The cheers of the people still rang in the streets, where several puncheons of wine were set abroach by the master of the household; the contents of these were quaffed by the German troops, who thereafter, with great liberality, gave the loyal citizens the purple staves to suck.
In my chamber I found my valise, which in the hurry and excitement of recent events I had quite forgotten, although it contained the king's despatches to the Duc de Lavalette, and Sir John Hepburn's baton and diploma as Marechal of France. The documents I resolved to secure about my person for the future, until I could place them in the hands of those to whom they were addressed.
'How came this portmanteau here?' I asked my servant.
'An equerry of the Prince of Vaudemont found it, at an auberge near the Meurthe—the auberge of the Three Willows; and M. le Prince at once sent it here, believing it to belong to monsieur.'
'The Prince was right—I owe him many thanks.'
'He left word that he would be proud to see monsieur at his apartments, on his leaving the presence of the Duke.'
'At his apartments—is he there now?'
'Yes, monsieur—awaiting you.'
'Please to conduct me to him.'
The servant bowed to the rosettes at his knees, and preceded me along several passages all panelled with oak, and decorated in many places by stags' heads and horns, and by trophies of ancient arms and heraldic devices, amid which the winglets of Lorraine, mantled, collared and coroneted, were ever the most prominent ornament. We reached a door, before which a page was lounging on a fauteuil, and within we heard voices laughing and in animated conversation, sounds that jarred upon my ear, for my heart was sick and humbled.
I was ushered into a large apartment, the walls of which were hung with rich old tapestry, representing the loves of heathen gods, and scantily-attired goddesses; and of shepherds and shepherdesses, with crook and flageolet; but who were much more occupied with each other than with their sheep, which seemed to browse among clover composed of cabbages and sunflowers. Several suits of old armour, numerous stars of burnished weapons, and two lofty black oak cabinets, profusely carved, decorated this room, in the centre of which stood a table, whereon a luxurious luncheon was spread; and here De Vaudemont, Count Pappenheim and De Bitche, were engaged in doing every justice to the good things before them. A fourth place was vacant, as the page intimated, for me.
'Welcome, M. Blane,' exclaimed the Prince, taking me warmly by the hand, 'welcome, to our ancient home at Nanci!'
'I thank you, M. le Prince.'
'Ah, my friend, on that night, when we first crossed our swords in the Place de la Grève at Paris, who could foresee to-day, or the gratitude we owe you? How strangely things come to pass in this changing world! And on that night at Paris, you fought in defence of Marie Louise too, when she fled from Raoul d'Ische and me, for we believed her to be but a little grisette, tripping before us in the dark. You remember poor Raoul, and his favourite song,
'Vive le fils d'Harlette!Normands,Vive le fils d'Harlette!'
Poor Raoul; he was indeed a gallant spirit! These are my friends, M. Blane; this is M. le Comte Pappenheim—''
'The brave son of a brave father,' said I, bowing; but Pappenheim smiled disdainfully, and played with the shaggy moustache which covered his upper lip—a lip thick and coarse, like that which since the days of the Emperor Maximilian I. has been deemed fashionable, and even royal, in Austria.
'And this is the colonel of my father's petardiers, M. le Comte de Bitche, whom you have had the pleasure of meeting before—'
'And whom I have sworn to run through the heart!' I exclaimed, laying my hand on my sword, and glad to find a legitimate object on which to pour out all my long pent-up wrath and bitterness.
The Count sprang up, and was about to speak with all the fury becoming his character and the occasion; when the Prince exclaimed,
'Silence, gentlemen! The hand that dares to draw a sword in the palace of Lorraine, is forfeited to the public executioner. So be wary, I command you—be wise, and become friends.'
'Never, while I have breath!' said I.
The Count smiled with a provoking expression of contempt, and gnawed his wiry cavalier moustache. Then he reseated himself, and after exchanging sinister glances with Pappenheim, continued restlessly to pluck and stroke his thick black lansquenet beard.
'M. le Prince,' said Pappenheim, rising proudly and coldly, 'desire your servants to leave the room; I have to make a communication which they, at least, must not hear.'
'Retire, messieurs,' said the Prince, to his valet, and to two pages, who withdrew, with faces expressive of disappointment.
'Comte de Bitche, draw the arras across the doors—so, thank you. I presume there are here no panels or partitions to which the ear can be applied?'
'None; but why all this provoking precaution?' asked the Prince, with considerable hauteur, for rumours of Pappenheim's approaching marriage with Marie Louise had caused the proud Imperialist to receive an adulation, respect, and flattery from the officers and courtiers of the ducal household, somewhat galling to the young heir of Lorraine, who viewed it with mingled jealousy and mistrust; 'M. le Comte, what the devil do you mean?'
'A jealous regard, Monseigneur le Prince, for the honour of your father's house, and of your sister, Mademoiselle of Lorraine.'
'Milles barbes! what do you say, Count Pappenheim?' asked Vaudemont, changing colour, while De Bitche gave me a covert and ferocious smile.
'I mean simplythis,' replied Pappenheim (who was the Prince's senior by nearly ten years, and a taller man by at least half a head), as he came close to him, and spoke in a hoarse German accent, with his eyes sparkling, and a face flushed by anger; 'I mean, Prince of Vaudemont, that to spare this Scotsman's life is in you an act alike unwary and unwise.'
'Parbleu! you are mad.'
'I am not mad; but I know that death alone can make a secret sure.'
'A secret?' reiterated the Prince, with an air of perplexity.
'What secret, Count of Pappenheim?' I demanded, keeping my hand still on my sword.
'I am addressing the Prince of Vaudemont,' replied the Count, with exasperating hauteur, 'not you, monsieur.'
'To the point!' said the Prince, stamping his foot.
'I mean that your sister, Mademoiselle Marie Louise of Lorraine, the intended bride of Wolfgang Count of Pappenheim, was most unworthily, most unwisely, and most indelicately, committed by the French king's mistress to this Scotsman's care, to travel with him together for many nights and days, these two hundred miles or so, through Champagne and Lorraine. You understand me now, monseigneur, I presume.'
'Peace, Count; you alone are unwise and ungenerous, to noise it thus abroad, and while in anger, too. The Scot has performed his trust honourably and faithfully, and for one feature in the affair only do I feel shame. That Marie Louise, when suddenly leaving the court of France on our quarrel with Louis, had to take refuge with the Lorrainer d'Amboise; but that woman, though the mistress of the King, is the daughter of an old and faithful adherent of our house, who fell by my father's side at Prague; and more honourable would it have been in Clara d'Ische, and in Mademoiselle my sister, to have trusted their secret to the honour of M. Blane, and made him fully aware that the disguised girl he was conducting to Nanci was the only daughter of Duke Charles IV., and not the soubrette of a licentious Parisienne, of mature age.'
'Do not add that as an additional invective, my dear Prince,' said De Bitche; 'king's mistresses are always dames of mature age—it is an historical fact.'
