Chapter XXXVIII: Part II: Concluded (1)

Late in the afternoon, Bessie went down and leaned on the bars again, looking up and down the road, looking at the tracks left by Father Conners’ carriage‐wheels—the smooth curve of their turning; looking to see the shadows creep across the road as the sun went down. The sadness of a lonely evening was upon her, and, though she had not lost her morning resolution, she had lost the joyous hopefulness with which those resolutions were made.

At her left, and quite near, a fringe of young cedars made a screen between the ground that belonged to her house and the farmer next to it, where her uncle Dennis had lived when John Maynard had wooed and won her.

Pain came with that recollection, and almost the old bitterness. “I must go home again, and put my resolutions in practice right away, or I shall lose them,” she said to herself. “It won’t do for me to stay here and brood over my troubles. I cannot bear loneliness; and how terribly lonely it is here! I wish I had some one to speak to besides poor Aunt Nancy.”

She started, hearing a soft, clear whistling not far away. The strain was familiar, not to this region, but to her city life. While she listened, the sound ceased, or rather broke off suddenly.

Bessie’s eyes were wide open, her face flushed. Was there more than one person who could whistle so marvellously clearly and sweetly?

Some one began to sing then more sweetly still, and coming nearer while he sang words written by the most melodious of poets:

“Hark! a lover, binding sheaves,
To his maiden sings;
Flutter, flutter go the leaves,
Larks drop their wings.
Little brooks, for all their mirth,
Are not blithe as he!
‘Tell me what the love is worth
That I give thee.’

“Speech that cannot be forborne
Tells the story through:
‘I sowed my love in with the corn,
And they both grew.
Count the world full wide of girth,
And hived honey sweet;
But count the love of more worth
Laid at thy feet.

“ ‘Money’s worth is house and land,
Velvet coat and vest!
Work’s worth is bread in hand,
Ay, and sweet rest.
Wilt thou learn what love is worth?
Ah! she sits above,
Sighing, ’Weigh me not with earth.
Love’s worth is love!’ ”

The singer had come yet more near, and would have been visible to her had not Bessie Maynard’s looks been downcast and her head drooping low. When the song ended, and the step paused, she lifted her eyes, and saw James Keene standing before her smiling and waiting for the greeting she was so slow to give.

Surprise, and perhaps fear, deprived Bessie for a moment of her self‐ possession. “What! you here!” she exclaimed, without the least sign of courtesy; and with that exclamation broke down the barrier of silence that had existed between them.

“Why should I not be here?” he asked quietly. “May not I also have memories connected with this place? It was here I recovered health, after an illness that nearly cost me my life. It was here I shot my first bear. And it was here I first saw you.”

Bessie perceived at once that, if the old reserve was to be maintained, she must immediately assume an air of decisive politeness. For an instant she wavered. Silence may be best for those who are doubtful of themselves, and, not willing to commit any flagrant wrong, are still not resolved to be absolutely honest. But when we are strong in the determination to be sincere, and to let the light of day shine not only on our actions, but on our inmost thoughts, then, perhaps, by speech we may most nobly and effectually establish our position.

Bessie Maynard, therefore, waited for the words which would give her an opportunity to put an end to the tacit and vague understanding existing between them.

He read her silence rightly; it was a command for him to speak; and he obeyed it, though the pale face and large, downcast lids gave little hope of any such answer as he might wish to receive.

“In those old days, so long ago, when I came here to try what a half‐ savage life would do for me, and was astonished to find a delicate human flower in the wilderness, I was a prophet.”

He leaned on the cedar bar that separated them, and looked dreamily off toward the woods. He would not surprise in her face any involuntary expression she might wish to conceal from him; he would take advantage of no impulse. If she came to him, she must come deliberately. For, setting aside Christianity—and he did not pretend to believe in it—James Keene had an exceptionally honorable nature. He would gladly have taken this woman away from a husband who, he believed, knew not how to value her, and who made her miserable by his neglect, but he held that it would be no wrong for him to do so.

“Yes, I was a prophet,” he continued; “for I believed then, what I am sure of now, that your marriage was a most unwise one. Give me credit, Bessie, for having been sincerely pained to see that, as years passed away, you had reason to come to the same conclusion. Whatever selfish wishes I may have had, I would at any time have renounced them could I have seen you happy with the man you chose to marry, knowing no other.”

Bessie lifted her eyes, and looked at him with a steady, tearful gaze. “People might say that you are wicked to speak so to me,” she said; “but I think that, according to your belief, you are very good; only you have no faith in religion. I esteem you so highly that I am going to make a confession which, perhaps, you may think I ought not to make. There have been times during these last few years when, if I had not had some little lingering faith, I would have welcomed from you an affection which I have no right to receive. There have been times when you might have spoken as lovingly as you could, and I should not have been angry. I tell you this partly because you must have at least suspected that it was so. And more than this. If I had seen you here a few days ago, my impulse would have been to welcome you more ardently than I ever yet welcomed any friend. You can understand how it all has been, without my explaining. I was so lonely, so neglected! I was so lonely!”

