Luckily, the window from which I was thrown was on the first floor, and not above sixteen feet raised from the ground. My fall, therefore, was so instantaneous, that I had no time to indulge in any of the pleasing anticipations of which a journey head-foremost from a high window to the ground is susceptible. The fall, however, was sufficient to stun and bewilder me; and before I had well recovered my recollection, I found myself surrounded by a good number of lackeys with torches, who had seen my sudden ejaculation from the gaming-house while they were accompanying some carriage through the streets, and had come to my assistance, with many inquiries as to whether I was hurt.
I had fallen upon my left shoulder and hip, and my head had fortunately escaped without the same sudden contact with the stones; so that, though somewhat confused, I could reply that I believed I was not much injured, but that I could not rise without assistance.
"Help him to rise," cried a voice, which very much resembled that of the Chevalier de Montenero, "and give him what assistance you can."
The person who spoke I could not see; but the servants, who had been hitherto gazing at me without lending me any very substantial aid, now hurried to raise me, one taking me by each arm. This proceeding, however, gave me such exquisite pain in my left shoulder, that after a groan or two, and an ineffectual effort to make them comprehend that they were inflicting on me the tortures of the damned, I lost all recollection with the excess of agony.
When I recovered my perception of what was passing around me, I found that the servants had procured a kind ofbrancard, or litter, and having laid me upon it, were carrying me on, I conjectured, to the house of some surgeon.
They stopped, however, a moment after, at the entrance of what was evidently a very handsome private hotel, and passing through theporte cochèreand the court, they bore me into an immensesalle-à-manger, and thence into a small chamber beyond, where I was carefully laid on a bed, and bade to compose myself, as a surgeon had been sent for, and would arrive, they expected, immediately.
He was not indeed long; and on examining my side, he found that my shoulder was dislocated, but that I had sustained no other injury of consequence. After a painful operation, the process of which I need not detail, I was put to bed, and the surgeon having given me a draught to procure sleep and allay the pain I suffered, recommended me to be kept as quiet as possible, and left me. I did not, however, suffer all the servants to quit the room without inquiring whether I had not heard the voice of the Chevalier de Montenero.
The valet replied, that he thought I must have been mistaken, for he never heard of such a name in all his life; but as there had been a good many persons round about when I was taken up, it was possible one of these might have spoken in the manner I mentioned.
I was now left alone, and I endeavoured to forget as fast as possible, in the arms of sleep, all the unpleasant circumstances round which memory would fain have lingered. It was in vain, however, that I did so; the feverish aching of my bones kept slumber far away. Every noise that stirred in the house I heard; every step that moved along its various halls and passages seemed beating upon the drum of my ear: I could hear my own blood rush along my veins and throb in my head, as if Vulcan and all the Cyclops of Etna had transferred their anvils to my brain.
While in this state, a light suddenly shone through the keyhole and under the door, and I heard several persons enter the dining-hall through which I had been borne thither. Everything that was said reached my ears as distinctly as if I had been present, and I soon found that the principal person who entered was the nephew of the proprietor of the house. He had just returned, it seemed, from some spectacle, and bringing a friend with him, demanded supper with the tone of a spoiled boy, who knew that his lightest word was law to all who surrounded him. The supper was brought, with apparently all the delicacies he demanded, for he made no complaint; and having sent for all the most excellent wines in his uncle's cellar, he dismissed the servants, and remained alone with his friend.
Tossing about, restless and irritable, I was nearly frantic with their mirth and their gaiety, and could have willingly murdered them both to make them silent; but soon their conversation began to take a turn which interested even me. The youth, who was evidently the entertainer, and whom his companion named Charles, had for several minutes been expatiating with all the hyperbolical enthusiasm of youthful passion on some beautiful girl whom he had determined, he said, to marry, let who would oppose it. Her name was mentioned by neither of the speakers, their conversation referring to something that had passed before. With the very natural pleasure which most people experience in finding all sorts of obstacles to whatever another person proposes, the friend seemed bent upon suggesting difficulties in opposition to his companion's passion. "Consider, my dear Charles," said he, "this girl may be as beautiful as the day, but, from her father's situation, her education must have been very much neglected."
