Chapter XI: Part 11

"I have come to consult you concerning a most important matter, my dear neighbor. You know that, being closely allied to the Duc de Thouars, head of the house of La Trémouille, to which I have the honor to belong, I thought last spring of joining the people of La Rochelle. You prevented me, assuring me that the duke would melt away like snow before the king; and it happened as you predicted. But because my kinsman the duke committed an error, it does not follow that I was justified in doing the like, and I reproach myself for abandoning my cause, especially at the moment when it is recovering strength."

"Evidently your tongue betrays you, neighbor," replied Bois-Doré artlessly; "you mean that the cause is in great need of you; for, if you hurry to its assistance because it has the upper hand, I do not see wherein your merit lies."

"My dear marquis," replied De Beuvre, "you have always prided yourself on your chivalrous notions; but I am a plain man, and I speak of things as they are. You are rich, your fortune is made, your career is finished; you can afford to philosophize. I, although I am not poor, have lost much of my property through having played my hand badly in these last years. I feel active still, and inaction is tedious to me. And then I cannot endure the airs of superiority that the old Leaguers assume here in our province. The mischief-making of the Jesuits drives me frantic. Must I abjure, pray, if I wish to live in peace, like you?"

"Like me?" said the marquis, with a smile.

"I know that your abjuration did not make a great sensation," replied De Beuvre; "but, however that may be, it is too early for me to do it; I prefer to fight, and I have five or six years of activity and good health to do it."

"But you are very stout, neighbor!"

"You think that I am growing stout, because you do not see yourself getting thin, neighbor! It is you who are becoming hollower, not I more corpulent."

"Very well! I understand your reasons for making this campaign. You think that it will be successful; but you are mistaken. The leaders and the troops, the bourgeois and the ministers, all fight gallantly on a certain day; but on the following day, they separate; they abhor one another, they insult one another and each goes his own way. The game has been lost ever since Saint Bartholomew, and the King of the Huguenots won it only by abandoning the cause. He chose to be a Frenchman first of all; and this that you propose will be of advantage neither to France nor to yourself."

De Beuvre could not endure contradiction. He persisted, and taunted the marquis with his lack of religious principle, albeit he himself was the most sceptical of men.

As he listened to him, Bois-Doré saw plainly that he was tempted by the excellent terms which the king was compelled to grant the Calvinist nobles, whenever the royal cause received a check. De Beuvre was not a man to sell himself, like so many others, but to fight stubbornly, and, if victorious, to take advantage without scruple of the opportunity to be most exacting in his demands.

"Since your mind is made up," said the marquis gently, "you ought to have told me so at once, instead of asking my advice. I have only one other consideration to urge upon you. You propose to equip yourself and take the best of your people with you for this campaign. Think of the annoyance that may be caused your daughter if the Jesuits should take it into their heads to call Monsieur de Condé's attention to your absence! And be sure that they will not fail to do it, that the château of La Motte-Seuilly will be occupied in the king's name by evil-minded men; that your daughter will be exposed to insult----"

"I do not fear that," said De Beuvre. "I shall be supposed to be at Orléans, where everyone knows that I have a law-suit. I will go thence, quietly, toward Guyenne, where I will assume some old _nom de guerre_, as the custom is, to protect my property and my family during my absence; I will be Captain Chandelle or Captain La Paille, or Captain--no matter what."

"All that is often done, I know," rejoined Bois-Doré, "but it doesn't always succeed; I promise to defend your château as effectively as I and my people can do it; but if I were not afraid of making an indelicate suggestion, I would offer to take your Lauriane into my family during your absence."

"Offer, offer, neighbor! I accept, nor do I see wherein the indelicacy consists. There is no impropriety in a woman's being in any place where her virtue or her good name are not in danger, and I am entirely unable to see that my daughter runs the risk of losing her heart or her reason, with you who might be her grandfather, your little one who is only a school-boy, your philosopher whose tongue cannot offend, and your page who looks like a monkey. So I will bring her to you to-morrow, and leave her with you until my return, well-assured that she will be happy and safe under your roof, and that you will be to her, as to me, the best of friends and neighbors."

"You can rely upon it," replied Bois-Doré. "I will go to fetch her myself. My chariot is large enough; she can put her most valuable property in it, without letting the neighbors know too soon that she is doing anything more than taking one of her ordinary excursions."

XXXIX

On the following morning Lauriane was installed at Briantes, in the Salle des Verdures, which the ingenious Adamas soon converted into a luxurious and comfortable apartment.

