THE CHAPEL IN THE WOOD.
So ended my painful interview with Marie Louise.
The lofty air assumed by this presumptuous Austrian lord rankled in
my breast like a poisoned arrow! I longed to meet him alone--alone
on the solitary highway, or in some deep and voiceless solitude, in
any sequestered place where there would be none to see or to separate
us; and where, with sword and dagger, we might prove which was the
better man, or which was the greater braggart of the two. For the
present, there was nothing for me but to retreat, leaving him in
quiet possession of the battlefield and of the contested prize, alas!
for hope, had I none! That fickle fortune would ever afford to one
so humble, a prospect or a plea for disputing her hand and love with
the son and heir of Pappenheim, the rival of Tilly--he whose pride
made him spurn even the Golden Fleece was more than a madman's dream.
Had the gallant old Duke been severe upon me as his prisoner--nay,
had he even been less kind--I would have left nothing undone to carry
off his daughter and wed her in the face of France and the Empire;
but the demeanour of Charles IV. was too conciliatory to spur or
foster such a thought of treachery in me.
After a residence in Paris, during that age of dissipation and vice
when virtue and religion were alike made a mockery, it charmed me to
find that, with all her beauty, her natural wit and shrewdness, Marie
Louise was so innocent and so amiable. In short, I knew not which
dazzled me most--her vivacity of thought and grace of expression, the
beauty of her person, or the purity and sincerity of her heart, which
(unchanged as when first I met her) loved me still, with a regard
which was strengthened by a sentiment of pity for the deception of
which I had been the dupe, and for the wrong that had thus been done
me.
But Pappenheim had certainly overheard a considerable portion of our
interview: he might thus know my route to the French camp, and put in
practice some foul treachery; for I believed that he and his
compatriot, De Bitche, were capable of any atrocity.
I exchanged my cassock for a good buff coat, trimmed with broad bars
of silver lace, a cuirass, and gorget, which, together with a
basinette of tempered steel, were given to me by De Vaudemont. I
charged carefully my pistols, the recent gift of his father, examined
the locks, and then placed them in my girdle, with a good dagger and
sword. My papers and despatches I had already secured in a secret
pocket; and the Prince, as he placed in my hand a passport signed by
the Duke, told me that the master of the horse had selected the best
steed in the ducal stables to replace the fine Spanish barb so
wickedly destroyed by De Bitche. My old travelling-cloak, with a
Spanish beaver, I presented to Sergeant Asfeldt, and a dear gift they
proved to him in the sequel.
'You go by Dieuze and Sarrebourg?' said the Prince.
'Yes; but would not a route by Rosiers and Luneville be safer?'
'It would be a longer detour; but as for the safety, I do not see
much difference. De Bitche has property and adherents both at
Luneville and Rosiers, and I suspect him of conspiring with
Pappenheim, so keep well to the left of the main road to
Elsace-Zaberne. They have just had a long conference in the
court-yard; I watched them from a window, and the moment it was
concluded, De Bitche departed towards the bridge of the Meurthe, with
ten petardiers of his company on horseback. Thus, I fear me, the
Luneville road may be beset, and pray you to be wary.'
'Beset by De Bitche?'
'Sacre, yes!'
'A curse on him and on all his generation.'
'It will not mend the matter: but in case you are actually watched,
leave Nanci to-night, as pre-arranged; but do not set forward, lest
there be an ambuscade on one or both of the roads. There is an old
chapel of St. Nicolas in the Wood, a mile below the city, on the
right bank of the river. A pathway diverging to the left near an old
stone cross leads directly to it; there you can remain till morning,
and then ride boldly forward. You will have a long summer day's
march before you, and by nightfall may see the ramparts of
Elsace-Zaberne still glittering, I hope, with the helmets of
Mulheim's brave Lorrainers.'
I thanked Vaudemont, and bade him adieu with a depth of feeling that
must have surprised him; but he was the brother of her I loved more
than all the world beside; and, moreover, with all his recklessness
and devil-may-care spirit, he was a gallant and generous youth, who
struggled nobly but vainly in after years to regild the faded glories
of his house.
I rode from the palace and through the principal street of Nanci,
that my departure might be seen by all who felt any interest therein;
and quitting the city by one of its northern gates, trotted along the
well-wooded highway, that led towards the frontier. At the stone
cross, which stood near a well, I turned my horse, as directed by the
Prince; and after throwing a sharp glance round me, to assure myself
that no secret eye was upon me, I descended into a dell, covered by
thick dark copsewood, and rode rapidly in search of the ancient
chapel, in which, like a hero of the Round Table, I was to pass the
night alone.