She had spoken with a sad earnestness, and there was something touchingly humble yet dignified in her manner; but, at the last words, her voice trembled and failed.

He was looking at her now. Excitement and suspense showed in the sparkling of his clear blue eyes, in the slight flush that colored his usually pale face, in the lips firmly compressed.

“All is changed now,” she went on. “I have been recalled to my religion, to my duty. I do not think that you should any more show me that sympathy which you have shown, and I do not think that you should see me frequently. I thank you for your kindness toward me. It has often been a comfort. But I am a wife”—she lifted herself with a stately gesture, and for the first time a wave of proud color swept over her face—“and the sadness which my husband may cause me no other man may ever again soothe.”

There was silence for a moment. The gentleman’s face had grown pale. There was a boundless tenderness in his heart for this fair and sorrowful woman, and he was about to lose the power to offer her even the slightest comfort, while at the same time he must still retain the knowledge of her suffering.

“I shall respect your wish and your decision,” he said, with emotion. “Forgive me if I have trespassed too much in the past. It seemed to me very little; for, Bessie, if I had not known that you had a religious feeling which would have held you back, or would have made you miserable in yielding, I should long ago have held out my hand to you, and asked you to come to me. If I had felt sure of being able to convince you beyond the possibility of subsequent regret, I should not have kept silence so long. But I respect your conscience. I should esteem myself a criminal if I could ask you to do what you believe to be wrong.”

Bessie Maynard’s face was covered with a blush of shame. Her thought had never gone consciously beyond the length of tender, brotherly kindness, and it was cruelly humiliating to see in its true light the position in which she had really stood. At that moment, too, she first perceived what a gulf lay between her soul and that of the man who had seemed always so dangerously harmonious with her. In principle, in all that firmly underlies the changeful tide of feeling, they were antagonistic; for he could speak calmly and with dignity of a possibility from which she shrank with a protesting tremor in every fibre of her being.

“I am going back to my husband,” she said, “and I shall never again forget that his honor and dignity are mine. I have been weak and childish, and more wicked than I knew or meant, and it all came because I loved my husband too much and God too little. But I trust”—she clasped her hands, and lifted her eyes—“I trust that I shall have strength to begin now a new life, and correct the mistakes of the past.”

She forgot for a moment that she was not alone, and stood looking away, as if there stretched before her gaze the new and loftier pathway in which she was to tread. Her companion gazed at her unchecked, with searching, melancholy eyes, not more because she was dearer to him in her impregnable fortress of Christian will than she ever had been in her human weakness, than because there rose from the depths of his restless soul a cry of longing for that firm foundation and trust which can hold a man in the place where conscience sets him, no matter how the tempests of passion may beat upon his trembling heart.

“There is, then, nothing left me but to say farewell.”

The poignant regret his voice betrayed recalled her attention.

“It has come to that,” she said gently. “But if you could know all I mean in saying farewell to you, it would not seem an idle word; for I hope and pray that you may fare so well as to come before long into the church. It is a refuge from every danger and every trouble, and I have only just found it out! Good‐by.”

She gave him her hand, and they separated without another word. But Bessie did not stop to look after this visitor. Whatever regret she might otherwise have felt was swallowed up in the one thought—it had seemed to him possible that she might leave, not only her husband, but her sacred, sainted babes, and go to him! To what a depth had she fallen!

When she had disappeared in the house, he strolled slowly down the road. Unless you had looked in his face, you would have taken him for a man who was calmly enjoying the contemplation of nature in that forest solitude. But from his face looked forth a spirit weary and hopeless that hastened not, because it beheld nowhere a place worth making haste to reach. Once only the gloom of his countenance lifted, and then it was with no cheering brightness, but as the cloud is momentarily illuminated by angry lightning.

A man was coming up the road, not such a man as one usually sees in these wild places, but one who bore the marks of city training and habits. The uniform gray clothing, the wide Panama hat, even the unobtrusive necktie, belonged to the city. This man was taller and broader‐shouldered than he whose eyes flashed out so scornfully at sight of him. His face was dark, vivid, and clean‐shaven, the forehead was wide, the dark‐brown hair closely cut, the gray eyes clear and penetrating. It was a face fitter to carve in stone than to paint, for its color and expression were less noticeable than its fine, strong outlines.

Yet now there shone a soft and eager light over that granite strength. There was a look of glad surprise, mingled with a certain amused self‐ chiding, as though of one who comes back from a long and gloomy abstraction, and finds a half‐forgotten delight still waiting at his side.

At sight of this man, James Keene’s first emotion had been one of anger, his first impulse to meet him boldly and with scorn. But scarcely had he taken one quickened step before he stopped, with a revulsion of feeling as unsuspected as it was confounding. Reason as he might, emancipate himself as he might from what he considered the superstitions of religion, he found himself now overwhelmed with confusion. He strove to call up to his mind all those arguments on which he had founded himself, but they fell dead. Whether it was the instinct of a noble heart that would not betray even an enemy, or an irradicable root of that religious faith which had been implanted in his childhood, or the strangeness of one who for the first time acts on principles long maintained in theory, or only a sensitive perception of the esteem in which the faithful world would hold his action, he could not have told. He only knew that, instead of standing, lofty and serene, in the dawn of this new light before which superstition and oppression were to pass away, he felt as if he were surrounded by a baleful glare from the nether fires. Sudden and scathing, it caught him, and burned his courage out like chaff.

