Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=3LFEAAAAYAAJ
2. Chapters misnumbered going from III. to V.
3. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
One in a Thousand
or
The Days of Henri Quatre
One _in a_ THOUSAND
_By_
G. P. R. JAMES
LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS LIMITED
MDCCCCIII
_The Introduction is written by_ LAURIE MAGNUS, M.A.; _the Title-page
is designed by_ IVOR I. J. SYMES.
INTRODUCTION.
George Payne Rainsford James, Historiographer Royal to King William
IV., was born in London in the first year of the nineteenth century,
and died at Venice in 1860. His comparatively short life was
exceptionally full and active. He was historian, politician and
traveller, the reputed author of upwards of a hundred novels, the
compiler and editor of nearly half as many volumes of letters,
memoirs, and biographies, a poet and a pamphleteer, and, during the
last ten years of his life, British Consul successively in
Massachusetts, Norfolk (Virginia), and Venice. He was on terms of
friendship with most of the eminent men of his day. Scott, on whose
style he founded his own, encouraged him to persevere in his career as
a novelist; Washington Irving admired him, and Walter Savage Landor
composed an epitaph to his memory. He achieved the distinction of
being twice burlesqued by Thackeray, and two columns are devoted to an
account of him in the new "Dictionary of National Biography." Each
generation follows its own gods, and G. P. R. James was, perhaps, too
prolific an author to maintain the popularity which made him "in some
ways the most successful novelist of his time." But his work bears
selection and revival. It possesses the qualities of seriousness and
interest; his best historical novels are faithful in setting and free
in movement. His narrative is clear, his history conscientious, and
his plots are well-conceived. English learning and literature are
enriched by the work of this writer, who made vivid every epoch in the
world's history by the charm of his romance.
"The Man at Arms" tells the story of Jarnac and Moncontour, and ends
with the fatal day of St. Bartholomew. "Henry of Guise" takes up the
history of the Religious Wars, with sympathy chiefly for the
Catholics, and closes with the assassination of that great soldier;
then "One in a Thousand" resumes the tale just before the murder of
Henry III. and the battle of Ivry. The two former are rather short and
remarkably brisk in movement, this one is somewhat longer and much
more elaborate. It has a complex plot, a large crowd of characters
from both factious, and has evidently been worked out with, perhaps,
less vivacity but more pains. "Willingly" says the novelist, "we turn
once more from the dull, dry page of history ... to the more
entertaining and instructive accidents and adventures of the
individual characters which, with somewhat less skill than that of a
Philidore, we have been moving about on the little chess-board before
us." There is an ironical undermeaning here; but so far as James
suggests that his flagrant romanticism, mysterious dwarfs, princesses
disguised as pages, and battles prefigured in the thunder-clouds are
more interesting than his retelling of historical events and careful
portraiture of historical people, we must venture to dissent from him.
The fiction is simply his favourite story of a wealthy heiress held
out as a bait by the heads of rival factions to attract the allegiance
of two powerful nobles. We feel not the slightest anxiety as to the
ultimate happiness of the fair lady and the blameless lover, or the
appropriate fate of their enemies. On the other hand, the intimate
picture of the Leaguers at Paris, of the headquarters of Henry Quatre,
and more particularly the speaking likeness of the Duke de Mayenne,
the head of the Guises, are keenly interesting and real contributions
to the history of those times. Though the stage effects are well done,
this shows far more talent. With all his fierce ambition, his lack of
scruple, and his froward temper, the Duke stands out as a man, and is
infinitely more alive than the purely romantic characters;
furthermore, the family likeness between the various members of that
powerful house, the Guises, is admirably brought out in this series of
romances, and the figure of Henry of Navarre is not less well done,
though he is a personage that we meet with less rarely either in
James's novels or in those of other historical raconteurs.
ONE IN A THOUSAND;
OR,
THE DAYS OF HENRI QUATRE.
CHAPTER I.
Oh the confines of the two beautiful provinces of Maine and Touraine,
lies one of the sweetest valleys that the foot of man ever trod. The
hills by which it is formed are covered on one hand by a wood of
venerable oaks, while the other side offers a green slope only broken
occasionally by rocky banks; and on the summit of every eminence
stands out, in bold relief, a group of two or three young trees,
casting their deep, soft shadows on the velvet turf below.
