Chapter IX: Part 9

Furthermore, he could not avoid the discovery that in Paris nobody was a _beau monsieur_ who was not of the court. To be sure, in their daily drives and on Place Royale, more or less people turned to gaze at the strange contrast between his painted face and Mario's deliciously fresh complexion; and for some time the goodman, thinking that he was recognized, smiled at the passers-by, and put his hand to his hat, ready to welcome overtures which no one thought of making. That gave him an air of dazed hesitancy and vulgar affability which aroused laughter. The ladies who sat under the young trees in the Cours-la-Reine, or walked back and forth fan in hand, said to one another:

"Who is that tall old fool, pray?"

And if those ladies were of the society in which Bois-Doré had reappeared, or bourgeoises of the quarter where he lodged, sometimes there would be one who would reply:

"He is a nobleman from the provinces, who prides himself on having been a friend of the late king."

"Some Gascon, I suppose? They all saved France! Or some Béarnais? They were all foster-brothers of our dear Henri!"

"No, an old ass from Berry or Champagne. There are Gascons everywhere."

So it was that honest Sylvain was quite effaced in that forgetful, ostentatious crowd, strive as he would to appear to advantage there. He said to himself with some vexation that it was better to be first in one's village than last at court. It is certain however that, with a little impudence and scheming, he could have pushed Mario ahead as so many others were pushed; but he dreaded some affront on the score of his problematical marquisate.

He resigned himself therefore to play the part of the provincial boor, and would have suffered terribly from ennui, had not Mario, who was always studious and intelligently artistic in his tastes, taken him to see the monuments of art and science which were the principal attractions of the capital of the kingdom in his eyes.

The pleasure and profit which the young man derived from them consoled the old man in some measure for what he called in his secret thoughts an abortive journey.

He did not tell Mario of all his disappointments. He still cherished the hope of discovering his mother's family and acquiring thereby a fine Spanish title, an inheritance of some sort. He had written many times to Spain to make inquiries and to furnish information concerning Mario, in case the said family should display any interest. He had never received any but vague, perhaps evasive replies.

At Paris he determined to go in person to the Embassy. He was received there by a sort of private secretary, who informed him, in substance, that, in compliance with his frequent requests they had at last elucidated a mysterious affair. The young woman who had eloped and disappeared did in fact belong to the noble family of Merida, and Mario was the issue of a secret marriage, the validity of which might be contested.

The young woman had left no claim to any fortune, and her family were by no means anxious to recognize a young man reared by an old heretic, only partially purged of his heresy.

The marquis, deeply incensed, determined to stop there and to repay the contempt of those haughty Spaniards with oblivion. It had cost his pride dearly enough to besiege the doors of an embassy which he, as a former Protestant and a good Frenchman, bitterly detested.

And yet he was sad, and confided his distress to his inseparable Adamas.

"Of a surety," he said to him, "the pleasantest and most honorable life is that of the provincial nobility. But, while it is suited to those who have fought and suffered, it may become burdensome and even shameful in the case of a young heart like Mario's. Have I reared him with the greatest care, have we made of him, thanks to his precocious talents, an accomplished gentleman, fit for any station, only to bury him in a country manor, on the pretext that he has no need to make his fortune, and that he is tender-hearted and humane? Should he not have a little taste of war and adventure, and by some brilliant deed win that marquisate which the great cardinal's ideas of universal levelling may take from him any day? I know that the child is very young, and that we have lost no time as yet; but his inclinations seem to tend in the direction of study, and I ransack my wits to determine how he will find a way to distinguish himself in that direction."

"Monsieur," replied Adamas, "if you think that your son will be more of a cripple than you in battle, you hardly know him."

"I do not know my son?"

"Well, no, monsieur, you do not know him: he is a mysterious creature who loves you so dearly that he never dares to have an idea to perplex you or a trouble for you to share. But I know what is in the bag: Mario dreams of war as much as of love, and the time is near at hand when, if you do not divine his ambition, you will have him either sick or melancholy on your hands."

"God forbid!" cried the marquis. "I will question him on this subject to-morrow!"

In such a matter, when a man says to-morrow, it means that he is inclined to shirk, and the marquis did in fact shirk. Paternal weakness fought a great battle with paternal pride, and won the day. Mario was not yet strong enough to endure the fatigues of war; and, furthermore, the war with England or Spain to which all indications pointed, seemed to be postponed for a brief space by Richelieu's mighty efforts to create a French navy. There was no need of haste; there was plenty of time; the opportunity would come soon enough!

So they returned to Briantes late in the autumn and found Lucilio married to Mercedes.

Mario, on being informed of this event in Paris, manifested more satisfaction than surprise. He had felt for a long while, in the burning air which his Moor involuntarily breathed upon him, as well as in Lucilio's gentle melancholy and in the adroit and affectionate language of his bagpipes, the waves of passion which sometimes set his own blood on fire. His heart felt as if it were caught in a vise at the thought of happy love; but he had extraordinary control over himself. As his father lived only in his life, he had at an early age accustomed himself to conceal his emotions from him; and, when Adamas reproved him for keeping his thoughts too much to himself, he would reply:

"My father is old; he is wrapped up in me as a mother is in her child. It is my duty not to shorten his days by causing him anxiety, and heaven has entrusted to me the mission of making him live a long while."

