A month and some days succeeded--full of events important to France,
it is true, but containing nothing calculated to affect materially the
course of this history; and I shall, therefore, pass over in my
narrative that lapse of time without comment, changing the scene also
without excuse.
There is in France a forest, in the heart of which I have spent many a
happy hour--which, approaching the banks of the small river Iton,
spreads itself out over a large tract of varied and beautiful ground
between Evreux and Dreux, sweeping round that habitation of melancholy
memories called Navarre, filled with the recollections of Turennes and
Beauharnois. Over a much greater extent of ground, however, than the
forest, properly so called, now occupies, large masses of thicket and
wood, with, occasionally, much more splendid remnants of the primeval
covering of earth, show how wide the forest of Evreux must have spread
in former years; and, in fact, the records of the times of which I
write compute the extreme length thereof at thirty-five French
leagues; while the breadth seems to have varied at different points
from five to ten miles.
In the space thus occupied, was comprised almost every description of
scenery which a forest can display; hill and dell, rock and river,
with sometimes even a meadow or a corn-field presenting itself in
different parts of the wood, which was also traversed by two high
roads--the one leading from Touraine, and the other from Alençon,
Caen, and the northern parts of Normandy. These high roads, however,
were, from the very circumstances of time, but little frequented;
for the eloquent words of Alexis Monteil, in describing the state
of France in the days of the League, afford no exaggerated
picture:--"France, covered with fortified towns, with houses, with
castles, with monasteries enclosed with walls within which no one
entered, and from which no one issued forth, resembled a great body
mailed, armed, and stretched lifeless on the earth."
Nevertheless, interest and necessity either lead or compel men to all
things; and along the line of the two high roads already mentioned
were scattered one or two villages and hamlets--the inhabitants of
which had little to lose--and a number of detached houses, the
proprietors of which were willing to risk a little in the hopes of
gaining much. The fronts of these houses, by the various signs and
inscriptions which they bore, gave notice to the wayfaring traveller,
sometimes that man and horse could be accommodated equally well within
those walls; sometimes that the human race could there find rest and
food, if unaccompanied by the four-footed companion whose greater
corporeal powers we have made subservient to our greater cunning.
According to the strict letter of the existing laws, we find that the
_auberge_ for foot passengers was forbidden to lodge the equestrian,
and that the _auberge_ for cavaliers had no right to receive the
traveller on foot. But these laws, like all other foolish ones, were
neglected or evaded in many instances; and he who could pay well for
his entertainment was, of course, very willingly admitted to the
mercenary hospitality of either the one or other class of inns,
whether he made use of the two identical feet with which nature had
provided him, or borrowed four more for either speed or convenience.
Notwithstanding the turbulent elements which rendered every state of
life perilous in those days, the landlord of the _auberge_, however
isolated was his dwelling, did not, in fact, run so much risk as may
be supposed; for by a sort of common consent, proceeding from a
general conviction of the great utility of his existence, and the
comfort which all parties had at various times derived from his
ever-ready welcome, the innkeeper's dwelling was almost universally
exempt from pillage, except, indeed, in those cases where the party
spirit of the day had got the better of that interested moderation in
politics which is such a distinguishing feature of the class, and had
led him to espouse one of the fierce factions of the times with
somewhat imprudent vehemence. Nevertheless, it need hardly be said,
that between the several villages, and the several detached houses
which chequered the forest of Evreux, large spaces were left without
anything like a human habitation; and the traveller on either of the
two highways, or on any of the multifarious cross-roads which wandered
through the woods, might walk on for many a long and weary mile,
without seeing anything in the likeness of mankind. Perhaps, indeed,
he might think himself lucky if he did find it so; for--as there then
existed three or four belligerent parties in France, besides various
bodies who took advantage of the discrepancy of other people's
opinions upon most subjects, to assert their own ideas of property at
the point of the sword--there was every chance that, in any accidental
rencontre, the traveller would find the first person he met a great
deal more attached to the sword than to the olive branch.