The sun had set beyond the valleys of the Meuse and the Moselle, and
the last gleams of the west bathed with a saffron tint the walls and
towers, the spires and ducal palace, of Nanci, as they rose to the
eastward of my path, above green groves of full-bearing orange and
plum trees.
Torrents of rain had recently fallen amid the woods and snows of the
Vosges: thus the waters of the Meurthe were swollen, and I heard
their current roaring in full flood as they rolled through the
echoing woods of the valley I traversed.
Rising amid the coppice, on a knoll, I found the chapel of St.
Nicolas--a plain but sturdy old Gothic structure, the low round
arches, zigzag ornaments, and grimly-grotesque carvings of which
declared it to be coeval, perhaps, with Charles, Lord of Lower
Lorraine. It contained an altar and shrine of St. Nicolas, before
both of which some oil-lamps, that were nightly lit by the old
canonesses of a neighbouring establishment, were burning and
sputtering in the currents of air. I unbitted and stabled my
charger, relaxed his saddle-girths, and left him in one of the stalls
built near the porch for the horses of visitors. Entering, I shut
the door, rolled my cloak round me, and with my sword, pistols, and a
flask of good brandy, endeavoured to make myself at ease, after
dropping a few coins into the visitors' box, lest I might depart with
the shades of night and forget all about it on the morrow. I then
composed myself to sleep on a bench at the lower end of the chapel.
The altar lamps flickered and flared in the currents of wind; but, as
my eye become accustomed to their feeble light, the features of the
chapel grew gradually clearer to my eye, and many a stone visage that
was hideously grotesque, seemed to laugh and wink to me, from the
carved corbeilles of the roof, and the massive bosses that clasped
the interlacings of the groined arches. St. Nicolas, with a halo of
gilded iron round his head, stood quaintly out in bold relief from
the painted wall on one side; on the other, framed in marble, shone a
large sheet of polished copper, whereon was written a complete
history of the battle fought before the walls of Nanci in 1475 by
Charles the Hardy, Duke of Burgundy, who, with the flower of his
followers, was there slain by the soldiers of René, Duke of Lorraine.
On this plate were graven the names and armorial bearings of all the
Burgundian knights who perished with Duke Charles; and the list
closed by a request that the pious reader would pray for their souls,
as their bodies were all interred in this chapel of St. Nicolas.
There were certainly more pleasant places wherein to pass a night
than that old chapel, with all its buried dead and gloomy
associations of desperation and defeat; but Scot though I was, and
deeply imbued, moreover, by that superstition which few of my
countrymen are without, I thought not of the hacked helmets and
knightly bones that lay beneath me, or of the chances of spectral
appearances, as the mid-mirk hour of the night approached--as the air
waxed colder and the altar lights grew dim--I thought only of my own
wayward fate; of the strange passages of my life during the last few
years; of the dangers I had escaped and those I might yet encounter;
of Louise, whom I loved so well--who loved me in return, but from
whom I seemed hopelessly separated for ever.
How much more enchanting than the large and voluptuous Clara--she who
for a time had so dangerously dazzled me--was the smaller and more
delicately-formed Marie Louise--half-woman and half-angel; like a
poet's dream, a Raphael's happiest thought! So perfect in her purity
of form; so beautiful in face, expression and thought.
'Ah, Marie Louise, there is none other like you in the world!'
thought I, with mingled rapture and bitterness. 'Who ever loved me
so well? Yet we shall never see, never meet, never hear each other's
voice again! I can be reckless enough in battle now, for I have no
mistress for whom to spare myself.'
The exhaustion of long toil and deprivation of rest, now began to
steal over me, and I had fallen into a doze, to dream of Louise as
Nicola, when a sound roused me, making me start to full and nervous
wakefulness, as the whizz of the first shot in action might do. I
started! My horse was neighing in its adjacent stall, to me a signal
sufficient that other nags were near. I thought of De Bitche with
his ten petardiers, and cocked my pistols. I heard the hoofs of a
horse ringing, as it was galloped down the path, across the wooded
valley, and drawing nearer as it approached the chapel, till at last
the sound become dull and muffled on the sward. I boldly threw open
the chapel door to confront this midnight visitor, and by the dim
light of the stars without, and the flicker of the altar lamps
within, beheld a handsome young man, mounted on a powerful grey
horse, with his cloak muffled up to his nose and his hat pulled down
to his eyes; but I soon perceived that he wore the long moustache and
pointed _royale_, peculiar to the court of-Louis XIII.
'Hark you, M. le Chevalier!' said he.
'Who are you?' I asked.
'I am René, Knight of Malta, one of the Duke's gentlemen in ordinary.
I had the pleasure of conducting you, monsieur, to the presence of my
foster-sister to-day.'
'You mean Mademoiselle de Lorraine?'
'Marie Louise--yes.'
'And you are her foster-brother?'