'They ought fully and amply to have trusted to him,' resumed the Prince, without heeding the Count.
'I would to heaven they had done so!' said I, in a half-stifled voice; 'for then much mental misery had been spared me—I had never raised my eyes or hopes so high.'
'Arthur Blane,' said the Prince, who alone had heard something of this soliloquy, 'thou art a fine fellow, and a brave one, and I love thee better every day—ay, too well to suffer Pappenheim to do thee wrong.'
'I thank you, M. le Prince.'
'And I thank you, too,' added Pappenheim, with a courtier's sneering smile; 'I thank you for the jealous care you have of your sister's honour, believing, however, it would be all the greater were you both, as you are not, the children of one mother.'
'Coarse Austrian!' began the Prince, passionately, but suddenly moderating his tone, he said, 'M. le Comte, your sneer is alike insolent and unjust, and I repel it with the scorn it merits. Mademoiselle is the daughter of a former marriage, true, and my senior by a year or more, yet do I love her as my own life, more even than my father does, for all his hopes and pride are centred upon me, as his only heir. Beware, Count, how you approach this delicate subject again, for though pliant as a willow to Marie Louise, you may find me tough as the mountain oak to her intended husband.'
'Enough, monseigneur,' replied the Count, assuming his plumed hat, and retiring with repeated bows towards the door; 'I shall not renew this subject again, but at the same time crave leave to choose my own friends, and beg to be excused sitting at table with your new Scottish ally, with whom I here proclaim I shall neither make peace nor truce.'
'Neither will I,' added De Bitche, retiring also, and from the door, hurling his leather glove at me.
'Take back your glove, De Bitche,' said the Prince, snatching it from my hand, and tossing it along the corridor; 'and on peril of your life, fight in this matter without my knowledge.'
He closed the door after nis guests, and turning towards me, said, with a ruffled air,
'My poor M. Blane; these two irritable Counts mean you mischief. I saw it in their eyes, and De Bitche has the yellow orbs of a snake. Milles barbes! I wish that you were beyond our lines, among your own people, safely out of Lorraine, and in the French camp; for these two will leave no means untried to compass your destruction!'
With this comfortable assurance, I seated myself at table; and we filled our cups with wine.
I now rehearsed, as succinctly as I could, considering the agitation of my thoughts, my adventures with Marie Louise on our journey; omitting only such passages as I deemed might prove unnecessary, or unwelcome. When I concluded, her brother expressed much satisfaction, and gave me earnest thanks, adding that in everything, my relation agreed with that given by Mademoiselle to himself, and to the Duke.
'A further proof that she has not told them all,' thought I, again.
'Now that I have heard your story, and that those blustering Counts are gone elsewhere to swear and grumble over pots of Rhenish, or jugs of German beer,' said the gay Prince, filling up my wine-horn again, 'tell me, how are all my enemies, the good people of Paris? Marion de l'Orme, Ninon de l'Enclos, Louisle Juste(faugh!), and Anne of Austria; and how is Father Richelieu himself—the great master showman in red hat and stockings, who makes all these little marionettes to hop and dance whenever he pulls the political strings?'
'Marion is still surrounded by lovers, and Ninon ditto, having quite forgotten the Count de Poligni,' I replied, in the same bantering tone; 'Louis is still in the silken meshes of Clara d'Ische; Anne of Austria still makes confessions to Monseigneur, the Archbishop of Paris, and still powders, paints, and patches; and eats and drinks as usual with the regal voracity of a pike; while Richelieu, the Coadjutor's rival in her heart, still enrols regiments, and levies treasures, to carry the frontiers of France towards the Rhine.'
The expression of Vaudemont's face changed, and his eyes sparkled at these words.
'Louis, most falsely surnamed the Just, is a prince without honour, and without gratitude!' said he, flinging his empty silver cup upon the table; 'he is at once the slave and the tool of Cardinal Richelieu, whom he hates and fears, and yet obeys—Richelieu, the most stern and bloody minister that ever stained the annals of France!—and now to divert the attention of her people from the intrigues by which he is surrounded, and by which he, a presumptuous priest, has obtained all but the royal authority, he has plunged Louis into this wanton war with the Empire and Lorraine, on the bold plea, ever so pleasing to French vanity, that their frontier shall be the Rhine. Marched by Champagne, and bordered by the Rhine, with Burgundy on one hand, and Luxemburg on the other, doubtless my father's ancient dukedom presents a tempting morsel to our friend M. le Cardinal and his creatures—and to enable them to swallow this morsel with ease, he has poured five armies into Germany and Italy. But our people are brave, bold, and hardy; our valleys are covered by vineyards; our mountains teem with mines of the richest ore, and hence this old Lorraine of ours—this patrimony which we have inherited since the days of the Merovingian kings—forms a prize too valuable to be relinquished to the grasping house of Bourbon: and while we have a rial and a rapier left, with God's help and the Emperor's, we shall defend it!'
'Louis asserts that Lorraine belongs to him, because Charles the Simple united it to France in the tenth century, and made Regnier governor over it.'
'Pardieu—no! 'tis our devil of a Cardinal who asserts this. But France will not be content with her boundaries at the Rhine, and if so, where is this spirit to end? Since the days of Charles the Great, the French dominions have not had such prospects of extension as they have now by the schemes of Richelieu, who has cast his eyes on Lorraine, Alsace, Brissac, and Philipsburg. He has cast them over Flanders, towards Dunkirk; across the Pyrenees, and over Rousillon into Catalonia. The annexation of our duchy to France would bring her frontier forty leagues into the empire; it would make Louis XIII. master of all the land between the Saar and the Moselle; it would secure his possession of Burgundy, and open up his path to the Palatinate; but never while blood and breath remain to Duke Charles and his son will they submit to France, and place the coronet of their independent dukedom under the closed-crown of the imperious line of St. Louis! And now, M. Blane, for your own affairs. You must be aware, my friend, that the sooner you leave Nanci, the better for your honour and for your life. In the first place rumour may indulge in unpleasant surmises about your sojourn here; and in the second, I would have you to rejoin your comrades without delay, lest Pappenhem, this Æneas of ours who seeks a wife, and his fidus Achates, the Petardier, who seeks that, which is much the same, mischief—may work you evil; for they are at no pains to conceal their hostility.'
'Prince, you speak my very thoughts; I am, indeed, most anxious to be gone,' said I, though the prospect of leaving Nanci without a parting word from Marie Louise was agony to me; yet, fooled and deceived as I had been, what would a parting word avail me now? 'I will this night depart for the French camp; but I know not where my comrades are, or how far I have to travel.'
'Morbleu! you do not know where they are?'
'No.'
'How—'
'You forget, M. le Prince, that I have passed a winter in the seclusion of the Bastille, where I heard nothing of Paris but the hum of its streets, far down below my chamber window.'
