The manners of Monsieur de Varicarville were at once simple and
elegant--there was none of the superfluous hyperbole of courts; there
was little even of the common exaggeration of society, in anything he
said. He neither expressed himself _ravished_ to make my acquaintance,
nor _delighted_ to see me; all he said was, that he would do
everything that depended upon him, to make me comfortable during my
stay at Sedan. And thus I always found him afterwards--neither what is
in general called blunt, which is more frequently rude, nor what is
usually called polite, which is in general hollow. He had too much
kindness of heart ever to offend, and too much sincerity ever to
flatter. But the goodness of his disposition, and the native grace of
his demeanour, gave, conjoined, that real _bienséance_, of which
courtly politeness is but an unsubstantial shadow. Poor Varicarville!
I owe thee such a tribute, best and most excellent of friends! And
though no epitaph hangs upon the tomb where thou sleepest, in the
hearts of all who knew thee thy memory is treasured and beloved.
After a few words of kindness, and having received the note addressed
to him from the Abbé de Retz, he gave me into the hands of the Count's
_maître d'hôtel_, telling him that I was the gentleman who had been so
long expected; and desiring him to see that I wanted nothing, till
such time as I was sufficiently familiarized with the place and its
customs to take care of myself. He then left me, and I was conducted
to a neat chamber with an anteroom, containing three truckle beds for
lackeys, a small writing or dressing cabinet, and several other
conveniences, which I had hardly expected in a castle so completely
full as the citadel of Sedan appeared to be. Before the _maître
d'hôtel_ left me, I requested that my horses might be taken care of,
and that my servant might be sent to me, hinting at the same time,
that if he brought me a cup of wine and something to eat, I should not
at all object, as I had tasted nothing all day except a wing of the
capon which Achilles had carried off from Verdun. My little attendant
soon appeared, loaded with a great many more provisions than I needed,
and congratulating both himself and me upon our sudden transposition
from Paris, and the meagre diet we had there observed, to such a land
of corn, wine, and oil.
While I was undressing, some thoughts would fain have intruded, which
I was very sure would have broken up my rest for the night. The
agitation of being in new, strange scenes, acting with people of whom
I yet knew hardly anything, and involved in schemes which at best were
hazardous, was quite enough to make sleep difficult, and I felt very
certain, that if I let my mind rest one moment on the thought of
Helen, and of the circumstances in which she might at that moment be
placed, all hope of repose--mental repose, at least--was gone--and
where is any exercise so exhausting to the body, as that anxious
occupation of the mind? The next morning I was hardly awake, when
Monsieur de Varicarville entered my chamber, and informed me that
Monsieur le Comte wished to see me; and dressing myself as fast as
possible, I hurried to the Prince's apartments, where I found him
still in bed. Varicarville left us, and the Count made me sit down by
his bedside.
"I have been thinking, De l'Orme," said he, "over the history you gave
me last night, and I again assure you that I sympathize not a little
with you. I am much older than you, and the first hasty torrent of
passion has passed away at my time of life; but I can still feel, and
know, that love such as you profess towards this young lady, whom your
mother has educated, is not a passion easily to be rooted out. Nor is
the death of her brother by your hand an insurmountable obstacle. She
evidently does not know it herself; and it would be a cruel piece of
delicacy in you either to let her know it, or to sacrifice both her
happiness and your own for such a scruple."
The picture of Helen in the arms of her brother's murderer, and the
horror she would feel at his every caress, if she did but know that he
was so, rose up frightfully before my imagination, as the Count spoke;
and, without replying, I covered my eyes with my hands, as if to shut
the image out.
"This is an age, Monsieur de l'Orme," said the Count, "in which few
people would suffer, as you seem to do, for having shed their
fellow-creature's blood; and yet, I would not have you feel less.
Feel, if you will, but still govern your feelings. Every one in this
world has much to suffer; the point of wisdom is to suffer well. But
think over what I have said. Time may soon bring about a change in the
face of affairs. If fortune smiles upon me, I shall soon have the
power of doing greater things than obtaining letters of nobility for
your fair lady's father. Thus the only substantial objection to your
marriage will be removed. From what you said of the house where you
last saw her, and the liveries of the servants, it must have been the
hotel of the Maréchal de Chatillon; and the youth whose conversation
you overheard was probably his nephew; but fear not for that. He is a
hair-brained youth, little capable of winning the heart of a person
such as you describe. The only thing that surprises me is, that
Arnault, her father, should have acquired any degree of intimacy with
so proud a man as Chatillon; but that very circumstance will be some
excuse for asking nobility for him; and the favour will come with the
more grace, as Chatillon is somewhat a personal enemy of my own."