The eye of a traveller, placed at the northern extremity of the
valley, may trace its course winding on in varied beauty for nearly a
league to the southward; till at length the hills between the
acclivities of which it lies, seem to end abruptly in that direction,
but still without meeting; the one side terminating in a high rugged
rock, cutting clear and distinct upon the sky, and the other fringed
by the branches and foliage of the trees. Far away beyond--enframed,
as it were, by the opening of the valley--lies a rich, splendid
landscape, showing bright Touraine, with its plains, and woods, and
dells fading off in long misty lines of light and shade, till earth
and heaven blend in the blue obscurity of distance.
Washing the roots of the trees on one side, and edged with a bank of
soft green moss on the other, a small limpid stream runs swiftly along
over a shallow bed of rocks and pebbles, and, like some spoiled child
of fortune, winds rapidly on amidst a thousand sweets and beauties,
still hurrying forward, careless of all the bright things that
surround its path. Such is the picture of that valley as I have seen
it within the last twenty years; but the tale I have to tell refers to
a period more remote.
Down the steep, rugged bridle-road, which, descending sharply from the
brow of the more exposed hill, crossed the course of the valley and
the stream at nearly a right angle, and then, mounting the opposite
slope, made its way through the forest;--down that road, somewhere
near the end of April, 1589, a very handsome boy, seemingly about
sixteen years of age, took his path on foot. He was just at the time
of life when childhood and manhood meet--when sports, and pastimes,
and sweet innocence are cast away like faded flowers, and when we
first set the naked foot of inexperience on that burning and arid path
through the fiery desert of desire and disappointment, which each man
must tread, ere he reach the night's resting-place of the tomb. Not a
shade of down yet tinged his upper lip with the budding of the
long-coveted mustachio, and his face was smooth and soft; but there
was a flash and a fire in his splendid dark eye, which told that the
strong and busy passions that beset man's prime had already taken
possession of his heart.
He was dressed in a vest of dark murrey-coloured cloth, bound with a
light edging of gold, and in large trunk breeches descending to his
knee, made of the same stuff, and ornamented in the same manner. His
cloak, which was more ample than was usual in those days, or than the
time of year required, was fastened by a buckle to the right shoulder,
and, being brought round under his left arm in the Italian mode, was
wrapped across his chest, without opposing any obstacle to the free
passage of his hand towards the hilt of his dagger or his sword. He
was, if anything, below the middle height, and slightly made; but in
his countenance there were all those signs and features from which we
are accustomed to argue the presence of high and daring courage: and,
perhaps, it might have been a safer task to attack many a man of
greater personal strength, and much more warlike appearance, than that
slight boy, with his light active limbs, and quick remarking eye.
On the summit of the hill he paused for a moment, and gazed over the
country which he had left behind, as if looking anxiously for some
expected sight; and then, muttering the words, "Negligent varlets!" he
resumed his path down the side of the hill. After wandering for a
short space along the margin of the shallow stream, seeking for a
place where he might cross its fretful waters, without wetting the
light buskins that covered his feet, he sat down upon the mossy bank
under the shade of a clump of oaks, seemingly wearied with his walk,
and, pulling off his boots and stockings, dipped his feet in the
rivulet to cool and refresh them. Laying his broad-plumed hat by his
side, he leaned back against the broken bank, from which sprang the
oaks that shaded him; and, with the water still rippling over his
feet, and the chequered light and shade of the green leaves above
playing on his broad fair brow, he seemed to give himself up to one of
those fanciful dreams ever so busy with the brain of youth.
