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L'Orme

<h4>CHAPTER XXIX.</h4> "That, sir, is one of the most assured rogues in Paris," said the grocer; "he has once been at the galleys for seven years, and will very soon be there again. How you happened to fall in with such a fellow, I do not at all understand." I explained to the shopkeeper the circumstances, and he shook his head gravely at the name of the inn. "It has not a good reputation," said he; "and as to its being the best in Paris," he added, with a laugh, "we Parisians would be very much ashamed of it if it was. However, sir, as you want to go to the Palais Cardinal, my boy shall conduct you there; and though I wish to take away no one's character, be upon your guard at your inn. There are many ways of plundering a stranger in this good city; and if you need any assistance, send to me--though I am very bold to say so, for a gentleman of your figure must have many friends here, doubtless; only I know something of the good people where you lodge, and, possibly, might manage them better than another." I thanked him for his kindness most sincerely; for though, perhaps, ever too much accustomed to rely upon myself, yet I will own there was a solitary desolateness of feeling crept about my heart in that great city, which made it a relief to feel that there was somebody who took even a transient interest in me, and to whom I could apply for advice or aid, in case I needed it. After taking down my new friend's address, I followed his shop-boy out into the street, and we pursued our way towards the Palais Cardinal, exactly retreading the steps which my former valiant guide had made me take. All the way we went the lad chattered with true Parisian activity of tongue; telling a thousand curious and horrible tales of the great, but cruel man, that I was about to see, and relating all the anecdotes of the day concerning his dark and mysterious policy. "No one knows," said the boy, "why he does anything, or how he does anything. It was only last week that the strangest thing happened in the world. You have heard of the great wood of Marly, monsieur? Well, one of the Cardinal's servants was ordered on Thursday, last week, to take an ass loaded with pure gold, into that wood, and go on upon the road till he met a man who asked him, 'If the sun shone at midnight?' and then give him the ass's bridle and come away. So the servant went in, and after going a mile or more, he met a tall, fine man--somewhat dark, however--who asked him, 'Does the sun shine at midnight?' So the servant said nothing, but gave him the bridle. The stranger was not satisfied with that, but counted all the bags of gold upon the ass's back, and then told the servant to take it to the person who had sent it, and say that he had counted and watched, but the sun did not shine at midnight yet. So then the servant did as he bade him, and took it back to the Cardinal, who put two more sacks upon the ass, and sent the lackey back again; when he met the same man, and every thing passed as before, except that when he had counted the gold the stranger shouted, 'Ha! ha! the sun shines at midnight!' and jumping upon the donkey's back, he gave him a kick with his foot, which made him gallop as quick as any horse, and the servant never saw them any more! Lord! Lord! is not that very strange, monsieur?" continued the boy; and creeping close to me, he added, "They say that the tall stranger was the devil, and that the Cardinal had made a bargain with him, that if he would give him all the wit he desired, hell should have his soul at the end of twenty years. But when the twenty years were out, he wanted very much a few years more, so that he was obliged to make a new bargain, and pay a good round sum as interest upon his bond." The conclusion of the boy's story brought us to the end of the Rue St. Honoré; and, shortly after, he pointed out to me the façade of the Palais Cardinal. Having rewarded him with a crown, and sent him away well contented, I gazed up at the splendid building before me, whose grand features, massed together in the darkness, seemed almost as frowning and gloomy as a prison. The news which I brought, however, I was sure would be acceptable; and therefore walking on, I was about to approach the house, when I was challenged by a sentinel. I told him my business, and requested he would show me my way to any of the offices, for I perceived no ready means of gaining admission. The soldier passed me on to another, who again passed me to the corps de garde, from whence I was taken to a small door and delivered, as a bale of goods, into the hands of a grim-looking man, who told me at once that I could not see the minister, who was abroad at the moment. "Pray what is your business with his Eminence?" demanded the porter. "It is business," replied I, "with which you, my friend, can have no concern; and business of such import, that I must stay till I see him." "Come with me," said the porter, after thinking a moment; and he then led me across a court wherein a carriage was standing, with horses harnessed, and torches burning at the doors. "Monsieur de Noyers, one of the secretaries of state, is here," he added, seeing me remark the carriage, "and you can speak with him." "My business is with his eminence the Cardinal," replied I, "and with him alone." "Well, come with me, come with me!" said the porter. "If your business be really important, you must see some one who is competent to speak on it; and if it be not important, you had better not have come here." Thus saying, he led