I thanked the Prince for his kind intentions, though I saw no great
likelihood of their fulfilment, and fancied that, like the cottager in
the fairy tale, Monsieur le Comte imagined himself a great conqueror,
and gave away crowns and sceptres, though he had not two roods of land
himself. But I was mistaken: the Count's expectations were much more
likely to be accomplished than I had supposed, as I soon perceived,
when he began to explain to me his views and situation.
When a man's mind is in doubt upon any subject, and he has heard
reiterated a thousand times the various reasonings of his friends,
without being able to choose his part determinately, it is wonderful
with what eagerness he seeks for any new opinion to put him out of
suspense--the most painful situation in which the human mind can
remain. Thus the Count de Soissons, after having entertained me
shortly with my own affairs, entered full career upon his; and briefly
touching upon the causes which originally compelled him to quit the
court of France, and retire to Sedan, he proceeded:--
"Here I would willingly have remained quiet and tranquil, till the
course of time brought some change. I neither sought to return to a
court where the king was no longer sovereign, nor to cabal against the
power of a minister upheld by the weakness of the monarch. All I
required was to be left at peace in this asylum, where I could be free
from the insult and degradation which had been offered me at the court
of France. I felt that I was sufficiently upholding the rights and
privileges which had been transmitted to me by my ancestors, and
maintaining the general cause of the nobility of France, by submitting
to a voluntary exile, rather than yield to the ambitious pretensions
of a misproud minister; and nothing would have induced me to raise the
standard of civil war, even though the king's own good was to be
obtained thereby, if Richelieu had but been content to abstain from
persecuting me in my retirement. Not the persuasions of the Dukes of
Vendome and La Valette, nor the entreaties of my best friend the Duke
of Bouillon, nor the promises and seductions of the house of Austria,
would have had any effect, had I been left at peace: but no! never for
a day has the cardinal ceased to use every measure in his power to
drive me to revolt. The truth is this: he calculates upon the death of
my cousin Louis, and upon seizing on the regency during the dauphin's
minority. He knows that there is no one who could and would oppose him
but myself. The Duke of Orleans is hated and despised throughout
France--the house of Condé is bound to the cardinal by alliance. He
knows that he could not for a moment stand against me, without the
king's support and authority; and he has resolved to ruin me while
that support still lasts. For this purpose, he at one time offers me
the command of one of the armies, that I may return and fall into his
power; he at another threatens to treat me as a rebel and a traitor.
He now proposes to _me_, a prince of the blood royal of France, a
marriage with his upstart niece; and then menaces me with confiscation
and attainder; while at the same time my friends on every side press
me to shake off what they call apathy--to give my banner to the wind,
and, marching upon Paris, to deliver the country, the king, and
myself, of this nightmare cardinal, who sits a foul incubus upon the
bosom of the state, and troubles its repose with black and frightful
dreams."
As he went on, I could see that Monsieur le Comte worked himself up
with his own words to no small pitch of wrath; calling to mind, one by
one, the insults and injuries that the cardinal had heaped upon him,
till all his slumbering anger woke up at once, and with a flashing
eye, he added, "And so I will. By Heaven! I will hurl him from his
usurped seat, and put an end to this tyranny, which has lasted too
long." But very soon after, relapsing again into his irresolution, he
asked, "What think you, Monsieur de l'Orme? Should I not be justified?
Am I not called upon so to do?"
"I would pray your Highness," replied I, "not to make me a judge in so
difficult a point; I am too young and inexperienced to offer an
opinion where such great interests are concerned."
"Fie, fie!" cried he with a smile; "you, who have already acted the
conspicuous part of member of the insurrectionary council of
Catalonia! We are all inexperienced, in comparison with you.--Tell me,
what had I better do?"
"If I must give an opinion, monseigneur," I replied, "I think you had
better endure as long as you can, so as to leave no doubt in your own
eyes--in those of France--in those of the world--that you are
compelled to draw the sword for the defence of your own honour, and
for the freedom of your country. But once having drawn the sword, cast
away the scabbard."
"Then I am afraid the sword is half drawn already," said the Count.