It was certainly a spot and an hour to dream in. It was the noon of a
bright spring day. Every bird of the season was singing its sweetest
song in the forest opposite or in the trees above his head; and his
seat was carpeted with the meek-eyed wood anemone, the soft blue
periwinkle, the daisy, the primrose, and the violet, together with a
thousand other flowers, the sweetest children of the early year, whose
very birth and being are one of the brightest themes that nature
offers to imagination. And yet the youth's meditations did not appear
to be pleasant ones. Whatever was the chain of thought that bound his
mind, there was upon his countenance an expression of sad and painful
gloom, which gradually changed, like the hues of a red and stormy
sunset, to the deeper signs of wrath and indignation. Sometimes he
gazed heavily upon the stream, with an eye all unconscious of the
flashing waters before it; and then again, as some sterner feeling
seemed to take possession of his heart, his brow would knit, his lip
would quiver, and his eye would flash like a young tiger in its
spring. Soon, however, the thoughts--whatever they were--which gave
rise to such emotions, passed away; and, hanging down his head, sadder
sensations seemed, in turn, to occupy his breast. A bright drop rose
and glittered in his eye, and the quick blood mounted hastily into his
cheek, as if ashamed of the passion he had shown, though he knew not
that any one was near to witness its expression.
Whether the passing emotions by which he had been agitated were marked
or not, his progress from the top of the hill to the spot where he sat
had not been unobserved; and the next moment a rustling sound,
proceeding from the bushes on the opposite side of the stream,
startled him from his reverie. Bounding up like a frightened fawn, he
fixed his eyes upon the trees in the direction from which the noise
had proceeded; but the thick foliage concealed for the time the object
which alarmed him; though, by the continuance of the sound, and the
waving of the boughs, it was evident that some large body was making
its way towards the side of the river. The next instant the figure of
a man emerged from the wood, and then that of a horse, whose bridle,
cast over the stranger's arm, afforded the means of leading it forward
along the narrow footpath which they had been treading. The leisurely
pace at which both man and horse proceeded gave no signs of intentions
actively hostile towards any one; and although those were days in
which dangers were to be found in every field and in every road, yet a
moment's thought seemed to have made the youth ashamed of the timid
start which the stranger's approach had occasioned. Colouring highly,
he sat down again upon the bank, and applied himself busily to replace
his boots and stockings, without vouchsafing a look towards the other
side of the stream.
"When you have done, my fair youth," said the stranger, after gazing
at him for a minute from the opposite bank, "will you answer me a
question?"
"If it suit me, and if I can," replied the youth, looking up into the
stranger's face for the first time.
That face was not one to be seen without exciting in those who beheld
it, more and more agreeable sensations than are usually called up by
the blank countenances of the great mass of mankind--too often
unlettered books, where mind and feeling have scarcely written a
trace. The features on which the lad now gazed were strongly marked,
but handsome; the broad expanse of the high, clear forehead, the open
unbent brow, the bright speaking eye, and the full arching lips,
conveyed at once to the untaught physiognomist which watches and
reasons at the bottom of every man's heart, the idea of a candid
and generous mind. There was much intelligence, too, in that
countenance--intelligence without the least touch of cunning--all
bright, and clear, and bold.
The stranger was about the middle height, and, apparently, had seen
four or five and thirty summers: they might be less or more; for
circumstances, so much more than time, stamp the trace of age upon the
external form, as well as upon the heart and feelings, that it is
often difficult to judge whether the wrinkles and furrows, which seem
to have been the slow work of years, are not, in reality, the marks of
rapid cares or withering passions. In his face were several lines
which might well have borne either interpretation; but still, neither
his dark brown hair, nor his thick glossy beard, offered the least
evidence of time's whitening hand. His dress was a simple riding suit,
the green hue of which appeared to bespeak, either for profit or
amusement, a devotion to the chase. The same calling seemed denoted by
a small hunting-horn, which hung by his side; and his offensive arms
were no more than such sport required. He wore, however, a hat and
high white plume, instead of the close unadorned bonnet generally used
in the chase; and his horse, too, a deep bay barb, had less the air of
a hunter than of a battle charger.
"My question is a very simple one, good youth," he said, while a
slight smile curled his lip, excited by a certain degree of
pettish flippancy which the boy displayed in replying to his first
address:--"Did you meet a troop of reitters just now, as you came over
the hill? and which way did they take?"
