save only in these states of Germany."
Louis of Nassau looked thoughtfully at the speaker, and then at Rénèe
whose fair head was bent over the rows of alabaster pots and bottles of
twisted glass and crystal. He had never lived under a tyrant, his brief
joyous life had passed in absolute freedom, and with him his faith was
not the result of conviction but of heritage. Still the old man's words
and the girl's eloquent face were not without effect on him; some
emotion strange and vague echoed in his heart, and he sighed as he took
the two little boxes from Duprès.
"There are many changes abroad," he said. "Who knows but that this hero
may appear to put straight all these tangled wrongs."
He took up his high-crowned white hat with the cluster of black plumes,
and, saluting all very pleasantly, left the shop.
"There goes no hero there at least," said Duprès softly, glancing
through the window at the Count, who glittered in the sun without. "He
spent fifty thalers to-day in unguents—conserve of violets, lotion of
citrons, sweetmeats of pistachio nut, rose and orange water!"
"Is his brother like him?" asked Rénèe.
"I have never seen the Prince of Orange," answered the alchemist, but
Duprès, who appeared to have been everywhere and seen every one,
declared he knew the Prince well by sight.
"He is more magnificent than Count Louis, and more to be feared though
so few years older—for he is certainly a great Prince. But prodigal and
greatly in debt, they say—and not very pious, nor straight-living—at
least, no more so than any man of his blood and youth."
"Ah, Dominus," said Rénèe, "cannot you look in your jet tablets and see
what the future of this marriage will be?"
"I have looked for the Elector time enough," replied Duprès with a
little smile, "and saw nothing but confusion."
"Have you tried to see the future of the poor Protestant peoples?" asked
Rénèe earnestly.
The Frenchman carefully put away the tray of gems.
"That is too large a thing to be looked for in a square of jet or any
magic mirror whatever," he replied.
"We must look for it in our own hearts," said Rénèe sadly. "Well, I have
out-stayed my leisure; give me leave to come another time and see your
treasures."
Vanderlinden took up a tall bottle of milk-white glass with a stopper of
scarlet porcelain and filled with jasmine essence; he offered it to
Rénèe with a half-awkward kindness.
The waiting-woman, who never received any kind of gift, felt the tears
swiftly sting her lids.
"I shall not come to see you since you treat me so well," she said, with
an eager little smile; she did not realize that she was the only lady
who had ever come to the shop without a cavalier to buy gifts for her,
nor that if she had been as other women Count Louis would have offered
her as much perfumery as she could need; she was unaware how her reserve
and her indifference hedged her from common courtesies. She did not miss
gallantry and compliments, but she often missed kindness, and therefore
the alchemist's action stirred her heart, while Count Louis' flattery
would have left her cold.
She passed out into the street, the aromatic odours of the shop still
about her. She saw Vanderlinden's two apprentices hurrying along with
rosettes of Anne's colours threaded with orange ribbons. The streets
were now in shadow, for the sun had set behind the houses, but over all
was that sense of festival, of excitement, and in the air were the names
of Anne and William of Orange.