'The French are still before Elsace Zaberne.'
'I think Madame d'Amboise mentioned that siege to me.'
'Very probably.'
'Colonel Mulheim defends it?'
'Ma foi! yes: a valiant Lorrainer, a handsome and gallant seigneur, who will give them some trouble, for he is as proud and as obstinate as a Scot or a Spartan. He will give them a heavy butcher's bill of killed and wounded to send king Luis.'
'Them—whom?'
'Messieurs Hepburn, Lavalette, and Saxe-Weimar.'
'Is he in the field, too?'
'You must understand that old Father Richelieu has just concluded a notable treaty with the Duke of Weimar, who has bound himself to maintain eighteen thousand Germans for the service of France, in return for which the Cardinal, with the greatest liberality, has made him a free and perpetual gift ofourprovince of Alsace, which was ceded to us by the treaty of Verdun, and which, though taken from us by the Empire and given to the Bishop of Strasbourg and its boy-duke, we still deem ours. The inhabitants of Zaberne, our principal city and fortress there, have naturally conceived some objections to this transference of our rights: thus they are all in arms, and the walls are obstinately defended by Colonel Mulheim against some thirty thousand French, Scots, and Germans; but unless Count Gallas, who is on the march to relieve it and to form a junction with our troops now here in Nanci, crosses the Rhine within a week, I fear it must fall; for our couriers say that Count John of Hanau has been slain; that the walls were breached on the 9th of June, and that Hepburn's Scots were clamouring to be led to the assault. This is now the 14th of June, and by this time perhaps they have planted the standard of the Louises above the grave of the gallant Mulheim; for our noble Lorrainer vowed that Zaberne should be his tomb before it yielded to a foe.'
'By what route should I proceed there?'
'Any route that will secure you from the snares and hostility of Pappenheim, in whose eye, when he left us, I read so deadly an expression.'
'Prince,' said I, passionately, as anger and jealousy fired me, 'I will fight him hand to hand, on foot or horseback, with sword and pistol, in the public market-place of Nanci, if you urge this on me more.'
'Fighthim—my sister's affianced husband, the love of your friend, the little Nicola of your romantic journey? Peste! Comrade, you must not think of that, but rather study how to avoid him. Two roads lead from this to Zaberne,' he added, taking down from the wall one of those maps of Lorraine and the Rhine engraved by Ferrari, the then celebrated author of an epitome of geography. 'I would have you to leave Nanci to-night, quietly and alone, after dusk, and I will see that you are well armed and fleetly mounted.'
'And the distance to Zaberne is—'
'About twenty French leagues.'
'Thanks, M. le Prince.'
'You have still four hours left to dine with me and prepare for your journey; but do me the favour to remain in your own apartments till I come for you, as Nanci is full of men, who, like De Bitche, are infuriated against the soldiers of Louis XIII. I go to parade my regiment in the great square, but in two hours will return—till then, adieu!'
'Adieu, M. le Prince, with a thousand thanks for all your kindness.'
We bowed and separated.
Vaudemont's page was conducting me to my rooms, when one of the Duke's gentlemen in waiting, M. René, who wore the cross of Malta on his dark velvet cloak, met me in the corridor, with a message to the effect that Mademoiselle de Lorraine, having heard that I was soon to leave Nanci, desired that I would favour her with an interview of a few minutes in the Duke's apartments. Fortunately the corridor was dimly lighted; otherwise he of the cloak and Maltese cross would have remarked how I changed colour at this announcement. For a moment, a fierce suspicion flashed upon me, that this request in the name of Marie Louise was but a deadly lure of Pappenheim and De Bitche; I had heard of such snares often, in that time, and in those lands of public and private assassination. I was without pistols, but to hesitate was impossible, and with a bow of assent, I said—
'You mentioned the apartments of Monseigneur?'
'Yes, monsieur.'
'Is the Duke there?'
'No; he has accompanied M. de Vaudemont to parade a body of soldiers outside the palace.'
'I am ready, monsieur—lead on,' said I, in a voice broken by the mingled nature of my emotions and all that had passed; and while feeling my heart sink at the prospect of an interview with Marie Louise alone, it appeared to me that the voice and manner of my conductor were characterised by a strange sadness and sorrow.
I stood before her, in one of the loftily-ceiled and magnificent apartments of that princely dwelling, her father's ducal palace; and the flush of the summer noon-day's sun streamed through a painted casement full upon the outline of her faultless head and form, edging with a dazzling brightness the golden tresses of her hair, the curve of her delicate neck and shoulders, and the folds of her white brocade, that fell so gracefully around her. All conscious that we breathed the same atmosphere again, and that I was near her, I approached with averted eye, until I might have touched her, and then our glances met—but oh how timidly and sorrowfully! Yet I gazed full upon her, for her soft blue eyes were the bright stars in which, with all the fond astrology of love, I strove to read my future destiny.
But though their gentleness remained, her bearing was changed. It was no longer the timid diffidence, which was characteristic of the winning Nicola, that I read in them now; but the clear and full yet chaste expression of a woman of undoubted rank, and of one who had been long accustomed to her high position; and pausing, I bowed low, with a humility that was half mockery, while with a sigh of bitterness and sorrow, I remembered that I stood before my lost love, the daughter of Duke Charles IV.—Mademoiselle Marie Louise, of Lorraine and Bar-le-Duc, she whom I believed to have made my honest passion the plaything of an hour.
'M. Blane,' said she, in a voice that seemed piercing, for it stirred my very soul, though it seemed to be rendered tremulous by her emotions; 'why do you not come nearer, and give me your hand?'
'My hand—mademoiselle?'
'Your hand—as of old.'
'Because we are no longer what we—were.'
'My dear M. Arthur,' said she, trembling excessively as she clasped my hand within her own; 'what is the meaning of all this? does not the time seem long—very long—since we have spoken?'
'Yet we parted last night, mademoiselle,' said I, with affected carelessness. She looked at me earnestly and said—
'Do not speak so unkindly to me, Arthur; but confess that the timehasseemed long to you.'
'An eternity!' I exclaimed, as her heart throbbed beneath my hand, which she pressed against her side; 'but alas, mademoiselle—'
'Call me Nicola.'
'Nay—nay—never again.'
'We were so happy during those long rides through sunny Champagne, when you knew me only as poor Nicola—were we not?'
'And as poor Nicola I loved you—loved you with a passion the strength and purity of which are known only to God and to myself! Happy? Oh yes! we were very, very happy, mademoiselle—happier than I shall ever be again.'
'Do not say so, I implore you?' she exclaimed in a low voice; while her fine blue eyes filled with tears, and expressed so much love and melancholy that my soul was moved, for her.
'Pity me, M. Blane,' said she; 'I was then, and am still, but the victim of circumstances. The time which I foresaw—the time when we would become estranged—has come to pass and now you can understand my sorrowful reluctance to hear you speak of love—to receive your offers of—marriage.'