"I did meet a troop of Dutch vagabonds," replied the boy, boldly:
"villains that foolish Frenchmen hire to cut foolish Frenchmen's
throats! and as to the way they took, God 'a mercy! I watched them
not."
"But from yon hill you must have seen which road they went," replied
the stranger. "I am one of those foolish Frenchmen whom you mention,
and an inoffensive person to boot, whose throat would have but small
security under the gripe of these worthy foreigners. One of them I
might deal with--ay, two--or three, perchance; but when they ride by
scores, and I alone, I see not why the green wood should not cover me,
as well as many a brave boar or a stout stag. I pray thee, therefore,
good youth, if thou sawest the way they took, let me know it, for
courtesy's sake; and if thou sawest it not, why, fare thee well! I
must take my chance."
For a moment or two the boy made no reply, but measured the stranger
from head to foot with his eye; somewhat knitting his brow, as he did
so, with a look of some abstraction, as if his mind were too busy with
what he saw to heed the incivility of his long-protracted stare.
"Yes," said he, at length, speaking apparently to himself, "yes;" and
then, addressing the stranger, he demanded abruptly, "whither go you?"
"Nay, good youth! nay!" replied his companion; "these are not
times--nor France the country--nor this the spot of all France--in
which a man would choose to trust the first person he meets, with
where he goes or what he goes for. I ask you not your road--ask me not
mine. If you can answer my question, whether the band of reitters took
the path to Tours, or wound under the hill towards La Fleche, do so,
and I will thank you; if not, once more farewell!"--and, without
putting foot in stirrup, he sprang upon his horse's back.
"Answer your question I cannot," replied the boy, with a degree of
calm earnestness that seemed to speak greater interest in the stranger
than he had at first evinced; "but I can do more for you," he
proceeded. "Where the reitters went I did not see, for I hid myself
behind the rocks till they were past; but I can show you paths where
no reitters will ever come. Often have I flown my hawk across those
plains," he added in an explanatory tone, as if he wished to recommend
his guidance to the stranger by showing how his acquaintance with the
country had been acquired;--"often have I followed my hound through
these valleys, in other days long gone; and I know their every turning
better than my father's house."
"In other days!" said the stranger; "why thou art now but a boy!"
"True," replied the youth; "yet I may have known other days, and
happier ones--but to my purpose. What I offer you, I offer knowing
what I am doing:" and he fixed Ins eyes upon the stranger's face with
a meaning, but not a disrespectful, glance, and then proceeded: "Tell
me whither you would go. I will conduct you thither in safety, and
will not betray you, upon my honour!"
"In faith, I believe I must even trust you," replied the stranger.
"There are many who, with wise saws and cautious counsels, would
fain persuade me to be as prudent, and as careful of my life, as a
great-grandmother of eighty years and upwards. But life, at best, is
but as gold, a precious thing given to be spent. Whip me all misers,
whether of their purse or of their safety, say I; and, therefore, boy,
you shall be my guide, though you should give me over to all the
reitters that ever the factious house of Lorraine brought to back the
treason which they call piety."
"I will give you over to no reitters," replied the boy; "so be your
mind at ease."
"Odds life! it is seldom otherwise than at ease," rejoined the other:
"my heart is a light one, and will not be heavy now, as I ride on
beside thee; though I may have caught thy tongue tripping, my fair
boy. Thou art no Frenchman, or thine accent sorely belies thee."
"Now do you think me both a German and a reitter, I warrant!" replied
the youth, with a playful smile, and a toss back of his dark hair.
"But cannot your ear distinguish between the hoggish twang of the
Teutonic gutturals, and the soft music of the Italian liquids?"
"Methinks it can," replied the stranger; "but, whether German or
Italian, Switzer, or even Spaniard, thou shalt be my guide. Knowest
thou the chateau of the Marquis of St. Real?"
The youth started. "Do I know it!" said he, "do I know it!" then
suddenly seeming to check, in full career, some powerful feelings that
were in the very act of bursting from his heart to his lips, he added,
more calmly, "I know it well! I know it well! Willingly will I show
you your road thither, and, perhaps, may name my guerdon by the way;
but it is too far a journey for me on foot in one day."