Lauriane was living in Poitou, and they rarely heard from her. She wrote in an affectionate and respectful tone to the marquis, but she hardly mentioned Mario's name, as if she dreaded to remind him of herself.

By way of compensation she wrote in the most affectionate terms of the Moor, Lucilio, and the faithful retainers of the family. It seemed that her affection, held in check with those who had the first claim upon it, instinctively took its revenge with the others. She announced several times, with a sort of affectation, that there were divers projects of marriage under consideration, and that she would soon inform them of her decision, desiring, she said, to make a choice that would be agreeable to the marquis, whom she looked upon as a second father.

The strange feature of these alleged marriage projects was that she recurred to them year after year, as if they were constantly abandoned and revived, without imparting anything of interest to her friends as to her choice; as if her real purpose were to say to them: "I do not marry because I am not so inclined; but do not for one moment think that I am reserving myself for you."

Such was, in fact, her purpose in writing these letters, and her state of mind may be thus described:

When he took her away from Berry, intending soon to part from her, Monsieur de Beuvre had inflicted a cruel wound upon her heart by inventing a fable to the effect that the marquis and his heir, when consulted by him at Bourges, had met his advances very coldly. Mario had shown himself a very fervent Catholic on that occasion; he had sworn that he would never enter into a _mixed_ marriage.

Lauriane should have distrusted a father in whom the thirst for gold had penetrated to the very entrails, and who, being in haste to go away, was determined at any price to persuade her to marry promptly. She refused to marry in anger and without due consideration; but she promised to reflect upon it, and in her heart proudly abandoned the ungrateful Mario. She had loved him at Bourges--really loved him for the first time after years of placid friendship. And that first love of her life, almost before it was admitted, hardly revealed to herself, she had had to blush for in very shame, and to crush it without a sign of weakening!

She had some suspicions; but, while her father did not swear that he exaggerated nothing, he could at least give her his word of honor that he had proposed their betrothal to the marquis, and that he had evaded the proposal on the pretext that Mario was still too young to have the idea of love suggested to him. Lauriane was too pure to realize the risks she might have run by returning to Briantes. She remembered that, at the moment of parting from her, Mario, who was said to be ill, had shrugged his shoulders and turned his head away, saying:

"You make too much ado about a little cramp. I have no pain now."

So she said again to her father what she had said to him with all sincerity some time before, that she had never looked upon that marriage as a possibility; and she encouraged him to go away, as he desired to do, promising him that she would marry any suitable aspirant who did not inspire aversion in her.

But such an aspirant did not appear. All those whom Madame de la Trémouille presented to her failed to please her. She found in them the positivism which had invaded her father like a passion, but she found it in the form of cold and somewhat cynical selfishness. The halcyon days of the Reformation were passing away, like the social structure of the preceding century. The Reformed religion was heroic only under cruel persecution, and Richelieu, crushing the remains of the party by the inevitable logic of events, bore no resemblance to a persecutor. France said to the Protestants by his mouth: "Confine yourselves to religious liberty; let politics alone. Turn your faces with us against the enemies without the realm!"--The Protestants proposed to become a republic; they became a Vendée.

Save the French Puritans--that redoubtable, heroic, indomitable party, which stood at bay and immolated itself at La Rochelle two years later--all French Protestants were at this time inclined to adhere to the principle of French unity; but many had determined not to give in their adhesion until after a victory which should secure favorable and lasting terms for their party.

Now, among those who reasoned well, but who were about to be led on to reason ill and to choose between a foreign alliance and final extermination, the nobility were generally speaking less pure in their purposes than the bourgeoisie and the common people. They made reservations in their own interest; those most highly placed insisted upon being purchased, and translated their craving for religious liberty into a craving for offices and money.

Lauriane was intensely indignant at these numerous defections which were announced every day, or which awaited their turn in shameful anticipation. She had formed a more chivalrous idea of the honor of the party. She was forced now to recognize the fact that her father, whose greed had so humiliated her, was simply doing a little more tardily what most men of his age had done all their lives, and what most young men were eager to do in their turn. Still, Monsieur de Beuvre was one of the best; for he had no idea of betraying his flag. He simply made haste to make his bargain before the flag was dragged in the dust.

It was possible that Lauriane might fall in with an exception to the general rule. There were exceptions, for she herself was one. She did not fall in with them, perhaps because she was so pensive and distraught that she did not know how to look for them.

Youth and beauty are justifiably proud. They wait to be discovered and reveal naught themselves, because they dread to have the appearance of offering themselves.

LXIX

Although we have hitherto done our utmost to follow our characters step by step through the ordinary life of the _stay-at-home nobility_, which our authorities enabled us to study with some care, we are forced now to pass over a brief interval of time, and to seek the Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Doré far from their peaceful domain.

It was in 1629, the first day of March, I believe. Mont Genèvre, covered with snow, presented a scene of extraordinary animation upon both slopes, and even to the very opening of the ravine called the Pas de Suse.