In his eagerness and preoccupation, John Maynard had scarcely observed the person who approached; and, when the stranger turned aside into a wood‐ path, he gave him no further thought.

There was the little crooked house squinting at him out of its two windows, with the boards he had nailed, the chimney he had built, the door he had hung; there was the whole wild, rude place, with everything askew, that had once seemed a paradise—that had been a paradise—to him. With his hands and eyes educated, as they were now, to the utmost precision of outline and balance, the sight made him laugh out; and yet the laugh expressed as much pleasure as mockery.

He was taking his first holiday since he had left this house, and everything was delightfully fresh and novel yet familiar to him. He did not see the beauty that a poet or a painter would have found in that unpruned rusticity, for he was an artist of the exact; but the wabbly frame‐house, the reeling fences, the road that wound irregularly, the straggling trees that leaned away from the northwest, made a good background against which to contemplate the trim and shining creatures of his hands, regular to a hair’s breadth, unvarying and direct.

Coming to the bars, he threw himself over instead of letting them down, and found that he had grown heavier and less lithe than he was when last he performed that feat. He walked up the rocky path, his heart beating fast as he thought of the old time, and of the slim, bright‐faced girl he had brought there as a bride. If she could stand in the doorway now, as she was then, and smile at him coming home, he felt that he could be the old lover again. He had a vague idea that Bessie had grown older, and sober, and pale. Come to think of it, he hadn’t known much of her lately, and she had been dissatisfied about something. Why had she allowed him to get his eyes and ears so full of machinery? Surely he had lost and overlooked much. He had a mind to complain of her, only that he felt so good‐natured.

At sound of a step, Aunt Nancy went to the door; but at that sound Bessie took her sewing, and bent over it. Had James Keene repented their hasty parting?

“Does Miss Bessie Ware live here?” asked the gentleman, with immense dignity.

“Bessie Ware?” repeated Aunt Nancy, in bewilderment; then, as the recollection of Bessie’s confessions flashed into her mind, she stiffened herself up, and answered severely: “No, sir, she does not!”

“The idea of his refusing to give her her husband’s name!” she thought indignantly.

“Why, John!” exclaimed Bessie, over the old lady’s shoulder.

Aunt Nancy gave a cry of delight. She would at any time have welcomed John rapturously; but his coming now made her twice glad. Of course he and Bessie would make it all up.

The exuberance of her welcome covered, at first, the wife’s deficiency. But when the excitement was over, and they had gone into the house, Bessie’s coldness and embarrassment became evident.

“I am very much surprised to see you here,” she said, when her husband looked at her. She did not pretend to be glad.

“Are you sorry?” he asked, with a laugh.

“I am too much astonished to be anything else,” she replied quietly. “What made you come?”

John Maynard was disappointed and mortified. That for years he had met his wife’s affectionate advances as coldly he did not seem aware. Other things had occupied his thoughts. He did not recollect, as he had not noticed at the time, that her manner was now just what it had long been.

Supper was over, eaten in an absent way by the husband, who glanced every moment at his wife. He found her very lovely, though different enough from the glad, girlish bride who had once brightened this humble room for him. He could not understand her. Had she no recollection of those days?

She did not seem to have, indeed, for she made no reference to them by look nor speech, but talked rapidly, and with an air of constraint, of things nearer in time, and listened with affected interest while he told the latest city news, and the latest news of his own work; how high the engine spouted; of the tiny model locomotive he had built, all silver, and gold, and fine steel; of the money he expected to make by his new patent; of an accident that had happened in his shop—a German organist, with two or three others, had come to look at his machinery, and got his hand crushed in it, which would put a stop to his playing.

Bessie looked up with an expression of pain. “Poor man!” she murmured. “How miserable he must be!”

“Yes; I was sorry for him,” the husband replied. “They say he cared for nothing but music. His name is Verheyden.”

“Poor man!” Bessie sighed again, looking down. “Those machines are always hurting some one.”

“It was his own fault,” the machinist said hastily. “Did he suppose that the engine was going to stop when he put his forefinger on it? Why, that machine would grind up an elephant, and never mismake its face. But it is the first time any one was ever hurt by a machine of mine.”

He did not understand the glance she gave him. It was not pleasant, but what it meant he knew not. She was thinking: “It is not the first time one has been hurt so.”

Aunt Nancy found business elsewhere, and left the couple to themselves.

“I forgot you were coming away that day, Bessie,” her husband said hastily, the moment they were alone. “I never thought of it till I was five miles off, and then I concluded that you must have changed your mind, or you would have told me not to go.”

“You know I never tell you not to go anywhere,” she replied coldly.

He colored. “But you know that I didn’t mean to have you go to the depot alone. When I read what you wrote to Jamie, I felt sorry enough.”

