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L'Orme

<h4>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h4> The manners of Monsieur de Varicarville were at once simple and elegant--there was none of the superfluous hyperbole of courts; there was little even of the common exaggeration of society, in anything he said. He neither expressed himself ravished to make my acquaintance, nor delighted to see me; all he said was, that he would do everything that depended upon him, to make me comfortable during my stay at Sedan. And thus I always found him afterwards--neither what is in general called blunt, which is more frequently rude, nor what is usually called polite, which is in general hollow. He had too much kindness of heart ever to offend, and too much sincerity ever to flatter. But the goodness of his disposition, and the native grace of his demeanour, gave, conjoined, that real bienséance, of which courtly politeness is but an unsubstantial shadow. Poor Varicarville! I owe thee such a tribute, best and most excellent of friends! And though no epitaph hangs upon the tomb where thou sleepest, in the hearts of all who knew thee thy memory is treasured and beloved. After a few words of kindness, and having received the note addressed to him from the Abbé de Retz, he gave me into the hands of the Count's maître d'hôtel, telling him that I was the gentleman who had been so long expected; and desiring him to see that I wanted nothing, till such time as I was sufficiently familiarized with the place and its customs to take care of myself. He then left me, and I was conducted to a neat chamber with an anteroom, containing three truckle beds for lackeys, a small writing or dressing cabinet, and several other conveniences, which I had hardly expected in a castle so completely full as the citadel of Sedan appeared to be. Before the maître d'hôtel left me, I requested that my horses might be taken care of, and that my servant might be sent to me, hinting at the same time, that if he brought me a cup of wine and something to eat, I should not at all object, as I had tasted nothing all day except a wing of the capon which Achilles had carried off from Verdun. My little attendant soon appeared, loaded with a great many more provisions than I needed, and congratulating both himself and me upon our sudden transposition from Paris, and the meagre diet we had there observed, to such a land of corn, wine, and oil. While I was undressing, some thoughts would fain have intruded, which I was very sure would have broken up my rest for the night. The agitation of being in new, strange scenes, acting with people of whom I yet knew hardly anything, and involved in schemes which at best were hazardous, was quite enough to make sleep difficult, and I felt very certain, that if I let my mind rest one moment on the thought of Helen, and of the circumstances in which she might at that moment be placed, all hope of repose--mental repose, at least--was gone--and where is any exercise so exhausting to the body, as that anxious occupation of the mind? The next morning I was hardly awake, when Monsieur de Varicarville entered my chamber, and informed me that Monsieur le Comte wished to see me; and dressing myself as fast as possible, I hurried to the Prince's apartments, where I found him still in bed. Varicarville left us, and the Count made me sit down by his bedside. "I have been thinking, De l'Orme," said he, "over the history you gave me last night, and I again assure you that I sympathize not a little with you. I am much older than you, and the first hasty torrent of passion has passed away at my time of life; but I can still feel, and know, that love such as you profess towards this young lady, whom your mother has educated, is not a passion easily to be rooted out. Nor is the death of her brother by your hand an insurmountable obstacle. She evidently does not know it herself; and it would be a cruel piece of delicacy in you either to let her know it, or to sacrifice both her happiness and your own for such a scruple." The picture of Helen in the arms of her brother's murderer, and the horror she would feel at his every caress, if she did but know that he was so, rose up frightfully before my imagination, as the Count spoke; and, without replying, I covered my eyes with my hands, as if to shut the image out. "This is an age, Monsieur de l'Orme," said the Count, "in which few people would suffer, as you seem to do, for having shed their fellow-creature's blood; and yet, I would not have you feel less. Feel, if you will, but still govern your feelings. Every one in this world has much to suffer; the point of wisdom is to suffer well. But think over what I have said. Time may soon bring about a change in the face of affairs. If fortune smiles upon me, I shall soon have the power of doing greater things than obtaining letters of nobility for your fair lady's father. Thus the only substantial objection to your marriage will be removed. From what you said of the house where you last saw her, and the liveries of the servants, it must have been the hotel of the Maréchal de Chatillon; and the youth whose conversation you overheard was probably his nephew; but fear not for that. He is a hair-brained youth, little capable of winning the heart of a person such as you describe. The only thing that surprises me is, that Arnault, her father, should have acquired any degree of intimacy with so proud a man as Chatillon; but that very circumstance will be some excuse for