The French army was marching upon the Duc de Savoie, that is to say upon Spain and Austria, his trusty allies.

The king and the cardinal climbed the mountain in spite of the intense cold. The cannon were dragged up through the snow. It was one of those scenes of grandeur which the French soldier has always acted so magnificently amid the sublime grandeur of the Alps, under Napoléon as under Richelieu, and under Richelieu as under Louis XII., without diverting himself with attempts to dissolve the rocks, as Hannibal's genius is said to have done, and without other artifice than intrepid determination, ardor and cheerfulness.

In one of the paths trodden through the snow parallel with the road, two horsemen happened to be ascending side by side the precipitous slope of the mountain on the French side. One was a young man of some nineteen years, of robust frame and with a grace of movement most pleasant to behold under the becoming warlike costume of the age. So far as colors were concerned, the young man was dressed in accordance with his own fancy. His equipment and his weapons, as well as his isolation, indicated a gentleman making the campaign as a volunteer.

Mario de Bois-Doré--the reader will assume that it is he whom I am describing--was the comeliest cavalier in the whole army. The development of his youthful strength had in no wise diminished the wonderful charm of his noble and intelligent face. His expression was like an angel's in purity; but the sprouting beard reminded one that this youth with the divine glance was but a simple mortal; and that young moustache faintly outlined the curve of a smile, somewhat indifferent, perhaps, but with a cordial kindliness showing through its melancholy.

Magnificent brown hair, of a soft shade and curling naturally, framed the face to the neck, and fell in a heavy braid--the _cadenette_ was more in vogue than ever--below the shoulder. The face wore a delicate flush, but was pale rather than ruddy. The exquisite distinction of manners and dress was the principal characteristic of that figure, which did not attract the glance, but from which the glance found it difficult to detach itself when it had rested upon it.

Such was the impression of the horseman whom chance had brought side by side with Mario.

The last-mentioned horseman was about forty years of age; he was thin and sallow, with regular features, very mobile lips, a piercing eye, and an expression of cunning tempered by a disposition to serious reflection. He was dressed in rather a problematical costume, all in black, and in a short cassock, like a priest on a journey, but armed and booted like a soldier.

His bony, active horse easily kept pace with his companion's ardent and impetuous steed.

The two horsemen had saluted each other without speaking, and Mario had slackened his pace to allow the other, as his senior, to ride first. The traveller seemed to appreciate that scrupulous courtesy, and declined to pass the younger man.

"In truth, monsieur," said Mario, "our horses seem to keep step, which fact proves the good-will of both, for I have difficulty in keeping mine to a pace which does not leave all the others behind, and I have had to give my companions a long start, in order not to reach the top of the pass before them."

"That which is a fault in your noble beast is a good quality in mine," replied the stranger. "As I almost always travel alone, I go my way without giving anyone reason to blame me for fatiguing my horse. But may I ask you, monsieur, where I have had the honor of seeing you? Your amiable face is not altogether strange to me."

Mario looked closely at him and said:

"The last time that I had the honor of seeing you was at Bourges, four years since, at the baptism of Monseigneur le Duc d'Enghien."

"Then you are really the young Comte de Bois-Doré?"

"Yes, Monsieur l'Abbé Poulain," replied Mario, putting his hand once more to his plumed hat.

"I am overjoyed to find you as you are, monsieur le comte," rejoined the rector of Briantes; "you have grown in stature, in attractiveness, and in merit as well, I can see by your manners. But do not call me _abbé_; for I am not one as yet, alas! and it is possible that I may never be."

"I know that Monsieur le Prince has always refused to assent to your appointment; but I thought----"

"That I had found something better than the Abbey of Varennes? Yes and no. While awaiting the opportunity to assume some title, I succeeded in leaving Berry, and chance attached me to the fortunes of the cardinal, in the service of Père Joseph, to whom I am devoted body and soul. I can say to you, between ourselves, that I am one of his messengers; and that is why I have a good horse."

"I congratulate you, monsieur. Père Joseph's service can call for no work that a patriotic Frenchman may not do, and the cardinal's fortune is the destiny of France."

"Do you really mean what you say, Monsieur Mario?" queried the priest with an incredulous smile.

"Yes, monsieur, on my honor!" the young man replied, with an accent of sincerity which overcame the diplomatic priest's suspicions. "I do not wish Monsieur le Cardinal to know that he has two cordial admirers in my father and myself; but do us the honor to believe that we are loyal enough to desire to serve the cause of the great minister and of the fair kingdom of France, with our hearts and bodies, as well as you, if we can."

"I believe in you implicitly," replied Monsieur Poulain, "but I have less faith in monsieur your father! For example, he did not send you to the siege of La Rochelle last year. You were still very young, I know; but younger men than you were there, and you must have chafed at having to miss the glorious rendezvous of all the young nobility of France."

"Monsieur Poulain," rejoined Mario, with some severity, "I thought that you were bound to my father by the ties of gratitude. All that he was able to do for you he did, and if the Abbey of Varennes has been secularized for the benefit of Monsieur le Prince, you can not blame my father, who was largely defrauded in that affair."