'But why did you conceal from me your exalted rank? why did you not trust me with your name, your title, your secret mission? I had then guarded my heart by prudence and honour too; I would have steeled my breast against you—.'
'Had such been possible,' said she, smiling through her tears, and still clasping my hand.
'Oh, why did you trifle with a love so true as mine, by a deception so unworthy of us both?'
'The Countess d'Amboise, that creature of Louis, who has the key to his heart and secrets, to whom I intrusted myself at Paris, (a faithful adherent of ours, if she has no other virtue) advised me to maintain the character in which I first appeared to you on that night in the Place de la Grève; and dearly has that duplicity cost me.'
She wept, and still we stood hand in hand.
'But whence the name of Nicola?' said I.
'My name is Nicola Marie Louise; and I chose the first, because it was the name of my dear mother, who lies in the church of St. Epurus; and, moreover, because our patron is St. Nicolas of Lorraine.'
'But this strange sojourn in Paris, mademoiselle?'
'I was there when Richelieu suddenly took measures to grasp the dukedom of Lorraine; and one of his first intentions was to place me in the Bastille. Of this Madame d'Amboise gave me timely notice; I sought shelter with her, but remained in Paris watching the tide of events. Lorraine is my country; it is the patrimony of my fathers; it is the land of Joan of Arc, and why should not I, in some wise, seek to serve the soil she sprang from?'
'And to this end, you will wed Count Pappenheim, and duly bestow your bridal garments on the shrine of St. Lucy—'tis all wise, proper, and befitting, mademoiselle.'
'How cruel in you to speak thus to me!' said she, upbraidingly; 'to marry Pappenheim, while—while—loving you—would be to bear about in my heart a load of misery too terrible for contemplation.'
I bent my hot face upon her hand in joy, and kissed it.
'I was decoyed from our solitary little auberge at the Three Willows, by a specious falsehood of the Count de Bitche, who, in my costume as a sister of Vincent de Paule, did not at first recognise me.'
'And he told you—'
'That you were slain, or desperately wounded. Oh, Heaven, how was it that I did not die on hearing his terrible words, for they ring yet in my ears! Bitter was the suffering they cost me! I rushed from the auberge, and desired him to lead me to you; but, with one of his malevolent smiles, he told me, that he had decoyed me for himself—that it was all a pretty little snare, that he loved me, and so forth. I then threw off my hood, declared my name and rank, commanding him on his manhood and allegiance to lead me to my brother. Our worthy petardier knew me then! Oh, had you seen how quickly the brutal tyrant changed to the cringing slave! He obeyed me; but never can I tell you all I endured until De Vaudemont gave me tidings of your safety; nor can I describe the emotions that stirred my heart, Arthur, when I saw you—you whom I loved so tenderly—'
'Ah, mademoiselle—'
'When I saw you standing in that crowded street, looking so wildly and bewildered, crest-fallen, bareheaded, and a prisoner—pale, weary, and on foot—dearest Arthur!'
'Youdidsee me then?'
'But girt round, hemmed in by iron etiquette, the centre of a thousand eyes, I dared not even accord a kind glance towards you. In courts we learn sorely to school our hearts, Arthur.'
'And to trample on the hearts of others, too.'
'You wrong me—do not say so.'
The assurance that she still loved me made me once more calm; and such is the caprice of the human heart, that, at times, strange emotions of artificial coldness flitted through my breast.
'Arthur,' said she; 'how changed and how diffident these twenty-four hours have made you?'
'Mademoiselle,' I replied, seeing the madness of again yielding to my emotions; 'I am diffident; because I am not like that brave Pappenheim, and because my love is sincere, though it merits no return—from you, at least.'
'What cruel enigma is this?'
'Mademoiselle de Lorraine, you are no longer Nicola, the poor, fugitive soubrette; and in a mere worldly point of view, you are far, far above me; though I am a gentleman, whose fathers for six hundred years have borne their crest in battle on their helmets; yet what have I, an exile, a soldier of fortune, to offer worthy even a smile from the daughter of Charles IV., the victor of Prague, and the hero of Poligni?'
'My poor Arthur! you have that which is better than all the crowns of Europe—a faithful and true heart; I find that I must speak for you as well as for myself. Marie Louise cannot lose that heart, which she won as Nicola. Love has a language that cannot be expressed by words alone; thus your tenderness and diffidence, even with the poor soubrette, were the surest indication of the depth of yours.'
'Oh, yes!' said I, clasping my hands; 'my love is equalled only by your beauty and your merit.'
'Now,' she exclaimed, almost playfully, 'you must not be imitating Ronsard.'
'I am in agony, and you speak to me in jest.'
'And so you would not give one golden hair of Nicola's head for Louise of Lorraine, with all her rank and beauty? Oh, poor M. Blane, what say you now?'
'Jesting yet! I say that I think so still, and yet—my heart, God help me, feels broken.'
'Come—come—allons!' said she, waving her pretty white hand; 'be a man, Arthur; what say you to join my father, and fight under the standard of the Emperor?'
'By the side of Pappenheim and De Bitche?'
'No.'
'What then?
'By the side of Vaudemont and Duke Charles. In France, your Scottish Hamiltons are Dukes of Chatelherault in Poitou; your Forbeses are Lords of La Faye; your Douglases are Dukes of Touraine and Lords of Longoville; your Stuarts are Lords of Aubigne, Governors of Avignon, and Dukes of Calabria. Why may not you become a count or prince in our duchy of Lorraine?'
'Impossible!'
'Why impossible?'
'Because the days of Lorraine as a duchy are doomed, and because I am a soldier of France. Tempt me not, for my honour—'
'Will be dear to me as my own; so I pray you to excuse me,' said she, while her tears fell fast,
'To-night, Louise, I go, never to return; but my soul I give to God—my sword to France—my heart to you.'
'You are going—' she faltered.
'Yes.'
'Whither?'
'To the French camp, before Elsace-Zaberne.'
'Alas!'
'Your rank forbids me even to hope,' said I.
'Then love will soon die.'
'Nay, nay! give me leave to seek a field where I may fall, if I cannot forget you. I leave this to-night, and take the road by Sarrebourg and Phalsbourg towards Alsace. Oh, Marie Louise! in memory of the love I have vowed and you have accepted, think of me sometimes; and in memory of the pleasant days we have passed—of all I hoped, and all that never can be—give me one kind kiss before I leave you for ever!'
We opened our arms, and were about to meet, when simultaneously we caught sight of a tall man, wearing a mantle and star, a long feather and sword, who stood between the parted arras of the doorway, observing us with sinister eyes, while quietly smoothing his large collar of fine Flemish lace, and lounging against the door-post.
'Count Pappenheim!' I exclaimed, instinctively placing my hand into my sword-hilt.
'At your service, Monsieur l'Abbé, or Monsieur Scaramouche, by the devil's death! which you please.'
