Which shows the truth of the French adage, "L'habit ne fait pas le
moine."
I know I am very wrong, very partial, and very inconsiderate, to give
two consecutive chapters to the Count de Blenau, when I have more people
to despatch than had Captain Bobadil in the play, and less time to do it
in. But I could not help it; those two last chapters would go together,
and they were too long to be clapped up into one pat, as I have seen
Sarah the dairy-maid do with the stray lumps of butter that float about
in the butter-milk, after the rest of the churn's produce has been
otherwise disposed of. So I am very sorry, and so forth.--And now, if
you please, my dear reader, we will go on to some one else. What would
you think of the Norman?--Very well!--For my part, I look upon him as
the true hero of the story; for according to the best accounts, he eat
more, drank more, lied more, and fought more than any one else, and was
a great rogue into the bargain; all which, in the opinion of Homer, is
requisite to the character of a hero. See the Odyssey _passim_.
At Troyes, the Norman's perquisitions were very successful. No
Bow-street officer could have detected all the proceedings of
Fontrailles with more acuteness. Step by step he traced him, from his
first arrival at Troyes, till the day he set out for Mesnil St. Loup;
and learning the road he had taken, he determined upon following the
same track, for he shrewdly concluded, that whatever business of import
the conspirator had been engaged in, had been transacted in the two days
and one night, which, according to the story of the _garçon d'auberge_
at the Hotel du Grand Soleil, he had been absent from the good city of
Troyes.
Now, our friend Monsieur Marteville had learned another piece of news,
which made him the more willing to bend his steps in the direction
pointed out as that which Fontrailles had taken. This was no other than
that a considerable band of robbers had lately come down into that part
of the country to collect their rents; and that their principal haunt
was supposed to be the thick woods which lay on the borders of the high
road to Troyes, in the neighbourhood of Mesnil.
True it is, the Norman had abandoned his free companions of the forest,
and received the wages of Monsieur de Chavigni; but still he kept up a
kind of desultory correspondence with his former associates, and had not
lost sight of them till certain reports got about, that the _Lieutenant
Criminel_ was going to visit the forest of Laye, which induced them to
leave the vicinity of St. Germain, for fear that there should not be
room enough in the forest for them and the Lieutenant too. It was
natural enough that Marteville should wish to make a morning call upon
his old friends: besides--I'll tell you a story. There was once upon a
time a man who had a cat, of which he was so fond, that, understanding
one Mr. Pigmalion had got an ivory statue changed into a wife by just
asking it, he resolved to see what he could do for his cat in the same
way. But I dare say you know the story just as well as I do--how the cat
was changed into a woman, and how she jumped out of bed after a mouse,
and so forth; showing plainly, that "what is bred in the bone will never
go out of the flesh;" that "nature is better than a schoolmaster;" and
that "you can never make a silk purse out of a sow's ear;" as Sancho
would say. But, however, the Norman had a strange hankering after his
good old trade, and was very well inclined to pass a day or two in the
free forest, and do Chavigni's work into the bargain. There was a little
_embarras_ indeed in the case, respecting Louise, for whom, in these
first days of possession, he did feel a certain degree of attachment;
and did not choose to leave her behind, though he did not like to take
her with him, considering the society he was going to meet. "Pshaw!"
said he at length, speaking to himself, "I'll leave her at Mesnil."
This resolution he began to put in execution, by placing Louise upon one
horse, and himself upon the other, together with their several valises;
and thus, in the same state and order in which they had arrived at
Troyes, so they quitted it for Mesnil St. Loup. All the information
that Marteville possessed to guide him in his farther inquiries,
amounted to no more than this, (which he learned from the aforesaid
_garçon d'auberge_;) namely, that the little gentleman in grey had taken
the road apparently to Mesnil; that he had been absent, as before said,
two days and one night; and that his horse, when it came home, appeared
to have been furnished with a new shoe _en route_. This, however, was
quite sufficient as a clue, and the Norman did not fail to turn it to
its full account.