A little more than a month, then, after the funeral of the old Marquis
of St. Real, in a part of the forest where a few years before the axe
had been busy amongst the taller trees, there appeared a group of
several persons, two of whom have already been introduced to the
notice of the reader. The spot in which they were seated was a small
dry grassy strip of meadow by the side of a clear little stream, which
at a hundred yards distance crossed the high road from Touraine. From
the bank of the stream the ground rose very gradually for some way,
leaving a space of perhaps fifty yards in breadth free of underwood or
bush. It then took a bolder sweep, and became varied with manifold
trees and shrubs; and then, breaking into rock as it swelled upwards,
it towered into a high and craggy hill, diversified with clumps of the
fine tall beeches which the axe had spared, and clothed thickly,
wherever the soil admitted it, with rich underwood, springing up from
the roots of larger trees long felled. On the other side again, the
ground sloped away so considerably, that had the stream flowed
straight on, it would have formed a cataract; and as the eye rested on
the clear water, winding in a thousand turns within a very short
distance of the edge of the descent, and seeming to seek a way over
without being able to find it, one felt as we do in gazing upon a
child in a meadow looking for something it has lost, which we
ourselves see full well, yet cannot resolve to point out, lest the
little seeker should desist from all the graceful vagaries of his
search. Various bends and knolls, however, confined the rivulet to the
course it had taken; but still the whole ground on that side was low,
and at one point sunk much beneath the spot where the travellers
before mentioned were seated, affording--over the green tree-tops--a
beautiful view of a long expanse of varied ground, lying sweet in the
misty light of summer, with many a wide and undulating sweep, fainter
and more faint, till some grey spires marked the position of a distant
town, and cut the line of the horizon.
The party here assembled consisted of five persons: the first of whom
was the page already described under the name of Leonard de Monte, and
who, now stretched upon the ground, seemed making a light repast,
while the dwarf Bartholo, standing beside him, filled a small horn cup
with wine from a gourd he carried, and presented it to the young
Italian with a low inclination of the head. The other three personages
who made up the group were evidently servants. The colours of their
dress, however, were very different from those of the Marquis of St.
Real, and they were also armed up to the teeth, though their garb
bespoke them the followers of some private individual, and not
soldiers belonging to any of the parties which then divided the land.
Besides the human denizens of the scene, five horses were browsing the
forest grass at a little distance. Three of these were equipped with
saddles; while two still bore about them the rough harness, if harness
it could be called, by means of which they had been attached to a
small vehicle, somewhat between a carriage and a car, which, with its
leathern curtains and its wicker frame, might be seen peeping out from
amongst the bushes hard by.
While the page concluded his repast, two of the servants--the other
seemed the driver of the carriage--stood behind him with their arms
folded on their bosoms, but still in an attitude so common in those
times of trouble as to have found its way into most of the pictures
which have come down from that epoch to the present. The same movement
which crossed the right and left arms over the chest had easily
brought the hilt of the sword, and the part of the broad belt in which
it hung, up from the haunch to the breast, where the weapon was
supported by the pressure of the left arm and the right hand, and was
ever ready for service at a moment's notice. The youth, however, who
was the principal person of the party, and the dwarf, who seemed to
ape his demeanour, wore their swords differently, following the
extravagant court fashion of the day, and throwing the weapon which,
in those times, might be needed at every instant, so far behind them,
that the hilt was concealed by the short cloak then worn, and would
have been out of the reach of any but a very dexterous hand.
When the page had concluded his repast, he wiped his dagger on the
grass, and returned it to the sheath; and then, making the dwarf
mingle some water from the stream with the wine he offered, he asked,
ere he drank, "Are you sure, Bartholo, right sure, that we have passed
them?"
"Certain! quite certain!" answered the dwarf; "unless, noble----"
"Hush!" cried the youth, holding up his hand impetuously; "have I not
told thee to forget, even when we are alone, that I am any other than
Leonard the page. Some day thou wilt betray me; and, by my troth, thou
shalt repent it if thou dost. Go on! go on! What wert thou saying?"
"Nothing, then, Signor Leonard," answered the dwarf, with his usual
sardonic grin; "but that I am certain we have passed them, quite
certain: for I saw each day's march laid down before they set out; and
though we were two days behind them, and had to take a round of ten
leagues to avoid their route, yet we have done five leagues more than
they each day that we have travelled."
"Well, then, well!" said the youth; "dine, and make these varlets
dine. If I am in Paris three days before them, it is enough. Yet lose
no time; for I would fain be on far enough to-night to be beyond their
utmost _fourriers_ ere I stay to rest. I go up yon hill to look over
this woody world. When all is ready, whistle, and I will come." Thus
saying, he turned away with a slow step, and, climbing the banks, was
quickly lost amongst the trees and underwood.
As soon as he was gone, the dwarf beckoned to the servants; and,
making them sit down beside him on the grass, did the honours of the
feast, but still taking care to maintain that air of superiority with
which a master might be supposed to portion out their meal to his
domestics, on some of those accidental expeditions which level, for
the time, many of the distinctions of rank. The servants, too,
submitted to this sort of assumption as a matter of course; and though
the eye of each might be caught running over the diminutive limbs of
the dwarf with a glance in which the contempt of big things for little
was scarcely kept down by habitual deference, yet, in their general
demeanour, they preserved every sort of respect for their small
companion, keeping a profound silence in his presence, and treating
him with every mark of reverence.