How long had he been there? How much or how little he had heard of our interview, of her abhorrence for him and her love for me, of my route and purpose, I knew not. Quick as lightning, I asked these questions of myself, and sternly made a step towards him. He gave us a malicious smile, and with a bow of profound irony, said—
'Mademoiselle de Lorraine and M. Blane, allow me kindly to end an interview, which, under all the circumstances, seems to have been sufficiently painful and prolonged. The Duke, your father, mademoiselle, sent me, as his most fitting messenger, to say that he would speak a few words with you, on a matter of the first importance to us both; thus I doubt not that our very good friend of the Garde du Corps Ecossais will excuse us.'
This style of deportment, in which hatred, jealousy, and rage were skilfully veiled under a bland but ironical exterior, left me nothing more to urge at that time; and we bowed mutually, as with a heart swollen by fury, sorrow, and envy, I saw him take the cold white hand of the girl I loved—of Marie Louise—and lead her away. I was left alone, with nothing of her but the memory of her parting glance, which was so full of agony and expression, that I seem to see it still before me, even now, after the long lapse of many, many years.
So ended my painful interview with Marie Louise.
The lofty air assumed by this presumptuous Austrian lord rankled in my breast like a poisoned arrow! I longed to meet him alone—alone on the solitary highway, or in some deep and voiceless solitude, in any sequestered place where there would be none to see or to separate us; and where, with sword and dagger, we might prove which was the better man, or which was the greater braggart of the two. For the present, there was nothing for me but to retreat, leaving him in quiet possession of the battlefield and of the contested prize, alas! for hope, had I none! That fickle fortune would ever afford to one so humble, a prospect or a plea for disputing her hand and love with the son and heir of Pappenheim, the rival of Tilly—he whose pride made him spurn even the Golden Fleece was more than a madman's dream.
Had the gallant old Duke been severe upon me as his prisoner—nay, had he even been less kind—I would have left nothing undone to carry off his daughter and wed her in the face of France and the Empire; but the demeanour of Charles IV. was too conciliatory to spur or foster such a thought of treachery in me.
After a residence in Paris, during that age of dissipation and vice when virtue and religion were alike made a mockery, it charmed me to find that, with all her beauty, her natural wit and shrewdness, Marie Louise was so innocent and so amiable. In short, I knew not which dazzled me most—her vivacity of thought and grace of expression, the beauty of her person, or the purity and sincerity of her heart, which (unchanged as when first I met her) loved me still, with a regard which was strengthened by a sentiment of pity for the deception of which I had been the dupe, and for the wrong that had thus been done me.
But Pappenheim had certainly overheard a considerable portion of our interview: he might thus know my route to the French camp, and put in practice some foul treachery; for I believed that he and his compatriot, De Bitche, were capable of any atrocity.
I exchanged my cassock for a good buff coat, trimmed with broad bars of silver lace, a cuirass, and gorget, which, together with a basinette of tempered steel, were given to me by De Vaudemont. I charged carefully my pistols, the recent gift of his father, examined the locks, and then placed them in my girdle, with a good dagger and sword. My papers and despatches I had already secured in a secret pocket; and the Prince, as he placed in my hand a passport signed by the Duke, told me that the master of the horse had selected the best steed in the ducal stables to replace the fine Spanish barb so wickedly destroyed by De Bitche. My old travelling-cloak, with a Spanish beaver, I presented to Sergeant Asfeldt, and a dear gift they proved to him in the sequel.
'You go by Dieuze and Sarrebourg?' said the Prince.
'Yes; but would not a route by Rosiers and Luneville be safer?'
'It would be a longer detour; but as for the safety, I do not see much difference. De Bitche has property and adherents both at Luneville and Rosiers, and I suspect him of conspiring with Pappenheim, so keep well to the left of the main road to Elsace-Zaberne. They have just had a long conference in the court-yard; I watched them from a window, and the moment it was concluded, De Bitche departed towards the bridge of the Meurthe, with ten petardiers of his company on horseback. Thus, I fear me, the Luneville road may be beset, and pray you to be wary.'
'Beset by De Bitche?'
'Sacre, yes!'
'A curse on him and on all his generation.'
'It will not mend the matter: but in case you are actually watched, leave Nanci to-night, as pre-arranged; but do not set forward, lest there be an ambuscade on one or both of the roads. There is an old chapel of St. Nicolas in the Wood, a mile below the city, on the right bank of the river. A pathway diverging to the left near an old stone cross leads directly to it; there you can remain till morning, and then ride boldly forward. You will have a long summer day's march before you, and by nightfall may see the ramparts of Elsace-Zaberne still glittering, I hope, with the helmets of Mulheim's brave Lorrainers.'
I thanked Vaudemont, and bade him adieu with a depth of feeling that must have surprised him; but he was the brother of her I loved more than all the world beside; and, moreover, with all his recklessness and devil-may-care spirit, he was a gallant and generous youth, who struggled nobly but vainly in after years to regild the faded glories of his house.
I rode from the palace and through the principal street of Nanci, that my departure might be seen by all who felt any interest therein; and quitting the city by one of its northern gates, trotted along the well-wooded highway, that led towards the frontier. At the stone cross, which stood near a well, I turned my horse, as directed by the Prince; and after throwing a sharp glance round me, to assure myself that no secret eye was upon me, I descended into a dell, covered by thick dark copsewood, and rode rapidly in search of the ancient chapel, in which, like a hero of the Round Table, I was to pass the night alone.
The sun had set beyond the valleys of the Meuse and the Moselle, and the last gleams of the west bathed with a saffron tint the walls and towers, the spires and ducal palace, of Nanci, as they rose to the eastward of my path, above green groves of full-bearing orange and plum trees.
Torrents of rain had recently fallen amid the woods and snows of the Vosges: thus the waters of the Meurthe were swollen, and I heard their current roaring in full flood as they rolled through the echoing woods of the valley I traversed.
Rising amid the coppice, on a knoll, I found the chapel of St. Nicolas—a plain but sturdy old Gothic structure, the low round arches, zigzag ornaments, and grimly-grotesque carvings of which declared it to be coeval, perhaps, with Charles, Lord of Lower Lorraine. It contained an altar and shrine of St. Nicolas, before both of which some oil-lamps, that were nightly lit by the old canonesses of a neighbouring establishment, were burning and sputtering in the currents of air. I unbitted and stabled my charger, relaxed his saddle-girths, and left him in one of the stalls built near the porch for the horses of visitors. Entering, I shut the door, rolled my cloak round me, and with my sword, pistols, and a flask of good brandy, endeavoured to make myself at ease, after dropping a few coins into the visitors' box, lest I might depart with the shades of night and forget all about it on the morrow. I then composed myself to sleep on a bench at the lower end of the chapel.
