Chapter V

It was a soft calm night, with the moon shining clear and sweet in the sky, and one or two planets wandering like boats of light over the surface of the profound blue ocean of the heavens. All the world, too, was hushed in sleep; and, as the young Vendean took his way toward the spot appointed for the exchange of the two prisoners, not a sound was to be heard but the steps of his own party. That party, however, was reduced to four; for, feeling that he had no right to peril lives which might be of infinite import to the noble cause he had espoused, in an enterprise which he could not but acknowledge was wholly inspired by personal attachment, Auguste had positively refused the company of any but old La Brousse, and one other attached friend who would take no refusal. Between them they led the young soldier who had remained in their hands as a hostage; and as they advanced through a winding dell, the tall trees of which hid the Loire from their sight, they paused at every aperture in the thick foliage, to gaze out anxiously over the waters. A thin light haze, however, was rising over the river, and though its course could be plainly discerned, yet the more minute objects which moved upon its bosom--if there were any--were hidden from their sight. At the low sandy landing-place, where they at length arrived, all was still obscure; and they remained till the wind brought upon their ears, the chime of the distant clocks of Nantes, striking the hour of midnight. Almost immediately afterwards, the dull sound of oars was heard from the water, and a small boat was seen shooting up the middle of the stream. In it there appeared but two persons, and one of them was evidently a female. The heart of the young Vendean beat quick, while the rower pulled on and then guided his boat direct to the landing-place. It glided rapidly through the water, touched the shore, and in a moment after the hand of Clara de la Roche was clasped in that of her deliverer.

The young soldier was immediately set at liberty; and, without the interchange of a word, sprang into the boat, and was dropping down the Loire with his father, while Clara, hardly believing her senses, was hurrying on with her new companions towards a spot where horses had been prepared to carry them away from pursuit.

"Oh, sir, I feel that I have to thank you for more than life!" she said at length, turning to him whom we have called Auguste.

"For nothing--nothing, dearest girl!" he answered. "Nay, do not start!" he added, marking the surprise which the expression he had used towards her called forth: "nay, do not start! Did not the man who set you at liberty tell you, that it was into the hands of Auguste de Beaumont he was about to deliver you? Did he not say, that it was to the care and guidance of your promised husband that he was about to yield you?"

Clara had no time to reply; for, ere she could express by one word any of the mingled emotions which such tidings might well call up in her heart, there was a rustle in the trees--a rush of many feet--a momentary struggle; and, in the end, she found herself once more a prisoner by the side of her lover, while a troop of revolutionary soldiers from Nantes insulted them by every sort of bitter mockery and coarse jest.

"Well, well! we have set the rat-trap to some purpose!" cried one. "So, brigand, you thought to carry a prisoner away from the town of Nantes without even paying the fees!" exclaimed another. "She is your promised wife, too, is she?" said a third. "Well, to-morrow you shall have a republican marriage of it!" Amidst such jeers, the prisoners were dragged on to Nantes, now understanding well that the brief liberation of Mademoiselle de la Roche had been but a trap to decoy the whole party. Few words were spoken amongst the prisoners. Consolation was in vain--hope there was none--Robespierre lived, and death was the only prospect. Auguste de Beaumont pressed the hand of Clara, and Clara whispered with a few bitter tears, "You have sacrificed yourself for me!"

This was all that passed, ere in separate dungeons they were left to wait their approaching fate--Clara enduring with the true fortitude of woman, and Auguste de Beaumont chafing at his chains, with the impetuosity of one who had never been aught but free.

It would be more harrowing than interesting to detail the passing of a night in the dungeons of a revolutionary prison. That night, however long and dreadful it might seem to Clara de la Roche, passed at length; and, by daylight, the minions of the grossest tyranny that ever darkened the earth, came to drag the unhappy girl to the fate reserved for all that was great and noble in France. Strange however to say, that fate did not seem in her eyes so appalling as one might suppose. Weary of persecution, and terror, and flight, and uncertainty, and grief, there was an anticipation very like a feeling of relief; in the thought of one brief step leading to immortality, and peace, and joy; and she advanced to the cart destined to drag her to the place of execution, with greater alacrity than her tyrants were accustomed or willing to behold. In the fatal vehicle were already placed Auguste de Beaumont, the friend who had accompanied him on his ill-starred expedition, and good old La Brousse, the farmer of Dervais. They waited but for her alone, and, when she was placed in the car, the word was given to march.

The procession moved forward through the streets of Nantes, towards the river, escorted by a small body of cavalry; and, though the hour was yet early, it was remarked that large crowds were collected to see a sight which certainly had not the advantage of novelty in that unhappy town. There was a deep solemn stillness, too, in the multitude, as the cart rolled through the midst of them, that had something in it portentous as well as awful; and a low murmur, like the rush of a receding wave, was heard as the history of the two younger victims was whispered amongst the people.

The tyrants, however, had no dread, and the vehicle went slowly on; when, in passing the end of a narrow street which led towards the Place d'Armes, the clatter of a horse's feet at full gallop was heard from a parallel avenue. The horse galloped on, but the street was filled with people, and for a moment there were heard loud murmurs at the further end. The next instant came a profound silence, during which nothing was distinguishable but the creaking of the heavy cartwheels, and the slow tramp of the soldiers' horses; but then, one loud stentorian voice shouted, with a sound that was heard through the whole street, "Robespierre is dead!!! Down with the tyrants!!!"

A cry of joy, and triumph, and encouragement, burst from the multitudes around. As if bound together by some secret arrangement--though none, in truth, existed, save detestation of the sanguinary tyranny of the Jacobins--As if animated by one spirit--though men of almost every party were present--the crowds rushed on from every quarter upon the cart, which was dragging new victims to immolation. The soldiers were overpowered in a moment; one or two were killed on the spot. The cords that tied the prisoners were cut--a thousand hands were held out to give them aid--a thousand voices cried, fly here, or fly there; but at length one more prudent than the rest, exclaimed, "To the gates! To the gates!" and in five minutes Auguste de Beaumont, bearing Clara in his arms, and followed by their fellow prisoners, was clear of the city of Nantes.

One of the heroes of the Bocage, Auguste was well experienced in every art for baffling a pursuing enemy. No sooner was the tumult in the city known, than Lamberty called forth the troops, and Carrier mounted his horse. But the news met them in the street, that on July the 27th just four days before--Robespierre, their patron and example, had ended his days upon the public scaffold.

Terror took possession of them; their measures for repressing the rising, or for overtaking the fugitives, were weak and vacillating; and ere night, Auguste de Beaumont and Clara de la Roche were far from all pursuit.

Time passed, and the struggle of loyalty and good faith against oppression, tyranny, and crime, continued in La Vendée for some months longer; but when, at length, the cause became desperate, and hope was at an end in France, a small fishing-boat conveyed Auguste de Beaumont and his bride to England. In regard to old La Brousse, he calmly returned to the house he had ever inhabited, and, strange to say, received no molestation therein, till death fell upon his eyelids as a tranquil sleep.

Carrier and Lamberty, it is true, had little time to think of the victims who had escaped them, or to point them out to others. Their fate is well known, and surely was well deserved. As for Ninette, who had betrayed to the revolutionary rulers the refuge of Mademoiselle de la Roche, she is said to have married a corporal in the guard, who afterwards rose to the rank of a general, and who displayed no great tenderness towards his lady in subsequent years, although her chief fault in his eyes was, that she did not bear her blushing honours with as much grace as he could have desired.

THE DISASTERS.

After visiting the cottage of old La Brousse, I proceeded by a cross road, and hired horses to the little town of Redon which I had never seen; and, arriving at night, I entered, as usual, the public room of the inn. A party of four French officers were there assembled; and amongst them one with whom I had been well acquainted at Rennes. He was a frank, gallant young fellow, somewhat hasty and irascible, but still generous and kind-hearted withal. It is the rarest thing in the world to see French officers drink too much; but, on the present occasion, the bottle had evidently been circulating rapidly, and my friend, whom I shall call Monsieur de la Grange, in order to cover his real name, rose and embraced me, on perceiving who it was, with a degree of enthusiasm proportioned to the quantity of wine he had imbibed. I, for my part, was affected by a sort of intoxication of another kind, and forgetting that many of the French officers were but the children of the revolution, I related my visit to the cottage of old La Brousse in very high-flown language. La Grange scarcely suffered me to come to an end before he called the object of my admiration. "A cursed old Chouan!" Words ensued of a sharp and angry nature, generating others bitterer still; and before I had tasted the supper which the aubergiste busied himself to prepare for me, a challenge had been given and received. The only difficulty was the time and place. I had no friends in that neighbourhood who could give me assistance on such an occasion, and I proposed to void our differences at Rennes. This, however, the French officers could not agree to, as they had been detached from the garrison of Rennes only two days before, and my want of a friend was removed by the kindness of an officer of infantry who was present; and who offered, if I would trust in him, to give me every aid in his power.

