bride of God in the cloister!” was his unvarying reply. No farther
answer would he give—no disclosure of his motives would he make even to
his wisest councillors. Some indeed augured that the good monarch’s
anger was but feigned, and that deeming her sufficiently punished
already he was desirous still of forcing her to be the bride of him to
whom she had been destined, and whom she still, despite her brief
inconstancy, unquestionably worshipped in her heart. For all men still
supposed that at the last Charles would forgive the hapless girl, and so
relieve her from the living tomb that even now seemed yawning to enclose
her. But others—and they were those who understood the best mood of
France’s second Henry—vowed that the wrath was real; and felt, that,
though no man could fathom the cause of his stern ire, he never would
forgive the guilty girl, whose frailty, as he swore, had caused such
strife and bloodshed.
But now it was high noon, and forth filed from the palace gates a long
and glittering train—Henry and all his court, with all the rank and
beauty of the realm, knights, nobles, peers and princes, damsels and
dames—the pride of France and Europe. But at the monarch’s right walked
one, clad in no gay attire—pale, languid, wounded and warworn—Charles
de La-Hirè, the victor. A sad deep gloom o’ercast his large dark eye,
and threw a shadow over his massy forehead—his lip had forgot to smile!
his glance to lighten! yet was there no remorse, no doubt, no wavering
in his calm, noble features—only fixed, settled sorrow. His long and
waving hair of the darkest chesnut, evenly parted on his crown, fell
down on either cheek, and flowed over the broad plain collar of his
shirt which, decked with no embroidery lace, was folded back over the
cape of a plain black pourpoint, made of fine cloth indeed, but neither
laced nor passemented, nor even slashed with velvet—a broad scarf of
black taffeta supported his weapon—a heavy double-edged straight
broadsword, and served at the same time to support his left arm, the
sleeve of which hung open, tied in with points of ribbon. His trunk-hose
and his nether stocks of plain black silk, black velvet shoes and a
slouched hat, with neither feather nor cockade, completed the suit of
melancholy mourning which he wore. In the midst of the train was a yet
sadder sight, Marguerite de Vaudreuil, robed in the snow-white vestments
of a novice, with all her glorious ringlets flowing in loose redundance
over her shoulders and her bosom, soon to be cut close by the fatal
scissors—pale as the monumental stone and only not as rigid. A
hard-featured gray-headed monk, supported her on either hand—and a long
train of priests swept after with crucifix and rosary and censer.
Scarce had this strange procession issued from the great gates of les
Tournelles, the death-bells tolling still from every tower and steeple,
before another train, gloomier yet and sadder, filed out from the gate
of the royal tilt-yard, at the farther end of which stood a superb
pavilion. Sixteen black Benedictine monks led the array chanting the
mournful _miserere_—next behind these, strange contrast!—strode on the
grim gaunt form, clad in his blood-stained tabard, and bearing full
displayed his broad two-handed axe—fell emblem of his odious
calling!—the public executioner of Paris. Immediately in the rear of
this dark functionary, not borne by his bold captains, nor followed by
his gallant vassals with arms reversed and signs of martial sorrow, but
ignominiously supported by the grim-visaged ministers of the law, came
on the bier of Armand, the last Count de Laguy.
Stretched in a coffin of the rudest material and construction, with his
pale visage bare, displaying still in its distorted lines and sharpened
features the agonies of mind and body which had preceded his untimely
dissolution, the bad but haughty noble was borne to his long home in the
grave-yard of Notre Dâme. His sword, broken in twain, was laid across
his breast, his spurs had been hacked from his heels by the base cleaver
of the scullion, and his reversed escutcheon was hung above his head.
Narrowly saved by his wronged kinsman’s intercession from dying by the
headsman’s weapon ere yet his mortal wounds should have let out his
spirit—he was yet destined to the shame of a dishonored sepulchre—such
was the King’s decree, alas! inexorable.
The funeral train proceeded—the King and his court followed. They
reached the grave-yard, hard beneath those superb gray towers!—they
reached the grave, in a remote and gloomy corner, where, in
unconsecrated earth, reposed the executed felon—the priests attended
not the corpse beyond the precincts of that unholy spot—their solemn
chant died mournfully away—no rites were done, no prayers were said
above the senseless clay—but in silence was it lowered into the ready
pit—silence disturbed only by the deep hollow sound of the clods that
fell fast and heavy on the breast of the guilty noble! For many a day a
headstone might be seen—not raised by the kind hands of sorrowing
friends nor watered by the tears of kinsmen—but planted there, to tell
of his disgraceful doom—amid the nameless graves of the self-slain—and
the recorded resting-places of well-known thieves and felons. It was of
dark gray free-stone, and it bore these brief words—brief words, but in
that situation speaking the voice of volumes.