The Moor asked leave to wait upon the young lady, who inspired confidence and sympathy in her, and Lauriane, who on her side had much regard and liking for her, asked her to sleep in the closet adjoining her enormous room.

Lauriane parted from her father most courageously. The noble-hearted child, living herself on faith and enthusiasm, suspected no selfish calculation on his part. She would have found it difficult to understand what it meant to be guided in one's reasoning, doubts and decisions by personal interest. She knew that her father was as brave as a lion and that his quick temper and the pride of gentle birth made him frank and outspoken; that was enough for her to make a hero of him.

He was conscious of the innocence and the noble instincts of that young mind, and he would not have dared to lower himself in her esteem by allowing her to discover how much more truly than she supposed he was the _honest man_ of his time; that is to say, the man who did as little harm as possible, while taking care to keep his neck out of the collar.

The day of ideal virtues had passed: the world had entered "the brambles of that shocking 17th century; an imposing desert, wherein moral and material subsistence becomes more and more inadequate, wherein nature at last ceases to support man; wherein the exhausted earth fails under him."[24] Men who had grown old in the struggles of the preceding century were not the men to rejuvenate the new century. But the children had courage; they always have when they are left to themselves!

Lauriane, moved to enthusiasm by the gallant conduct of the Rohans and La Forces at Montauban, urged her father to go, believing that his only thought was to uphold the honor of the cause, and that he, like herself, had naught in view but to preserve, at the price of fortune, of life, if need be, the dignity and liberty of conscience granted by Henri IV.

She did not shed a tear as she gave him the last kiss; she followed him with her eyes along the road, as long as she could see him; and, when he was out of sight, she returned to her room and fell to sobbing.

Mercedes, who was working in the closet, heard her and walked to the door, but dared not approach. She regretted that she did not know her language so that she could comfort her.

The maternal instinct was so strong within her that she could not see a young heart suffer without suffering herself, and without a feeling that she must go to its aid. She thought of going in search of Mario; it seemed to her that no sorrow could hold out against the aspect and the caresses of her beloved child.

Mario came softly in on tiptoe and stood close beside Lauriane without betraying his presence. Lauriane was already his darling sister. She was so kind to him, so playful, so anxious to amuse him when he passed the day with her!

Seeing her weep, he was frightened; he believed, with everybody else, that Monsieur de Beuvre was absent for a few days only.

He knelt on the edge of the cushion on which she had placed her feet, and gazed at her speechless. At last he ventured to take her hands.

She started, looked up, and saw before her that angelic face, smiling at her through tear-bedewed eyes. Touched by the child's sensibility, she pressed him to her heart with the utmost warmth and kissed his lovely hair.

"What is the matter, pray, my Lauriane?" he asked, emboldened by this outburst.

"Why, my poor darling," she replied, "your Lauriane is grieved, as you would be if your dear father the marquis should go away."

"But your papa will return soon; he told you so when he went."

"Alas! my Mario, who can say that he will return at all? When one is travelling, you know----"

"Has he gone very far away?"

"No, but--Nay, nay, I will not make you unhappy. I must go out and take the air. Will you come with me and find your dear father?"

"Yes," said Mario, "he is in the garden. Let us go. Would you like me to go and get my white goat to amuse you with her capers?"

"We will go together to look for her; come!"

She went out leaning on his arm, not like a lady leaning on the arm of a gallant, but like a mother, with her boy's arm passed through hers.

As they descended the stairs they found Mercedes, whose lovely eyes rested caressingly on them as they passed. Lauriane, who could make herself understood by signs, needed only to look at her to understand her. She divined her loving solicitude and held out her hand, which Mercedes would have kissed. But Lauriane would not permit it, and kissed her on both cheeks.

Never before had a Christian kissed the Moor, although she was herself a Christian. Bellinde would have considered that she disgraced herself by bestowing the slightest caress upon her, and, deeming her a heathen, she even objected to eating in her company.

The noble-hearted little dame's fascinating cordiality was therefore one of the greatest joys in that poor creature's life, and, from that moment, she almost divided her affection between her and Mario.

She had always refused to try to learn a word of French, even striving to forget the little Spanish that she knew, having an exaggerated fear of forgetting the language of her fathers, as she had sometimes found that it was forgotten by Moors isolated from their countrymen in foreign lands, to whom she had not been able to make herself intelligible. Hitherto it had been sufficient for her to be able to speak with the learned Abbé Anjorrant, with Mario, and of late with Lucilio. But the longing to talk with Lauriane and the kind-hearted marquis caused her to overcome her repugnance. Indeed, she felt that it was her duty to acquire the language of those affectionate people, who treated her as a member of their race and their family.