Passing through the little villages of Mehun and Langly, the Norman eyed
every blacksmith's forge as he went; but the one was next to the
post-house, and the other was opposite the inn; and the Norman went on,
saying within himself--"A man who was seeking concealment, would rather
proceed with his beast unshod than stop there." So, resuming his
conversation with Louise, they jogged on, babbling, not of green fields,
but of love and war; both of which subjects were much within the
knowledge of the Sieur Marteville, his battles being somewhat more
numerous than his wives, and having had plenty of both in his day.
At all events, Louise was very well satisfied with the husband that
Heaven had sent her, and looked upon him as a very fine gentleman, and a
great warrior; and though, now and then, she would play the coquette a
little, and put forth all the little _minauderie_ which a Languedoc
soubrette could assume, in order to prevent the Norman from having too
great a superiority, yet Monsieur Marteville was better satisfied with
her than any of his former wives; and as she rode beside him, he admired
her horsemanship, and looked at her from top to toe in much the same
manner that he would have examined the points of a fine Norman charger.
No matter how Louise was mounted: suffice it to say, that it was not on
a side-saddle, such things being but little known at the time I speak
of.
While they were thus shortening the road with sweet discourse, at the
door of a little hovel by the side of the highway, half hidden from
sight by a clumsy mud wall against which he leaned, half exposed by the
lolloping position he assumed, appeared the large, dirty, unmeaning face
and begrimed person of a Champenois blacksmith, with one hand grubbing
amongst the roots of his grizzled hair, and the other hanging
listlessly by his side, loaded with the ponderous hammer appropriated to
his trade. "_C'est ici_," thought the Norman; "_Quatre vingt dix neuf
moutons et un Champenois font cent_--Ninety-nine sheep and a Champenois
make a hundred; so we'll see what my fool will tell me.--_Holla!
Monsieur!_"
"_Plait-il?_" cried the Champenois, advancing from his hut.
"Pray has Monsieur Pont Orson passed here to-day?" demanded the Norman.
"Monsieur Pont Orson! Monsieur Pont Orson!" cried the Champenois, trying
to assume an air of thought, and rummaging in his empty head for a name
that never was in it: "Pardie, I do not know."
"I mean," said the Norman, "the same little gentleman in grey, who
stopped here ten days agone, to have a bay horse shod, as he was coming
back from--what's the name of the place?"
"No!" cried the Champenois; "he was going, he was not coming, when he
had his horse shod."
"But I say he was coming," replied the Norman. "How the devil do you
know he was going?"
"_Mais dame!_" exclaimed the other; "How do I know he was going? Why,
did not he ask me how far it was to Mesnil? and if he had not been
going, why should he wish to know?"
"It was not he, then," said the Norman.
"_Mais dame! ouai!_" cried the Champenois. "He was dressed all in grey,
and had a bay horse, on whose hoof I put as nice a piece of iron as ever
came off an anvil; and he asked me how far it was to Mesnil, and
whereabouts was the old Castle of St. Loup. '_Monsieur Pont Orson!
Monsieur Pont Orson? Dieu! qui aurait déviné que c'étoit Monsieur Pont
Orson?_'"
"_Mais je vous dis que ce n'étoit pas lui_," cried the Norman, putting
spurs to his horse. "_Allons, chérie. Adieu, Monsieur Champenois,
adieu!_--Ha! ha! ha!" cried he, when at a little distance. "_Ganache!_
he has told me all that I wanted to know. Then he did go to Mesnil--the
old Chateau of St. Loup! What could he want there? I've heard of this
old chateau."
"But who is Monsieur Pont Orson?" demanded Louise, interrupting the
broken cogitations of her husband.
"Nay, I know not, _ma chère_," replied her husband. "The man in the
moon, with a corkscrew to tap yon fool's brains, and draw out all I
wanted to know about the person whom I told you I was seeking for
Monsieur de Chavigni.--It was a mere name. But there, I see a steeple on
yon hill in the wood. Courage! we shall soon reach it. It is not above a
league.--That must be Mesnil."