The altar lamps flickered and flared in the currents of wind; but, as my eye become accustomed to their feeble light, the features of the chapel grew gradually clearer to my eye, and many a stone visage that was hideously grotesque, seemed to laugh and wink to me, from the carved corbeilles of the roof, and the massive bosses that clasped the interlacings of the groined arches. St. Nicolas, with a halo of gilded iron round his head, stood quaintly out in bold relief from the painted wall on one side; on the other, framed in marble, shone a large sheet of polished copper, whereon was written a complete history of the battle fought before the walls of Nanci in 1475 by Charles the Hardy, Duke of Burgundy, who, with the flower of his followers, was there slain by the soldiers of René, Duke of Lorraine. On this plate were graven the names and armorial bearings of all the Burgundian knights who perished with Duke Charles; and the list closed by a request that the pious reader would pray for their souls, as their bodies were all interred in this chapel of St. Nicolas.
There were certainly more pleasant places wherein to pass a night than that old chapel, with all its buried dead and gloomy associations of desperation and defeat; but Scot though I was, and deeply imbued, moreover, by that superstition which few of my countrymen are without, I thought not of the hacked helmets and knightly bones that lay beneath me, or of the chances of spectral appearances, as the mid-mirk hour of the night approached—as the air waxed colder and the altar lights grew dim—I thought only of my own wayward fate; of the strange passages of my life during the last few years; of the dangers I had escaped and those I might yet encounter; of Louise, whom I loved so well—who loved me in return, but from whom I seemed hopelessly separated for ever.
How much more enchanting than the large and voluptuous Clara—she who for a time had so dangerously dazzled me—was the smaller and more delicately-formed Marie Louise—half-woman and half-angel; like a poet's dream, a Raphael's happiest thought! So perfect in her purity of form; so beautiful in face, expression and thought.
'Ah, Marie Louise, there is none other like you in the world!' thought I, with mingled rapture and bitterness. 'Who ever loved me so well? Yet we shall never see, never meet, never hear each other's voice again! I can be reckless enough in battle now, for I have no mistress for whom to spare myself.'
The exhaustion of long toil and deprivation of rest, now began to steal over me, and I had fallen into a doze, to dream of Louise as Nicola, when a sound roused me, making me start to full and nervous wakefulness, as the whizz of the first shot in action might do. I started! My horse was neighing in its adjacent stall, to me a signal sufficient that other nags were near. I thought of De Bitche with his ten petardiers, and cocked my pistols. I heard the hoofs of a horse ringing, as it was galloped down the path, across the wooded valley, and drawing nearer as it approached the chapel, till at last the sound become dull and muffled on the sward. I boldly threw open the chapel door to confront this midnight visitor, and by the dim light of the stars without, and the flicker of the altar lamps within, beheld a handsome young man, mounted on a powerful grey horse, with his cloak muffled up to his nose and his hat pulled down to his eyes; but I soon perceived that he wore the long moustache and pointedroyale, peculiar to the court of-Louis XIII.
'Hark you, M. le Chevalier!' said he.
'Who are you?' I asked.
'I am René, Knight of Malta, one of the Duke's gentlemen in ordinary. I had the pleasure of conducting you, monsieur, to the presence of my foster-sister to-day.'
'You mean Mademoiselle de Lorraine?'
'Marie Louise—yes.'
'And you are her foster-brother?'
'Yes, monsieur; my mother nursed her; I have taught mademoiselle to ride; to throw off a falcon, and to shoot with the arbalest à jallet, as we name a little crossbow for throwing clay pellets. Were not such tasks a happiness?'
'M. René, I envy you; but what seek you here?' I asked, with suspicion.
'I sought you, M. Blane, and I am happy to find that you are not gone. Are you not afraid of being robbed in this solitary place.'
'I am afraid of nothing, M. René; fifty crowns are all I possess in the world.'
'But one's skin is of some value, and that may be perilled in these woods among wolves and outlaws.'
'To the point, M. le Chevalier de Malta,' said I, suspiciously; 'it was not merely to tell me all this you sought me. Perhaps you bring a message from Wolfgang Count Pappenheim? If so——'
'What then?'
'You are doubly welcome.'
The eyes of the Lorrainer sparkled.
'No, monsieur,' said he, 'I am not in the habit of bearing messages for M. Pappenheim; he is one for whom I have but little love——'
'Give me your hand, my dear M. René. I request to be admitted to a copartnery in that abhorrence.'
'You hate each other, then?'
''Tis to avoid his assassins I am this night quartered like a paladin of old in this enchanted chapel; for being in a wood, it must, of course, be enchanted.'
'Yes; it is said that the spirit of Charles the Hardy stalks forth every night at twelve o'clock, side by side with René of Lorraine, both cap-a-pie.'
'Well, twelve is long since past by my watch, and neither of these personages have gone forth, unless they have done so unseen by me. And so you, too, are at enmity with Pappenheim?'
'Enmity deep, bitter, and undying!'
'We are allies,' thought I; 'but, the devil! we may be rivals, too!'
'In a dispute when hunting, Count Pappenheim, who is a rough and unlicked German cub, dared to strike me with his riding-rod—I, René of Gondrecourt, knight of Malta. Oh, M. Blane! but for the solemn vow which binds me to my order, and but for the marriage which is about to be celebrated between him and mademoiselle my foster-sister, this dagger had laid him dead beside the deer which was the matter in dispute.'
'No vows bind me, dear René,' said I, pressing the hand of the young Chevalier; 'and when Pappenheim and I meet, my sword, I hope, shall write on his plump German hide a full and fair apology for all our wrongs.'
'We heard of a strange accident just before I left the palace. The Count de Bitche and ten of his petardiers left Nanci on horseback this forenoon abruptly, and without the Duke's orders took the road to Luneville.'
'Indeed!' said I, becoming suddenly interested.
'Sergeant Caspar Alsfeldt of Vaudemont's musketeers——'
'A brave and kind old fellow; he brought me prisoner to Nanci.'
'Well, he was despatched with an order for their immediate return; but they mistook him for some one else, as he was dressed in a strange hat and cloak, so they fired and pistolled the poor man about sunset, and he is now lying dead on the road, about three miles from Nanci.'
'My brave sergeant! he fell into the trap intended by the villains for me; for doubtless the hat and cloak he wore were mine. I may well thank Heaven for the foresight of Vaudemont.'
'Hence, M. Blane,' said René, grasping his reins, 'mademoiselle, my foster-sister, sent me to conjure you, by God's love and her own, to leave this place without delay, and to accept this little note, which contains her farewell to you. Adieu, monsieur—or rather au revoir, for we shall meet again in our helmets during some of those fine summer days on the banks of the Rhine.'
As he said this, René placed a note in my hand, put spurs to his horse, and, from the chapel door, rode down the wooded valley. The note was written on perfumed Dutch paper, tied crosswise by white ribbons, and fastened by a little red seal, bearing the winglets under a coronet.
I cut the ribbons with my dagger, and trembled as I read the note, by the dim flickering light of the altar.