"Not at all! not at all!" replied the lover. "Her education, as far as learning and accomplishments go, will shame the whole court, and her manners are those of a princess of Eldorado. Why, I told you, she has been brought up all her life by the Countess de Bigorre."
It may easily be supposed that such words did not tend to calm the beating of my heart; and in the agitation caused by thus suddenly discovering that Helen was the subject of their conversation, I lost what passed next. In a moment after, however, the lover replied to some question of his companion. "I do not very well know why her father took her away from the Countess and brought her to Paris; I should have supposed that it would have been much more convenient to him in every respect to have left her where she was. However, I am his most humble and very obedient servant, for I should never have seen her otherwise; and marry her I will, if I should carry her off for it."
"But her birth, Charles, her birth!" said his companion. "What will your uncle think of that?--he who is so proud of his own."
"Oh!" replied the hot-brained youth, "you know I can do anything with my uncle; and besides, this father of hers has been quietly accumulating a large fortune, it seems, one way or another; and so that must cover the sin of her birth in my uncle's eyes. But say what you will, or what he will, or what any one will, I will marry her if I live to be a year older."
"What! and discharge the little Epingliere, Jeannette?" asked his companion, with a laugh.
"Oh, that does not follow," answered the other; "'tis always well to have two strings to one's bow; and Jeannette is too charming to be parted with for these three years at least: butmadame ma femmewill know nothing ofmademoiselle ma bonne amie, and I shall find her proud beauty the more delightful by contrasting it with the more modest charms of Jeannette."
"The more simple charms, you mean, not the more modest," replied his companion; "I never heard that Jeannette was famous for her modesty!"
The opium draught which I had taken, counteracted in its effects by the pain of my body, and the irritation of my mind, began to make me somewhat delirious. Strange shapes seemed flitting about my bed--I saw faces looking at me out of the darkness, and insulting me with fiendish grins. At the same time, the light way in which the weak young man in the next chamber spoke of Helen--of my sweet, my beautiful Helen--worked me up to a pitch of frantic rage, which, mingling with the delirium of opium, made me resolve to get up and avenge her upon the spot. I accordingly raised myself in bed, and after sitting upright for a moment or two, with my brain seeming to whirl like the eddy of a stream, I got out with infinite difficulty, when the cold air, and the chill of the stones to my feet, in some degree recalled me to my senses, and instead of groping for my sword, as I intended, I returned towards my bed; but coming upon it sooner than I had expected, I struck it with my knee, fell over upon it, and, with the sort of despairing heedlessness of fever and wretchedness, lay still where I had fallen, till the opium overpowering me, I lost all recollection of my misery in a deep and deathlike slumber.
It was late ere I woke, and when I did so, it was with one of those dreadful headachs, which seem to benumb every faculty of the mind and body; while at the same time, the bruises all over my left side were even more sensitively painful than the night before.
The first thing I heard was a woman's voice, inquiring how I found myself; and looking round, I perceived a good-looking, fattish nun, of one of the charitable sisterhoods, sitting in a chair by my bedside. She seemed one of those good dames who attach themselves to great families, and act as an inferior sort of almoner, performing the part of charitable go-betweens; attending the sick servants with somewhat more skill than an apothecary, and more attention than a physician; serving as head nurse to the lady of the mansion, and acquiring much consequence with the poor, by dispensing the bounty of the rich.
In answer to her question, I replied that I was in very great pain, both from a violent headach, and the bruises I had received; whereupon she immediately produced the phial, from which the surgeon had the night before administered his sleeping draught, intimating that I must take another portion to relieve me from what I suffered; and informing me, at the same time, in a very oracular tone, that it was not at all wonderful that my bones ached, after sleeping all night naked on the outside of the bed.