asking nobility for him; and the favour will come with the more grace, as Chatillon is somewhat a personal enemy of my own." I thanked the Prince for his kind intentions, though I saw no great likelihood of their fulfilment, and fancied that, like the cottager in the fairy tale, Monsieur le Comte imagined himself a great conqueror, and gave away crowns and sceptres, though he had not two roods of land himself. But I was mistaken: the Count's expectations were much more likely to be accomplished than I had supposed, as I soon perceived, when he began to explain to me his views and situation. When a man's mind is in doubt upon any subject, and he has heard reiterated a thousand times the various reasonings of his friends, without being able to choose his part determinately, it is wonderful with what eagerness he seeks for any new opinion to put him out of suspense--the most painful situation in which the human mind can remain. Thus the Count de Soissons, after having entertained me shortly with my own affairs, entered full career upon his; and briefly touching upon the causes which originally compelled him to quit the court of France, and retire to Sedan, he proceeded:-- "Here I would willingly have remained quiet and tranquil, till the course of time brought some change. I neither sought to return to a court where the king was no longer sovereign, nor to cabal against the power of a minister upheld by the weakness of the monarch. All I required was to be left at peace in this asylum, where I could be free from the insult and degradation which had been offered me at the court of France. I felt that I was sufficiently upholding the rights and privileges which had been transmitted to me by my ancestors, and maintaining the general cause of the nobility of France, by submitting to a voluntary exile, rather than yield to the ambitious pretensions of a misproud minister; and nothing would have induced me to raise the standard of civil war, even though the king's own good was to be obtained thereby, if Richelieu had but been content to abstain from persecuting me in my retirement. Not the persuasions of the Dukes of Vendome and La Valette, nor the entreaties of my best friend the Duke of Bouillon, nor the promises and seductions of the house of Austria, would have had any effect, had I been left at peace: but no! never for a day has the cardinal ceased to use every measure in his power to drive me to revolt. The truth is this: he calculates upon the death of my cousin Louis, and upon seizing on the regency during the dauphin's minority. He knows that there is no one who could and would oppose him but myself. The Duke of Orleans is hated and despised throughout France--the house of Condé is bound to the cardinal by alliance. He knows that he could not for a moment stand against me, without the king's support and authority; and he has resolved to ruin me while that support still lasts. For this purpose, he at one time offers me the command of one of the armies, that I may return and fall into his power; he at another threatens to treat me as a rebel and a traitor. He now proposes to me, a prince of the blood royal of France, a marriage with his upstart niece; and then menaces me with confiscation and attainder; while at the same time my friends on every side press me to shake off what they call apathy--to give my banner to the wind, and, marching upon Paris, to deliver the country, the king, and myself, of this nightmare cardinal, who sits a foul incubus upon the bosom of the state, and troubles its repose with black and frightful dreams." As he went on, I could see that Monsieur le Comte worked himself up with his own words to no small pitch of wrath; calling to mind, one by one, the insults and injuries that the cardinal had heaped upon him, till all his slumbering anger woke up at once, and with a flashing eye, he added, "And so I will. By Heaven! I will hurl him from his usurped seat, and put an end to this tyranny, which has lasted too long." But very soon after, relapsing again into his irresolution, he asked, "What think you, Monsieur de l'Orme? Should I not be justified? Am I not called upon so to do?" "I would pray your Highness," replied I, "not to make me a judge in so difficult a point; I am too young and inexperienced to offer an opinion where such great interests are concerned." "Fie, fie!" cried he with a smile; "you, who have already acted the conspicuous part of member of the insurrectionary council of Catalonia! We are all inexperienced, in comparison with you.--Tell me, what had I better do?" "If I must give an opinion, monseigneur," I replied, "I think you had better endure as long as you can, so as to leave no doubt in your own eyes--in those of France--in those of the world--that you are compelled to draw the sword for the defence of your own honour, and for the freedom of your country. But once having drawn the sword, cast away the scabbard." "Then I am afraid the sword is half drawn already," said the Count. "There are eight thousand armed men in Sedan. Fresh troops are pouring in upon me every day. The news has gone abroad that I am about to take the field; and volunteers are flocking from every quarter to my standard. Yesterday, I had letters from at least sixty different parts of France, assuring me that, one battle gained, but to confirm the fearful minds of the populace, and that scarce a province will refrain from taking arms in my cause. De Retz is in hopes even of securing the Bastile; and he has already, with that fine