I accepted his proposal with pleasure; the meadows near the town were appointed for the meeting, and the hour named five o'clock the next morning. I will not dwell upon my feelings during that night, nor even upon the rencontre of the next morning, as the consequences were more important to me than the event itself. To say the truth, I felt less upon the subject than I ought to have done, and could scarcely get my mind to grasp the belief that I might be killed. I knew that such might be the case, but yet it did not come home to me; and though I sat down calmly to write to Emily in case of the worst, and to make my will in her favour, yet I did it but with little care, making sure that I should have to tear it next day. I was woke out of a sound sleep by my second, whose gentlemanly kindness and attention towards a foreigner, under such circumstances, well deserve my gratitude, and proceeded with him through a cold, damp, misty morning to the field. Leaving every thing of course to be settled by those around us, my adversary and myself soon brought our own part of the business to an end, I remaining severely wounded in my right arm, and he being led from the field with his hand so completely disabled, that I believe he has never yet recovered the use thereof.

We had not taken the precaution to take a surgeon with us from the town, and consequently, notwithstanding all our own efforts and those of our seconds also, we were both faint from the loss of blood by the time we reached the inn. To do my antagonist but justice, however, let me say, ere I go further, that ere we quitted the field, he grasped my left hand with his (for the right of each was disabled), and taking all the blame upon himself, expressed bitter sorrow for what had occurred. On arriving at the town, too, there was but one surgeon to be found: La Grange insisted upon his attending to me first, and my wounded arm was accordingly subjected to all the torture of surgical investigation. The man of healing, however, seemed really to understand his business; and according to his direction I went to bed, where I soon fell asleep. It was but, however, to wake with great fever, and when I proposed to go on to Rennes on the following day, the surgeon assured me that the consequences of my stirring from my bed for the next week might be the loss of my arm, the bone having been injured though not broken.

Thus was I kept in the little town of Redon for nearly a month, my wound seeming to get worse instead of better. One of the greatest annoyances which I suffered, was the not being able to write to various friends with whom my correspondence was already somewhat in arrear; but I still took measures to relieve the minds of those who were most dear to me from anxiety, by making my servant write twice under my dictation to Mr. Somers, giving a full account of all that had occurred, and begging him to assure Emily and my mother that I, was not seriously hurt.

I also directed Essex, for such was the servant's somewhat lordly name, to write to the director of the post at Rennes, begging him to forward all letters which might arrive at that place, to Redon; but no letters reached me, and at length my anxiety grew so great that, notwithstanding the damp heat of the weather, and my surgeon's strenuous opposition, I put horses to my carriage, and set out for Rennes.

I certainly had felt very feverish and ill for two or three days before I took this resolution, but that only strengthened me in it, as I attributed the feeling of general illness which I now experienced, to the air of the place, which was not particularly healthy. This view was perhaps right, but I had not acted upon it soon enough, for before I reached Rennes, I was in a state of delirium from typhus fever, and I have very little remembrance of any thing that occurred to me during the fortnight which followed.

When I recovered my consciousness, I found myself in the wretched inn at Rennes, in a state of the most deplorable weakness, mental and corporeal; and strength returned so slowly, that for several days the medical men would not even suffer me to speak, except to ask for what I wanted. My first inquiry, after this prohibition was removed, was for letters from England, but they would not suffer me to have those which had arrived, merely telling me that all my friends were well.

At the end of another fortnight, several letters were given me, and I looked over them eagerly to find the handwriting of Emily Somers. There were none from either my mother, Mr. Somers or Emily, and I hastily opened one which I saw was from the hand of my intimate friend B----, but how did it begin?

"My dear Young,

"I have anxiously, but hesitatingly, thought of writing, to offer you some words of consolation. Every day since your mother's death--"

The letter, dropped from my hand, and I fell back in the chair in a state of stupor, from which it required three or four days to rouse me. The letters, which had been sealed with red wax, had been given to me by the surgeons not anticipating such a result; but the sudden news which I then received, threw me back in my recovery, and ten days more elapsed before they would suffer me to read those sealed with black, which they had at first withheld, The first I now opened was from Mr. Somers. It consisted merely of a few lines, informing me drily that my mother had been taken ill in the night, and died before the following morning.

"Sir Henry Halford informs me," he went on to say, "that the disease which so speedily terminated her life, must have been long undermining her constitution; but I cannot help adding, that the reports she has heard of her son's conduct on the continent, had greatly affected her spirits, whatever effect they might produce upon her health."

I looked to the date, it was more than two months old; and I hurriedly turned to another letter, on which I recognised the handwriting of Emily. It was of a later date, not more than a month had elapsed since it had been written, and it began.

"Dearest, dearest James,

"I cannot--I will not--believe all they tell me of you, although your long and unaccountable silence would seem to give weight to what they say. I write to you by stealth, I confess, but I feel it my duty, after all that has passed, to beg you, if you still love Emily Somers, and would save her from misery, to come over to England without an hour's delay----"

The surgeon stood by me while I read, but the effect was very different now; my arm was nearly well, and in all respects I was better than I had been when I read the former letter. These, too, stirred up within me an energy to meet the exigency of the moment which communicated itself even to my corporeal frame. I saw that there was evil going on, and destruction to all my hopes hanging over my head, like the Persian's sword, by a single hair; but it raised a spirit to resist and to struggle, and, instead of yielding either to grief or apprehension, I called loudly for my servant. As soon as he appeared, I demanded if he had carefully sent the letters I had dictated to him at Redon, and I fixed my eye upon him with a firm conviction of having been deceived. His colour wavered like that of a love-sick girl, while he replied that he had; and I instantly answered, "Sir, you are a lying scoundrel, and no longer my servant!" He then proceeded to be insolent, but I begged the surgeon to send him out of the room, and in a few brief words explained to him, that matters even more important to me than life called me to England, and that I must set out the day after the subsequent one.

The worthy surgeon, who was both kind and skilful, seemed not a little astounded at my determination; but finding that it was immovable, he replied, "Well, then, you must make no exertion in the interim. Let me arrange the business of your passport, settle your affairs, and make all your preparations. I will then accompany you to the coast, and do all I can to prevent this dangerous necessity from producing your death."

I agreed to his proposal at once, and never had more cause to be thankful than I had for having confided in him. He, at my request, paid Master Essex, and sent him out of the house; engaged me another servant, who saved me all exertion; and, after taking a world of trouble, he not only got me safely started on my journey, but, by skilful management, contrived that the fatigue and change of air should not only not retard my convalescence, but should improve my health. At Havre I entered the steam-boat, and kept myself perfectly quiet on board till we landed, gaining strength from the sea air, and preventing myself even from thinking, lest I should take from myself the powers which I had a presentiment that I should need in their full activity. I slept a good deal on board the vessel, so that when we arrived at Southampton I felt myself quite sufficiently well to proceed at once to Louden. I arrived in town about five o'clock in the morning, and, forcing my way into the Clarendon, wrote a note to Mr. Somers, telling him of my arrival, alluding briefly, but firmly, to false reports having been spread of my conduct, and mentioning the fact of my having been ill for two months, and ignorant of all that had passed in London. This I left with the waiter, ordering it to be sent at eight o'clock, at which time Mr. Somers rose, and then lay down to rest myself till nine, When the servant called me at that hour, he put an answer to my letter into my hands. It was to the following effect:

"Dear Sir,

I have just received your's, which requires great consideration, and in the course of the morning I will call upon you. In the mean time let me hint, that as my daughter Emily is at present engaged to Mr. Alfred Wild, your visits in Portland Place might be considered indecorous.

"Your's truly,

Charles Somers."

The mystery, then, was solved. She was engaged to Alfred Wild; but that engagement, I well knew, could only have been brought about by some foul deceit; and I resolved, that, if I lived at least, it should never be executed. Indignation was now my best friend, for it kept me from feeling any thing else; and notwithstanding Mr. Somers's injunction to the contrary, I instantly, I instantly ordered a coach and proceeded to Portland Place. Mr. Somers, I found, had just gone out; and, without asking any further questions, I walked straight up stairs to the drawing-room, passing the servant who opened the door, and in whose demeanour I observed a degree of lazy carelessness very different from the smart activity which had reigned throughout the household during my mother's life. In the great drawing-room there was no one; but, pushing open the folding-doors, I entered the little drawing-room, and was at once in the presence of Emily Somers.