As I attributed the excessive aching of my head entirely to the contents of the bottle she held in her hand, I resisted magnanimously all her persuasions to take more of its contents for some time; but at length her offended authority instigated her to such an outcry, that I would have drunk Phlegethon red-hot to have quieted her. I took, accordingly, what she gave, and was about to have asked some questions in regard to my situation, when she stopped me, with a profoundly patronising air, and told me, that if I would promise to keep myself quite quiet, and not agitate myself, I should be favoured with a visit from a young lady who took an interest in me.
"Who, who? in the name of Heaven!" cried I, the idea of Helen instantly flashing across my mind. "Tell me, tell me who!"
"Use not Heaven's name for such vanities, young gentleman," said the nun. "Who the young lady is, you will see directly; and I have only to tell you, that her father has granted her five minutes to converse with you, for old friendship's sake, and she has promised that it shall be no more; therefore you must not seek to stay her." So saying, she left me, and in a moment after the door again opened, and Helen herself, my own beautiful Helen, came forward towards me, with a look of eager gladness, that, while it surprised me, took a heavy load from off my heart.
She glided forward to my bedside, laid her dear soft hand in mine: after gazing for a moment on my worn and haggard features, burst into a flood of tears.
"Dear, dear Helen!" said I, "then yon love me still?"
"And ever will, Louis!" answered she, speaking through her tears. "Whatever they may say, whatever they may think, I will love you still, Louis, and none but you.--Only tell me that you love me also, and not another, as they would have me believe, and nothing shall shake the affection that I have ever borne towards you."
"Love another!" cried I. "Helen, you have never believed them for a moment. For Heaven's sake tell me, that such a base suspicion never for an instant made any impression on your heart."
"I never believed it, Louis," answered she; "for I never believed that anything base could for a moment harbour in your bosom; and yet it gave me pain, I knew not why.--But let me tell you what has happened to me personally during your absence. I cannot tell you my father's motives, for I do not know them, but I can tell you----"
"Oh no, no, Ellen!" cried I, shrinking from the detail of what must have followed the discovery of her brother's death, and beginning to doubt that she attributed it to me. "Oh no, no, dear Helen! spare me all that unhappy detail. I chanced to overhear last night, from some persons speaking in that chamber, that your father had come and taken you from the protection of my mother. I easily conceived his reasons--I heard all--I heard everything, by that conversation last night; and all that now needs explanation is, how any one could dare to tell you that I loved another."
"Indeed, Louis, many believed it--everyone, I may say, but myself," Helen replied; "but the time I am allowed to remain grows short. Before anything else, let me communicate to you what my father bade me say for him. If you wish to see him, he says, he will see you; but you must be prepared, if he does so, to explain to him every part of your conduct; and to show him that the blood which he cannot help attributing to you rests not on your head. Forgive me, Louis! oh, forgive!" she continued, seeing me turn deadly pale: "I pain you, I see I pain you; but it was only on condition that I would deliver this cruel message, that they would permit me to see you. It is not I that ask you, Louis, to do anything that is painful to you. I am sure--I am certain, you are not guilty. I cannot--I will not believe it. But my father will not see you without you can explain it all. Can you then, dear Louis--will you see him?"
"Helen, I cannot," replied I.
She gazed at me for a moment in silence.
"Hark! they call me," said she at length. "Oh, Louis, before I go, say something to comfort me; say something to sustain in my breast that confidence of your innocence which has been my consolation and my hope."
"All I can say, dear Helen," replied I, "is, that in wish, and intention, I was as innocent as you are; but that accident has made me appear culpable, and that I have nothing but my own word to prove that I was not purposely guilty."
"But your own word is enough for me," answered Helen, catching, I believe gladly, at any assurance that could maintain her belief in my innocence; "I will believe it myself, and I will try and make others believe it. But I must leave you, Louis; they are calling me again. Adieu, adieu!"
"But, Helen, dear Helen, you will see me again?" cried I, struggling to raise myself. "Promise me that."