The Norman's league, however, proved at least two, and Louise, though a
good horsewoman, was complaining most bitterly of fatigue, when they
arrived in the little street of Mesnil St. Loup, and, riding up to the
dwelling of our old friend Gaultier the innkeeper, alighted under the
withered garland that hung over the door.
"_Holla! Aubergiste! Garçon!_" cried the Norman, "_Holla!_"
But no one came; and on repeating the summons, the sweet voice of the
dame of the house was all that could be heard, screaming forth a variety
of tender epithets, applicable to the _garçon d'écurie_, and intended to
stimulate him to come forth and take charge of the strangers' horses.
"Don't you know, _Lambin_," cried she, "that that hog your master is
lying up-stairs dying for no one knows what? And am I to go out,
_Maraud_, and take people's horses with my hands all over grease, while
you stand l--s--ng yourself there? _Cochon!_ if you do not go, I'll
throw this pot-lid at you." And immediately a tremendous rattle on the
boards at the farther side of the stable, announced that she had been as
good as her word.
This seemed the only effectual method of arousing the occult
sensibilities of the _garçon d'écurie_, who listened unconcerned to her
gentler solicitations, but, yielding to the more potent application of
the pot-lid, came forth and took the bridle of the horses, while our
Norman lifted his lady to the ground.
The sight of such goodly limbs as those possessed by Monsieur
Marteville, but more especially the blue velvet pourpoint to which we
have formerly alluded, and which he wore on the present occasion, did
not fail to produce the most favourable impression on the mind of the
landlady; and, bustling about with the activity of a grasshopper, she
prepared to serve the athletic cavalier and his pretty lady to the best
cheer of the _auberge_.
"Would Madame choose some stewed escargots _pour se restaurer_? Would
Monsieur take _un coup de vin_ before dinner to wash the dust out of
his mouth? Would Madame step up-stairs to repose herself? Would Monsieur
take a _gouter_?" These and a thousand other civil proffers the hostess
showered upon the Norman and Louise, some of which were accepted, some
declined; but the principal thing on which the Norman seemed to set his
heart was the speedy preparation of dinner, which he ordered with the
true galloping profusion of a beggar on horseback, demanding _the best
of every thing_. While this was in progress, he forgot not the principal
object of his journey, but began with some circumlocution to draw the
hostess towards the subject of Fontrailles' visit to Mesnil.
At the very mention, however, of a little man in grey, the good landlady
burst forth in such a torrent of invective that she went well nigh to
exhaust her copious vocabulary of epithets and expletives; while the
Norman, taken by surprise, stood gazing and shrugging his shoulders,
wondering at her facility of utterance, and the vast rapidity with which
she concatenated her hard names. The little man in grey, who had been
there precisely ten days before, was, according to her opinion, a liar,
and a rogue, and a cheat; a conjuror, a Huguenot, and a vagabond; a man
without honour, principle, or faith; a _maraud_, a _matin_, a
_misérable_; together with a great many other titles the enumeration of
which she summed up with "_et s'il n'est pas le Diable, le Diable
l'emporte!_"
"_C'est vrai_," cried the Norman every time she paused to take breath;
"_C'est vrai._ But how came you to find out he was so wicked?"
The lady's reply was not of the most direct kind; but from it the Norman
gathered, with his usual acuteness, that after our friend Gaultier had
pointed out to Fontrailles the road to the old Castle of St. Loup, he
returned home, his mind oppressed with the consciousness of being the
confidant of a Sorcerer. He laboured under the load of this terrific
secret for some days; and then, his constitution not being able to
support his mental struggles, he sickened and took to his bed, where he
still lay in a deplorable state, talking in his sleep of the conjuror in
grey, and of Père Le Rouge, and the Devil himself, and sundry other
respectable people of the same class. But when awake, it must be
remarked, the _aubergiste_ never opened his lips upon the subject,
notwithstanding all the solicitations which his better half, being
tempted by the curiosity of her sex, did not fail to make. From all
this the good dame concluded that the little man in grey had bewitched
her husband and driven him mad, causing him to lie up there upon his bed
like a hog, neglecting his business and leaving her worse than a widow.