She was sitting gazing on an unfolded letter--it was the one I had sent her father in the morning--and the tears were still rolling rapidly down her cheeks. At the sound of my step she started up, gazed at me wildly for a moment, as if she hardly knew me--and well she might doubt whether it was the same person who had left her--and then at once cast herself into my arms and wept aloud.

It is scarcely possible to tell all that passed, but I found that her father, after showing her my letter, had gone out in a state of terrible agitation to the father of Alfred Wild, what to do she did not fully explain; but in her whole account there was a confusion and a wildness, which showed me that there was much, very much, that I did not comprehend; and I should have been naturally led to investigate all the facts in the first place, had not her reiterated exclamations of "Then you do love me still, James? You have not forgotten me? You have not acted as they said?" induced me first to vindicate myself. I told her all that had happened. I related the duel, my sickness, the conduct of my servant, and, with imprecations on the head of Alfred Wild, I told her that I believed, from the first, the man Essex had been bribed to furnish matter against me. She turned very pale at the language which I used towards my enemy, and certainly it was violent and improper; but, interrupting what she was about to say upon it, I eagerly entreated her to explain how she had been entrapped into an engagement with a man she neither loved nor esteemed, and to promise me solemnly to consider that engagement as nothing when compared with her troth plighted to myself.

"What could I do, James? What can I do?" she exclaimed, "when my own father besought, entreated, almost went on his knees to his own child--when they persuaded me that you loved me no longer, and that you were living with the wife of another man!"

"But surely, Emily," I cried, "you do not hesitate now which engagement is to be kept--the one obtained by fraud and falsehood, or the prior one, sealed by affection and esteem. You do not, you cannot hesitate, or you are not my Emily--not the Emily I left!"

"I am--I am your Emily," she replied, casting herself again upon my bosom, "and I do not hesitate, James; but indeed you do not know all, and I am afraid that I must not tell you all; but I will go on my knees to my father to beseech him to tell you the whole, and if he loves me as he says, to break all ties with that wretched man."

"Wretched indeed!" I cried; "but I will find a means to break them, Emily, and in the mean time promise me--"

But at that moment there was a furious knock at the street-door. "It is he! It is he!" cried Emily, starting up as pale as death, "I cannot, I will not see him any more! But, oh! James, go home quick, for my father will be with you soon, and I would not have you miss him for the world."

I tried to detain her for one word more, but there was the sound of a hasty step running up stairs, and darting from me, she rushed out of the room. I followed to the door, and just caught a sight of her retreating figure as at the top of the great staircase she turned to enter her own room. Coming up the flight of steps below me, however, was an object which called all my thoughts into another direction. It was Alfred Wild himself, and never shall I forget the expression of his countenance as our eyes met. Rage, jealousy, disappointment, and fiendish malice, were all as plainly to be read there, as the thunder can be seen in the lurid cloud, even before it bursts: but feelings as bitter were in my heart, and as he came rapidly up the staircase I strode forward to meet him. We met at the top of the staircase. "What do you do here?" I cried. "How dare you ever to set your foot again in a house that you have made miserable by your falsehood and your baseness?"

"Beggarly puppy!" he began to reply; but I gave him no time to proceed further; for catching him by the collar and the back, with the momentary strength of overpowering indignation, I cast him from the top of the stairs to the bottom; and then following him, as he rose bewildered with his rapid descent, I spurned him with my foot into the hall. He did not offer to strike me again, but snatching his hat from the hands of one of the servants who had picked it up as he rolled down stairs, he shook his clenched fist at me, with his teeth set fast, and darting through the open door, sprang into his curricle and drove away.

For my part I hastened back to the Clarendon, and instantly wrote a now to my friend B----, begging him to come to me directly; and even while waiting his arrival, I sat down, I am sorry to say, with all the fierce feelings of a Cain in my heart, and penned a note to the man who had so bitterly injured me, calling upon him to meet me the next morning in order to atone with his blood for the calumnies he had uttered against me. In less than half an hour B---- was with me; and I put the note into his hands, telling him the fact which had given rise to such a measure. He read it over; but did not approve. It was so fierce, he said, and violent, that he could not let me send it. I then told him to dictate one to me, and I would write it, provided it admitted of no compromise; for I would accept no apology. He agreed, and I sat down to the task; but ere I had written the first words the waiter came in and put a note into my hand.

It was from Emily, and contained but a few words, but those few words were important. She wrote to me, she said, to warn me, lest I should madly hurry forward to destroy both her happiness and mine. From what I had let drop, she continued, while speaking with her, as well as from the noise she had heard after she had left me, she augured ill of my intentions towards the man who had injured me, and she wrote to prevent me from committing an act which would place an eternal bar between her and me. Her religion, she said, and all her feelings taught her to look upon the man who killed another in a duel as a murderer, and such a one should never have her hand. She could not, she added, and would not attempt to argue the matter at length with me, but she thought it right at once to inform me, however dearly she might love me, she would never, under any change of circumstances, become my wife if Alfred Wild were slain by my hand. A few words of tenderness were added, which went sweetly to my heart, but did not at all tend to make me suppose that Emily would fail in keeping her determination. I knew her too well to believe that she would change; and starting up, somewhat to B----'s surprise, I walked in much agitation once or twice up and down the room. I felt myself obliged, at length, to show him Emily's letter, and after some further explanation, he advised me kindly to let the matter rest for the present, as I had vindicated my own honour by inflicting personal chastisement upon my adversary.

While we were still talking over the matter, the waiter announced that a gentleman desired to speak with me, and I ordered him to be shown in, expecting to see Mr. Somers. The visitor, however, was a stranger, but his business was soon explained. He came on the part of Mr. Alfred Wild, he said, to ask the name of any friend with whom he could arrange the preliminaries of a meeting, which I must perceive was inevitable. I immediately pointed to my friend B----, and informed Captain Truro that we had been already talking over the matter, and then whispering to B---- not to let the meeting be deferred beyond the next morning, I left them together, retiring to my own bed-room.

In about ten minutes B---- called me, and informed me that the hour and place had been fixed for six, on Wandsworth Common. Captain Truro was gone, and my friend remained with me some time, making every sort of necessary arrangement, but he remarked my eye often resting upon Emily's letter, and kindly said, "You must not think of that letter, Young. I dare say Miss Somers will view the matter in a different light when she finds that you have not been the challenger."

"No, no!" replied I, "in her opinion it will be just the same. But as you say, I must not think of the letter, for I have but one course before me. I do not feel at all inclined to let such a scoundrel escape, and I cannot do so if I would; for not to fire at him would be tacitly to acknowledge that I felt myself in the wrong."

"I am afraid it might be so construed, indeed!" replied my friend; "but at all events take my advice, and make up your mind exactly how you are to act, for I have known very fatal consequences ensue from hesitation in such circumstances."

The rest of the day past much as may be imagined. I was agitated, undoubtedly; but it was with strong contending passions. I had some faint conviction that Emily was in the right, and that to kill another in a duel was as much murder as to slay a fellow-creature under the influence of any passion whatever. Against this thought I had nothing to support me but the world's opinion; and in order to feel as little like a murderer as possible, I strove to forget the injuries I had received, and to think that I was only acting in conformity to the code of honour; but still, whenever my mind dwelt upon Alfred Wild, and I thought of how nearly he had deprived me of Emily, or fancied that he might still bar my way to her I loved so deeply, I felt passions rising up in my bosom which I trembled to examine. I tried then to occupy my mind with the expectation of Mr. Somers's visit; but he never came, and at dinner my friend B---- returned, having determined to sleep at the Clarendon that night, that his early rising might not alarm his own family, and perhaps produce some interruption of our proceedings.

During the evening he strove to occupy my mind with other thoughts, after having satisfied himself that I was quite prepared, as far as worldly matters went, for any event which might occur on the following morning. At four o'clock the next day we were called, and breakfasted by candle-light, and in the gray of an autumnal morning got into the carriage with the case of pistols, and with my new French servant upon the box; wondering what it all could mean. We first drove to the house of the surgeon, who had been previously warned of our coming, and then rolled on to Wandsworth as fast as we could. Here we arrived a full quarter of an hour before our time, and leaving the carriage on the road we wandered about the common. I was very chilly from the morning air, and I could not but wonder at how differently I now felt, agitated as I was by violent and terrible passions, from what I had experienced on the former silly duel in Brittany, where I was agitated by no passions at all, and could almost have laughed at the whole business. Some five minutes before the time, also, my adversary appeared, and never did I see a countenance expressing more malevolent feelings than his did at the moment when we met. I could see his eye fixing fiercely upon me, and his lips muttering, as if he could scarcely refrain from giving utterance to all the hatred that was in his heart. I felt not much less towards him; but I had sufficient command over myself to prevent it from appearing, and waited with sufficient appearance of calmness while the ground was measured and the pistols loaded. The only words which were spoken by either my adversary or myself, were occasioned by the seconds measuring twelve paces.