Scarcely had they concluded their meal, however, and were in the act
of yawning at the horses they were about to harness, when the rustling
of the bushes on the hillside, and the fall of a few stones, gave
notice of the approach of some living being. The moment after, the
light and graceful form of their young master appeared, bounding down
the slope like a scared deer, with his cheek flushed, and all the
flashing eagerness of haste and surprise sparkling in his dark eye.
"Quick!" he cried, as he came up, "quick as lightning! Draw the
carriage into that brake, and lead the horses in amongst the bushes.
Scatter as far as possible, and come not hither again till you hear my
horn."
"But the carriage!" cried the dwarf, looking towards the spot to which
the page pointed--"the brake is deep and uneven."
"We must get it out afterwards as best we may," replied the youth; "do
as you are bid, and make haste! They are not half a mile from us, when
I thought they were leagues. I saw them coming up, on the other side
of the hill, and they will be here in five minutes. Quick! quick as
lightning, Bartholo!"
The dwarf and his companions obeyed at once, and in a few moments the
carriage was drawn into a woody brake that completely concealed it
from view; the horses were led into the forest; Bartholo betook
himself one way, and the attendants another; and their young lord,
climbing the hill, sought himself out a place amongst the shrubs and
larger trees, where he could see all that passed upon the high road,
without running any risk of being seen himself. A quick and impatient
spirit, however, gauging all things by its own activity, had, as is
often the case, deceived him as to the movements of others; and
instead of five minutes, which was the utmost space that his
imagination had allowed for the arrival of the persons he had beheld,
full half an hour had elapsed ere any one appeared.
At length, however, the trampling of horses sounded along the road;
and the moment after, winding round from the other side of the hill,
was seen a party of six horsemen, each bearing in his hand a short
matchlock, with a lighted match, while three other weapons of the same
kind hung round at the different corners of the steel saddle with
which every horse was furnished. After a short interval, another small
party appeared; and, succeeding them again, might be seen, first
moving along above the interposing shoulder of the hill, and then upon
the open road, the dancing plumes of a large body of officers and
gentlemen, in the midst of whom rode the young Marquis of St. Real,
and his cousin, the Count d'Aubin. The eyes of Leonard de Monte fixed
eagerly upon that party, and followed its movements for many a minute,
till a new bend of the road concealed it from his sight; and he turned
to gaze upon the strong body of troops that then appeared. Two
companies of infantry, each consisting of two hundred men, came next;
and a gay and pleasant sight it was to see them pass along with their
shining steel morions, and tall plumes, and rich apparel, in firm
array and regular order, but all gay and cheerful, and singing as they
went. Amongst them, but in separate bands, appeared the various sorts
of foot soldiers then common in France; the musketeer with his long
gun upon his shoulder, and the steel-pointed fork, or rest, used to
assist his aim in discharging his piece, while, together with the
broad leathern belt which supported his long and heavy sword, hung the
innumerable small rolls of leather, in which the charges for his
musket were deposited. The ancient pikeman, too, was there, with his
long pike rising over the weapons of the other soldiers, and one or
two bodies of arquebusiers, armed with a lighter and less cumbersome,
but even more antique kind of musket, here and there chequered the
ranks. A troop of cavalry, still stronger in point of numbers,
succeeded, consisting of two companies of men-at-arms, which old
privileges permitted the two houses of St. Real and D'Aubin to raise
for the service of the crown, and of about four hundred of more
lightly armed horse of that description which, from having been first
introduced from Germany and Flanders, had acquired the name of
reitters, even when the regiment was composed entirely of Frenchmen.
The first body contained none but men of noble birth, and consisted
principally of young gentlemen attached to the two great houses who
raised it. Each carried his lance, to which weapon the men-at-arms of
that day clung with peculiar tenacity, as a vestige of that ancient
chivalry which people felt was rapidly passing away before improved
science, but from which they did not like to part. Each also was
splendidly armed; and gold and polished steel made their horses shine
in the sunbeams.