All this was corn, wine and oil to the mind of the Norman, who, wisely
reserving his opinion on the subject, retired to consult with Louise,
having a great esteem for woman's wit in such cases. After some
discussion, a plan was manufactured between them, which, though somewhat
bold in conception, was happily brought to issue in the following
manner.
During the dinner, at which the _bourgeoise_ waited herself, she was not
a little surprised to hear Louise more than once call Marteville by the
reverend appellation of _mon père_; and if this astonished, how much was
her wonder increased when afterwards, during a concerted absence of the
Norman, the fair lady informed her, under a promise of profound secrecy,
that the goodly cavalier, whose blue velvet doublet she had so much
admired, was neither more nor less than the celebrated _Père Alexis,
directeur_ of the Jesuits of Alençon, who was travelling in disguise in
order to place her (one of his penitents) in a monastery at Rome.
True, Louise either forgot or did not know that they were not precisely
in the most direct road to Rome, but she was very safe in the person she
spoke to, who had even less knowledge of where Rome stood than herself.
Now the story of Louise was a very probable one in every other respect,
considering the manners of the day; for _les bons pères Jesuites_ very
often travelled about in disguise for purposes best known to themselves,
and very few of the _bons pères_, whether Jesuits or not, were averse to
a fair penitent. Be that as it may, the simple _bourgeoise_ never
doubted it for a moment, and casting herself at the feet of Louise, she
entreated her, with tears in her eyes, to intercede with the reverend
_directeur_ to confess and absolve her sinful husband, who lay up-stairs
like a hog, doing nothing.
Just at this moment the Norman re-entered the room; and though his
precise object, in the little drama they had got up, was neither more
nor less than to confess the unhappy _aubergiste_, yet, as a matter of
form, he made some difficulty to meddling with the penitent of another;
but after faintly advising that the _Curé_ of the village should be sent
for, he agreed, as the case was urgent, to undertake the office of
confessor himself, though he mildly reproached Louise, in presence of
the hostess, for having betrayed his real character, and bade her be
more careful in future.
As soon as he had signified his consent, the _bourgeoise_ ran to tell
her husband that the very reverend _Père Alexis, directeur_ of the
Jesuits of Alençon, had kindly consented to hear his confession and
absolve him of his sins; and in the mean while the Norman gave
directions to Louise, whose adroitness had often served him in
discovering the secrets of the Palace, while she had remained with
Madame de Beaumont, to gain, in the present instance, all the
information she could from the wife, while he went to interrogate the
husband.
This being settled, as a blue velvet pourpoint was not exactly the garb
to play a confessor in, Louise ran in all haste to strip the
Astrologer's robe we have already mentioned of all its profane symbols,
and the Norman, casting its shadowy folds over his lusty limbs, and
drawing the hood over his head, appeared to the eye as goodly a friar as
ever cracked a bottle. No great regard to costume was necessary, for the
landlady took it all for granted; and when she beheld the Norman issue
forth from the room in which the valise had been placed, clothed in his
long dark robes, she cast herself at his feet in a transport of
reverence and piety.
Monsieur Marteville, otherwise the Père Alexis, did not fail to give her
his blessing with great gravity, and with a solemn demeanour and slow
step followed to the chamber of the sick man.
Poor Gaultier was no longer the gay rosy-cheeked innkeeper which he had
appeared to Fontrailles, but, stretched upon his bed, he lay pale and
wan, muttering over to himself shreds and tatters of prayers, and
thinking of the little man in grey, Père Le Rouge, and the Devil. As
soon as he beheld the pretended Père Alexis enter his chamber, he
essayed to rise in his bed; but the Norman motioned him to be still, and
sitting down by him, exhorted him to make a full confession of his sins,
and then, to give greater authenticity to his character, he knelt down
and composed an extempore prayer, in a language equally of his own
manufacture, but which the poor _aubergiste_ believed devoutly to be
Latin, hearing every now and then the words _sanctissimus_, _in secula
seculorum_, and _benedictus_, with which the Norman did not fail to
season it richly, being the only stray Latin he was possessed of.