"Oh! I do not doubt it!" exclaimed Monsieur Poulain; "give me the Prince de Condé of all men to tangle up accounts! and I blame him and him alone. As for your father, monsieur le comte, let me tell you that I still love and esteem him infinitely. Far from having any thought of injuring him, I would give my life to know that he had devoted himself without mental reservation, to the Catholic cause."

"My father does not need to devote himself to the cause of his country, monsieur! I mean to say that he warmly embraces the cardinal's cause against all the enemies of France."

"Even against the Huguenots?"

"The Huguenots are no more, monsieur! Let us leave the dead in peace!"

Monsieur Poulain was impressed anew with the dignified expression of that sweet face. He felt that he was not dealing with an ambitious and frivolous youth, like others with whom he was familiar.

"You are right, monsieur," he said. "Peace to the ashes of the men of La Rochelle, and may God hear you, to the end that they may not come to life again at Montauban and elsewhere. Since your father has recovered so fully from his religious indifference, let us hope that he will, if need be, permit you to march against the rebels in the South."

"My father always has permitted me to follow my own inclination; but understand, monsieur, that it will never lead me to march against Protestants, unless I see that the monarchy is in great danger. Never will I draw the sword against Frenchmen, from ambition or vainglory; never can I forget that that cause, once glorious, now brought low, placed Henri IV. on the throne. You were reared in the spirit of the League, Monsieur Poulain, and now you are fighting against it with all your strength. You have changed from the wrong to the right, from the false to the true; I have lived and I shall die in the path upon which my feet were placed: loyalty to my country, detestation of intrigues with the foreigner. I am entitled to less credit than you, having never had occasion to change my views; but I promise you that I will do my best, and that while respecting freedom of conscience in others, I will fall with all my strength upon the allies of Monsieur de Savoie."

"You forget that they are the allies of the Reformed religion to-day."

"Say of Monsieur de Rohan! Thereby Monsieur de Rohan is consummating the ruin of his party; and that is why I said to you: Peace to the dead!"

"Well, well!" said Père Joseph's trusted agent, "I see that, like the excellent marquis, you have a romantic mind, and that you will be guided, according to his example, by sentiment. May I, without indiscretion, inquire for the health of monsieur your father?"

"You will soon see him in person, monsieur. He will be glad to see you. He is riding ahead, and we shall overtake him within a quarter of an hour."

"What do you say? Monsieur de Bois-Doré, at seventy-five or eighty years of age----"

"Takes the field against the enemies and assassins of Henri IV.! Does that surprise you, Monsieur Poulain?"

"No, my child," replied the ex-Leaguer, now become, by the force of events, a continuator and admirer of the policy of the Béarnais; "but it seems to me that he is a little late in setting about it!"

"What would you have, monsieur? he did not choose to take the field all alone; he waited for the King of France to set the example."

"Faith," said Monsieur Poulain with a smile, "you have an answer for everything! I long to salute the marquis's noble old age! But it is impossible to trot here. Pray tell me of a man to whom I owe my life: Master Lucilio Giovellino, otherwise called Jovelin, the great bag-piper."

"He is happy, thank heaven! He has married my dearest friend, and they are doing us the favor to take charge of our house and our property during our absence."

"Your dearest friend? Do you refer to Mercedes, the beautiful Moor? I should have supposed that you preferred to her--with feelings of a different nature, it is true--a younger and even lovelier friend."

"Do you mean Madame de Beuvre?" rejoined Mario, with a frankness in striking contrast to Monsieur Poulain's insinuating curiosity. "I can readily answer you as I would answer the whole world. She is, in very truth, a person whom I loved fervently in my childhood, and whom I shall respect all my life; but her affection for me is very placid, and you may question me concerning her without reserve."

"Is she not married yet?"

"I have no idea, monsieur. As we have been travelling for several months, we have little news of our friends at a distance."

Monsieur Poulain scrutinized Mario by stealth. He had the tranquillity of a broken heart, but not the prostration of a hopeless soul.

"Do you not know," said the rector, "that Monsieur de Beuvre was with the English fleet before La Rochelle?"

"I know that he was killed there, and that Lauriane has no one but herself to depend upon."

"She was in Poitou when the Duc de Trémouille, after the desertion of the English, went to the king's camp to abjure his heresy."

"She did not accompany him there!" said Mario, hastily. "She asked permission to share the captivity of the heroic Duchesse de Rohan, who refused to submit; and, having failed to obtain that favor, she was preparing to return to Berry when we left our province."

"I knew all that," said Monsieur Poulain, who seemed, in truth, to be well posted upon all subjects.

"If you did not know it," Mario replied, "I should not regret having told you. Surely you would not furnish the Prince de Condé with a new pretext for confiscating Madame de Beuvre's property?"

"No, indeed!" replied the rector laughing outright, with a sort of cordiality. "You reason well, and a man may, without great risk, be as frank as you are, when he knows his companions. But have entire confidence in me, for I have broken entirely with the Jesuits, at my risk and peril!"

Monsieur Poulain spoke the truth.

A few moments later he was in the Marquis de Bois-Doré's presence, and the interview was very civil--almost friendly--on both sides.