In all the long years that were past, how generously would she have met an apology like this! How quickly would she have disclaimed all sense of injury, and even have tried to find some fault in herself! But now her heart, with all its impulses, seemed frozen. She only gave him a glance of surprise, and a quiet word. “There was no need of company, I knew the way.”

There was silence. Gradually, through the deep unconsciousness and abstraction of the man, came out incident after incident of their late life, slight, but significant. Each had seemed a detached trifle at the time, but now as he sat there, abashed and ill at ease, they began to show a connection and to grow in importance. It was as when, in a thick fog, the sailor sees dimly a black speck that may be only a floating stick, and another, and another, till, looking sharply, as the mist grows thinner, he finds himself caught among rocks at low tide.

John Maynard tried to throw off with a laugh the weight that oppressed him. “Come, Bessie, let the late past go, and remember only the life we lived here. Let’s be young people again.”

He went to her side, bent down, and would have kissed her, had she not evaded his touch, not shyly, but with a crimson blush and a quick flash of the eyes.

“Don’t talk nonsense, John!” she said, in a low voice that did not hide a haughty aversion. “Let us speak of something sensible. I have been thinking that some of our ways should be changed at home. I shall begin with myself, and attend strictly to my religion. Besides, I am not doing rightly in allowing James to grow up without any discipline, and I think he should be placed in a Catholic school, where he will be taught his duty. He is quite beyond my control.”

Her morbid humility and diffidence were gone. The feeling that had made her give up all rights rather than ask for them did not outlive the moment of her reconciliation with the church.

“I am willing he should go to any school you choose,” her husband replied gravely, impressed by the change. “I suppose the boy is going on rather too much as he likes. Do whatever you think best about it, and I will see that he obeys.”

She thanked him gently, and continued: “I shall go to High Mass after this, and I should be glad to have you go with me, if you are willing. It would be a better example for James than to see you go to the shop on Sundays. He is becoming quite lawless. We have no right to give our children a bad example. I would be glad to have you go with me, if you will.”

John Maynard’s face was glowing red. He felt, gently as she spoke, as if he were having the law read to him. “I am willing to go with you, Bessie,” he said. “I am not a Catholic, but I am not anything else.”

She thanked him again, earnestly this time, for it was a favor he had granted her, and she knew that he would keep his word. “You are good to promise that,” she said.

He laughed uneasily. “Have you anything else to ask?”

“I do not think of anything,” she replied, and there was silence.

The husband got up, and went to the door. The sun was sinking down the west. He looked at the glow it made, and remembered how he had seen it there in the days that were past, how quiet and peaceful his life had been, how much happier, had he but known it, than in the turmoil of later years. Then the days had been full of healthful employment, the nights of rest and refreshment, untroubled by the feverish dreams that now swarmed in his sleeping hours. And what was it that had made his life so happy? What had been the motive, the delight of everything? Nothing but Bessie, always Bessie, his help and his reward.

He turned his face, and saw her still sitting there, her head drooping, her hands folded in her lap. Those hands caught his glance. They were pale and thin. They looked as though she had suffered.

He went to her impulsively as his heart stirred, and put his arm about her shoulder. “Bessie, forget the last years, and let’s be as we were in the happy old time.”

She did not look angry; but she withdrew herself gently from him.

“John,” she said, “that is too much to expect at once. Years of pain cannot be forgotten in a moment. When you came to‐day, you asked if Bessie Ware lived here. She does not. The Bessie Ware you married is dead. I scarcely know yet who or what I am. I only know that I shall try to do my duty by you, and repair some of the faults and mistakes of the past. But, John, I must warn you that it is harder to reconcile an estranged wife than to win a bride.”

One piercing glance, angry and disappointed, shot from his eyes; then he went to the outer door. He stood a moment on the threshold, then stepped on to the greensward. Another pause, and he walked slowly back through the garden, seeming not to know whither he went.

Aunt Nancy, anxiously awaiting signs of reconciliation, saw him wander about aimlessly, then go and lean on a fence next the woods, his back to the house.

She went into the front room at once. She was on John’s side now.

“Bessie,” she said decidedly, “you mustn’t stand too much on your dignity with John. Men are stupid creatures, and do a good many hard things without meaning or knowing; and, if they come round, it isn’t wise to keep them waiting too long for a kind word.”

Bessie Maynard laid down the work she was pretending to do, and her hands trembled. “I am not acting a part, Aunt Nancy,” she said, “and I cannot be a hypocrite. I feel cold toward John. And I feel displeased when he comes and kisses me, as if he were conferring a favor, and expects me to be happy for that. I could not give up if I would, I ought not if I could. There is something more required than a little sweet talk.”

A half hour passed, and still John Maynard stood motionless, with his elbows leaning on the fence, and his head bowed. If Bessie had seen his face, it would have reminded her of the time when he first studied mechanics, and became so absorbed in the one subject as to be dead to all else. But there was the difference that he studied then with a vivid interest, and now with gloomy intentness.

An hour passed, and still he stood there; and the sun was down, and the moon beginning to show its pearly light through the fading richness of the gloaming. The birds had ceased singing, and there was no voice of wild creatures in the woods. It was the hour for prayer and peace‐making.