"There are eight thousand armed men in Sedan. Fresh troops are pouring
in upon me every day. The news has gone abroad that I am about to take
the field; and volunteers are flocking from every quarter to my
standard. Yesterday, I had letters from at least sixty different parts
of France, assuring me that, one battle gained, but to confirm the
fearful minds of the populace, and that scarce a province will refrain
from taking arms in my cause. De Retz is in hopes even of securing the
Bastile; and he has already, with that fine art which you have
remarked in him, bound to my cause thousands of those persons in the
capital who in popular tumults, guide and govern the multitude. I mean
the higher class of paupers--the well-educated, the well-dressed,
sometimes even the well-born, who are paupers the more, because they
have more wants than the ostensible beggar; these De Retz has found
out in thousands, has visited them in private, relieved their wants,
soothed their pride, familiarized himself with their habits and
wishes, and, in short, has raised up a party for me which almost
insures me the capital."
This last part of the Count's speech instantly let me into the secret
of Monsieur de Retz's first visit to me. My good landlady's tongue had
probably not been idle concerning what she conceived my necessitous
situation; and, upon the alert for all such cases of what Monsieur le
Comte called higher pauperism, De Retz had lost no time in seeking to
gain me, as he had probably gained many others, by a display of
well-timed and discriminating charity.
God knows, I was not a man to look upon wealth and splendour as a
virtue in others, nor to regard misfortune and poverty as a vice; and
yet, with one of those contradictory weaknesses with which human
nature swarms, I felt inexpressibly hurt and mortified at having been
taken for a beggar myself.
Monsieur le Comte saw a sudden flush mount up into my cheek, and
judging from his own great and noble heart, he mistook the cause. "I
see what you think, Monsieur de l'Orme," said he; "you judge it mean
to work with such tools; but you are wrong. In such an enterprise as
this, it is my duty to my country to use every means, to employ all
measures, to insure that great and decisive preponderance, which will
bring about success, without any long protracted and sanguinary
struggle."
I assured him that I agreed with him perfectly, and that I entertained
no such thoughts as he suspected. "So far from it," replied I, "that
if your highness will point out to me any service I can render you, be
it of the same kind you have just mentioned, or not, you will find me
ready to obey you therein, with as much zeal as Monsieur de Retz."
"There is a candour about you, my good De l'Orme," replied the Count,
"which I could not doubt for a moment, if I would: but what would all
my sage counsellors say--the suspicious Bouillon, the obdurate
Bardouville--if I were to intrust missions of such importance to one
of whom I know so little?--one who, they might say, was only
instigated to seek me by a temporary neglect of Richelieu, and who
would easily be led to join the other party, by favour and
preferment?"
"I am not one to commit such treachery, my lord," replied I, hastily.
"I am ready to swear before God, upon his holy altar, neither to
abandon nor betray your Highness.
"Nay, nay," said the Count de Soissons, smiling at my heat, "swear
not, my dear count! Unhappily, in our days, the atmosphere which
surrounds that holy altar you speak of, is so thick with perjuries,
that an honest man can hardly breathe therein. I doubt you not, De
l'Orme; your word is as good to me as if you swore a thousand oaths;
and I am much inclined to give you a commission of some importance,
both because I know I can rely upon your wit and your honour, and
because your person is not so well known in Paris as the other
gentlemen of my household. But to return to what we were saying; still
give me your opinion about drawing the sword, as you have termed it;
ought I, or ought I not?"
"By my faith, your Highness," replied I, "I think it is drawn already,
as you yourself have admitted."
"Not so decidedly," answered the Count, "but that it can be sheathed
again; and if this cardinal, alarmed at these preparations, as I know
he is, will but yield such terms of compromise as may insure my own
safety and that of my companions, permit the thousands of exiles who
are longing for their native country to return, and secure the freedom
and the peace of France, far, far be it from me ever to shed one drop
of Gallic blood."
"But does not your highness still continue your preparations, then?"
demanded I.
"Most assuredly," replied the Count. "The matter must come to a
conclusion speedily, either by a negotiation and treaty, which will
insure us our demands, or by force of arms; and therefore it is well
to be prepared for the latter, though most willing to embrace the
former alternative."
"And does the minister seem inclined to treat?" asked I.
"He always pretends that he is so," replied Monsieur de Soissons. "But
who can judge of what his inclinations are by what he says? his whole
life is a vizard--as hollow--as false--as unlike the real face of the
man. We all know how negotiations can be protracted; and he has used
every means to keep this in suspense till he could free himself from
other embarrassments. He asked our demands, and then misunderstood
them; and then required a fuller interpretation of particular parts;
and then mistook the explanation--then let a month or two slip by; and
then again required to know our demands, as if he had never heard
them; and then began over again the same endless train of irritating
delay. But, however, there is one of our demands which we will never
relinquish, and which he will never grant, except he be compelled,
which is the solemn condemnation and relinquishment of all special
commissions."