LXX

The marquis did not need to convoke the ban and arrière-ban in order to raise a small troop of volunteers. His best men, sure of being well rewarded, had followed him enthusiastically.

The intrepid Aristandre took a keen personal delight in the idea of thrashing messieurs the Spaniards, whom he detested in memory of Sancho; the faithful Adamas rode a gentle palfrey in the rear-guard, and carried in his saddle-bags his master's perfumes and curling-tongs, nothing more!

Save for a touch of the tongs to what little hair was still left on his neck, and a little scented water for his own enjoyment, the marquis was as simple in his toilet as he had formerly been dazzling. No more wigs, no more paint, almost no lace, embroidery and purl; simply an ample doublet of woolen cloth, with open sleeves, short-clothes of the same material extending below the knee, boots fitting tight to the leg, with plain linen ruffles falling over the tops, a broad unembroidered neckband, and over the whole an immense, thick fur-lined cloak--such was the costume of the Beau Monsieur de Bois-Doré.

The metamorphosis can be explained in a few words.

Mario had fought a duel to discipline an impertinent knave who in his presence had made sport of the marquis's plaster mask, black hair and innumerable bows and buckles. Mario had dealt severely with his adversary--it was his first affaire!--but Bois-Doré, being informed of the episode after it was over, did not choose to expose his son to a repetition of it. Suddenly, and without a word to any one, he abandoned his dye and his wig one day on the pretext that Monsieur de Richelieu was justified in proscribing luxury, and that everyone should set a good example. Being thus resigned to appear old and ugly, he heroically appeared before his family. But to his great surprise they all uttered an exclamation of pleasure, and the Moor artlessly said to him:

"Ah! how handsome you are, master! I thought you much older than you are!"

The fact is that the marquis was exceedingly well preserved under his mask, and was extraordinarily handsome considering his great age. He did not know--he was not likely to know--what infirmities were. He still retained his teeth; his ample, bald forehead was furrowed by graceful wrinkles, without a trace of malice or hatred; his moustache and royale, white as snow, stood out against his yellowish-brown complexion, and his great eye, keen and laughing, still shone mildly through his long, bushy, bristling eyebrows.

He was still erect as a young poplar, and stiff in proportion; but he no longer shrank from placing his foot in Aristandre's powerful hand to mount his horse. Once in the saddle, he was as firm as a rock.

Thereafter he received so many sincere compliments upon his beautiful old age, that he changed his whole system of coquetry: instead of concealing his age, he exaggerated it, representing himself as eighty years old although he was but seventy-seven, and taking the keenest pleasure in astonishing his young comrades-in-arms by his tales of the old wars, long buried in the archives of his memory.

On the 3d of March--that is to say on the second day after the meeting of the Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Doré with Monsieur Poulain--the royal vanguard, consisting of ten or twelve thousand picked men, camped at Chaumont, the last village on the frontier. The volunteers, having no materials for a camp, passed the night as best they could in the village.

The marquis tranquilly retired in the first bed that came to hand, and fell asleep like a man inured to the trade of war, who knew how to make the best of the hours of repose, to sleep for one hour when he had but one, and for twelve, to provide against emergencies, when he had nothing better to do.

Mario, intensely excited and impatient to fight, sat up with several, young men, volunteers like himself, with whom he had become acquainted on the road.

It was in a wretched inn, the common room of which was so crowded that one could hardly turn about, and so filled with tobacco smoke that men could not recognize one another.

While the regular troops were as sedate and silent as the most rigid community of monks, the bands of volunteers were merry and uproarious. They drank and laughed and sang obscene songs, recited erotic or amusing verses; they talked of politics and love-making; they quarreled and embraced.

Mario sat by the fireplace dreaming, amid the uproar. Close beside him stood Clindor, become as stout-hearted a youth as his master, but somewhat awed to find himself surrounded by the nobility. He took no part in the noisy conversation; but he was burning to muster courage to do so, while Mario's reverie was cradled by the tumult, which neither tempted nor annoyed him.

Suddenly Mario saw a creature of most extraordinary aspect enter the room. It was a small, thin, dark girl, dressed in an incomprehensible costume; five or six skirts of brilliant hues, each one shorter than the next below; a waist glistening with tinsel and spangles, a quantity of multi-colored plumes in her crimped and curled hair, innumerable necklaces and gold and silver chains; she was covered with bracelets, rings, and glass ornaments, to her very shoes.

That strange creature was of no age. She might have been a precocious child or a worn-out woman. She was very small, ugly when she chose to smile and talk like other people, beautiful when she flew into a temper, which latter seemed to be with her a constant necessity or a normal condition. She insulted the inn-servants because they did not serve her quickly enough, swore at the troopers because they did not make room for her, clawed those who tried to take liberties with her, and retorted with indescribable blasphemy upon those who made sport of her absurd costume and her savage humor.

Mario was wondering with what purpose so shrewish a creature had introduced herself into such company, when a stout woman with a pimply face, absurdly bedizened with wretched gewgaws, also entered the room, laden with boxes like a mule, and called for silence. She had some difficulty in obtaining it, but at last delivered in French a sort of announcement, overflowing with hyperbolical laudation of her companion, the incomparable Pilar, Moorish dancer and infallible soothsayer, possessed of all the learning of the Arabs.