"Twelve!" he exclaimed; "why the devil not make it eight?"

"Eight, by all means, gentlemen," I said. "I cannot be too near him."

"Over a handkerchief, if you like," he added; but B---- interfered, exclaiming, "Nonsense! Nonsense, gentlemen! You must leave all that to us, if you please."

The ground was accordingly measured, and B----, putting the pistol in my hand, said, in a low tone, "Keep your side to him, and your arm masking your side. The words will be, One--two--three--Fire! You are a good shot, I know of old, and he is too angry to hit you; so, if you try, you may perhaps wound him without killing him."

Whether it was that he saw my eye upon him, marking him well, or what, I do not know; but while the seconds were taking their places, I saw a degree of agitation suddenly come over my adversary, and his knees rather bend and shake. At that moment, however, Captain Truro began to give the signals; and as he went on I raised my pistol, exactly at the word "Fire" pulling the trigger. It went off with a sharp, clear, ringing sound, and I evidently saw him reel. But he now slowly and deliberately raised his weapon, which he had not done before, and pointed it at me with a steady aim. We all looked on with some feeling of anxiety, no doubt; but at that moment his left knee began to bend. His hand seemed agitated with a convulsive jerk, and at the very instant that he pulled the trigger he fell back upon the turf. The ball passed through my hat, half an inch above my head; but I instantly ran forward with the other, to see what had occasioned his fall. Captain Truro and B---- raised him, and we found the ground beneath dyed with blood. The surgeon, who was at a little distance, now came up, and, aided by the rest, stripped off his coat and waistcoat. The bosom of his shirt was actually dripping with gore; and, pulling it down, there instantly appeared that small aperture through which the waters of life were flowing away so fast. For a moment the cold air seemed to revive him. At least he opened his eyes as the surgeon held his head upon his knees, and I am certain that he saw me, for the expression of his pale, ghastly features, which at first had been calm, became, for an instant, full of hatred. The next instant, his eyes rolled fearfully in his head ere they became fixed; and never will the sight of that countenance be obliterated from my memory.

The surgeon pointed with his finger to the carriage.

"Do you want your instruments?" demanded Captain Truro.

"There is no use of instruments here, sir," replied the surgeon in a low voice, "he is dead! What I mean is that you had all better get into the carriage, and be gone as fast as possible. Stop not till you are in France, for this seems to have been a bad business. Send me one of the servants, however, and bid the other carriage drive up as near as possible."

I would fain have lingered; but B---- and Captain Truro forced me away, and the former got into my carriage with me. The latter declared he would stay by the body of his friend, and take care of his own safety afterwards.

"On the road to Brighton!" cried B---- to the postilions, "As fast as you can go!"

They very well understood the cause, and set off at full gallop, while I sank back in the corner of the carriage, clasping my hands over my eyes, in the vain attempt to shut out the image of that dark ghastly countenance, with the rolling meaningless eyes, as they had glared upon me, ere the triumph of death was complete.

B---- was also very much affected, and for some way not a word was spoken. At length, fancying that he ought to attempt to console me, he spoke a few words, to which I replied, intending to answer as firmly as I could; but it was with the strangest sensation that I ever experienced that I found that I was talking incoherent nonsense; knowing what I ought to say, conscious that I was not saying it, and yet feeling it impossible so to rule my mind as to utter what I wished. B---- looked at me aghast, and I could just contrive to say "Wait a little! wait a little! I am confused and ill!" That was the last sensation and those the last words that I remember for some time.

It was hardly to be expected, that rising from a sick bed, I should take such a journey, undergo such agitations, and pass through such scenes without suffering in the end. I did not exactly what is called relapse, for the illness that followed bore but little analogy to that which I had suffered before. They called it a brain fever, which I suppose means inflammation of the brain, but at all events, it kept me for three weeks on a sick bed without the use of my senses; and, when I was restored to consciousness, it seemed only to be that I might suffer the more acutely; for what was I to wake to?--the consciousness of being a murderer, the knowledge that Emily was lost to me for ever!

I found myself in a small cottage at Worthing, with my French servant and my friend B---- attending me with the most devoted kindness. As soon as he found that I was able to comprehend him, B---- told me that before I reached Brighton, I had been in a state of furious delirium, raving incessantly of a hideous face that looked at me; and that consequently perceiving that it would be impossible to cross in the public steam-boat next morning, he had turned off with me from Brighton to Worthing, where he had taken the first cottage he could find.

"At first," he continued, "I assumed feigned names both for yourself and me; but I perceive already by the newspapers, that it was unnecessary, as the family have announced their intention not to prosecute."

My health now daily improved; but still it was very slowly, for the physician who attended me could in no way minister to the mind diseased, and in addition to deep remorse for what I had done--for sending a sinful fellow-creature to his long account, with all his worst failings hot about him--in addition to grief for the loss of her I loved, a loss which I felt to be as certain as if she no longer existed, there was yet another dreadful weight upon my mind, which overcame all powers of resistance in my heart, and rendered my recovery slow and imperfect. I never attempted to close my eyes at night without being visited by a horrid vision, the effect of an over-excited imagination, which kept me awake till two or three o'clock in the morning.

The ghastly countenance of him I had slain seemed gazing at me from between the curtains. Whichever way I turned, whichever way I looked, there it was, with the two dim rolling eyes fixed upon me, and that same look of inveterate hatred animating every pale feature. In vain I reasoned, in vain I struggled: there it was every night, and sometimes it haunted me in the day also. At first the torture was dreadful, for I tormented myself beforehand with the expectation of its appearance; but as my corporeal strength increased, and the powers of my mind in some degree returned, I struggled with the delusion, and so far conquered my own feelings, as to banish the sight from my thoughts when the object was not actually before me.

After I had been gradually recovering for about a week, however, I met with another blow, which not only threw me back, but embittered feelings which were sad enough before. Not being able to write myself, I had dictated to B---- a few lines to Emily, telling her how I had suffered, and that I was convalescent; trusting that, however firm she might be in her determination, she would be glad to hear of my recovery, and perhaps hoping, against my better knowledge of her character, that by gradually renewing our intercourse I might eventually lead her to break her resolution against me. At the end of three days, however, B----'s letter was returned to him, opened, indeed, and evidently read, but without a word of comment or reply. He found himself bound to tell me, and a dead sort of desolation, amounting to despair, fell upon my heart, which it is impossible to describe.

Nevertheless, my corporeal health continued to improve, and my mental health also; at least so far, that the wild and horrible vision of my dying adversary began to trouble me less frequently. If I fatigued myself severely, I could fall asleep without seeing that ghastly countenance; and, after discovering that it was so, I took means to produce that effect every night, so that in time I banished it from my pillow entirely. In the day, however, it would still sometimes intrude upon me; and though my mind had recovered a sufficient degree of vigour to struggle against my own feelings, though I revolved many a plan for conquering them altogether, and determined and re-determined to make some great effort in order to shake off the melancholy that hung upon me, yet for several weeks I failed to carry my schemes into effect, and remained in a state of hopeless despondency. All the morning I passed in walking along the sea-shore, gazing upon the rolling waves, or siting with my hands covering my eyes, and brooding over the past. Towards night I always endeavoured to fatigue myself as much as possible, but this was the only exertion I made. I never opened a book--I never wrote a line--and all my days passed in the same dull monotony.

B---- was very kind, endeavouring by all means to soothe me, and bring my mind back to some degree of tone. Almost all his time he devoted to me; once or twice, indeed, visiting London, and now and then going upon a fishing excursion, into which he endeavoured to tempt me, by many an eloquent description of the pleasures he derived from the sport. At length, one day when he returned from London, and found me still apparently in the same state, though in truth I had passed the two preceding days in fresh determinations to exert myself, he sat down and read me a homily on mental weakness, wilful repining, and self-abandonment, with so much kindness and feeling, joined to so much good sense and eloquence, that my often broken resolutions took a firmer character than they had ever yet done, and I replied, "Well, well, B----, do not suppose that I have not been thinking of all this; and I have determined to change my conduct, as far as possible to cast away thought, and to mingle again with the world, seeking in its noise and turbulence, distraction from my own thoughts. But I cannot do it here in England, B----. If you like to accompany me, I am ready now to set out for any part of the world. I will try to make you as good a companion as I can; and though I shall never again be what I have been, yet I feel now that I can cover over my melancholy from the eyes of the world, and may soon, perhaps, laugh the more loudly because it is all hollow within; and if I laugh, 'tis that I may not cry; but never mind, I am prepared to do it now. A few days ago I could not have done it; but I have been schooling and tutoring my own heart, and I find that I can play my unreal part in the world's drama like another; feeling that I am but acting all the time, it is true, but not without a hope, indeed, that I may sometimes deceive my own heart as well as the eyes of others. My plan now will be, to give my mind constant occupation--to leave no moment of the day unemployed--to see every thing--to mark every thing--to mingle with every thing, as I travel on. If the road offer nothing but stones, to examine every stone as I pass, sooner than let my mind rest even for one moment on itself; and, in short, to live as much out of myself as it be possible for man to do. You said, the other day, that you had no tie to England; and if such a plan suit you, let us set out together. Leave me when you are tired of me and my ways; but in the mean time be to me a companion and friend, and keep me, by your presence, from many of those evil actions into which I might otherwise perhaps be hurried, by the recklessness of bitter disappointment, and the hopeless, fearless dreariness of remorse."