Lauriane undertook to act as her teacher, and in a short time they were able to understand each other.

Lauriane soon found herself very happy at Briantes, and, if it had not been for the absence of her father, from whom, however, she soon received good news, she would have been happier than she had ever been in her life.

At La Motte-Seuilly she was almost always alone, as the robust De Beuvre hunted in all weathers, loving to tire himself out; and, despite his affection for her, he neglected the innumerable little delicate attentions, the ingenious indulgences which the marquis placed at the service of women and children.

Brought up somewhat sternly, she had had to resign herself to be a little stern to herself, especially as the idea of a long widowhood had presented itself to her mind as a result of the environment and the circumstances in which her lot was cast. There had been moments when, although she was not as yet conscious of a desire to lean upon a heart not far removed in age from her own, she had felt that her own courage bruised her, like a suit of armor that was too heavy for her slender limbs. She had hardened herself by outbursts of piety and of resolution; she had already almost succeeded in forcing herself to laugh when she longed to weep; but nature resumed its rights.

When alone, she often wept in spite of herself, involuntarily yearning for companionship, affection, a mother, a sister, a brother, a smile, a pleasant word which would assist her to breathe and bloom in a softer air than that of the chilling gloom of her old manor-house, the depressing memory of the Borgias, and the political harangues of her satirical and discontented father.

Thus a rapid transformation took place in her at Briantes. She became what she longed to be, what she could not have ceased to be except for a painful straining of her will, and what nature willed that she should be once more: a child.

The marquis, having joyously cast aside the thought of making her his wife, resolutely treated her as his daughter, taking pleasure in the idea that she was so young that he could readily, without making himself out too old, look upon her as Mario's older sister.

Moreover it happened that his extraordinary coquetry was even better served by two children than by a single one. Those youthful companions, whose delicate colors he loved to wear, and whose innocent amusements he loved to partake, made him younger in his own opinion, to such a degree that he sometimes persuaded himself that he was a mere boy.

"There are people who grow old, you see," he would say to Adamas; "I am not one of that sort, for I enjoy myself only with innocent youth. I tell you, my friend, I have returned to my golden age, and my ideas are as pure and joyous as those of the little sweetheart and cherub yonder."

Thus Lauriane, Mario and the marquis became inseparable, and their days passed in a constant succession of amusements interspersed with earnest study and good deeds.

Lauriane had had no education at all. She knew nothing. She desired to attend the lessons Jovelin gave Mario in the large salon. She would listen, embroidering the marquis's crest upon a piece of tapestry; and when Mario had read or recited his lesson, he would place Lucilio's written demonstrations on her lap and read them over with her. Lauriane was amazed to find how readily she understood things that she had believed to be beyond a woman's intelligence.

She enjoyed the music lesson exceedingly, and sometimes played the theorbo prettily while the Moor sang her sweet laments.

The marquis would lie stretched out in his long chair throughout these little concerts, gazing at the characters on the _Astrée_ tapestry, and would doze beatifically, fancying that he saw them move or heard them sing.

Lucilio too had his share in this family happiness, which caused him to forget to some extent the solitude of his heart and his ghastly future.

The stern yet simple-minded philosopher was not yet too old to love; but he thought that he ought not to aspire to it, and, after having felt its ardent flames more than once, he feared that he might fall into some mere sensual connection, in which his heart would not be included. He resigned himself therefore to live by devotion to others and to abandon all illusions finally and absolutely.

He who had endured imprisonment, exile and poverty, and had undergone martyrdom, appealed to himself to conquer the craving for happiness as he had conquered all the rest, and he always emerged tranquillized and triumphant from these meditations; but triumphant as one is after the torture: a blending of feverish excitement and prostration, on one side the heart, on the other the body; a life whose equilibrium is destroyed and in which the mind can no longer tell in what sort of a world it is.

And yet Lucilio exaggerated his misfortune to himself. He was beloved, not by a mind of rare intelligence--that is what he needed, at least he thought so, to reconcile himself to his tragic destiny--but by a heart.

Before his learning and his genius, Mercedes was like a rose before the sun. She drank in its rays without understanding them; but she was enamored of his gentleness, his courage and his virtue, and her loving heart was prostrate before him. She did not resist the sentiment, but cherished it as a religious duty; she said nothing, however, because she had more fear than hope.

We must not forget to mention in its place a little domestic revolution that occurred at the château of Briantes a few days after Monsieur de Beuvre's departure; for the importance of this seemingly trivial incident became grievously manifest later to the too happy inmates of the château.