"Most assuredly," answered Helen, "if they will allow me;" and obedient to a sign from the nun, who had returned to the room while I was speaking, she glided away and left me. A thousand questions did I now ask the good sister, but with a curious felicity of evasion she parried them all; now with an affectation of mistaking me, now with an ambiguous reply; now with a refusal to answer, like a skilful fencer, who, whether his adversary lunges straightforward or feints, still finds some parade to guard his own breast, and repel the attack in all its forms. Not a word could I extract from her on any subject whereupon I wished information, and gradually the drowsiness of the opium began to take away the power of questioning her any farther.
From what I have learned since, I am led to believe that the good lady, in administering the sleeping potion, which she had deafened me into taking, had poured out at least double what was ordered by the surgeon. At all events, its effect was much more rapid and powerful than the night before; for, with all the busy thoughts which my interview with Helen might well suggest, with all the bitter remembrances it called up, with all the painful anticipations to which it gave rise, slumber came rapidly upon me; and before half an hour had passed after her departure, I fell into a deep sleep, which a little more of the same sedative would probably have converted into the sleep of death.
When I again awoke it was night, but the darkness was not disagreeable to me. I was easier in bodily sensation than I had been in the morning; and I pleased myself with calling to mind every gentle word which my beloved Helen had spoken, with conjuring up again every sweet look, and dreaming over that fond devoted affection which, in the midst of the sorrows and uncomforts that surrounded me, was like some guiding star to a voyager on the inhospitable ocean. But then came the idea of seeing her father; and I thought, even if she could convince him of my innocence, how could I clasp his hand with that which had slain his child. I remembered my feelings towards him when, entirely abandoning his sweet child to the care of my mother, he seemed to have resigned all his paternal rights, and it had been only my respect for Helen which had saved him from my unconcealed contempt.--I remembered, too, his long nourished dislike towards me, and I asked myself whether he would feel it less now, that he could not but suspect me of the death of his son.
Yet still his pride might be gratified to ally his child to the house of Bigorre, and to see his descendants attached to that noble class to which he could not himself aspire. But then again, if he had really accumulated so much wealth, as the conversation I had overheard had intimated, he could easily match his daughter, with so rich a dower of beauty as well as gold, amongst families as noble as my own, where no such fearful objections existed as that which interposed between Helen and myself. What needed I more? The weak youth, of whose passion for her I had been made an unwitting confidant, with evidently high-birth and proud connections, stood ready to unite himself to the daughter of the low procureur of Lourdes, and give her that rank and station which I doubted not that Arnault coveted. Helen, I was sure, would never consent; and yet I teased myself with the dread, fancying all that perseverance and the persuasions and commands of a parent might do against an almost hopeless love.
While I thus alternately solaced myself with dwelling upon all the sweetness, the beauty, the affection of her I loved, and tormenting myself with imagining all that might separate us; epitomising in one short hour the many fluctuating hopes and fears of a long human life; to my surprise the darkness became less opaque, and by the grey which gradually mingled with the black, I found that morning was imperceptibly stealing upon night, so that my slumber must have lasted more than twenty hours.
But a still greater surprise awaited me. Gradually as the day dawned, one object after another struck me as resembling the furniture of the little room which I had tenanted ever since I quitted the inn after my arrival in Paris. Was I dreaming still? or had I dreamed? I asked myself. Had all I had seen during the last two days been but a delusion, or was I still labouring under some deception of my imagination? But no! with the clear daylight it became evident that I was there--in the little chamber I had hired in the Rue des Prêtres St. Paul. There was the carved scrutoire, with its thousand grotesque heads; there the old table which had acknowledged more than one dynasty; there lay my clothes, my hat, my sword, as if I had left them there on going to bed the night before; and nothing served to show that the whole I have lately described was not a dream, except the bruises on my shoulder and side, which smacked somewhat painfully of reality. In about an hour afterwards, my good landlady came in, to ask if I wanted anything; and from her I learned that I had been brought home on a litter still sound asleep, by some persons she did not know, who told her I had met with an accident, and bade her take great care of me, enforcing their injunction with a piece of gold.