That name Pilar aroused Mario from his lethargy. He examined the two gypsies, and, despite the change that had taken place in them, recognized in one the pupil, victim and executioner of the miserable La Flèche; in the other the ex-Bellinde of Briantes, the ex-Proserpine of Captain Macabre, now styling herself Narcissa Bobolina, lute-player, dealer in laces, and on occasion mender and plaiter of ruffles.

The company assented to an exhibition of the talents proclaimed. Bellinde played the lute with more energy than correctness, and the dancer, for whom they made room by climbing on the tables, gave a display of epileptic agility, her extraordinary suppleness and energetic grace winning frantic applause from an assemblage already much excited by wine, tobacco and discussion.

Pilar's success with those inflamed imaginations simply intensified Mario's disgust, and he was about to retire; but he had sufficient curiosity to listen to the predictions which she was beginning to make on general subjects, while waiting for someone to ask her to reveal the secret of his future.

"Speak, speak, young sibyl!" was the cry on all sides. "Shall we be lucky in war? Shall we force the Pas de Suse to-morrow?"

"Yes, if you are in a state of grace," she replied disdainfully; "but as there is not a man among you who is not covered with mortal sins as with blotches of leprosy, I am sorely afraid for your soft white skins!"

"Stay," said someone, "we have here a chaste and gentle stripling, an angel from heaven, Mario de Bois-Doré! Let him begin the test and question the soothsayer."

"Mario de Bois-Doré?" cried Pilar, her sparkling eyes becoming dull and lifeless. "He is here, you say? where? where? Show him to me!"

"Come, Bois-Doré," they shouted on all sides, "do not hide your face, but hold out your hands."

Mario came forth from his corner and showed himself to the two women, one of whom darted forward to grasp his hand, while the other turned her head away as if to avoid being recognized.

"I saw you, Bellinde," said Mario to the latter; "and as for you, Pilar," he added, withdrawing his hand, which she seemed to wish to put to her lips, "look at _my lines_, that is enough."

"Mario de Bois-Doré!" cried Pilar, suddenly losing control of herself, "I know them well enough, the lines in your fatal hand! I studied them carefully enough long ago. I never told your fortune; it is too cruel and too unhappy."

"And I know your science," retorted Mario, shrugging his shoulders. "It depends on your whim, your hatred, your folly."

"Very well, put it to the test!" cried Pilar, more and more incensed; "and if you do not believe in my science, do not fear to listen to your sentence. To-morrow, my pretty Mario, you will sleep on your back, on the edge of a ditch; but to no purpose will your lovely eyes be open and staring, you will never again see the light of the stars."

"Because there will be clouds in the sky," observed Mario, undisturbed.

"No, the weather will be fair; but you will be dead!" said the sibyl, wiping the cold perspiration from her forehead with her hair. "Enough! let no one else question me! I shall say things that are too harsh to all of you here!"

"You will take back your words, you wicked she-devil!" cried the young man who had procured for Mario the pleasure of this agreeable prophecy. "Do not let her leave the room, friends! These infernal witches lead us into death by the confusion they sow in our minds. They are the cause of our losing, in the face of danger, the confidence that saves. Let us compel her to swallow her words and to confess that she said them from pure deviltry."

Pilar, supple as a snake, had already glided from the room. Some ran after her. Bellinde fled by another door.

"Let them go," said Mario. "They are two venomous beasts whose story I will tell you some other time. I am not at all disturbed by the prediction; I have paid for my knowledge of what that noble science is worth!"

They pressed Mario with questions.

"To-morrow," he said, "after the battle, after my threatened death! Permit me now to go to see if my father is carefully guarded by his people; for I know one of those women, perhaps both of them, to be quite capable of seeking to injure him."

"And we," replied his young friends, "will make a circuit of the village to be sure that there is no band of thieving, murdering gypsies in hiding anywhere."

They made the circuit with great care. It seemed quite useless, the regular camp having sentries posted and vigilant patrols who covered all the neighborhood to a considerable distance. They learned from the villagers that the two women had arrived alone on the preceding day and lodged in a house which they pointed out. They declared that the women were then in the house, and Mario did not consider it necessary to set a watch upon them. It was enough in his judgment, to guard the house in which his father was.

The night passed very quietly; too quietly for the liking of the impatient young gentlemen, who hoped to be awakened by the signal for battle. But they were disappointed. The Prince of Piedmont, brother-in-law of Louis XIII., had come on behalf of the Duc de Savoie to open negotiations, and the conferences effected a suspension of hostilities to the great dissatisfaction of the French army.

The following day passed in feverish suspense, and the gypsy's prediction, having come to naught, ceased to alarm Mario's friends.

The two vagabonds had packed up and passed through the vanguard on their way to France, there to ply their wandering trade. There was no fear that they would be allowed to retrace their steps. The cardinal had issued the strictest orders that all women and children, and especially women of disorderly lives, should be rigorously excluded from the camp-followers. Lewd women, gypsies, dancing girls and sorceresses were threatened with death if caught within the lines.