me into a small hall, and thence into a cabinet beyond, hung with fine tapestry, and lighted by a single silver lamp. Here he bade me sit down, and left me. In a few minutes a door on the other side of the room opened, and a cavalier entered, dressed in a rich suit of black velvet, with a hat and plume. He was tall, thin, and pale, with a clear bright eye, and fine decided features. His beard was small and pointed, and his face oval, and somewhat sharp; and though there was a slight stoop of his neck and shoulders, as if time or disease had somewhat enfeebled his frame, yet it took nothing from the dignity of his demeanour. He started, and seemed surprised at seeing anyone there; but then immediately advanced, and looking at me for a moment, with a glance which read deeply whatever lines it fell upon, "Who are you?" demanded he. "What do you want? What paper is that in your hand?" "My name," replied I, "is Louis Count de l'Orme; my business is with the Cardinal de Richelieu, and this paper is one which I am charged to deliver into his hand." "Give it to me," said the stranger, holding out his hand. My eye glanced over his unclerical habiliments, and I replied, "You must excuse me. This paper, and the farther news I bring, can only be given to the cardinal himself." "It shall go safe," he answered in a stern tone. "Give it to me, young sir." There was an authority in his tone that almost induced me to comply; but reflecting that I might be called to a severe account by the unrelenting minister, even for a mere error in judgment, I persisted in my original determination. "I must repeat," answered I, "that I can give this to no one but his eminence himself, without an express order from his own hand to do so." "Pshaw!" cried he, with something of a smile; and taking up a pen, which lay with some sheets of paper on the table, he dipped it in the ink, and scrawled in a large, bold hand,-- "Deliver your packet to the bearer. "Richelieu." I made him a low bow, and placed the letter in his hands. He read it, with the quick and intelligent glance of one enabled by long habit to collect and arrange the ideas conveyed to him with that clear rapidity possessed alone by men of genius. In the meantime I watched his countenance, seeking to detect, amongst all the lines with which years and thought had channelled it, any expression of the stern, vindictive, despotic passions, which the world charged him withal, and which his own actions sufficiently evinced; it was not there, however,--all was calm. Suddenly raising his eyes, his look fell full upon me as I was thus busily scanning his countenance; and I know not why, but my glance sunk in the collision. "Ha!" said he, rather mildly than otherwise, "you were gazing at me very strictly, sir. Are you a reader of countenances?" "Not in the least, monseigneur," replied I; "I was but learning a lesson:--to know a great man when I see one another time." "That answer, sir, would make many a courtier's fortune," said the minister; "nor shall it mar yours, though I understand it. Remember, flattery is never lost at a court! 'Tis the same there as with a woman. If it be too thick, she may wipe some of it away, as she does her rouge; but she will take care not to brush off all!" To be detected in flattery has something in it so degrading, that the blood rushed up into my cheek with the burning glow of shame. A slight smile curled the minister's lip. "Come, sir," he continued, "I am going forth for half an hour, but I may have some questions to ask you; therefore I will beg you to wait my return. Do not stir from this spot. There, you will find food for the mind," he proceeded, pointing out a small case of books; "in other respects, you shall be taken care of. I need not warn you to discretion. You have proved that you possess that quality, and I do not forget it." Thus speaking, he left me, and for a few minutes I remained struggling with the flood of turbulent thoughts which such an interview pours upon the mind. This, then, was the great and extraordinary minister, who at that moment held in his hands the fate of half Europe; the powers of whose mind, like Niorder, the tempest-god of the ancient Gauls, raised, guided, and enjoyed the winds and the storms, triumphing in the thunders of continual war, and the whirlwinds of political intrigue. In a short time two servants brought in a small table of lapis lazuli, on which they proceeded to spread various sorts of rare fruits and wines; putting on also a china cup and a vase, which I supposed to contain coffee--a beverage that I had often heard mentioned by my good preceptor, Father Francis, who had tasted it in the East, but which I had never before met with. All this was done with the most profound silence, and with a gliding ghost-like step, which must certainly have been learned in the prisons of the Inquisition. At length one of these stealthy attendants desired me, in the name of his lord, to take some refreshment; and then, with a low reverence, quitted the cabinet, as if afraid that I should make him any answer. I could not help thinking, as they left me, what a system of terror must that be which could drill any two Frenchmen into silence like this! However, I approached the table, and indulged myself with a cup of most exquisite coffee; after which I examined the bookcase, and glancing my eye over histories and tragedies, and essays and treatises, I fixed at length upon Ovid, from a sort of instinctive feeling that the mind, when it wishes to fly from itself and the too sad realities of human existence, assimilates