"Humgumnibus quintessentialiter expositu dum dum; benedictus sint
foolatii et sanctissimus fourbi. Hi sty Aubergisti rorum coram nobis
excipe capones poulardici generi, fur grataverunt pectus, legbonibus
venzon in secula seculorum sanctissimus benedictus," said the Norman.
"Amen!" cried the innkeeper from the bottom of his heart, with such
fervency that the Père Alexis could scarcely maintain his gravity.
The Norman now proceeded to business, and putting down his ear to a
level with the lips of Gaultier, he once more desired him to make a
clear breast.
"_Oh, mon Père_," cried Gaultier, "_Je suis un pauvre pécheur, un
misérable!_"
The good Father exhorted him to take courage, and to come to a detail of
his crimes.
"_Oh, mon Père_," cried he, "I have sold cats for rabbits, and more
especially for hares. I have moistened an old hareskin with warm water
and bloodied it with chicken's blood, to make my cats and my badgers and
my weasels pass for what they really were not. I have cooked up snakes
for eels, and dressed vipers _en matelot_. I have sold bad wine of
Bois-marly for good wine of Epernay; and, _Oh, mon Père, je suis un
pauvre pécheur_."
"Well, well, get on," cried the Norman somewhat impatiently, "I'll give
you absolution for all that. All innkeepers do the same. But what more
have you done?"
"_Oh, mon Père, je suis un pauvre pécheur_," proceeded Gaultier in a low
voice; "I have charged my customers twice as much as I ought to charge.
I have vowed that fish was dear when it was cheap; and I have--"
"_Nom de Dieu!_" cried the Norman, getting out of temper with the
recapitulation of Gaultier's peccadilloes. "_Nom de Dieu!_ that is to
say, in the name of God, I absolve you from all such sins as are common
to innkeepers, masters of taverns, cooks, _aubergistes_ and the
like--sins of profession as they may be called--only appointing you to
kneel before the altar of your parish church for two complete hours,
repeating the Pater and the Ave during the whole time, by way of
penance;" thought he, for making me hear all this nonsense.--"But come,"
he continued, "bring up the heavy artillery--that is, let me hear your
more uncommon sins. You have some worse things upon your conscience than
any you have told, or I am mistaken."
"_Oh, mon Père! Oh, mon bon Père!_" groaned Gaultier, "_Je suis un
pauvre pécheur, un misérable_."
"Now it comes," thought the Norman; "_Allons, allons, mon fils, ayez
courage! l'Eglise est pleine de miséricorde._"
"There was an old owl in the barn," said Gaultier, "and woodcocks being
scarce--"
"_Ventre Saint Gris!_" cried Marteville to himself, "this will never
come to an end;" "_Mais, mon fils_," he said aloud, "I have told you,
all that is pardoned. Speak, can you charge yourself with murder,
treason, conspiracy, sorcery,"--Gaultier groaned--"astrology,"--Gaultier
groaned still more deeply--"or of having concealed any such crimes, when
committed by others?" Gaultier groaned a third time. The Norman had now
brought him to the point; and after much moaning, hesitation, and agony
of mind, he acknowledged that he had been privy to a meeting of
sorcerers.--Nay, that he had even conducted a notorious Astrologer, a
little man in grey, on the road to meet the defunct Père Le Rouge and
his companion the Devil, at the old Chateau of St. Loup; and that it was
his remorse of conscience for this crime, together with his terror at
revealing it, after the menaces of the Sorcerer, that had thrown him
into the lamentable state in which he then lay.