During the evening of the 4th of March, Mario was called upon to narrate the adventures of big Bellinde and little Pilar. He did it in a clear and simple way that drew upon him the attention of all who were present. Hitherto his modesty had prevented him from attracting notice: his interesting narrative, and the touching, natural, and at the same time entertaining way in which he told it caused his delighted comrades to forget the pleasures of the gaming-table and the advanced hour.

He might, had he chosen, have told the whole story of his life; but an indescribable feeling of timidity made him omit any mention of Lauriane's name.

LXXI

It was after midnight when they separated. Each group repaired at once to the more or less execrable lodgings it had secured, and Mario was standing with Clindor at the door of his own lodgings, when a vague shadow, crouching on the threshold, rose and came toward him.

It was Pilar.

"Mario," she said, "do not be afraid of me. I have never injured you, and I have no reason to wish your old father ill. I do not espouse Bellinde's hatred of you."

"Does Bellinde still hate my father?" said Mario. "Has she forgotten that he saved her from being hanged as Captain Macabre was?"

"Yes, Bellinde has forgotten it, or perhaps she never knew it; but it is too late to tell her of it, and she doesn't hate anyone now."

"What do you mean?"

"That I have done to her what she wanted to do to you."

"What was that? Tell me!"

"No, Mario, it's of no use; you would not love me any more for it; and you hate me now, I know."

"I hate no one," replied Mario; "I hate evil, and evil instincts horrify me. You have retained yours, unfortunate girl! I knew it yesterday, when you took a frantic delight in trying to disturb my mind. You will never succeed, you may as well understand that and leave me in peace; it is better for you that I forget you."

"Listen, Mario," exclaimed Pilar half aloud, in a choking voice. "This is not the way to treat me. Really, it is not, if you love anyone on earth! for I love you and I have always loved you. Yes, in the days when we were equally poor, sleeping on the same heather and begging on the same road, I was in love with you. I was born so; I cannot remember a single day in my whole life when I was not consumed by the passion of love or hatred. I never had any childhood! I was born of flame and I shall die of flame, a genuine spark from the stake! What does it matter? Even so, I am worth more to you than your Lauriane, who has always despised you and who will never love anything but her old heretics--luckily for her! Yes, luckily for her, I tell you! for I know all about both of your lives. I have been twice in your province, and one day I passed close to you without your recognizing me. You tossed me a small coin. See, here it is at my neck, concealed under my necklaces as my most precious treasure; I made a hole in it, and I wrote your name on it with the point of a knife. It is my talisman. When I no longer have it, I shall die!"

"Come, come," said Mario, "enough of this nonsense! What do you want now? Why did you return here at the peril of your life, and why did you wait for me at this door? Give me back that coin, and take these gold pieces which you may need."

"Keep your gold, Mario; I do not need it; I wish to keep and I shall keep your pledge, although you blush to know that your name is written on my breast. I have come here to tell you my story, and you must listen to it."

"Tell it quickly then; it is very cold and I am sleepy."

"I wish to tell it to you alone, and your page is listening. Come outside the walls with me."

"No, my page is sleeping against the door. Speak here, and make haste, or I leave you."

"Listen then, I shall soon have told it all. You know that my father was hanged and my mother burned!"

"Yes, I remember that you often told me so. Well?"

"Well, La Flèche brought me up to torment me. It was he who broke my bones to make me more flexible, and carried me about in a cage to make me ill and frantic. He exhibited me like a wild beast that bites everybody."

"But you took a horrible revenge upon him, did you not?"

"Yes, I suffocated him with sand and stones and dirt, when he was calling: 'Help! I am thirsty! I am thirsty!'--One of his arms still moved, and he tried to choke me with it. But, at the risk of my life, I forced what life he had left down his throat. Didn't I owe him that? Wasn't it my right? You would have saved him perhaps, and he would have paid you like Bellinde, who, but for me, would have succeeded in poisoning you all yesterday, you and your father and your servants, in order, so she said, to fulfil the prediction I had made before witnesses, and to protect my fame as a soothsayer."

"And then you----"

"I owed her that, too! Listen, listen to my story! After avenging myself on La Flèche, I hid in the pavilion in your garden. I had seen that you were angry with me, and I was waiting for your anger to pass. I thought that you would look for me, that you would be anxious about me, and would keep me in your château to love me. But toward evening, you came there with your Lauriane, and you told her that you hated me and I heard every word! Then I dropped a stone on her to kill her, and I hid myself. But you thought the stone had fallen of itself and you left me there.

"I passed the night there, dying with cold and hunger. I was in a frenzy of rage; that kept me up. I cursed you both; I cursed myself for having offended you. I meant to let myself die; but I had not the courage, and as I wanted nothing more of you, whom I believed that I hated, I went to Brilbault to get Sancho's money, which La Flèche had made me steal two or three months before, at La Caille-Bottée's house.

"In those days I didn't know the value of money, and I hated La Flèche so bitterly that I gave it all back to Sancho, who had hidden it so carefully that he was able to manage the gypsies with promises and a few crowns from time to time. But I knew where he had buried his treasure, and there was a good deal of it left; a good deal to me, at least, I needed so little. I divided it into several parts and hid them in different places.