It bore the signature of Marie Louise, and was written by herself, assuring me of her unalterable regard, and that death itself were more welcome to her than this projected union with Pappenheim: it contained little; but began by desiring me to forget her, and, like a dear paradox, ended by begging me to remember the pleasant days we had passed together, and though separated, to think kindly of her, as she would never cease to think of me but with sorrow and love.
This little billet occasioned in me the usual burst of transport such evidences of affection generally develop in lovers, all of which the reader knows very well; and I was carefully refolding, after reading it for the tenth time, when a sound caught my ear. I listened. It was a distant clock striking the hour of four. I looked up, and saw that already the altar lamps were sinking and about to expire, and that grey dawn was beginning to shine through the painted windows of the old chapel.
'Now,' thought I, 'let me to my saddle, and with whip and spur make this new nag of mine believe that he has Satan himself on his back!'
When I rode from the chapel of St. Nicolas in the Wood the morning was cool and delicious. The forests were clothed with luxuriant green foliage, that rustled pleasantly in the rising wind. The Meurthe flowed majestically through the broad and fertile valley between banks that teemed with fertility, or were covered by groves of wild apricot, plum, and orange trees.
Distant a mile or so rose Nanci, its old ramparts and plastered houses standing in relief against the cold sky, clear and white in the pale light of morning, for the sun was yet below the horizon, and the lingering stars that still twinkled amid the deep blue vault were reflected in the depths of the river that bathed the palace walls, while the sharp pinnacles of the cathedral spire cut the sky-line as they towered above every other feature of the city.'
'Adieu, Marie Louise,' said I, kissing my hand to the distant palace, as its casements began to gleam like plates of burnished gold; and as I crossed a wooded ridge, where the road suddenly dipped down towards the town and fortress of Château Salines, so famous for its saline springs, where salt has been manufactured since the days of Thierri of Alsace.
Riding rapidly without hindrance or molestation for twenty-two miles, I passed Dieuze between the banks of the Seille and another river, and then past Sarrebourg, a quaint old town which was quietly ceded to France by the Lorrainers in 1666. It is situated on the right bank of the Sarre, which flows from the wooded Vosges to the Lower Rhine, and is only fifteen miles westward of Elsace-Zaberne. I halted here at an hostelry namedL'Image de Notre Dame, the sign-board of which had been riddled by the bullets of Saxe-Weimar's Swedish Protestants. This house of entertainment stood immediately opposite the palace of Henri de Vestingen, the Archbishop of Treves.
Though now so near my destination, a stupid crayfisher, of whom I unfortunately inquired the way, misdirected me; and at nightfall, instead of being at the end of my journey, I found myself in a wild and sequestered district among the mountains, where the patois of the peasants—of whom I met but two—was so quaint and barbarous that I could scarcely understand one word they uttered. To make all this more unpleasant a storm was coming on; the sky grew black and lowering; the air was full of electricity, and warm rain-drops fell heavily and at long intervals.
After a time I found myself close to a small, compact, but closely-walled town in a deep valley of the Vosges. I approached the gate joyfully, and heard a sentinel challenge in pure French; but still precaution on my part was necessary.
'Stand,' cried he, 'or I shall fire. France or Lorraine?'
To answer for either was dangerous; so I inquired,—
'What town is this?'
'Phalsbourg, on the frontier of Alsace.'
'How far is Zaberne distant?'
'Six miles to the north-east.'
'Then I have ridden fifty-four miles to-day.'
'From where, my friend?'
'Nanci.'
'Ha! from Nanci—indeed! well, pass on—do not advance one step, or I shall be compelled to fire.' The match of his arquebuse glowed in the dark, as he blew it to enforce the threat.
'Is this garrison French or Imperialist?' I asked.
'Return in the morning, and we shall each see what the other is like. Good night.'
'Good night;' and I rode off, as nearly as I could judge, in the direction of Zaberne; and now the warm rain plashed in my face, and I heard the rising wind begin to roar in the hollows, and saw the ghastly green lightning playing about the black peaks of the Vosges.
Phalsbourg, belonging to princes of that title, who were vassals of Duke Charles, stands on an eminence overhanging a deep and narrow defile of these mountains. It is strongly fortified, and was founded for defence by Count John, Palatine of the Rhine in 1570, but was annexed to France by the treaty of Vincennes, when ruin was deepening on the fated house of Lorraine.
As Zaberne was only six miles distant, I deemed it wiser in me to ride on and endeavour to reach the French lines, than perhaps to fall into a trap by attempting to make good a night's quarters in Phalsbourg; but the storm of rain came on, and this, together with the darkness of the night and my total ignorance of the way—no one being abroad to act as guide—caused me to ride almost at random for several miles along a rocky and devious path, until I reached a pile of buildings that rose in the centre of the way, and I found myself before a castle—one of those huge, fortified mansions of the middle ages, having walls of enormous height and thickness, with dungeons below, battlements above, gates and drawbridges in front.
A passing gleam of lightning revealed to me a lofty square tower defended by outworks, having a deep ditch, palisadoes, and a drawbridge, which was up. It was evidently the castle of some Alsatian noble, probably a vassal of the Bishop of Strasbourg, to whom the province of Alsace at one time belonged. Being furnished with letters from king Louis on one hand, and with a passport from Duke Charles on the other, it now occurred to me that I should be pretty safe in venturing into this feudal tower, whoever might be its lord; and half choked by wind and rain, and tired of struggling to keep in check my horse, which swerved and plunged at every flash of lightning that reddened the sky and threw forward in full and sable outline the huge square mass of the castle. I hallooed loudly, but my voice was swept away by the wind; till, waiting for a lull, and gathering all my strength, I placed a hand to my mouth, and shouted thrice again.
'Halloo!' answered a voice from the outworks; an arched gate opened; I saw the glow of a red light flaring on the wet walls without, and on the swampy fosse below, while three or four armed men applied their hands to the counterpoise of the drawbridge, and with a clang lowered it into its socket. As I approached the wicket of the strong pallisadoes, it was carefully closed, and a voice demanded—
'Whence come you?'
'From Nanci direct.'
'You are alone?'
'As you see, quite alone. Come, come, my friend, do not keep me long at parley in such a storm of wind and rain.'
'But what seek you here?'
'Shelter; what the devil would one seek else in such a night as this?'
'Enter,' was the gruff reply.
I rode in, and found myself in an archway, off which opened two vaulted guardhouses, full of armed men. The bridge was wound up; the barriers were closed; I gave my horse to a groom, and found myself housed in the castle of—I knew not whom.
'How name you this fortress?' I inquired of one who seemed to bear some authority, if I might judge by his polished cuirass and triple-barred helmet.
'The tower of Phalsbourg, monsieur.'
'And who commands here?'
'An officer of the Duke of Lorraine.'
'Good; lead me to him, I am furnished with papers from Monseigneur le Duc.'