Ci git Armand
Le Dernier Comte de Laguy.
Three forms stood by the grave—stood till the last clod had been heaped
upon its kindred clay, and the dark headstone planted. Henry, the King!
and Charles, the Baron De La-Hirè; and Marguerite de Vaudreuil.
And as the last clod was flattened down upon the dead, after the stone
was fixed, De La-Hirè crossed the grave to the despairing girl, where
she had stood gazing with a fixed rayless eye on the sad ceremony and
took her by the hand, and spoke so loud that all might hear his words,
while Henry looked on calmly but not without an air of wondering
excitement.
“Not that I did not love thee,” he said, “Marguerite! Not that I did not
pardon thee thy brief inconstancy, caused as it was by evil arts of
which we will say nothing now—since he who plotted them hath suffered
even above his merits, and is—we trust—now pardoned! Not for these
causes, nor for any of them—have I declined thine hand thus far—but
that the King commanded, judging it in his wisdom best for both of us.
Now Armand is gone hence—and let all doubt and sorrow go hence with
him! Let all your tears, all my suspicions be buried in his grave
forever. I take your hand, dear Marguerite—I take you as mine honored
and loved bride—I claim you mine forever!”
Thus far the girl had listened to him, not blushingly, nor with a
melting eye; nor with any sign of renewed hope or rekindled happiness in
her pale features—but with cold resolute attention—but now she put
away his hand very steadily, and spoke with a firm unfaltering voice.
“Be not so weak!” she said. “Be not so weak, Charles de La-Hirè!—nor
fancy me so vain! The weight and wisdom of years have passed above my
head since yester morning—then was I a vain, thoughtless girl—now am I
a stern wise woman. That I have sinned is very true—that I have
betrayed thee—wronged thee! It may be, had you spoke pardon
yesterday—it might have been all well! It may be it _had been_ dishonor
in you to take me to your arms—but if to do so had been dishonor
yesterday, by what is it made honor now? No! no! Charles de La-Hirè—no!
no!—I had refused thee yesterday, hadst thou been willing to redeem me,
by self-sacrifice, _then_ from the convent walls!—I had refused thee
_then_, with love warming my heart toward thee—in all honor! Force me
not to reject thee _now_ with scorn and hatred. Nor dare to think that
Marguerite de Vaudreuil will owe to man’s compassion, what she owes not
to love! Peace! Charles de La-Hirè—I say, peace! my last words to thee
have been spoken, and never will I hear more from thee! And now, Sir
King, hear thou—may God judge between thee and me, as thou hast judged.
If I _was_ frail and fickle, nature and God made woman weak and
credulous—but made man _not_ wise, to deceive and ruin her. If I sinned
deeply against this Baron De La-Hirè—I sinned not knowingly, nor of
premeditation! If I sinned deeply, more deeply was I sinned
against—more deeply was I left to suffer!—even hadst thou heaped no
more brands upon the burning. If to bear hopeless love—to pine with
unavailing sorrow—to repent with continual remorse—to writhe with
trampled pride!—if these things be to suffer, then, Sir King, had I
enough suffered without thy _just_ interposition!” As she spoke, a
bitter sneer curled her lip for a moment; but as she saw Henry again
about to speak, a wilder and higher expression flashed over all her
features—her form appeared to distend—her bosom heaved—her eye
glared—her ringlets seemed to stiffen, as if instinct with life “Nay!”
she cried, in a voice clear as the strain of a silver trumpet—“nay!
thou _shalt_ hear me out—and thou didst swear yesterday I should live
in a cloister cell forever!—and I replied to thy words _then_, ‘not
long!’—I have thought better _now_—and _now_ I answer ‘_never_!’ Lo
here!—lo here! ye who have marked the doom of Armand—mark now the doom
of Marguerite! Ye who have judged the treason, mark the doom of the
traitress!” And with the words, before any one could interfere, even had
they suspected her intentions, she raised her right hand on high, and
all then saw the quick twinkle of a weapon, and struck herself, as it
seemed, a quick slight blow immediately under the left bosom! It seemed
a quick slight blow! but it had been so accurately studied—so steadily
aimed and fatally—that the keen blade, scarcely three inches long and
very slender, of the best of Milan steel, with nearly a third of the
hilt, was driven home into her very heart—she spoke no syllable
again!—nor uttered any cry!—nor did a single spasm contract her pallid
features, a single convulsion distort her shapely limbs! but she leaped
forward, and fell upon her face, quite dead, at the King’s feet!