My friend B---- willingly entered into my views. Few arrangements were necessary to either of us. I had but one letter to write, and it was merely a letter of business to my banker; for Mr. Somers, on settling his executorial accounts with me on my coming of age, had requested that I should bank with another house, as he thought it better in general for friends and relatives to keep all their money matters separate. Thus my first act in mingling again with the world was as simple and uninteresting as it well could be; but yet it was a trial, and I delayed a whole day before I could make up my mind to begin. When I did, the matter proved more easy than I had expected. The answer was merely one of business, written by a clerk; though in the banker's own hand appeared a postscript, saying, "Mr. Somers and Miss Emily are as well as can be expected."

Those few words had nearly overset all my firmness, but after a struggle I regained it again, and, two days afterwards, we left our cottage for Brighton. Three days had now elapsed since my imagination had called up again that dreadful countenance, and with a sort of fearful, anxious hope, I began to trust that I should see it no more. As the carriage drove up to "The York," however, it was dark; and there it was again before me, in the very passage, and it required every exertion of my reason to enable me to go on. B---- saw me shudder and hesitate, and in a low voice asked what was the matter. "Oh that face!" I answered with a groan. "Hush!" he said, understanding me in a moment, for I had before told him of this infirmity, "Hush! Conquer it always, and it will go of entirely in time. It is less frequent, you see, already!" The sight of the waiters hanging round stimulated me to exertion, and walking on I entered the inn, the face of course vanishing before me.

During the whole evening I hardly dared look round the room, however; and to begin at once with my plan of occupation, I made my servant give me my writing-desk, and sat down to write sketches of any thing on earth,--my own observations, my own feelings, the appearance of external objects, any thing in short that would engross my mind. I have preserved the first night's work of the pen even to the present moment; but it is wild, vague, and scarcely coherent. Nevertheless I pursued the same plan afterwards, with better success, whenever I had an evening unoccupied, writing down whatever I happened to recollect of occurrences last past. Those stray sheets give a better picture of my mind, and the progress which I made towards a better state of health and feeling, than any thing I could write at present; and I add them therefore to these pages, with no further alteration than may leave the narrative unbroken.

Late at night we embarked in the steam-boat for Dieppe, intending to follow nearly the same route which I had pursued on a former occasion, but instead of turning into Brittany, to go on from Tours into the south of France, the air of which provinces the physician at Worthing thought might be beneficial to me.

Of course there was much in England that I wished to forget. Sickness, and sorrow, and pain of every kind, and I felt sure that nothing would do me more general good, than to leave my own land, and all its remembrances behind me, according to the plan I have just mentioned, and to travel into France, where I had spent many happy days once before. As I pondered over my journey, the thought of those times had come back upon my heart like a gleam of sunshine in the midst of winter, and warmed me into energy to undertake it.

It was night, then, when we set out; and while the steam-boat cut her way through the darkness, I felt as if I were leaving sorrow behind me, but as day broke, and the far faint line of my native land appeared bright and soft between the waters and the sky, all the remembrance of my youth, all the hopes that had failed, and the pleasures that had fled, came rushing upon memory, and made it one of the most painful moments of existence. Thank God, there was no one to see me. I was alone upon the deck.

The rising of the sun is always one of the most superb sights in nature, but is never so splendid as when he comes over the sea. The very waves seemed emulous to catch his beams, and a flight of light feathery clouds in the zenith, met the rays even before they reached the earth, and kept blushing with brighter and brighter hues till the whole day burst upon the sky.

"El sol, velando en centellantes fuegos Su inaccessible magestad, preside Qual Rey al universo, esclarecido De un mar de luz, que de su treno corre."

It was one of the most magnificent mornings I ever beheld, and I tried to fix my whole mind upon it, and to call up every train of ideas that might occupy my attention. I brought to my remembrance a multitude of descriptions from various poets of the rising day, and wondered to what poetical fancy the ancients were indebted for the allegory of Aurora (one of the most splendid fictions which adorns their mythology), I tried to imagine that I saw the goddess of the morning opening the gates of light. I forced upon recollection the paintings of Marmontel, and Byron, and Shakspeare, and Milton, and Homer. But in vain--my thoughts still wandered to all I was leaving, and my eye still turned towards the lessening shores of England; till the far lumen of my native land grew fainter and fainter upon the sky, till one object after another, like every joy of existence, was gradually lost to the sight, and blue distance closing over all, I was in the midst of the ocean with nothing but waves around me. It was but too good an image of my own fate.

THE WAKING.

Ah! che non sol quelle, ch' io canto o scrivo

Favole son; ma quanto temo, o spero, Tutto è menzogna, e delirando io vivo

Sogno della mia vita è il corso intero.

--Metastasio.

It was one of the sweetest sleeps I had ever enjoyed. Fatigue had been bountiful to me, and given me back a blessing I had not known for many a weary night. It is only when we have lost them, for a time, that we learn to appreciate Heaven's gifts. The whole world is full of sweets that we taste not, till sickness teaches us that our very faculties are joys, or confinement makes us esteem the wooing of Heaven's free air, the choicest blessing of existence. God has loaded us with bounties, and yet man, the spoiled child of creation, whimpers for the toys he cannot gain.

It was one of the sweetest sleeps I had enjoyed for long, and when I woke and saw the sun shining through a window down to the floor, the massy black rafters of the ceiling, with wood enough to build twenty modern houses, the old-fashioned gilt chairs, and the cabinet with cherubim's heads at all the corners, the tiled floor, and wide vacant chimney, together with the looking-glass and its long frame, half occupied by the portrait of a lack-a-daisical shepherd piping behind a squinting shepherdess, and Cupid looking out from behind a bush, all sorts of recollections of a French seaport came crowding upon me.

From the window was a gay scene, with the people of the market jostling, bustling, and chattering, and flirting about, with a thousand lively colours in their garments. And there was the old lumbering diligence before the door, and the pump, and the beggars, and the shoe-blacks; those that will do any thing, and those that will do nothing, and all the hangers-on of a French inn. Wherever I turned, it was France all over; and for a moment I fancied that I had never quitted it, that I had never gone back to England, that I stood there still, where I had stood less than a year before, and that the interval, with all its sorrows, was but a dream, a melancholy dream.

I cherished the illusion: I called up every image of those days; I thought of all the gay scenes I had witnessed, and the bright, and the kind, and the happy with whom I had then mingled. I recalled the friends that had entwined themselves with the best feelings of my nature: those who had made me no stranger in a foreign land. I saw the smile with which I had always been welcomed, and the extended hand and the beaming eye. My thoughts were turned from every painful recollection. I dwelt for one moment in the temple of oblivion, and then busy craving memory, that "meddlesome officious ill," came in, and did it all away.

It was but a moment, but it was a moment snatched from pain. It was but an illusion, but it was a happy one. Passing on rapidly through the country, my mind seemed every day to recover its tone. I saw no more of the horrid countenance which had so fearfully haunted me, till one day entering the cathedral of Suez, in Normandy, while the horses were changing, we stopped near a new and handsome monument, the white stone of which shone out in strong contrast with the dim and gloomy aisles. B---- asked the sacristan who was with us, the name of the person to whom it was erected.

"It is raised by the family of Monsieur Guillon," he said. "Poor young gentleman! He was killed in a duel about three years ago!"

I started, and raised my eyes, and instantly from behind one of the large heavy pillars looked out the ghastly countenance of my dying enemy, with the same look of bitter hatred convulsing his pale features, that they had borne ere his eyes closed for ever.

THE PLACE OF DREAMS.

I suppose that all human beings feel alike on those points, but certainly when the sun shines I am materially happier; his brightness seems to penetrate into the heart, and to make it expand like a flower.