John Maynard started from his abstraction, hearing his name spoken by some one. “John!” said Bessie. She had been watching him for some time from the door, and had approached slowly, step by step, unheard by him.

He turned toward her a pale, unsmiling face. “How late it is!” he said. “I must make haste.”

She spoke hesitatingly, something doubtful and wistful in her face. “I have been thinking that I might have received you better, when you came on this long journey. Won’t you come in now and rest? I didn’t mean to turn you out of the house that you made—for me.”

He turned his eyes away. “And I’ve been thinking, Bessie, that I’d better go right back again; I can go down to the post‐office to‐night, and take the stage to‐morrow morning.”

“You will not go!” she said.

“I should only spoil your visit,” he went on. “I don’t want you to begin to ‘do your duty’ by me just now. I know, Bessie, that you had a good deal to complain of; but I swear to you that I did not mean to be hard. You know I had twenty‐five years to make up; and I was always looking for better times. I was so blind that I was fool enough to think you would be glad to see me here, and that we could begin over again where we began first.”

She did not answer a word. There is something confounding in the sudden humiliation of a man who has always been almost contemptuously dominant.

He looked at his watch. “I must make haste, or they will be in bed,” he said. “Make some sort of an excuse to Aunt Nancy for me. And when you want to come back, let me know, and I will meet you at the depot or come after you.”

He started, and she walked beside him down the path to the road. He seemed hardly able to hold his head up.

She walked nearer, and slipped her hand in his arm, speaking softly: “I said a little while ago that the pain of years cannot be forgotten in a moment. But I was wrong. I think it may.”

He looked at her quickly, but said nothing, and they reached the bars. Neither made any motion to let down the pole. They leaned on it a minute in silence.

“The fact is, Bessie,” the husband burst forth, “I’ve been like a man possessed by an evil spirit. I’m sorry, and that is all I can say.”

“No matter, Jack! Let it all go!” his wife exclaimed, clasping her hands on his arm, and holding it close to him. “You weren’t to blame!” (Oh! wonderful feminine consistency!) “Let’s forget everything unpleasant, and remember only the good. How you have had to work and study, poor, dear Jack! You must rest now, and never get into the old drudging way again.”

Aunt Nancy raked up the fire, and put down the window, looking out now and then at the couple who leaned on the bar below. Each time she looked, their forms were less distinct in the twilight. “That’s just the way they used to do fifteen years ago,” she muttered contentedly.

She sat a few minutes waiting, but they did not come in. Aunt Nancy sighed and laughed too. “It beats all how women do change their minds,” she said. “I did think that Bessie would hold out longer. Well, I may as well go to bed.”

By‐and‐by she heard them come into the kitchen.

“Now, I shut the doors and windows, and you rake up the fire,” Bessie said. “Do you remember it was always so, Jack?”

“Of course I do, little one,” was the answer. “But Aunt Nancy has got the start of us to‐night.”

“Aunt Nancy!” repeated Bessie, in a lower voice. “I declare, Jack, I forgot all about her.”

“I’ll warrant you did!” says Aunt Nancy to herself, rather grimly, perhaps.

“We will be sure to keep all our good resolutions, won’t we?” Bessie said.

“All right!” says John.

The door shut softly behind them, and there were silence, and peace, and hope in the house that Jack built.

A Retrospect.

Concluded.