Henry smiled not again for many a day thereafter—Charles De La Hirè
died very old, a Carthusian monk of the strictest order, having mourned
sixty years and prayed in silence for the sorrows and the sins of that
most hapless being.
-----
[1] See the Duello, page 85.
* * * * *
THE STRANGER’S FUNERAL.
BY N. C. BROOKS.
A solitary hearse without mourner or friend wheeled by me with
unceremonious speed. It filled my heart with feelings of the
most chilling desolation, which were augmented perhaps by the
peculiar gloom of the evening. I reached the rude grave in which
the corpse was deposited, and learned from the menial who was
performing the last rites that it was a young German of fine
talents, with whom I had travelled a few months before, who, far
from his home and friends, had fallen a victim to the prevailing
epidemic.—Letter of a Friend.
No solemn bell pealed on the air,
No train in sable gloom
Moved slow with the holy man of prayer
To stand around his tomb;
The hearse rolled on without sign of love
To the church, in lonely woe,
Where bent the solemn heavens above
The opened grave below:
But he recked not of the heavens o’ercast,
Or the yawning gulf of death;
For with him Earth’s bitterness had passed,
Ere passed his fleeting breath.
The stranger pressed a lonely bed,
No smiles dispelled the gloom
Of the dark and funeral shades that spread
Around his dying room;
And his heart with grief did melt,
And he wandered in fevered dreams
To the home where the loved of his youth still dwelt,
By the side of his own blue streams:
His heart for their voices yearned,
And the warm tears fell like rain,
As his dying eyes to the home were turned
That he ne’er should see again.
The stranger’s griefs are o’er,
And his body lies alone,
From his friends afar on a foreign shore
Without a funeral stone;
And long shall voices call,
And midnight tapers burn
For him that is bound in death’s cold thrall,
But he shall no more return:
He shall return no more
From his lowly sleep in dust,
’Till the trump announce death’s bondage o’er,
And the “rising of the just.”
* * * * *
THE FIRST STEP.
BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.
“Well met, Harry,” exclaimed Edward Morton, as he encountered his friend
Wilford in Broadway, “I have two questions to ask you. In the first
place, what do you call that odd-looking vehicle in which I saw you
riding yesterday? and in the second, who was that pretty little sister
Ruth seated so demurely beside you?”
“My new carriage,” said Harry, laughing, “having been invented by
myself, has the honor to bear my name; it is called a Wilford; I will
sell it to you cheap, if you like it, for that booby Danforth has
ordered one of the same pattern, and I will never sport mine after he
comes out with his.”
“And so because a fool follows your lead you throw up your cards; you
will have enough to do if you carry out that rule in all your actions.
Thank you for your kind offer; but really I am neither rich nor
fashionable enough to drive about town in such a Welsh butter-tub. Now,
answer my second question; who is the lady;—has she been named in honor
of the vehicle?”
“No, but she will probably bear the name of its inventor in due time.”
“Can it be possible, Harry? have you really determined to turn Benedict
before the pleasures of freedom have palled upon your taste? Have you
seriously reflected upon all you are about to relinquish? Have you
thought upon the pleasant _tête-à-têtes_, the agreeable flirtations, the
many delicious ‘love-passages’ which the admired Harry Wilford is
privileged to enjoy while he roves at large, but which will hereafter be
denied to him who wears the clanking fetters of matrimony?”
“I have thought of every thing, Ned; and, to tell you the truth, I am
beginning to get tired of the aimless, profitless life I now lead.”
“And, therefore, you are going to turn merchant and marry; you will have
a considerable amount to add to profit and loss by these experiments.
Pray who is the enchantress that has woven so wondrous a spell of
transformation?”
“She bears the primitive name of Rachel, and was both born and bred in
the little village of Westbury, where, as I am told, a fashionably cut
coat or one of Leary’s hats would be regarded as a foreign curiosity.