The reitters, however, were more simply clothed, and were composed of
such persons from the wealthier part of the _classe bourgeoise_ as the
love of arms, the distinctions generally affixed to military life, or
feudal attachment to any particular house, brought from the very
insecure tranquillity then afforded by their paternal dwellings, to
the open struggle of the field. This corps, however, was not
distinguished by the lance: a long and heavy sword, which did terrible
execution in the succeeding wars, together with a number of pistols,
each furnished with a rude flint lock, composed the offensive arms of
the reitter. His armour, too, and his horse were both somewhat lighter
than those of the man-at-arms; but his movements were, in consequence,
more easy, and his march less encumbered.
The whole body wound slowly on with very little disarray Of confusion,
till, one by one, the several bands turned the angle of the wood, and
disappeared in the distant forest. A few scattered parties followed;
then a few stragglers, and then all was left to solitude, while
nothing but a cloudy line of dust, rising up above the green covering
of the trees, and two or three notes of the trumpet, told that such a
force was near, or marked the road it took. Leonard de Monte gazed
from the place of his concealment upon each party as it passed, and
then waited for several minutes, listening with attentive ear till
the trumpet sounded so faintly that it was evident his own small
hunting-horn might be winded unheard by the retiring squadrons. He
descended, however, in the first instance, to the bank of the stream
where he had been previously sitting, and then gave breath to a few
low notes, as of a huntsman recalling his dogs. The sounds were heard
by his attendants, and instantly obeyed. The horses were led forth
from the wood; and, while the two servants bestirred themselves to
draw out the carriage from the brake in which it had been concealed,
the youth beckoned the dwarf towards him, demanding--"Now, Bartholo!
now! what think you of this?"
"Why, I think it a very silly trick, sir," replied the dwarf: "I could
forgive a raw youth like the Marquis for leading his men through such
a wood as this; but how an experienced soldier, like my good lord the
Count, could let him do it, I cannot fancy. Why, the League might have
taken them all like quails in a falling net!"
"You are wrong," said the youth; "you are wrong, Bartholo. He knows
full well that the League, close cooped in Paris, have not men to
spare, and that Longueville and La Noue keep Aumale in check near
Compeigne. St. Real is no bad soldier. At least, so I have heard. But
it was not of that I spoke. What are we to do now? You told me that
they were a day behind, and now they are right on the road before us.
They must have changed their route. What must we do?"
"Why, we must turn back," answered the dwarf, calmly; "and then at
Dreux seek out the _maître des postes_, leave these slow brutes behind
us, and on to Paris with all the speed we can."
"But should there be no horses?" said the youth, "as was the case at
La Fleche; what must we do then?"
"Oh, beyond all doubt, we shall find horses there," the dwarf replied;
"and if the post be broken up, we can but apply to the master of
relais, whose horses will take us on for fifteen leagues, while these
tired brutes will scarce carry us to Dreux: better go with beasts that
have dragged a cart, than halt half way on the road."[2]
The youth paused and pondered; and though his intention was at first
directed to the exertions of the servants with the carriage, yet the
moment after, his glance began to stray abstractedly over the forest;
and it is more than probable that his thoughts wandered much farther
than the mere trifling embarrassment in which he found himself; for
his brow became clouded and melancholy, his lip quivered, and his eye,
which was now again straining vacantly upon the grass, seemed as if it
would willingly have harboured a tear. The dwarf gazed at him
earnestly with his quick black eyes, while the habitual sneer upon his
lip seemed mingled with other feelings, which somewhat changed its
character, but rendered it not less dark and keen. Whatever were his
own thoughts, however, he seemed perfectly to comprehend that his
young lord's mind had run beyond the situation of the moment. "You are
sorry you undertook it at all!" he said, keeping his eyes still fixed
upon the face of the other.
"Out, knave!" cried Leonard de Monte, turning sharply upon him. "Out!
Did you ever know me hesitate in a pursuit that I had once determined,
or regret a deed when once it was done? Firm in myself, I am firm to
myself, and, whether good or ill happens, I never regret. No, no;
think you that I am such a fool or such a child as to start from the
first trifling obstacle? To whimper, because I am forced to lie on a
hard bed, or fly off indignant because some saucy serving-man breaks
his jest upon _the page?_ No, no! I was thinking of my father's house,
and of a picture there which some skilful hand had painted of just
such a scene as this. There was the little sparkling stream, and
there a sweet and tranquil grassy bank like that, with the bright
sunshine--even as it does now--streaming through the bushes, and
touching the rounded turf with gold. Often, very often, have I stood
and gazed upon that landscape, and my fancy has rendered the dull
canvass instinct with life. I have dreamed that I could see through
those groves, or climb the hill, and wander amongst the rocks; and in
infancy--that time of happy hearts--imagination, as I stood and
looked, has shaped me out a little paradise in such a scene as that.