'This way, monsieur, follow me.'
As we proceeded through the archway, across the court and entered the keep, neither the enormous thickness of the walls nor their height surprised me so much as the great number of well-armed men who crowded all the chambers, or were lounging on wooden benches, smoking, and polishing their accoutrements, in the whitewashed corridors, which were lighted by candles, placed in reflecting sconces of bright tin. However, I remembered the time and situation; that this was a frontier castle, garrisoned by Duke Charles against the French; and I recalled, too, the magnificence and military state maintained by the French nobles, even in time of peace, and of this, the style of the Marechal Duke of Sully, Grand Master of the Ordnance and Governor of Poitou, when living in retirement at his castle of Lillebonne, may serve for an example. He had constantly about him one company of French guards, and another of Swiss, who attended him on horseback when he went abroad, on which occasions the great bell of the castle was rung, a bombarde fired, and all his servants stood in two lines, bareheaded, from the staircase to the outer gate. At table, two guards, with partisans, attended nim, and only two chairs were placed there, one for him and another for his duchess, while their guests, no matter how high their rank or long their lineage, were merely accommodated with stools without backs.
As we ascended to the hall of this fortress, the sound of loud laughter, occasional oaths, and the rattle of dice-boxes, met my ear, while the fumes of wine, a close atmosphere, rendered more oppressive by the light of many lamps and the breath of several debauchees, saluted me, and on entering I beheld a very remarkable scene.
The hall was lofty, and hung with gaudy Haarlem tapestry.
It was crowded by cavaliers in rich and variously-coloured dresses of Blois and Utrecht velvet, laced with gold and silver; most of them had on cuirasses and gorgets, and all wore swords, daggers, and silver-mounted pistols, hung by swivels or hooks to their girdles. Many of these men were too evidently intoxicated. Some smoked, or sang, or slept on the side benches; a few were intent on gambling at a table apart; others were drinking wine or beer from vessels of all kinds, and some were engaged in coarse banter or dalliance with four or five gaudily-dressed and profusely-painted demoiselles, who, if they had been found in the Scottish camp of Marshal Hepburn, had assuredly been sent to ride the wooden horse at the quarter-guard.
Among the armed men present, I recognised the Swiss officer, M. Schreckhorn.
'Place, messieurs, place for a gentleman from Nanci!' exclaimed my conductor; and all turned towards me with interest and surprise, and several said—
'M. le Commandant! where is M. le Commandant?'
'Here,' growled a voice, as a tall, swarthy man, who, with his laced pourpoint unbuttoned, and his black hair dishevelled, had been asleep on a fauteuil, started up, and I found myself confronted with the Count de Bitche.
He uttered a shout of savage and half-drunken laughter; while, with a sinking heart, I found that, by my own unwariness, I had fallen into a deadly trap at last.
'M. l'Abbé, alias M. Blane de Blanerne, alias M. Scaramouche le Moucharde, welcome! most welcome to share the hospitality of Phalsbourg!' exclaimed De Bitche, twisting up his enormous black moustache; 'by Beelzebub, but this is a most unexpected pleasure, for we had quite given up all hope of seeing you again!'
'Perhaps so, M. le Comte, after murdering a poor soldier, in mistake for me, on the Nanci road.'
'Your predilection for wandering outside your own camp is marvellous; but we must cure you of it. Corboeuf! I would that Pappenheim were here, to share with me the pleasure of giving you a welcome.'
When I gazed on the demon-like eye of this infamous noble—a strangler, a gambler, and debaucher—I almost believed in the sorceries and diablerie imputed to him by the simple peasantry of Alsace and Lorraine.
'Well, mon condottiere,' continued the Count, in his bantering manner; 'you gaze at me curiously—you remember having met me before, I think?'
'Those who once behold your face, will never forget it;' said I, making a violent effort to repress my growing anger.
'Oh, milles demons! one could not be mistaken then?'
'No, M. le Comte—those who once see your visage, will never behold another like it.'
'Especially if they are in your perilous perdicament. You walk stiffly—your spurs drip blood. By St. Nicholas! M. Blane, you have ridden fast from Nanci; but not fast enough to escape me, who left it before you; though six miles further on you would have found Messieurs Hepburn and Lavalette, peppering Zaberne (a bitter reflection certainly) with culverin and caliver. Had your horse wings? But we shall not inquire. My dear M. Blane, I have you here snug enough, and here you shall remain; for unless you write me a little billet to my dictation, I shall hang you like a dog.'
'Hang?' I exclaimed, laying my hand on my sword.
He nodded his head, adding,
'Unless you pen for me a little billet.'
'A billet?'
'Milles demons! yes—I speak plain enough.'
'To whom?'
'Mademoiselle de Lorraine,' said he, in a hoarse whisper.
'Count, you are a villain!'
'M. le Commandant!' exclaimed at least twenty men, knitting their brows and grasping their swords.
'Nay, nay, gentlemen,' said he, 'be patient, I pray you. It is a defect of these Scots to be somewhat plainly spoken.'
'And to be truthful too,' I said with ungovernable fury, while unsheathing my sword; but it was barely out of the scabbard, when the rough hands of a crowd of armed men were laid upon me, and in a moment, I was denuded of my belt, with its poniard and pistols, my sword and purse of fifty crowns, with all my papers, while I was held so tightly on every side that I could scarcely breathe. My despatches were valueless to me, compared to the farewell note of Marie Louise.
'M. le Comte,' exclaimed a bloated young subaltern of Swiss, who was looking over my papers; 'here is a letter from mademoiselle—'
'De l'Orme—yes!' interrupted De Bitche, abruptly, closing the sentence to mislead his followers, and snatching the letter of Louise from the startled discoverer thereof; 'and on peril of your life,' he added, 'speak no more of it.'
'But, M. le Comte,' said Schreckhorn, 'here is a protection from Monseigneur le Duc, dated at Nanci, yesterday. This, at least, must be respected.'
'A vile forgery—put it in the fire; every spy has papers.'
The protection given to me by Vaudemont was then consigned to the flames.
'And here is a despatch sealed with the royal arms of France, and addressed to M. le Chevalier Hepburn, marshal and general of the Scots with the army of the Rhine.'
'Bon—diable! give me that!' shouted De Bitche, making a snatch at the envelope, which contained the brave Hepburn's diploma of Marshal of France; 'and now away with the moucharde to the turret above the river; but, off with his buff coat first. Aha, messieurs! 'tis laced, and of the true Parisian cut. Off with it, for by the favourite corn of St. Nicolas, he will never need it more!'
My buff coat was rudely torn off me by some half-drunken Swiss and Germans, among whom it formed an object of furious contention. I was then dragged through the hall, along a dark passage, and up a narrow stone stair, to a little arched door, through which I was thrust into an apartment lighted only by fitful gleams of the moon, across which the stormy clouds were hurrying in black masses; and there left to my own anxious and alarming thoughts.