By degrees, the Norman drew from him every particular, and treasuring
them up in his memory, he hastened to give the suffering innkeeper
absolution; which, though not performed in the most orthodox manner,
quite satisfied Gaultier; who concluded, that any little difference of
form from that to which he had been used, proceeded from the Norman
being a Jesuit and a _directeur_; and he afterwards was heard to
declare, that the Père Alexis was the most pious and saintly of men, and
that one absolution from him was worth a hundred from any one else;
although the _Curé_ of the village, when he heard the method in which it
had been administered, pronounced it to be heterodox and heretical, and
in short a damnable error.
And here be it remarked, that a neighbouring _Curé_ having taken up the
quarrel of Père Alexis, and pronounced his form to be the right one, a
violent controversy ensued, which raged in Champagne for more than fifty
years, producing nine hundred pamphlets, three thousand letters, twenty
public discussions, and four Papal bulls, till at length it was agreed
on all hands to write to the Jesuits of Alençon, and demand their
authority for such a deviation from established rules: when it was
discovered that they administered absolution like every one else; and
that they never had such a person as Père Alexis belonging to their very
respectable and learned body.
But to return to the Norman. As soon as he had concluded all the
ceremonies he thought right to perform, for the farther consolation of
Gaultier, he said to him--"Fear not, my son, the menaces of the
Sorcerer; for I forbid all evil beings, even were it the Devil himself,
to lay so much as the tip of a finger upon you; and moreover, I will go
this very night to the old Chateau of St. Loup, and will exorcise Père
Le Rouge and drive his spirit forth from the place, and, _morbleu!_ if
he dare appear to me I will take him by the beard, and lead him into
the middle of the village, and all the little children shall drum him
out of the regiment--I mean out of the town."
With this bold resolution, Monsieur Marteville descended to the ground
floor, and communicated his design to Louise and the _bourgeoise_, who
were sitting with their noses together over a flaggon of _vin chaud_.
"_Donnez moi un coup de vin_," said he, "_et j'irai_."
But Louise, who did not choose to trust her new husband out of her
sight, having discovered by a kind of instinct, that in his case
"absence was worse than death," declared she would go with him, and see
him take Père Le Rouge by the beard. The Norman remonstrated, but Louise
persisted with a sort of sweet pertinacity which was quite irresistible,
and, though somewhat out of humour with her obstinacy, he was obliged to
consent.
However, he growled audibly while she assisted to disembarrass him of
his long black robe; and probably, had it not been for his assumed
character, would have accompanied his opposition with more than one of
those elegant expletives with which he was wont to season his discourse.
Louise, notwithstanding all this, still maintained her point, and the
horses being brought forth, the bags were placed on their backs, and the
Norman and his spouse set forth for the old Chateau of St. Loup, taking
care to repeat their injunction to the landlady not to discover their
real characters to any one, as the business of the _Père directeur_
required the utmost secrecy.
The landlady promised devoutly to comply, and having seen her guests
depart, entered the public room, where several of the peasantry had by
this time assembled, and told every one in a whisper that the tall
gentleman they had seen get on horseback was the Père Alexis,
_directeur_ of the Jesuits of Alençon, and that the lady was
Mademoiselle Louise de Crackmagnole, _sa penitente_. Immediately, they
all ran in different directions, some to the door, some to the window,
to see so wonderful a pair as the Père Alexis and his _penitente_. The
bustle, rushing, and chattering which succeeded, and which the landlady
could no way abate, called the attention of the Sieur Marteville, who,
not particularly in a good humour at being contradicted by Louise, was
so much excited into anger by the gaping of the multitude, that he had
well nigh drawn the portentous Toledo which hung by his side, and
returned to satisfy their curiosity by presenting his person rather
nearer than they might have deemed agreeable. He bridled in his wrath,
however, or rather, to change the figure, kept it in store for some
future occasion; and consoling himself with a few internal curses, in
which Louise had her share, he rode on, and soon arrived at that part of
the wood which we have already said was named the Sorcerer's Grove.
Of the unheard of adventures which there befel, the giants that he slew,
and the monsters that he overcame, we shall treat in a future chapter,
turning our attention at present to other important subjects which call
loudly for detail.