She has never stirred beyond the precincts of her native place until
this spring, when she accompanied a newly married relative to our gay
city. Indeed she has been kept so strictly within the pale of her
society, that if her cousin had not fortunately married out of it, the
lovely Rachel would probably have walked quietly to meeting with some
grave young broad-brim, and contented herself with a drab bonnet all her
life.”
“So your inamorata is country bred. By Jupiter I shall begin to believe
in the revival of witchcraft. Is she rich, Harry?”
“I see the drift of your question, Ned; but you are mistaken if you
think I have looked on her through golden spectacles. She is an orphan
with sufficient property to render her independent of relatives, but not
enough to entice a fortune-hunter.”
“Well, if any one but yourself had told me that Harry Wilford, with all
his advantages of _purse_ and _person_, had made choice of a little
rusticated Quakeress to be his bride, I could not have believed it,”
said Morton; “pray do you expect this pretty Lady Gravely to preside at
the exquisite dinners for which your bachelor’s establishment has long
been famous? or do you intend to forego such vulgar enjoyments for the
superior pleasures of playing Darby to Mrs. Wilford’s Joan in your
chimney corner?”
“No quizzing, Ned,” said Wilford, smiling, “Rachel has been well
educated, and the staid decorum of the sect has not destroyed her native
elegance of manner.”
“But the _drab bonnet_, Harry:—can _you_, the pride of your tailor and
the envy of your less tasteful friends,—_you_, the very prince of
Broadway exquisites,—you, the American Brummel, who would as willingly
have been caught picking a pocket, as wearing a glove two days, a hat
two weeks, or a coat two months,—can you venture to destroy the
reputation which you have acquired at such cost, by introducing a drab
bonnet to the acquaintance of your be-plumed and be-flowered female
friends?”
“Wait awhile, Edward; Rachel has not yet learned to admire the gayeties
of our city; her eyes have been too long accustomed to the ‘sober
twilight gray,’ and she is rather dazzled than pleased with the splendor
of fashionable society, but she has too much of womanly feelings to
continue long insensible to womanly vanity.”
“Well, success to you, Harry, but let me beg you to lay an interdict on
that ugly bonnet as soon as you have a right to exercise your marital
authority.”
Wilford laughed, and the two gentlemen parted; the one to fulfil an
engagement with the pretty Quakeress, and the other to smoke a cigar,
drink a mint julep, and laugh at his friend’s folly.
Harry Wilford had been so unlucky as to come into possession of a large
fortune as soon as he attained his majority. I am not in error, gentle
reader, when I say he was _unlucky_, for daily experience bears witness
to the fact, that in this country, at least in nine cases out of ten, a
large inheritance is a great misfortune. The records of gay life in
every large city prove that the most useless, most ignorant, most
vicious, and often the most degraded among the youth, are usually the
sons of plodding and hoarding parents, who have pawned health and
happiness, aye, and sometimes _integrity_—the very life of the soul—to
procure the gold which brings the destruction of their children. Wilford
had passed through college with the reputation of being one of the most
gifted and most indolent of scholars, while his eccentric fits of study,
which served to give him the highest rank in his class, only showed how
much more he might have done, if industry and perseverance had been
allowed to direct his pursuits. Like his career in the university had
been his course through life. With much latent energy of character he
was too infirm of purpose to become distinguished either for virtue or
talent. The curse of Ephraim seemed to have fallen upon the child of
prosperity, and the impressive words of the ancient Patriarch: “Unstable
as water, thou shalt not excel,” might have shadowed forth his destiny.
His fine talents were wasted in empty witticisms; his classical taste
only served to direct his lavish expenditure, and his really noble
feelings were frittered away in hollow friendship, or in transitory
attachments. Handsome, brilliant, and, above all, rich, he became the
idol of a coterie, and intoxicated by the incense which smoked before
him, he did not perceive that its subtle influence enervated all his
nobler faculties. Yet Wilford had escaped the contagion of vice. The
dark stain of criminal excess, which too often sullies the cloth of gold
more deeply than it does the coat of frieze, had never fallen upon his
garments. He could not forget the trembling hand which had been laid
upon his infant head when he offered up his innocent prayers at a
mother’s knee. He remembered her dying supplication that her child might
be kept “unspotted from the world,” and her gentle face, beaming with
unutterable purity and love, often interposed itself between his and his
tempter, when his heart would have failed from very weakness.