Nothing of interest presented itself during the reign of Philip the Bold, except the council held there in 1278. In 1383, the unfortunate Charles VI., wearied with state troubles that he was so ill fitted to cope with, fled in despair from the Louvre to Compiègne. But he was not to find peace here more than in the busy turmoil of the city. Soon after his arrival he was attacked with insanity; at first it was considered of no moment, the natural consequence of a violent reaction or a weak and nervous temperament; great pains were taken to conceal the fact from the public, but after a time the symptoms became alarming, and it was impossible to keep the secret. After the festivities which followed his ill‐starred marriage with Isabeau de Bavière, the disease broke through all bounds; everything seemed to conspire to exasperate it: the assassination of Clisson by the Baron de Craon, the apparition of the phantom in the forest that seized the king’s bridle and uttered the mysterious message as it disappeared, the bal masqué when the Duke of Orleans inadvertently set fire to the king’s Indian costume—a skin smeared with a tarry substance and stuck all over with feathers—all these shocks, coming at short intervals, irritated the disordered imagination to fury, and the attacks became frequent and ungovernable. The king’s illness was imputed by popular superstition to the malefices of Valentina of Milan, Duchess of Orleans, who, if she lacked the power, no doubt had strong motives for evoking the powers of darkness to destroy the king’s reason, and thereby his authority. The demon which had taken possession of Charles’ brain does not seem to have invaded his heart or changed the natural goodness of his disposition. He was removed from Compiègne in one of his fits of madness, and when some years later he re‐entered it, it was by force of arms; the Bourguignons held the place. Charles laid siege to it; after a desperate resistance it surrendered, and he entered in triumph; nothing however could induce him to punish the rebels, he said there was blood enough upon the ground, and he would take no vengeance on his subjects except by forgiving them. Compiègne was soon to be the theatre of a more momentous struggle than these rough skirmishes between Charles and his people. Shortly after the mock peace signed there by Bedford, it was attacked by the Duc de Bourgogne and the English with Montgomery at their head. Jeanne d’Arc on hearing of it evinced great sorrow and alarm, but she flew at once to the rescue, and appeared suddenly in the midst of the king’s troops, with the oriflamme of S. Denis in one hand, and her “good sword of liege” in the other. The sight of her whom they looked upon as the angel of victory raised the drooping spirits of the soldiers and filled them with new ardor; they raised a cry of victory the moment they beheld Jeanne. Enguerrand de Monstrelet, who was an eye‐witness of the siege, describes her attitude and the conduct of the troops throughout as “passing all heroism ever before seen in battle.” But, alas! the star of the maid of Orleans was destined to set in darkness at the hour of its greatest splendor; her own prediction, so often repeated to Charles and those around him, “Un homme me vendra” (A man will betray me), was about to be fulfilled. On the 24th of May, 1429, there was a formidable engagement between the two armies. Jeanne, at the head of hers, performed prodigies of valor; after a brilliant sortie in which the enemy were repulsed, she was re‐entering the town by the Boulevard du Pont, and had almost reached the barrier through which hundreds of her own victorious soldiers had already passed, when, lo! the gates swing forward on their hinges, and are closed against her! The maiden’s cry of despair as she raised her sword and stretched both arms towards the gates was echoed by a yell of fiendish joy from the enemy; in an instant she was surrounded, disarmed, and taken captive by Montgomery. Guillaume de Flavy, governor of Compiègne, was accused of having committed this act of treachery, bribed by Jean de Luxembourg. If the accusation be true, and it has never been seriously challenged, the traitor’s punishment was as fitting as it was merited; he was immediately destituted of his office and revenues by the Connétable de Richemont, and driven to hide his base head in private life, where the Nemesis who was to avenge Jeanne d’Arc awaited him in the shape of his wife; she was jealous of her husband, who, it would seem, fully justified the fact; after leading him a miserable life and failing to convert him by slow torture from his evil ways, she bribed the barber to cut his throat one morning while shaving him, and finished the operation herself by smothering him under a pillow. For many years de Flavy’s effigy was burnt regularly at Compiègne on the 24th of May.

Louis XI. was liberated from the English, and came to Compiègne time enough to embitter the last days of his father, Charles VIII., who let himself die of hunger there from terror of being poisoned by his son. Comines says that his dutiful son and most amiable of men was so irritated by his courtiers for mocking “his boorish manners, his uncouth dress, and his taste for low folk,” that to spite them he published an edict forbidding them to hunt or touch the game in the forest of Compiègne, a prohibition against all precedent, nor did he ever invite them to join him there in the chase. But the pretty palace open to the four winds of heaven soon grew distasteful to him, and he forsook it for the more congenial retreat of Plessis‐les‐Tours, where, surrounded by spies and quacks and a moat filled with vipers and venomous snakes, he ended in terror and suffering a life which presents a strange mixture of shrewdness and credulity, bonhomie and ferocity, impiety and the grossest superstition.

Francis I. took kindly to Compiègne, which had been deserted by his two predecessors. His first act on coming there, as king, was to do public homage to the Holy Shroud. Louis, Cardinal de Bourbon, grand‐uncle to the king, and abbot of S. Corneille, exposed it to the veneration of the king and the people amidst great ceremony and prayer of thanksgiving. “He took the holy relic, and laid it on the grand altar with sentiments of great devotion and tenderness, which he expressed by abundant tears.” Francis added to the shrine “twenty‐two rose‐buds of pure gold, enriched with precious stones and pearls, and attached to twenty _fleurs‐de‐lys_ of gold,” says Cambry, in his _Déscription de l’Oise_. There is also a letter of Francis’ giving a naïve account of the ceremony, quoted at length in the _Histoire du Saint Suaire de Compiègne_. Francis passes from the scene, and we see “the noble burgesses of Compiègne,” as he was fond himself of calling them, making great stir to receive his successor, Henri II., on his return from Rheims. Two years more, and there is the same merry hubbub, and the town is in gala dress to welcome Catherine de Medicis on her marriage. This abnormal type of a woman fell ill not long after her arrival, and vowed that if she recovered she would send a pilgrim to Jerusalem to give thanks for her; he was to start from Compiègne, and perform the journey all the way on foot, making for every three steps forward one step backward. Cambry says the vicarious pilgrimage was “faithfully executed according to the queen’s vow.”