"I am not very well aware of the meaning of that term," said I: "may I
crave your highness to explain it to me?"
"I do not wonder at your not knowing it," answered the Count: "it is
an iniquity of his own invention, totally unknown to the laws of
France. When any one was accused of a crime formerly, the established
authorities of the part of the country in which it was averred to have
been committed took cognisance of the matter, and the accused was
tried before the usual judges; but now, on the contrary, on any such
accusation, this cardinal issues his special commission to various
judges named by himself, uniformly his most devoted creatures, and
often the personal enemies of the accused. Under such an abuse, who
can escape? False accusers can always be procured; and where the
judges are baser still, justice is out of the question. The law of
France is no longer administered, but the personal resentments of
Richelieu."
The conversation continued for some time in the same course, and
turned but little to the advantage of the minister. The Count de
Soissons had real and serious cause of indignation against Richelieu,
on his own account; and this made him see all the public crimes of
that great but cruel and vindictive minister in the most unfavourable
light. The stimulus of neglect had, in my mind, also excited feelings
which made me lend an attentive ear to the grievances and wrongs that
the prince was not slow in urging, and my blood rose warmly against
the tyranny which had driven so many of the great and noble from their
country, and spilt the most generous blood in France upon the
scaffold.
I have through life seen self-interest and private pique bias the
judgment of the wisest and the best intentioned; and I never yet in
all the wide world met with a man who, in judging of circumstances
wherein he himself was any way involved, did not suffer himself to be
prejudiced by one personal feeling or another. The most despotic lords
of their own passions have always some favourite that governs them
themselves. Far be it from me, then, to say, I was not very willing
and easy to be convinced that the man who had neglected me had also
abused his power, tyrannized over his fellow-subjects, and wronged
both his king and his country. I was in the heat of youth, soon
prepossessed, and already prejudiced; and whatever I might think
afterwards, I, at the moment, looked upon the enterprise which was
contemplated by Monsieur le Comte as one of the most noble and
justifiable that had ever been undertaken to free one's native country
from a tyrant.
There was also in the manners of the Count de Soissons that
inexpressible charm which leaves the judgment hardly free. It is
impossible to say exactly in what it consisted. I have seen many men
with the same princely air and demeanour, and with the same suavity of
manner, who did not in the least possess that sort of fascination
which, like the cestus of the goddess, won all hearts for him that was
endowed with it. I was not the only one that felt the charm. Everybody
that surrounded the prince--everybody that, in any degree, came in
contact with him, were all affected alike towards him. Even the common
multitude experienced the same; and the shouts with which the populace
of Paris greeted his appearance on some day of ceremony, are said to
have been the first cause of the Cardinal's jealous persecution of
him. One saw a fine and noble spirit, a generous and feeling heart
shining through manners that were at once dignified while they were
affable, and warm though polished; and it might be the conviction of
his internal rectitude, and his perfect sincerity, which added the
master-spell to a demeanour eminently graceful. Whatever it was, the
fascination on my mind was complete; and I hardly know what I would
have refused to undertake in the service of such a prince. At the end
of our conversation, scarcely knowing that I did so, I could not help
comparing in my own mind my present interview with the Count de
Soissons, and that which I had formerly had with the Cardinal de
Richelieu; and how strange was the difference of my feelings at the
end of each! I left the minister, cold, dissatisfied, dispirited; and
I quitted the Count de Soissons with every hope and every wish ardent
in his favour; with all my best feelings devoted to his service, and
my own expectations of the future raised and expanded by my communion
with him, like a flower blown fully out by the influence of a genial
day of summer.
On leaving the Count's apartments, I passed through a room in which I
found Monsieur de Varicarville with several other gentlemen, to whom
he introduced me; and we then proceeded to the grand hall of the
château, where we were met by the personal suite of the Duke of
Bouillon, who divided the interior of the citadel equally with his
princely guest. The duke had this morning made some twinges of the
gout an excuse for taking his breakfast with the Duchess in his own
apartment, and the Count did so habitually; but for the rest of the
party, two long tables were spread, each containing fifty covers,
which were not long in finding employers. The table soon groaned with
the breakfast, and every one drew his knife and fell to, with the more
speed, as it had been announced that the tilt-yard of the castle would
be open at eight of the clock, to such as chose to run at the ring.
After which there would be a _course des têtes_. Neither of these
exercises I had ever seen, and consequently was not a little eager for
the conclusion of the meal, although I could but hope to be a
spectator.