much more easily with anything imaginative than with anything true. I was still reading; and, though sometimes falling into long lapses of thought, I was nevertheless highly enjoying the beautiful fictions of the poet, when the door was again opened, and the minister re-appeared. I instantly laid down the book and rose; but, pointing to a chair, he bade me be seated, and taking up my book, turned over the pages for a few moments, while a servant brought him a cup of fresh coffee and a biscuit. "Are you fond of Ovid?" demanded he, at length; and then, without allowing me time to reply, he added, "He is my favourite author; I read him more than any other book." The tone which he took was that of easy, common conversation, which two persons, perfectly equal in every respect, might be supposed to hold upon any indifferent subject; and I, of course, answered in the same. "Ovid," I said, "is certainly one of my favourite poets, but I am afraid of reading him so often as I should wish; for there is an enervating tendency in all his writings, which I should fear would greatly relax the mind." "It is for that very reason that I read him," replied the minister. "It is alone when I wish for relaxation that I read, and then--after every thought having been in activity for a whole long day--Ovid is like a bed of roses to the mind, where it can repose itself, and recruit its powers of action for the business of another." This was certainly not the conversation which I expected, and I paused without making any reply, thinking that the minister would soon enter upon those important subjects on which I could give the best and latest information; but, on the contrary, he proceeded with Ovid. "There is a constant struggle," continued he, "between feeling and reason in the human breast. In youth, it is wisely ordained that feeling should have the ascendancy; and she rules like a monarch, with imagination for her minister;--though, by the way," he added, with a passing smile, so slight that it scarcely curled his lip,--"though, by the way, the minister is often much more active than the monarch. In after years, when feeling has done for man all that feeling was intended to do, and carried him into a thousand follies, eventually very beneficial to himself, and to the human race, reason succeeds to the throne, to finish what feeling left undone, and to remedy what she did wrong. Now, you are in the age of feeling, and I am in the age of reason; and the consequence is, that even in reading such a book as Ovid, what we cull is as different as the wax and the honey which a bee gathers from the same flower. What touches you is the wit and brilliancy of the thought, the sweetness of the poetry, the bright and luxurious pictures which are presented to your imagination: while all that affects me little; and, shadowed through a thousand splendid allegories, I see great and sublime truths, robed, as it were, by the verse and the poetry in a radiant garment of light. What can be a truer picture of an ambitious and a daring minister, than Ixion embracing a cloud?" and he looked me full in the face, with a smile of melancholy meaning, to which I did not well know how to reply. "I have certainly never considered Ovid in that light," replied I; "and I have to thank your eminence for the pleasure I shall doubtless enjoy in tracing the allegories throughout." "The thanks are not my due," replied the minister; "an English statesman, near a century ago, wrote a book upon the subject; and showed his own wisdom, while he pointed out that of the ancients. In England, the reign of reason is much stronger than it is with us in France, though they may be considered as a younger people." "Then does your Eminence consider," demanded I, "that the change from feeling to reason proceeds apace with the age of nations, as well as with men?" "In general, I think it does," replied he: "nations set out bold, generous, hasty, carried away by impulse rather than by thought; easily led, but not easily governed. Gradually, however, they grow politic, careful, anxious to increase their wealth, somewhat indolent, till at length they creep into their dotage, even like men. But," he added, after a pause, "the world is too young for us to talk about the history of nations. All we know is, that they have their different characters like different men, and of course some will preserve their vigour longer than others; some will die violent deaths; some end by sudden diseases; some by slow decay. A hundred thousand years hence, men may know what nations are, and judge what they will be. It suffices, at present, to know our contemporaries, and to rule them by that knowledge. And now, Monsieur le Comte de l'Orme, I thank you for a pleasant hour, and I wish you good night. Of course, you are still at an inn; when you have fixed your lodging, leave your address here, and you shall hear from me. In the meanwhile, farewell!" Of course I rose, and, taking leave, quitted the Palais Cardinal. What!--it may be asked,--without one word on the important business which had brought you there?--Without a word! The name of Catalonia was never mentioned; and yet, the very next day, large bodies of men marched upon Rousillon. More were instantly directed thither from every part of the country. The fleet in the Mediterranean sailed for Barcelona; and, in a space of time inconceivably brief, Catalonia was furnished with every supply necessary to carry on a long and an active war. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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