The palace and its cold splendour has faded away around me, and I have
fancied myself wandering in the midst of Nature's beauties, with
beings as bright and as ideal as my dream: and now, Bartholo--and
now--what are all those visions now?"
The dwarf cast his eyes to the ground, and for a moment, a single
moment, the cynical smile passed away from his lip. "You," he
said--"you have made your fate! You have sought the bitter well from
which you are forced to drink. You have chosen sorrow, and the way to
sorrow; for the love of any human thing is but the high road thither,
and you must tread it to the end."
"How now, sir!" cried the youth, proudly tossing back his head;
"school'st thou me?"
"Nay, I school you not," answered the dwarf; "and less than all sought
to offend you. I would have given you consolation. I would have said
that you, for a great prize, had played a stake as weighty:--I mean
that knowingly, willingly, you had risked happiness for love; and,
seemingly having lost, are sorrowful; but still you have the
satisfaction of knowing that your fate has been your own deliberate
act."
"Would not that make it all the more painful, thou bitter medicine?"
asked the youth.
"Not so!" answered the dwarf, "not so! Think, what must be his
feelings who is _born_ to disappointment and to scorn; whose heart may
be as fine as that which beats in the bosom of the lordliest warrior
in the land, and yet whose birthright is contempt, and degradation,
and slight; whose mind may be as bright as that of prelate, or of
lawgiver, and yet whose doom is to be despised and neglected? Think
what must be his feelings, who has no refuge from disappointment, but
in the hardness of despair; who has no warfare to wage against insult,
but by hurling back contempt and defiance!"
"I am sorry for thee, from my heart," answered the youth. "Indeed, I
am sorry for thee."
"_Your_ pity I can bear," replied the dwarf, "because I believe it is
of a nobler kind; but the pity of this base degraded world is poison
to every wound in my heart. No more of myself, however," he added,
resuming at once his usual look; "I have spoken too long about myself
already. I cannot change my state, were I to reason on it till the sun
grew old and weary of shining; but you can do much to change yours;
and, in honesty, it were better to try a new plan, for this is a bad
one."
"Care not thou for that," replied the other; "its wisdom or its folly
rests upon me. Thou canst not say that there is either sin or crime
therein; and till then, be silent."
"You spoke of your father's house," still persevered the dwarf. "Why
not return thither, where now, since your uncle's death, peace, and
repose, and a princely fortune await you?"
"Return thither!" replied the youth, with a sigh. "Return thither! and
for what? to find the voices I used to love silent; the forms that
used to cheer it gone; to see in every chamber a memorial of the dead,
and in each well-known object a new source for tears. Oh, no! I loved
that place once with love far beyond that which we give in general to
inanimate things; but it was because the living, and the good, and the
kind, were mingled up with every scene and every object; but now they
are gone: the fairy spell is broken; the rich gold turned dross; and
no place of all the earth is so painful in my sight as that--my
father's house."
"Nevertheless," urged the dwarf somewhat anxiously; but the other went
on: "But that is not all, Bartholo," he said, "that is not all; though
that were fully enough. No, when I last saw my father's halls my bosom
was as light as air, and all the thoughts that filled it were as the
summer dreams of some sunny, happy child. Since then how many a bitter
lesson have I learned; how changed is the aspect of life, and fate,
and the world!--No, no! The sunshine that shone in my father's halls
is gone for ever--the sunshine of a happy heart; and I will carry back
with me a new star to light them, or never see them more."
"Nevertheless," repeated the dwarf, "nevertheless--"
"No more in that tone!" interrupted the youth, "let me hear no more!
My resolutions are fixed beyond change. My fate is upon the die in my
hand, and I will cast it boldly, let the chance be what it will. Say
no more! for no more will I hear! Quick! hasten those laggards with
the horses, and let us begone: each word of opposition but makes me
the more eager to run my course to the end."
The dwarfs lip curled into a more bitter smile than ever, but he made
no reply; and proceeded to obey the orders he had received to hasten
the preparations for departure. Those preparations were soon
concluded; for while the conversation detailed above had been
proceeding, the servants, with the aid of the horses, had dragged the
carriage out of the brake. With some difficulty, and some danger of
overturning it, it was at length brought to the high road. Leonard de
Monte entered; and, wrapping himself in a large cloak, cast himself
back with an air of gloomy thought. The rest mounted their horses,
and, as fast as the nature of the rude vehicle, and the state of the
roads would permit, the little cavalcade wound away towards Dreux,
leaving the forest once more to silence and solitude.