Although the younger of the beaux messieurs de Bois-Doré was not always the more child-like, Mario sometimes displayed a mischievous tendency, especially when, as Adamas expressed it, "he and the little madame had had their heads together." He was too kind-hearted and affectionate ever to torment animals or human beings; he never had occasion to reproach himself for pulling Fleurial's ear or addressing an unpleasant word to Clindor; but inanimate things did not always inspire in him the respect that certain of them inspired in the marquis. Of this number were the little statues from the romance of _Astrée_, which embellished the gardens of _Isaure_ and the famous labyrinth, and the den of old Mandrague, by which he had been much entertained at first, but which gradually began to pall upon him as playthings too utterly devoid of life.

One day, when he was trying a great wooden sabre which Aristandre had carved for him, he pretended to threaten with it one of the stucco personages representing the disguised Filandre, that is to say the _pretended_ Filandre, because, as everyone knows, resembling his sister Callirée so closely that it was impossible to distinguish them, he donned female clothes in order to obtain admission to the private apartments of the nymph he loved.

The shepherd was represented in that female disguise, and the artist employed to mould the figures, trusting to the explicitly alleged resemblance of the brother and sister, had ventured to spare his imagination some labor by employing the same model for the two figures facing each other, with those of Amidor, Daphnis, etc., in the _rond-point_ of verdure, called the _grove of the errors of love_.

So, to distinguish the brother from the sister, the marquis had written on the pedestal of the brother a fragment of the long monologue which begins thus: "O vainglorious Filandre, who can ever pardon thy fault, etc.?"

That crafty individual's face was so stupid, that Mario, while not precisely hating him, loved to laugh at him and threaten him. He had previously dealt him several harmless blows; but on this day, seeing that the challenge he hurled at him amused Lauriane, he aimed a sword-thrust at him with more force than he intended, and sent poor Filandre's nose flying to the ground.

The exploit was no sooner performed than the child regretted it. His father was as fond of Filandre as of the other shepherds.

Lauriane, after much searching, found the unfortunate nose in the grass, and Mario, climbing on the pedestal, stuck it on as well as he could with clay. But it was frosty weather and the next morning the nose was on the ground. They stuck it on again; but the disguised Filandre was such an idiot that he could not keep his nose, and at last the marquis passed by at a time when he was without it.

Mario confessed; kind-hearted Sylvain saw his remorse and did not scold him. But the next day not only was Filandre minus his nose, but his sister Callirée; and on the next day Filidas and the incomparable Diane herself were in the same plight.

This time Bois-Doré was seriously distressed and sorrowfully reproved his child, who began to weep bitterly, declaring with evident sincerity that he had never in his life broken off any other nose than the vainglorious Filandre's. Lauriane also asserted her young friend's innocence.

"I believe you, my children, I believe you," said the marquis, dismayed by Mario's tears. "But why this grief, my son, since you are not the culprit? Come, come, do not weep any more. I blamed you too hastily; do not punish me for it by your tears."

They embraced affectionately, but this massacre of noses was most surprising, and Lauriane observed to the marquis that some crafty and evil disposed person must have done it for the purpose of making Mario guilty in his eyes.

"That is certain," replied the marquis, thoughtfully. "It is one of the vilest deeds imaginable, and I would like right well to find the author of it and condemn him to lose his own nose! I would give him a good fright, on my word!"

However, they tried to look upon it as nothing more than a piece of childish folly, and suspicion fell upon the youngest person in the château next to Mario. But Clindor displayed such righteous indignation that the marquis had to apologize to him too.

On the following day, two or three more noses were missing, and the indignant Adamas caused a guard to be stationed day and night in the garden.

The vandalism ceased, and honest Lucilio, touched by Bois-Doré's distress, compounded an Italian paste by means of which, with much patience, he neatly replaced all the noses.

But who could be the perpetrator of the crime? Adamas suspected; but the marquis, refusing to believe that anyone in his household was capable of such infamous conduct, attributed it to some agent of Monsieur Poulain.

"That hypocrite," he said, "considering us all heathens and idolaters, probably imagined that we worshipped those statues! And yet, Adamas, they are all modest and decently dressed, as it is fitting that they should be in a place where our children go to and fro."

"I would say with you that it is some villain who very evidently entertains the detestable desire to cause monsieur le comte to be scolded. Now, everybody here would lay down his life for him, they all love him so, except one detestable creature----"

"No, no, Adamas!" rejoined the generous-hearted marquis. "It is impossible! It would be too hateful on the part of one of the fair sex."

They were beginning to forget this momentous affair when something even more unpleasant occurred.

[Footnote 24: Michelet, unpublished letter.]