art which you have remarked in him, bound to my cause thousands of those persons in the capital who in popular tumults, guide and govern the multitude. I mean the higher class of paupers--the well-educated, the well-dressed, sometimes even the well-born, who are paupers the more, because they have more wants than the ostensible beggar; these De Retz has found out in thousands, has visited them in private, relieved their wants, soothed their pride, familiarized himself with their habits and wishes, and, in short, has raised up a party for me which almost insures me the capital." This last part of the Count's speech instantly let me into the secret of Monsieur de Retz's first visit to me. My good landlady's tongue had probably not been idle concerning what she conceived my necessitous situation; and, upon the alert for all such cases of what Monsieur le Comte called higher pauperism, De Retz had lost no time in seeking to gain me, as he had probably gained many others, by a display of well-timed and discriminating charity. God knows, I was not a man to look upon wealth and splendour as a virtue in others, nor to regard misfortune and poverty as a vice; and yet, with one of those contradictory weaknesses with which human nature swarms, I felt inexpressibly hurt and mortified at having been taken for a beggar myself. Monsieur le Comte saw a sudden flush mount up into my cheek, and judging from his own great and noble heart, he mistook the cause. "I see what you think, Monsieur de l'Orme," said he; "you judge it mean to work with such tools; but you are wrong. In such an enterprise as this, it is my duty to my country to use every means, to employ all measures, to insure that great and decisive preponderance, which will bring about success, without any long protracted and sanguinary struggle." I assured him that I agreed with him perfectly, and that I entertained no such thoughts as he suspected. "So far from it," replied I, "that if your highness will point out to me any service I can render you, be it of the same kind you have just mentioned, or not, you will find me ready to obey you therein, with as much zeal as Monsieur de Retz." "There is a candour about you, my good De l'Orme," replied the Count, "which I could not doubt for a moment, if I would: but what would all my sage counsellors say--the suspicious Bouillon, the obdurate Bardouville--if I were to intrust missions of such importance to one of whom I know so little?--one who, they might say, was only instigated to seek me by a temporary neglect of Richelieu, and who would easily be led to join the other party, by favour and preferment?" "I am not one to commit such treachery, my lord," replied I, hastily. "I am ready to swear before God, upon his holy altar, neither to abandon nor betray your Highness. "Nay, nay," said the Count de Soissons, smiling at my heat, "swear not, my dear count! Unhappily, in our days, the atmosphere which surrounds that holy altar you speak of, is so thick with perjuries, that an honest man can hardly breathe therein. I doubt you not, De l'Orme; your word is as good to me as if you swore a thousand oaths; and I am much inclined to give you a commission of some importance, both because I know I can rely upon your wit and your honour, and because your person is not so well known in Paris as the other gentlemen of my household. But to return to what we were saying; still give me your opinion about drawing the sword, as you have termed it; ought I, or ought I not?" "By my faith, your Highness," replied I, "I think it is drawn already, as you yourself have admitted." "Not so decidedly," answered the Count, "but that it can be sheathed again; and if this cardinal, alarmed at these preparations, as I know he is, will but yield such terms of compromise as may insure my own safety and that of my companions, permit the thousands of exiles who are longing for their native country to return, and secure the freedom and the peace of France, far, far be it from me ever to shed one drop of Gallic blood." "But does not your highness still continue your preparations, then?" demanded I. "Most assuredly," replied the Count. "The matter must come to a conclusion speedily, either by a negotiation and treaty, which will insure us our demands, or by force of arms; and therefore it is well to be prepared for the latter, though most willing to embrace the former alternative." "And does the minister seem inclined to treat?" asked I. "He always pretends that he is so," replied Monsieur de Soissons. "But who can judge of what his inclinations are by what he says? his whole life is a vizard--as hollow--as false--as unlike the real face of the man. We all know how negotiations can be protracted; and he has used every means to keep this in suspense till he could free himself from other embarrassments. He asked our demands, and then misunderstood them; and then required a fuller interpretation of particular parts; and then mistook the explanation--then let a month or two slip by; and then again required to know our demands, as if he had never heard them; and then began over again the same endless train of irritating delay. But, however, there is one of our demands which we will never relinquish, and which he will never grant, except he be compelled, which is the solemn condemnation and relinquishment of all special commissions." "I am not very well aware of the meaning of that term," said I: "may I crave your highness to explain it to me?" "I do not wonder at your not knowing it," answered