The first decidedly fine weather we had had since our arrival in France, began at Le Mans, and during our journey towards Tours, through a country that became richer and more rich as we advanced; scarcely a cloud overshadowed the sky, except occasionally one of those light summer vapours that, skimming along over the landscape, gave a partial shadow as it passed, enough to vary, but not darken, the scene.

At Château du Loir we began to meet with the abundance of Touraine. Fine peaches at six for four sous, and delicious pears at a price still lower, with grapes for a penny the cluster, all began to show that we progressed in a land of summer. It was here, too, that the first vineyards made their appearance, climbing up the sides of the hills on each side of the road, and giving a luxuriant colouring to the view, though not, indeed, offering half the picturesque beauties which are attributed to them by imagination.

Tours--I know not why, but it excited in my mind a sensation of melancholy. When I visited it before, was at the time of the unhappy and ill-contrived revolt of Berton at Saumur; and returning with the officers of a party of the troops that had been sent to disperse his undisciplined forces, we spent several agreeable days in the antique capital of Touraine. In general, we are fond of fixing upon some spot for building our castles in the air, and Tours and the Loire had yielded me many a foundation for those unsubstantial structures, which, as they so often do, had crumbled away, and left me nothing but the ruins behind.

Independent of individual associations, too, Tours is one of those places which has many recollections attached to it, especially since the Wizard of the North has raised again the fallen walls of Plessis les Tours, and conjured up the king of the people, Louis XI., the effects of whose hatred to the nobility were felt even in the eighteenth century. But his mulberry-trees are no more, and all that he did for the commerce of his favourite city is equally fallen to nothing. The abbey of St. Martin, whose abbots were once kings of France, is almost entirely destroyed, though there are two of the old towers still standing, at so great a distance from each other as to show the enormous extent of the ancient building. Besides all this, are there not a thousand shadowy visions come floating down the sea of time from the dreamy ages of chivalry and romance--Charles VII. and his knights, Alençon, Dunois, the Maid of Arc, and Agnes Sorrel? The beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrées too, owed her birth to Tours: but, unlike Agnes Sorrel, her best quality was her beauty, and for that her countrywomen are still deservedly famed.

In many respects it is a magnificent town. The Rue Royale, the Cathedral, the bishop's palace, and a fine bridge over the river, are the first objects the eye falls upon in entering the city; but before all, is the Loire itself, flowing on in calm majesty through the richest part of one of the most fertile countries in the world. Its banks were covered with all nature's choicest gifts at the time we entered Touraine, and, as if feeling the loneliness of the scene, the stream seemed to linger amidst the beauty that surrounded it. Long, long ago, it was the song of the troubadours. The Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oil took its waters for a boundary, and many noble deeds have rendered it famous in history. It was the birth-place, too, of the Count of St. Maurice, whose fate, with all its curious turns of fortune, told over the glowing fruit and the sparkling wine of the land in which he dwelt, had deeper interest than it may have here. He who narrated the tale called it.

THE FATE OF THE DUC DE BIRON.

Francis, Count of St. Maurice, was born at Tours, in the year 1580. His father perished in battle before his eyes opened to the day, and his mother scarcely survived his birth a week. His patrimonial property had been wasted in the wars of the League, and his only inheritance was his father's sword, and a few trembling lines written by his dying mother to the famous Baron de Biron, with whom she was distantly connected by the ties of blood. A trinket or two, the remnant of all the jewels that had decked her on her bridal day, paid the expense of arraying the dead wife of the fallen soldier for the grave, and furnished a few masses for the repose of both their souls; and an old servant, who had seen her mistress blossom into woman's loveliness, and then so soon fade into the tomb, after beholding the last dread dear offices bestowed upon the cold clay, took up the unhappy fruit of departed love, and bore it in her arms, on foot, to the only one on whom it seemed to have a claim. Biron, though stern, rude, and selfish, did not resist the demand. Ambition had not yet hardened his heart wholly, nor poisoned the purer stream of his affections; and gazing on the infant for a moment, he declared it was a lovely child, and wondrous like his cousin. He would make a soldier of the brat, he said, and he gave liberal orders for its care and tending. The child grew up, and the slight unmeaning features of the infant were moulded by time's hand--as ready to perfect as to destroy--into the face of as fair a boy as ever the eye beheld. Biron often saw and sported with the child, and its bold, sweet, and fearless mood, tempered by all the graces of youth and innocence, won upon the soldier's heart. He took a pride in his education, made him his page and his companion, led him early to the battle-field, and inured him almost from infancy to danger and to arms.

Although occasionally fond of softer occupations--of music, of reading, and the dance--the young Count of St. Maurice loved the profession in which he was trained. Quick-sighted and talented, brave as a lion, and firm as a rock, he rose in his profession, and obtained several of those posts which, together with the liberality of his benefactor, enabled him, in some degree, to maintain the rank which had come down to him without the fortune to support it. Attaching himself more and more to Biron every year, he followed him in all his campaigns and expeditions, and paid him back, by many a service and many a care, the kindness he had shown him in his infancy: so that twice had he saved the marshal's life, and twice, by his active vigilance, had he enabled his leader to defeat the enemy, before he himself had reached the age of eighteen.

Gradually, however, a change came over the mind of Marshal Biron. Henry IV., his too good master, became firmly seated on the throne of France, and Biron, attributing all the king's success to his own support, thought no recompense sufficient for his services, no honours high enough for his merit and his deeds. Henry was anything but ungrateful, and though, in fact, he owed his throne to his birth, and to his own right-hand, more than to any man on earth, he, nevertheless, loaded Marshal Biron with all the honours in his power to bestow. He was created a duke and peer of France, high-admiral, and lieutenant-general of the king's armies; and many a post of distinction and emolument raised his revenues and his dignity together. But still he was not satisfied: pride, ambition, and discontent, took possession of his heart; and he meditated schemes of elevating himself, till the insanity of ambition led him to thoughts of treason. His manners, too, grew morose and haughty: he was reserved and distant to those he had formerly favoured, and his household became cold and stately.

At the same time, a change, but a very different change, had taken place in the bosom of the young St. Maurice; and to explain what that change was, a fact must be mentioned, which is in itself a key to all the new feelings and the new thoughts, the new speculations and the new hopes, which entered into the bosom of the young, but fortuneless count, about the end of the year 1600. About eight years before that period, there had been added to the family of the Duke de Biron a young niece, of about nine years old, a lively, gentle girl, with bright hair and soft blue eyes, and pretty childish features, that had no look but that of innocence when they were in repose, but which occasionally took a glance of warm, happy eagerness, with which we might suppose an angel to gaze on the completion of some bright and mighty work. In her childhood, she played with the young St. Maurice, till they loved each other as children love; and just at that age when such things become dangerous to a young girl's heart, fluttering between infancy and womanhood, the Duke de Biron was ordered to Brussels on the arrangements of the peace, and taking St. Maurice with him, he sent Mademoiselle de la Roche-sur-Marne to a convent, which she thought very hard, for her father and mother were both dead, and all that she loved on earth the Duke carried away with him.

St. Maurice was left behind at Brussels to terminate some business which Marshal Biron had not concluded, and when, after some lapse of time, he returned to France, and joined the Duke at the Citadel of Bourg, where that nobleman commanded for the King, he found Marie de la Roche no longer the same being he had left her. The bud had at once burst forth into a flower, and a flower of most transcendent loveliness. The form which his arm had encircled a thousand times, in boyish sport, had changed in the whole tone of its beauty. Every line, every movement, breathed a different spirit, and woke a different feeling. The features too, though soft as infancy, had lost the roundness of infancy, and in the still innocent imploring eyes, which yet called up all the memory of the past, there was an eloquent glance beaming from the woman's heart, in which childhood was all outshone.

The young Count felt no alteration in himself, but was dazzled and surprised with the change in her, and felt a sudden diffidence take possession of him, which the first warm unchanged welcome could hardly dispel. She seemed scarce to dream that there was a difference, for the time that she had spent in the convent was an unfilled blank, which afforded scarce a circumstance to mark the passage of a brief two years. The Duke de Biron received his young follower with rough kindness, but there were always various causes which kept him more from the society of St. Maurice than formerly. There were many strangers about him, some of whom were Italians, and St. Maurice saw that much private business was transacted, from a knowledge of which he was purposely excluded. The Duke would take long, and almost solitary rides, or go upon distant expeditions, to visit the different posts under his government, and then, instead of commanding at once the young soldier's company, he left him to escort Mademoiselle de la Roche to this fair sight or that beautiful view. In the pride and selfishness of his heart, he never dreamed it possible that the poor and friendless Count of St. Maurice would dare to love the niece of the great Duke de Biron, or that Marie de la Roche would ever feel towards him in any other way than as the dependent follower of her uncle.