Charles IX. was only a flying visitor at Compiègne. An odd story is told by D. Carlier and others as occurring there during his time. A man was discovered in the forest who had been brought up by the wolves, and taken so completely to their way of life that he had nearly turned into a wolf himself. “He was hairy like a wolf, howled, outran the hounds at the hunt, walked on all fours, strangled dogs, tore and devoured them.” For a time he made sport for the people, who hunted him like other game, but having shown a propensity to deal with men as he did with dogs, they laid a trap for him, chained him, and took him before the king. Charles, more humane than the noble burgesses, refused to have him killed, but ordered him to be shorn and confined in a monastery. “What reflections,” naïvely exclaims D. Carlier, “does not this incident suggest on the danger of bad example, and the pernicious effects of evil society!” It would be interesting to hear how the novice behaved himself in his new position, whether he developed any latent dispositions for the mystic life, and quite left behind him the habits of his early education which had corrupted his good manners; but of this D. Carlier says nothing.

Henri III., who lived at St. Cloud making omelets, expressed a wish to be buried near the Holy Shroud at Compiègne, in the church of S. Corneille; and as soon as Henri IV. became master of his “good town of Paris” he faithfully carried out this wish. Owing, however, to the dilapidated state of the finances, he could not do so with the proper ceremonial. “It was pitiful,” says Cheverny, in his _Memoirs_, “to see the greatest king of the earth in a _chapelle ardente_ with only one lamp, one chaplain belonging to the late king, named La Cesnaye, and a few shabby _écus_ to keep up a shabby service.” Instead of being removed to S. Denis after a temporary rest near the Holy Shroud, the body remained on in the vaults of S. Corneille, on account of a prophecy which said that Henri IV. would be buried eight days after Henri III.; a prediction which was actually accomplished, “though not,” says Bajin, “in a manner apprehended by the king”. When Henri IV. fell by the hand of Ravaillac, the Due d’Epernon advised Marie de Medicis to have the obsequies of the late king performed before those of her husband. Henri IV. was therefore kept waiting till his predecessor’s grave was filled. The first ceremony was performed quietly, almost in secret; and then the “good Béarnias” was taken to S. Denis, all France weeping and refusing to be comforted.

Louis XIII. was attracted to Compiègne solely by the pleasures of the chase. We see him watching the meet from a window giving on the Cour d’honneur, and whispering to the Maréchal de Praslin, “You see that man down there? He wants to be one of my council, but I cannot make up my mind to name him.” “That man” was Richelieu. The words were repeated to Marie de Medicis, as all her son’s words seem to have been, and she, counting on the prelate’s influence in supporting her against the king and her other enemies, vowed that he should be named, and so he was. A few days later we see Louis, equipped in his hunting costume, stride into the room of the queen‐mother, and proclaim in a boistering manner, meant to vindicate the independence of his choice, that he “had named the Bishop of Luçon member of his council as secretary of state.” Marie de Medicis looks coolly surprised, and bows her approval. By‐and‐by we have the Earl of Carlisle and Lord Holland presenting themselves at Compiègne to solicit the hand of Henriette of France for the Prince of Wales. They are received with every mark of cordial good‐will on the part of Louis and entertained with great splendor; but Richelieu looked askance on their mission; it was his way to begin always by mistrusting an offer, whether it came from friend or foe; in this case his piety was alarmed for Henriette’s faith, and he suspected England of some sinister design in seeking alliance with France. Louis, however, overruled his fears and scruples, and the minister contented himself with taking extraordinary precautions to ensure to the princess by contract the free exercise of her religion, stipulating that she should have in all her chateaux a chapel “large enough to hold as many people as she pleased.” The marriage was celebrated by proxy at Notre Dame, Buckingham representing the Prince of Wales, and from thence the court escorted the bridal party on their way as far as Compiègne. Louis XIII., though he made but short sojourns at the palace, kept up close and friendly intercourse with the inhabitants, writing to them himself when any important event took place. He announced to them, for instance, the siege of Rochelle, the war with the Spaniards, the peace with England, and many other events in which the honor and safety of the state were interested.

Louis XIV. was only eight years old when he paid his first visit to Compiègne, accompanied by his little brother the Duc d’Anjou and the Queen Regent; they were obliged to seek hospitality from the monks of S. Corneille, because the Carmelite nuns were at the palace, which had been lent to them while their monastery was being repaired, and Anne of Austria would neither intrude upon them nor suffer them to be disturbed. What a checkered space intervenes between this first appearance of the _grand monarque_ at Compiègne and his last, when we see him passing the troops in review for the amusement of Madame de Maintenon! He stands uncovered beside her _chaise à porteurs_ and stoops down to explain the various evolutions, while she raises three fingers of the glass to catch the explanation without letting in the cold; the Duchesse de Bourgogne and the Princesse de Conti, and all the train of princes and princesses, are grouped round the poles of the Widow Scarron’s chair, listening respectfully while the king speaks; but he addresses none of them.