the Count: "it is an iniquity of his own invention, totally unknown to the laws of France. When any one was accused of a crime formerly, the established authorities of the part of the country in which it was averred to have been committed took cognisance of the matter, and the accused was tried before the usual judges; but now, on the contrary, on any such accusation, this cardinal issues his special commission to various judges named by himself, uniformly his most devoted creatures, and often the personal enemies of the accused. Under such an abuse, who can escape? False accusers can always be procured; and where the judges are baser still, justice is out of the question. The law of France is no longer administered, but the personal resentments of Richelieu." The conversation continued for some time in the same course, and turned but little to the advantage of the minister. The Count de Soissons had real and serious cause of indignation against Richelieu, on his own account; and this made him see all the public crimes of that great but cruel and vindictive minister in the most unfavourable light. The stimulus of neglect had, in my mind, also excited feelings which made me lend an attentive ear to the grievances and wrongs that the prince was not slow in urging, and my blood rose warmly against the tyranny which had driven so many of the great and noble from their country, and spilt the most generous blood in France upon the scaffold. I have through life seen self-interest and private pique bias the judgment of the wisest and the best intentioned; and I never yet in all the wide world met with a man who, in judging of circumstances wherein he himself was any way involved, did not suffer himself to be prejudiced by one personal feeling or another. The most despotic lords of their own passions have always some favourite that governs them themselves. Far be it from me, then, to say, I was not very willing and easy to be convinced that the man who had neglected me had also abused his power, tyrannized over his fellow-subjects, and wronged both his king and his country. I was in the heat of youth, soon prepossessed, and already prejudiced; and whatever I might think afterwards, I, at the moment, looked upon the enterprise which was contemplated by Monsieur le Comte as one of the most noble and justifiable that had ever been undertaken to free one's native country from a tyrant. There was also in the manners of the Count de Soissons that inexpressible charm which leaves the judgment hardly free. It is impossible to say exactly in what it consisted. I have seen many men with the same princely air and demeanour, and with the same suavity of manner, who did not in the least possess that sort of fascination which, like the cestus of the goddess, won all hearts for him that was endowed with it. I was not the only one that felt the charm. Everybody that surrounded the prince--everybody that, in any degree, came in contact with him, were all affected alike towards him. Even the common multitude experienced the same; and the shouts with which the populace of Paris greeted his appearance on some day of ceremony, are said to have been the first cause of the Cardinal's jealous persecution of him. One saw a fine and noble spirit, a generous and feeling heart shining through manners that were at once dignified while they were affable, and warm though polished; and it might be the conviction of his internal rectitude, and his perfect sincerity, which added the master-spell to a demeanour eminently graceful. Whatever it was, the fascination on my mind was complete; and I hardly know what I would have refused to undertake in the service of such a prince. At the end of our conversation, scarcely knowing that I did so, I could not help comparing in my own mind my present interview with the Count de Soissons, and that which I had formerly had with the Cardinal de Richelieu; and how strange was the difference of my feelings at the end of each! I left the minister, cold, dissatisfied, dispirited; and I quitted the Count de Soissons with every hope and every wish ardent in his favour; with all my best feelings devoted to his service, and my own expectations of the future raised and expanded by my communion with him, like a flower blown fully out by the influence of a genial day of summer. On leaving the Count's apartments, I passed through a room in which I found Monsieur de Varicarville with several other gentlemen, to whom he introduced me; and we then proceeded to the grand hall of the château, where we were met by the personal suite of the Duke of Bouillon, who divided the interior of the citadel equally with his princely guest. The duke had this morning made some twinges of the gout an excuse for taking his breakfast with the Duchess in his own apartment, and the Count did so habitually; but for the rest of the party, two long tables were spread, each containing fifty covers, which were not long in finding employers. The table soon groaned with the breakfast, and every one drew his knife and fell to, with the more speed, as it had been announced that the tilt-yard of the castle would be open at eight of the clock, to such as chose to run at the ring. After which there would be a course des têtes. Neither of these exercises I had ever seen, and consequently was not a little eager for the conclusion of the meal, although I could but hope to be a spectator. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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