But he knew not human nature. Mademoiselle de la Roche leaned upon the arm of St. Maurice as they strayed though the beautiful scenery near Bourg, or yielded her light form to his grasp, as he lifted her on horseback; or listened to him while he told of battles and dangers when he had followed her uncle to the field, or gazed upon his flashing features and speaking eye while he spoke of great deeds, till her heart beat almost to pain whenever his step sounded along the corridors, and her veins thrilled at the slightest touch of his hand. St. Maurice, too, for months plunged blindly into the vortex before him. He thought not--he hesitated not at the consequences. But one feeling, one emotion, one passion filled his bosom,--annihilated foresight, prudence, reflection, altogether,--took possession of heart and brain, and left the only object for his mind's conception--love!

It went on silently in the bosom of each; they spoke not what was in their hearts; they hardly dared to look in each other's eyes for fear the secret should find too eloquent a voice; and yet they each felt and knew, that loving, they were beloved. They could not but know it, for, constantly together, there were a thousand voiceless, unconscious modes of expression, which told again and again a tale that was but too dear to the heart of each. And yet there is something in the strong confirmation of language which each required for the full satisfaction of their mutual hopes, and there are moments when passion will have voice. Such a moment came to them. They were alone; the sun had just sunk, and the few gray minutes of the twilight were speeding on irrevocable wings. There was no eye to see, no ear to hear, and their love was at length spoken.

They had felt it--they had known it long; but the moment it was uttered--its hopelessness--its perfect hopelessness--seemed suddenly to flash upon their minds, and they stood gazing on each other in awe and fear, like the First Two, when they had tasted the fatal fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. But the never-to-be-recalled words had been breathed, and there was a dread, and a hope, and a tenderness, mingled with every glance that they turned upon one another.

Still the Duke de Biron did not see, for his mind was so deeply engrossed with the schemes of his mad ambition, and the selfishness of his pride, that nothing else rested in his thoughts for a moment. Messengers were coming and going between him and the Duke of Savoy, a known enemy to France, and whenever he spoke with St. Maurice, it was in terms of anger towards the good King Henry IV., and of praise and pleasure towards the cold-hearted monarch of Spain. Often, too, he would apparently strive to sound the disposition of his young follower, and would throw him into company with men of more art and cunning than himself, who would speak of the destruction of the Bourbon line as necessary for the good of France and the tranquillity of Europe, and insinuate that a time might be at hand when such a sacrifice would be completed. St. Maurice frowned, and was silent when the design was covered, as often happened, with much art, and boldly spoke his mind against traitors when the treason was apparent.

At length one day he was called to the presence of the Duke, whom he found alone. "Come hither, St. Maurice," said his friend; "I have brought you up, young Count, from your infancy to your manhood--I have been your friend in fair days and foul--I taught you the duty of a soldier, and the duty of an officer--I have raised you higher than any other man in France could do, or would do--and now tell me--whether do you love best Henry of Bearn or me?"

"Your words, my lord," replied St. Maurice, "taught me in early years to love the King, and your actions taught me to love yourself; but the honour of a French noble teaches me to love my duty, and that joins ever with my love towards my King."

"Ha!" exclaimed Biron, his dark brow burning, "must you teach me what is duty?--Begone, ungrateful boy!--leave me--thus, like the man in the fable, we nourish serpents in our bosom, that will one day sting us--begone, I say!"--St. Maurice turned to quit the cabinet, with feelings of sorrow and indignation in his heart: but grief to see his benefactor thus standing on the brink of dishonour and destruction, overcame all personal feeling, and he paused, exclaiming, "Oh! my lord, my lord! beware how you bring certain ruin on your own head ----." But remonstrance only called up wrath. Biron lost all command over himself. He stamped with his heavy boot till the chamber rang; he bade St. Maurice quit his presence and his dwelling; he stripped him, with a word, of all the posts and employments which he had conferred upon him, and bade him, ere two days were over, leave the castle of Bourg, and go forth from his family; a beggar as he had entered it. Nor alone, in his rash passion, did he content himself with venting his wrath upon his young follower, but he dropped words against the monarch and the state, which left his treasonable practices beyond a doubt.

The young Count heard as little as possible, but hurried from the presence of a man whom pride and anger had frenzied, and hastening to his chamber, he paused but to ponder over all the painful circumstances of his own situation. Nothing was before him but despair, and his brain whirled round and round with that vague, wild confusion of painful ideas, which no corporeal agony can equal. The predominant thought however, the idea that rose up with more and more frightful prominence every moment, was the necessity of parting from her he loved--and of parting for ever, without one hope, without one expectation to soothe the long cold blank of absence. He could have borne the unjust and cutting unkindness of the Duke--he could have borne the loss of fortune, and the prospect of that hard, fierce struggle which the world requires of men who would rise above their original lot--he could have borne the reverse of state and of station, comfort and fortune, without a murmur or a sigh; but to lose the object in which all the ardent feelings of an ardent heart had been concentrated, was more, far more than he could bear. Thus he pondered for near an hour, letting the bitter stream of thought flow on, while every moment added some new drop of sorrow, as reflection showed him more and more the utter hopelessness of all his prospects.

The setting out of a large train from before his window, first roused him from his painful dream, and though he knew not why, he felt relieved when he beheld the Duke de Biron himself lead the way, caparisoned as for a journey. The next moment found him beside Mademoiselle de la Roche. Her eyes were full of tears, and he instantly concluded she had heard his fate; but it was not so. She was weeping, she said, because her uncle had come to her apartments very angry on some account, and had harshly commanded her back to her convent the next day; and as she told her lover, she wept more and more. But when he in turn related the Duke's anger with him, and his commands to quit the citadel--when he told her all the destitution of his situation--and hopelessness of winning her when all his fortune on the earth was his sword and a thousand crowns, Marie de la Roche wept no more, but drying her bright eyes, she put her hand in his, saying, "St. Maurice, we will go together! We love each other, and nobody in the world cares aught about us--my uncle casts us both off--but my inheritance must sooner or later be mine, and we will take our lot together!"

Such words, spoken by such lips, were far more than a lover's heart could resist. Had he been absent when that scheme was proposed--had he not seen her--had he not held her hand in his--had her eyes not looked upon him, he might have thought of difficulties, and prudence, and danger, and discomfort to her. But now her very look lighted up hope in his heart, and he would not let fear or doubt for a single instant shadow the rekindled beams. He exacted but one thing--she should bring him no fortune. The Duke de Biron should never say that he had wedded his niece for her wealth--if she would sacrifice all, and share his fate, he feared not that with his name and with his sword, and her love to inspire him, he should find fortune in some distant land. Marie doubted not either and willingly agreed to risk herself with him upon the wide unknown ocean of events.

It seemed as if all circumstances combined to enable them more easily to make the trial. The Duke de Biron had gone to Fontainbleau, boldly to meet the generous master he had determined to betray, and the old chaplain of the citadel, whose life St. Maurice had saved at the battle of Vitry, after many an entreaty, consented to unite him that very night to his young sweet bride. Their horses were to be prepared in the gray of the morning, before the sun had risen, and they doubted not that a few hours would take them over the frontier, beyond the danger of pursuit.

The castle was suffered to sink into repose, and all was still; but at midnight a solitary taper lighted the altar of the chapel, and St. Maurice soon pressed Marie to his heart as his wife. In silence he led her forth, while the priest followed with trembling steps, fearful lest the lightest footfall should awaken notice and suspicion; but all remained tranquil--the lights in the chapel were extinguished, and the chaplain retreated in peace to his apartment.

There was scarcely a beam in the eastern sky when St. Maurice glided forth to see if the horses were prepared. He paused and listened--there was a noise below, and he thought he heard coming steps along some of the more distant corridors. A long passage separated him from his own chamber, and he feared to be seen near that of Marie, and be obliged at once to proclaim his marriage, lest her fair fame should be injured. He therefore determined to hasten forward, and strive to gain his own part of the building. He strode on like light, but at the top of the staircase a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a loud voice demanded, "Who are you?" St. Maurice paused, undetermined whether to resist and still try to shake of the person who stopped him, or to declare himself at once; but the dim outline of several other figures against a window beyond, showed him that opposition was vain, and he replied, "I am the Count of St. Maurice; why do you stop me, sir?"

"In the King's name, I arrest you, Count of St. Maurice," replied the voice; "give me your sword."

"In the King's name, or in Marshal Biron's, gentlemen?" demanded St. Maurice, somewhat bitterly. "You jest with me, gentlemen; my lord the Duke I may have offended, but the King never."

"I said in the King's name, young gentleman," replied the other gravely, taking the sword, which St. Maurice yielded. "You, sirs," he continued, turning to those who stood near, "guard the prisoner closely, while I seek for the Baron de Lux."