"We will buy thee a horse, my fair boy," replied the stranger: "I must
be at St. Real this night, and at Tours ere noon to-morrow; so we will
buy thee a horse at the first village where we can find one."
"An ass will serve my turn as well as the best Barbary steed," said
the youth; "and the one will be more easily found than the other; for,
what between the League and the Huguenots, there are more asses in
France than any other kind of beast--so now let us on our way."
Returning into the road from which he had strayed to wash his feet,
the boy stepped lightly, from stone to stone, across the stream, and
soon stood on the same side with the traveller. He, on his part, as if
unwilling to save himself fatigue by continuing to ride while the
youth walked by his side on foot, once more dismounted; and they then
turned their steps up the broad way which led through the forest to
the top of the hill, descanting, as they went, on the fineness of the
day, the beauty of the scene, and all the ordinary topics which
furnish conversation to those who have few subjects in common; but
each avoiding, as if by mutual consent, any allusion to the purpose or
station of his companion.
It was, as we have said, as fair and sunshiny an April day as ever
woke since first the beautifying will of the Almighty robed the hills
with verdure, and spread out loveliness as a garment over earth. The
trees that, springing from the high broken banks on either side,
canopied the road with their green boughs, were living and tuneful
with all the birds of spring. There is not a cheerful feeling in the
heart of man that might not there have found some sweet note to wake
it into harmony. The air was balm itself--soft, yet inspiring like the
breath of hope; and the dancing light and shade, that chequered the
long perspective up the hill, had something in it gay and sportive,
which--joined with the song of the birds, and the sparkling glee of a
small fountain that, bursting from the midst of the road, rushed in a
little diamond rivulet down to the stream below--addressed itself to
all the purer sources of happiness in the human breast, and spoke of
peace and joy. Both the journeyers, however, were grave; although the
one was in the early spring of youth--that bright season of man's life
where every pulse is light; and although each line in the countenance
of his companion spoke that constitutional cheerfulness which is the
most blessed auxiliary that this world can afford to aid man in
maintaining his eternal warfare against time and circumstance.
At the top of the ascent, a wide and magnificent scene lay stretched
beneath their eyes. The hill was not sufficiently high, indeed, to
afford one of those map-like views, in which we see all the objects
spread out over a vast extent in harsh and unshadowed distinctness,
like the prospect of life and of the world which we take, when in
mature age, after having passed through the illusions of youth and the
passions of manhood, we gaze upon the past and the present, and see
the hard, cold, naked realities of existence without a softening shade
or an enlivening hue. Still the elevation was sufficient to let the
eye roam wide over scenes where line after line, in sweet variety,
presented a continual change of beautiful forms, softening in tint, in
depth of colour, and in distinctness of outline as the objects became
more remote, and forming a view such as that which is offered to the
eye of youth, when after having climbed over the light ascent of
boyhood, the joys of existence, grouped together without its cares,
are first presented to the sight, one beyond another, to the very
verge of being, all lighted up by hope, and coloured by imagination.
"Run your eye," said the youth, "over that ocean of green boughs which
lies waving below us, to that tree-covered mound which starts high
above the rest. In a straight line beyond you catch the spire of
Beaumont en Maine, at the distance of nearly four leagues; and a
little farther to the right, upon a woody hill, you may see the dark
towers of the chateau of St. Real."
His companion gazed on in the direction which he pointed out, and then
replied, "I once knew this land well, and could have marked out in it
many a fair field either for the chase or the battle; but other scenes
have made me forget it. Our memory is but like a French crown-piece,
since so many kings have been called, one after another, to rule this
unhappy land. First, one figure is strong upon it; then it goes to the
mint, and a new king's head drives out the other, and keeps its place,
till something fresh is stamped upon it again; while, all the time,
traces of former impression may be seen below, but indistinct and
meaningless. Ay! there is Beaumont en Maine, and there the chateau of
St. Real; I remember them now: but what is that massive building, with
that large square keep, still farther to the right?"
The youth fixed his eyes upon it, and remained silent for more than a
minute: he then replied, abruptly, "That chateau belongs to the Count
d'Aubin. Let us on!"