Harry Wilford had completed his thirtieth summer and yet he was a
bachelor. The artillery of bright eyes and brighter smiles had been
levelled at him in vain; the gentler weapons of sweet words and soft
glances had been equally ineffectual. His heart had been captured again
and again, but it was a far easier task to _gain_ than to _keep_ it.
Indeed it was like an ill-garrisoned border fortress, and generally
surrendered at discretion to the first enemy that sat down before it,
who was sure to be soon driven out in turn by another victorious
assailant. He was too universal a lover, and until, like Apelles, he
could unite in one woman the charms which he admired in twenty, there
seemed little probability of his ever being won to wear the chain. The
truth was, that of the many who courted the attentions of the handsome
Mr. Wilford, there was none that seemed to have discovered the fine gold
which lay beneath the surface of his character. The very exuberance of
flowers and fruit which the soil produced, prevented one from expecting
any hidden treasure, for it is not often that the precious things of
earth are found beneath its gay adornments. We look for the diamond, not
under the bank of violets but in the rugged bosom of the mountain, and
thus Wilford’s friends, content with the beautiful blossoms of fancy and
wit which he lavishly flung around, suspected not the noble gifts of
intellect which he possessed.
Wilford had frequently imagined himself in love, but something had
always occurred to undeceive him and to resolve his pleasant fancies
with very disagreeable facts. He had learned that the demon of
selfishness often lurks under the form of an angel of light, and he
began to distrust many of the fair beings who bestowed upon him their
gentle smiles. He had received more than one severe lesson in human
nature, and it was very soon after officiating as groomsman at the
bridal of a lovely girl whose faith had once been pledged to him, that
he first met the young and guileless Quakeress. There was something so
pure and vestal-like in the delicate complexion, soft blue eye, and
simply braided hair of the gentle Rachel, that Wilford was instantly
charmed. His eye, so long dazzled with the gorgeous draperies,
glittering jewels, and well-displayed beauties of fashionable belles,
rested with a sense of relief on the sober French gray silk, and
transparent lawn neckerchief which so carefully shaded the charms of the
fair rustic. He saw the prettiest of tiny feet peeping from beneath a
robe of far more decorous length than the laws of fashion then
allowed—the whitest of white hands were unadorned by a single
jewel—and the most snowy of necks was only discovered by the swan-like
grace which rendered it visible above its envious screen of muslin. Even
in the society of Friends, where a beautiful complexion is almost as
common to the females as a pair of eyes to each face, Rachel was
remarkable for the peculiar delicacy of hers. It was not of that waxy,
creamy tint, so often considered the true fashionable and aristocratic
complexion, because supposed to be an evidence that the “winds of
heaven” have never visited the face except through the blinds of a
carriage; nor was it the flake-white and carmine-red which often claims
for its possessor the reputation of a brilliant tincture of the skin.
Even the old and worn-out similes of the lily and the rose, would have
failed to give an idea of the delicate hues which added such a charm to
Rachel’s countenance, for the changing glow of her soft cheek, and the
tracery of blue veins which adorned her snowy brow could never be imaged
by a flower of the field. Harry Wilford thought he had never seen
anything so exquisitely lovely, so purely fair, as that sweet face when
in perfect repose, or so vividly bright as it seemed when lighted by the
blush of modesty. There are some faces which require shadows to perfect
their beauty; the eye, though bright, must flash beneath jetty lashes;
the brow, though white, must gleam amid raven tresses or half the effect
is lost. But Rachel’s face, like that of joyous childhood, was all
light. Her hair was silky and soft as an infant’s, her eyes blue as the
summer heaven, her lips like an opening rose-bud—it was a face like
spring sunshine, all brightness and all beauty.
Rachel had been left an orphan in her infancy, and the relatives to whom
she was indebted for her early nurture were among the straitest of a
strait sect, consequently she had imbibed their rigid ideas of dress and
manners. Indeed she had never wasted a thought upon the pomps and
vanities of the ‘world’s people,’ until she visited the gay metropolis.
The sneers which her plain dress occasioned in the circle where she now
moved, and the merry jibes which young and thoughtless companions cast
upon her peculiar tenets of faith, aroused all the latent pride of her
nature, until she actually felt a degree of triumph in exhibiting her
quaint costume in society.