St. Maurice was detained for a few minutes in the corridor, and then bade to prepare to journey to Fontainbleau. The whole castle was now in confusion, and all the principal officers of Marshal Biron, the Count found, were, like himself, under arrest. At his earnest entreaty, the Count de Belin, who commanded the party of royal troops, permitted him to take leave of her he had so lately wedded, though only in his presence. Marie de la Roche-sur-Marne was drowned in tears, but alarm for her uncle's safety easily accounted for that, and the few low words of comfort and assurance which St. Maurice spoke, betrayed not at all the secret of their union. She suffered him to speak uninterrupted but by her sobs; but when he bent over her hand he raise it to his lips, with the formal courtesy of the day, all was forgotten but her love and her despair, and casting herself into his arms, she hid her eyes upon his shoulder, and wept with the bitter agonizing tears of unavailing love.

The old Count de Belin gently unclasped her arms, and removed St. Maurice, who turned, and grasping his hand, said, with a meaning look, "Sir, you are a soldier and a gentleman--our confidence, I am sure, is safe?"

"Upon my honour," replied the officer; laying his hand upon his heart, and St. Maurice was satisfied. He was soon after put on horseback, and conducted with several others to Fontainbleau, from whence he was immediately carried to Paris, and lodged in the Bastile. But it may be now time to turn to him whose weak ambition had brought ruin on his own head.

As is well known, the Duke de Biron, summoned by the king to his presence on clear information of his treason, proceeded at once to Fontainbleau, depending fully on the fidelity of the very man who had betrayed him, and entered the gardens in which Henry was walking, at the very moment when the monarch was declaring, that beyond all doubt he would not come. He advanced at once towards the king, and Henry, whose frank and generous heart would fain have believed him less guilty than he really was, embraced him according to his custom, saying, "You did well to come, Lord Duke, otherwise I should have gone to seek you;" and, taking him by the hand, he led him into another garden, where he could speak with him unobserved. There Henry at once, with the noble candour of a noble heart, told him that good information had been received, of his having carried on a long correspondence with the enemies of the state. "Speak the truth, my lord," he added; "tell me all, and, good faith, no one shall know it; the matter shall go no further, and all it shall cost you shall be a sincere repentance."

The Marshal replied, proudly, that he had nothing to confess, and that his purpose in coming, was to meet his accusers. There was a rudeness in his answer, which was not the boldness of innocence; and Henry, turning away, rejoined the court. Still the king tried more than once during the day to win from the traitor one repentant word. He again and again solicited him to speak. He sent his friends to him, and his relations; and though urged by his council--before which full proofs of the Marshal's guilt had long been laid, and which had taken prompt measures, as we have seen, for securing his followers and dependents--still Henry's heart rebelled against his better judgment, and would not suffer him to order his arrest. "If this matter be tried, and proved against him," said the King, "justice must have its way, for the sake of public example; but I would fain avert the necessity." At length, even at midnight, Henry once more called his treacherous servant to his presence; and again begged him, for his own sake, to confess his fault. "Let me hear from your own mouth," said the monarch, "that which with great sorrow I have heard from too good authority; and on a frank acknowledgment, I promise to grant you pardon and kindness. Whatever crime you may have committed or meditated against my person, if you will but confess it, I will cover it over with the mantle of my protection, and forget it myself."^[6]

"Sire!" replied the Marshal boldly, "I have nothing to say but what I have said. I did not come to your majesty to justify myself, but to beg you only to tell me my enemies, that I may seek justice against them, or render it to myself."

Henry turned away disgusted, and the Duke advanced through the door of the saloon into the antechambers beyond. At the door of that, however, which led out upon the staircase, he was met by the Count de Vitry, who, seizing his right hand in his own left, caught the hilt of Biron's sword with the other hand, exclaiming, "The King commands me to give an account of your person, sir. Yield me your sword."

Biron started, and a mortal paleness came over his face; for it would seem that he never dreamed for a moment, either that the monarch had accurate information of his treason, or would proceed to do justice against him. He suffered himself to be disarmed, however, and led to a secure apartment, where, after he had recovered from his first surprise, he passed the night in violent and intemperate language, injurious to his own cause, and indecent in itself. From thence he was conveyed to the Bastile, and his trial proceeded with great rapidity. A thousand efforts were made to save him, by his friends and relations; and Henry was besieged, wherever he appeared, with tears and petitions. But the day of mercy had gone by; and the same monarch who had almost supplicated his rebellious subject to say one word that might save himself, now sternly declared that justice must take its course; and that whatever the law awarded, without fail should be put in execution.

In the meanwhile, St. Maurice passed his time in bitter meditations, confined in a dull cell of the Bastile, which, though not absolutely a dungeon, contained nothing but one of those small narrow beds whose very look was like that of the grave, a crucifix, and a missal. The hours and the days wore on, and he saw no one but the people who brought him his daily food, and a few persons passing occasionally across the inner court of the Bastile; so that solitude and sad thoughts traced every day deeper and deeper lines upon his heart, and upon his brow. He thought of her whom he loved--of what her situation was, and what it might be; and when that was too painful, he turned his mind to his own fate, and tried to look it calmly in the face, but still the image of Marie rose up in every scene, and reduced all the native resolution of his heart to woman's weakness.

He was thus one day cast heedlessly on his bed, when the door of his cell opened, and the jailer desired him to follow. St. Maurice rose and obeyed, and a few minutes brought him to a larger chamber, which he was bade to enter. At the other side of the room there stood a middle-sized man, habited in a plain suit of rusty black velvet, with strongly marked aquiline features, and gray hair and beard. His eye was keen and quick, his forehead broad and high, and there was something peculiar in the firm rooted attitude with which he stood, bending his eyes upon the open door. Even had St. Maurice never seen him before, he could never have doubted that he was a King.

"Come hither, Sir Count," said Henry IV. abruptly; "tell me all you know of this treason of the Duke de Biron. Tell me all, tell me true, and, by my faith, you shall have full pardon."

"Sire," replied St. Maurice, "when my father died in the service of your majesty, and my mother left this world a few days after my birth, I was left a penniless orphan, for all our fortunes had been lost in your royal cause----" Henry knitted his brow--"I was a beggar," continued St. Maurice, "and the Duke de Biron took pity on me--brought me up--led me to the field--protected--provided for me----"

"Hold! hold! Hold!" cried the King. "Say no more! say no more--get you gone--yet stay--I seek not, sir, this unhappy man's death. Justice shall be done, but no more than justice--not severity. If you know anything which can mitigate his offence, speak it boldly, and the King will thank you; anything that may render his crime less black."

"I know little, Sire, of the Marshal's late conduct," replied the Count, "for in truth I have been less in his confidence than formerly; but this I know, and do believe, that he is one of those men to speak, aye, and to write, many base things in a hasty and a passionate mood, that he would be the last on earth to act."

Henry mused for a moment in silence, and then, without any farther observation, ordered St. Maurice back again to his cell.

Another long week passed, and day after day grew more weary and horrible than the last. Each hour, each moment, added to anxiety, uncertainty, and expectation, already beyond endurance. The rising and the setting of the sun, the heavy passing away of the long and tardy minutes, the wide vague infinity through which apprehension and care had leave to roam, overwhelmed his mind, and shook even his corporeal strength. Each noise, each sound, made him start; and the very opening of his cell door brought with it some quick indistinct fear. It is said that those long accustomed to solitary confinement, get inured to the dead, blank vacancy of existence without action, lose hope, and fear, and thought, and care; and exist, but hardly can be said to live. But St. Maurice had not yet had time to let one of the fresh pangs of his situation become lulled by the opiate of custom, and every moment of its endurance was a moment of new agony. He heard no tidings, he received no comfort, no hope from any one. The very joys that he had known, and the love he valued most, became a torture to him; his own heart was a burden, and while the future was all dark and lowering, the past was full of regret, and prolific of apprehension.

At length, one evening, an unusual number of footsteps traversing the court below, called him from the bed on which he usually cast himself in prostrate despondency, and he beheld, from the small window of his cell, a number of people gathered together in the open space, of a quality which showed at once that some great and formal act was about to take place within the walls of the prison. The Chancellor was there, and various judges and officers of the Parliament, and a number of the municipal body of Paris were on the spot, with clerks and serjeants, and the two chief prévôts. A small body of soldiers also guarded the different doors of the court, and on the side next to the garden was raised a scaffold, about five feet above the ground, at the foot of which a strong man in black stood, with two others of an inferior grade, examining the edge of a large heavy sword, which was suddenly put into the sheath on the sound of some voices at the other side of the court.