Louis XV. made his entry into Compiègne preceded by a troop of falconers with birds on their wrists, and accompanied by cannon and music of fife and drum, and every demonstration of popular joy. He was just eighteen then; his life was like the beginning of a stream, bright and clear to its depths; soon it was to grow troubled, darkening and darkening as it reached its middle course, till at last the waters ceased to flow and there was nothing but a loathsome swamp. Compiègne was associated with the brightest and happiest incidents of his life. In 1744, after he had commanded the army with the Maréchal de Saxe, taken Ypres, Furnes, and Menin, and performed that series of brilliant feats of arms that raised him to the rank of a demi‐god in the eyes of the people, Louis was marching to Alsace when he was suddenly stricken down with a malignant fever and obliged to lay up at Metz. The news of his illness was received as a personal calamity all over France. Never before nor since was such a spectacle given to the world of a nation wrestling with its agony beside the death‐bed of a king. The churches were filled day and night, the people weeping as if every man were trembling for a wife, every woman for a son; unable to control their grief they wept aloud, “filling the streets with lamentations”; public prayers were everywhere offered up; processions were formed in every town and village, and a universal concert of supplication was going up to the divine mercy for the life of the king. When it was known that their prayers were heard, and that he was restored to them from the jaws of death, the reaction was like a national frenzy. “The nation,” says Bajin, “thrilled with joy from one end to another.” They christened their new‐found prince _le bienaimé_ and henceforth he was called by no other name; he entered Paris like a conqueror bringing home the spoils of half of the world; at every step his progress was impeded by the people falling at his horses’ feet and struggling to clasp the hand of their beloved; mothers held up their babes to kiss him, and strong men clung to his hands and covered them with kisses and tears. Louis, overcome by this great tide of love that was sweeping round him from his people’s heart, was heard to repeat constantly while the tears streamed down his cheeks, “O mon Dieu, qu’il est doux d’être aimé ainsi!” (O my God! how sweet it is to be thus loved!) It was a manifestation the like of which history has never chronicled. Another not less ardent, though on a smaller scale, awaited the king at Compiègne. The town, deeming itself entitled to make a special family rejoicing, invited him to a _Te Deum_ to be sung in the time‐honored abbey of S. Corneille. The king went and joined with deep emotion in the solemn hymn of thanksgiving. A monster bonfire was lighted on a hill above the town, a rainbow of colored lamps, stretching over an enormous space, symbolized the fair promise of delight which had risen upon France, fountains of red and white wine flowed copiously on the great Place, and a ball was given at night to which every inhabitant of the town was invited, and came; gentle and simple, rich and poor, old and young, all welded by a common joy without distinction of class into one kindred. The victor of Fontenoy responded nobly to this magnificent testimony of his people’s trust. Alas! that he should have outlived this glorious morrow, and turned from his brave career into a slough of selfishness and vice to become a byword to the tongues that blessed him, and accursed of the nation that had lavished such a wealth of love upon him! The title of Bienaimé, which had been spontaneously bestowed on him by the people, and been regularly prefixed to his name in the almanac and elsewhere, became a butt for squibmongers, and was applied to the king only in mockery and scorn. The following is a specimen:

“Le Bien‐aimé de l’Almanach,
N’est plus le Bien‐aimé de France,
Il fait tout _ob Loc et ab Lac_.
Le Bien‐aimé de l’Almanach:
Il met tout dans le même sac,
La justice et la finance,
Le bien‐aimé de l’Almanach
N’est plus le bien‐aimé de France,” etc.(195)

When Marie Antoinette came to France as the bride of the Dauphin, it was at Compiègne that their first meeting took place. Louis Quinze greeted her with the most paternal affection; but his great, his sole preoccupation was, not how the Dauphin would like his fair young bride, or how she would take to the timid and rather awkward youth who blushed to the roots of his hair when the king, after raising her from her knees and embracing her, desired him to do the same, but how this pure young creature, who was entrusted to his fatherly care, would receive the Marquise du Barry. He presented her after all the other ladies of the court, and with a trepidation of manner that he was not able to conceal; but the incident had been foreseen and discussed at Vienna as well as at Compiègne. Marie Antoinette, sustained by her proud but polite mother, proved equal to the occasion; “she showed neither _hauteur_ nor _empressement_,” but met the difficulty in a manner which put the king at ease, and impressed the court with a high sense of her tact and discretion. Nor was this first impression belied by her subsequent conduct; the Dauphine proved, on many trying occasions, that her good sense and judgment were a match for the nobility of her spirit and the goodness of her heart; the busybodies who worked so diligently to embroil her in a quarrel with Madame du Barry were foiled by her straightforward simplicity and the dignified reserve which she maintained alike towards them and towards the favorite. An instance of this occurred a few weeks after her marriage. The son of one of her women of the bedchamber, a Madame Thibault, killed an officer of the king’s guard in a duel; Madame Thibault threw herself at Marie Antoinette’s feet, and besought her to implore the king for her son’s pardon; the Dauphine promised, and after a whole hour’s supplication she obtained it. Full of gratitude and delight the young princess told everybody how good the king had been, and how graciously he had granted her request; but one of the ladies of the court, thinking to spoil her pleasure and excite her jealousy, informed her that Madame Thibault had also gone on her knees to Madame du Barry to intercede for her, and that the marquise had done so. Marie Antoinette, without betraying the slightest vexation, replied very sweetly: “That confirms the opinion I always had of Madame Thibault, she is a noble woman, and a brave mother who would stop at nothing to save her child’s life; in her place I would have knelt to Zamore(196) if he could have helped me.”