'Yes, monsieur; my mother nursed her; I have taught mademoiselle to
ride; to throw off a falcon, and to shoot with the arbalest à jallet,
as we name a little crossbow for throwing clay pellets. Were not
such tasks a happiness?'
'M. René, I envy you; but what seek you here?' I asked, with
suspicion.
'I sought you, M. Blane, and I am happy to find that you are not
gone. Are you not afraid of being robbed in this solitary place.'
'I am afraid of nothing, M. René; fifty crowns are all I possess in
the world.'
'But one's skin is of some value, and that may be perilled in these
woods among wolves and outlaws.'
'To the point, M. le Chevalier de Malta,' said I, suspiciously; 'it
was not merely to tell me all this you sought me. Perhaps you bring
a message from Wolfgang Count Pappenheim? If so----'
'What then?'
'You are doubly welcome.'
The eyes of the Lorrainer sparkled.
'No, monsieur,' said he, 'I am not in the habit of bearing messages
for M. Pappenheim; he is one for whom I have but little love----'
'Give me your hand, my dear M. René. I request to be admitted to a
copartnery in that abhorrence.'
'You hate each other, then?'
''Tis to avoid his assassins I am this night quartered like a paladin
of old in this enchanted chapel; for being in a wood, it must, of
course, be enchanted.'
'Yes; it is said that the spirit of Charles the Hardy stalks forth
every night at twelve o'clock, side by side with René of Lorraine,
both cap-a-pie.'
'Well, twelve is long since past by my watch, and neither of these
personages have gone forth, unless they have done so unseen by me.
And so you, too, are at enmity with Pappenheim?'
'Enmity deep, bitter, and undying!'
'We are allies,' thought I; 'but, the devil! we may be rivals, too!'
'In a dispute when hunting, Count Pappenheim, who is a rough and
unlicked German cub, dared to strike me with his riding-rod--I, René
of Gondrecourt, knight of Malta. Oh, M. Blane! but for the solemn
vow which binds me to my order, and but for the marriage which is
about to be celebrated between him and mademoiselle my foster-sister,
this dagger had laid him dead beside the deer which was the matter in
dispute.'
'No vows bind me, dear René,' said I, pressing the hand of the young
Chevalier; 'and when Pappenheim and I meet, my sword, I hope, shall
write on his plump German hide a full and fair apology for all our
wrongs.'
'We heard of a strange accident just before I left the palace. The
Count de Bitche and ten of his petardiers left Nanci on horseback
this forenoon abruptly, and without the Duke's orders took the road
to Luneville.'
'Indeed!' said I, becoming suddenly interested.
'Sergeant Caspar Alsfeldt of Vaudemont's musketeers----'
'A brave and kind old fellow; he brought me prisoner to Nanci.'
'Well, he was despatched with an order for their immediate return;
but they mistook him for some one else, as he was dressed in a
strange hat and cloak, so they fired and pistolled the poor man about
sunset, and he is now lying dead on the road, about three miles from
Nanci.'
'My brave sergeant! he fell into the trap intended by the villains
for me; for doubtless the hat and cloak he wore were mine. I may
well thank Heaven for the foresight of Vaudemont.'
'Hence, M. Blane,' said René, grasping his reins, 'mademoiselle, my
foster-sister, sent me to conjure you, by God's love and her own, to
leave this place without delay, and to accept this little note, which
contains her farewell to you. Adieu, monsieur--or rather au revoir,
for we shall meet again in our helmets during some of those fine
summer days on the banks of the Rhine.'
As he said this, René placed a note in my hand, put spurs to his
horse, and, from the chapel door, rode down the wooded valley. The
note was written on perfumed Dutch paper, tied crosswise by white
ribbons, and fastened by a little red seal, bearing the winglets
under a coronet.
I cut the ribbons with my dagger, and trembled as I read the note, by
the dim flickering light of the altar.
It bore the signature of Marie Louise, and was written by herself,
assuring me of her unalterable regard, and that death itself were
more welcome to her than this projected union with Pappenheim: it
contained little; but began by desiring me to forget her, and, like a
dear paradox, ended by begging me to remember the pleasant days we
had passed together, and though separated, to think kindly of her, as
she would never cease to think of me but with sorrow and love.
This little billet occasioned in me the usual burst of transport such
evidences of affection generally develop in lovers, all of which the
reader knows very well; and I was carefully refolding, after reading
it for the tenth time, when a sound caught my ear. I listened. It
was a distant clock striking the hour of four. I looked up, and saw
that already the altar lamps were sinking and about to expire, and
that grey dawn was beginning to shine through the painted windows of
the old chapel.
'Now,' thought I, 'let me to my saddle, and with whip and spur make
this new nag of mine believe that he has Satan himself on his back!'