This was an effort of liberality on the part of Arnault which I had not expected, either from his own character, which was notedly avaricious, or from the general rule of nature, that the long habit of accumulating small sums narrows the heart and leaves no room for any generous feeling. I began to believe that I had been mistaken in his character, and I tried, fondly, to persuade myself with a theory as fallacious as any other of those fallacious things, theories, that the father of so noble-spirited a girl as Helen, whose whole soul was liberality, and her every thought a feeling, must, in some degree, partake of the same nature, and possess hidden qualities which, when called into action, would shine out and assert their kindred.
My good landlady, in common with all old women, had a strange prejudice in favour of keeping those she looked upon as sick in bed; but in spite of all her persuasions, I got up and dressed myself. My first care was to examine what money I had left after the sad dilapidation which the gaming-table had effected on my purse, though, indeed, I expected to find that the tender-hearted gentleman who had thrown me out of the window had charitably taken care that the few crowns which had remained in my pocket should not weigh me down in my descent.
My own purse, indeed, was gone; but in its place, to my no small surprise, I found one containing a hundred louis d'ors. This, of course, had come from Arnault, though how he came to know that I stood in need of such supply I could not divine. For some time I remained undetermined whether I should make use of the sum or not. Pride whispered that Arnault had removed me from the neighbourhood of his daughter, possibly to marry her to some one else; and should I then, accept the vile roturier's bounty--his charity! At the same time necessity urged that I had nothing but that for the daily wants of life; that if I hoped ever to discover Helen's dwelling in that great city, and having done so, never again to lose sight of her, I must have the aid of that talismanic metal, whose touch discovers, and secures, and perfects everything.
But a moment's reflection made me regard the question with better feelings; Arnault had removed me from his daughter--true! but it was because he believed me to be the murderer of his son; and he was therefore justified in doing so. He had placed the money where I found it, probably not out of charity, for he knew that I could easily repay it ultimately, but to relieve me from a temporary necessity. There was yet another supposition--perhaps Helen had placed it there herself. Pride between me and Helen was out of the question; and there was something so sweet in the very idea of following her wishes, even though she knew it not, that I should have looked upon hesitation after that supposition crossed my mind as the meanest of vanities. I determined then to make use of the money thus placed at my disposal, and to reimburse the donor, if Arnault, at a future period--if Helen had been the giver, to repay her whenever I could discover her abode by telling her I had used it well.
The effort of dressing had caused me a great deal of pain; and while I sat down to rest myself afterwards, I sent a boy to inquire at my inn in theRue du Prouvaires, whether my little friend Achilles had appeared there during my absence. In about an hour I heard the rush of feet galloping up the stairs, with the rapidity of joy; the door flew open, and in rushed Achilles--but no longer the Achilles I had left him. The smart Spanish dress of which he had possessed himself at Barcelona was gone. The hat, the plume, the sword, had given way to all the external signs of poverty and want. His head was as bare as when he came into the world; and his shoulders were covered with a grey gown which had once belonged to a monk. The fashion of it, indeed, had been somewhat altered, for the cowl had been made serviceable in patching several momentous rents, which might otherwise have exposed the little man's person somewhat more than decency permitted.
"Well, Achilles," said I, when, the first transport of his joy at finding me having passed away, I could find an opportunity of speaking, "you seem to have been engaged in traffic since I saw you, and not to have gained upon the exchange."
"Oh, you will pardon me, monseigneur!" replied he, grinning as merrily as ever, "I have gained a vast fund of experience. I know that is a sort of commodity the returns upon which are slow, but they are very sure; and I will try to make the most of it."
"But from what I see," rejoined I, with somewhat, I am afraid, of a cynical sneer at the light-heartedness which I could not myself acquire, "I am afraid you paid very dear for your bargain."