"I had taken it into my head that I could live alone without being dependent on anybody, and wander all over the world at will, child that I was! But I soon got tired of it, and as I happened to fall in with Bellinde, who was flying from the country, with her head shaved and in a miserable plight, I told her that I had some little hidden treasures, but was very careful not to tell her where they were! Oh! how she flattered me, tormented me, made me tipsy and questioned me even in my sleep, trying to find out! She never lost the hope of extorting my secret from me; that is why she became my mother and my servant, always fawning on me and betraying me. Ah! yes, she betrayed me shamefully! She sold me, she abandoned me when I was still a child; and when, later, I realized and felt my shame, I swore that I would be revenged upon her when I no longer needed her. Now, the crows are feeding oh her flesh, and it was a righteous deed, God knows!"

"You are a wretched, horrible girl!" said Mario. "Now have you finished?"

"Now, I want you to love me, Mario, or I will avenge myself on your Lauriane, whom you still love, I know that; for you didn't choose to speak of her to your comrades in the inn just now. Oh! I was there too, hidden in the garret, where I heard all the evil you said of me."

"Since you heard all, how can you be mad enough to ask me to love you?"

"I am not mad! One can pass from hatred to love, I know by my own experience. You abhor and adore at the same time. Besides, you admitted that I had fine eyes now, and slender arms, and a sort of diabolical beauty. That is what you said at the inn just now. And many of those gentlemen offered me the night before money to buy other silk skirts and other ear-rings, because, beautiful or ugly, I had turned their heads. But I want nothing from them and nothing from you! I still have money hidden in Berry, and I can go there when I choose. Beware, Mario! Your Lauriane will answer to me for you. Take me with you, or renounce her."

"As you confess your evil purposes so boldly, I arrest you," said Mario.

He tried to seize her, being determined to turn her over to the camp authorities; but he seized nothing but her scarf: the girl herself, fleeter and more unsubstantial than the clouds driven by the wind, eluded him and vanished. He pursued her and might have caught her, for he too knew how to run; but he had hardly turned the corner when the bugles sounded boots and saddles; it was the signal of departure for the long-expected battle.

Mario forgot the wild threats that had excited him and hastened to his father, who was hurriedly dressing.

At daybreak the whole army was on the march.

"The Pas de Suse is a gorge about a quarter of a league in length, in some places less than twenty paces wide, and obstructed here and there by fallen rocks. The tergiversation of the Prince of Piedmont had had no other purpose than to delay the advance of our army for a few days. The enemy had used the interval to good advantage in strengthening their position.

"The gorge was intersected by three strong barricades protected by bastions and ditches. The cliffs commanding it on each side were alive with soldiers, and protected by small redoubts.

"Lastly, the cannon of Fort Tallasse, built on a neighboring mountain, swept the open space between Chaumont and the entrance to the gorge. It was one of those positions where it seems possible for a handful of men to check the advance of an army.

"Nothing, however, could check the _furie française_."[10]

So many accomplished historians have described this glorious action, that we shrink from attempting the task after them; it is not our business to write history according to official facts, but to seek it in episodes that have been overlooked. That is why we shall follow the Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Doré through the carnage, and not allow ourselves to be dazzled by the majesty of the picture as a whole. An additional reason for adopting this course is that they had little leisure to contemplate it themselves.

It was a magnificent scene: a combat of heroes on a sublime stage!

The first cannon-shot awoke echoes of intense excitement in Mario's heart. How he passed the first barricade, whether upon a winged horse or "upon the fiery breath of the god Mars himself;" how he forgot his sworn promise to his father not to leave his side, he never knew. All the passion of his soul, all the fever in his blood, ordinarily restrained by modesty and filial love, produced a sort of volcanic eruption within him.

He even forgot for a moment that his father was following him into the very midst of the fray, and, in order not to lose sight of him, was exposing himself to no less risk.

Aristandre was there, it is true, stationed like a marble wall about his master; but Mario, when the fighting was most desperate, turned more than once to look for the old man's gray plume, which towered above all the rest, and each time, as he saw it waving still, he thanked God and trusted to his lucky star.

The whole affair was carried through so impetuously that it did not cost France the lives of fifty men. It was one of those miraculous days when every man has faith, and when nothing is impossible.

The position carried, Mario was galloping along the Suse road in pursuit of the fugitives, among whom was the Duc de Savoie in person, when he saw a masked horseman riding toward him at full speed on his right.

"Halt, halt!" he shouted; "the king's service before everything! Take my despatches! I know you; I trust you!"

As he spoke, the horseman slipped from his horse in a swoon, while the horse himself, utterly exhausted, fell on his knees.

Mario was the only one of the young men who had the self-restraint to renounce the opportunity to display his prowess farther; he leaped from his horse and picked up the sealed package which the courier had dropped.

But as he was about turning back toward the royal camp, a party of armed men, who seemed not to have taken part in the action, and who were evidently pursuing the messenger without regard to where they were going, suddenly appeared at Mario's right and rode toward him, shouting in Italian that his life would be spared if he surrendered the package without giving the alarm.