"Not cheap, I confess," replied he: "somewhere about three hundred pistoles, a good suit, a dozen of shirts, and a whipping through the streets of Lyons--that is all."
"A whipping!" cried I; "that is a part of the account I did not reckon upon, and not one of the most pleasant, I should conceive. But come, Achilles, let us hear your story. It must be somewhat curious."
"Not very," answered Achilles; "but it is short, which is something in favour of a story. After your lordship's departure, I embarked in the boat for Lyons, as soon as it thought fit to sail, and we began our long slow voyage up the river, which at first was very tedious. Soon, however, I hit upon a way of amusing myself; for, seeing a respectable old merchant of Lyons with a young lady, whom I took to be his daughter, I went up and introduced myself to them as Monsieur le Comte de Grilmagnac; told them that, preferring the easy gliding motion of the river to the rumbling of a carriage, or the jolting of a horse, I had sent my equipage and servants by land, and instantly began to make love to the daughter.
"The old gentleman seemed so uneasy at the advances that I made in her favour, that I began to fear he suspected me; and to do away all doubt, when we stopped to dine, I took a handful of gold out of my pocket, and asked what was to pay, with the air of a prince. The young lady seemed ravished with the sight of the gold pieces; but my old merchant grew more uneasy than ever, and always got between me and the young lady when I wanted to speak with her, so that I began to grow suspicious in my turn, and to doubt whether the tie between them was not somewhat more tender than the relationship. This doubt induced me to watch the pair more diligently than ever; for she was as beautiful a girl as ever your worship set your worshipful eyes upon, and the old gentleman as venerable an old piece of withered bamboo as ever fell into sin in his dotage; so you may easily conceive I could not bear to see such a rosebud withering upon such a desert.
"Well, this went on with various success till we arrived at Lyons, and I cannot say my fair Phillis was at all inclined to second her guardian's efforts to repulse me; so that we had time to arrange that I should go to theaubergeof theLion d'or, on our disembarkation, and there wait a note from my fair enslaver. To theLion d'orI went, and soon received a summons to fly to my charmer, whom I found, as herbillet-douxintimated, waiting for me in a very respectable lodging in the Rue St. Pierre.
"Here--her face half in tears, half in smiles, like the opening of an April morning--she told me that she had now no friend but me; for that her cruel tyrant, the instant of their arrival, had commanded her to abandon me for ever. This the passion I had inspired her with would not permit; and being too frank, she said, to deceive any one, she had at once refused. A quarrel ensued--he had cast her off penniless; and though she could instantly fly to the Baron d'Ecumoir, or the Marquis de la Soupierre, she had preferred putting herself under my protection; for she owned that she never loved any one but me.
"Though this was as sweet as honey, yet, as I well perceived that with such a charmer's assistance my dearly beloved pistoles would soon fly half over Lyons, I bethought myself seriously of the best means of transferring her, with all speed, to the Marquis de la Soupierre. However, to lull all suspicion of the waning state of my affection, I prepared to entertain her handsomely, till good luck should furnish me with the means of beating a quiet retreat; and accordingly sent to the traiteur's for a good dinner, as the very best means of consoling a distressed damsel.
"Over rich ragouts and heady burgundy the hours slipped lightly by, and I could see in my little Phillis's sparkling eye her satisfaction with the conquest she had made. Alas! that mortal joy should be so transitive! In the midst of our happiness, care, and melancholy, and gloom, and despite rushed suddenly upon us, in the form of four ferocious archers, who pitilessly arrested Phillis on the charge of having robbed her former venerable protector, and hurried me to prison along with her as an accomplice.
"Phillis had taken care to hide the place of her retreat, but she knew not the cunning of archers; and though, when they came, she protested her innocence in terms that would have convinced the hard heart of Minos, and won the unwilling ears of Rhadamanthus, yet, as the whole of the stolen goods were found in her valise, the unfeeling archers would not believe a word; and, as I have said before, we were both hurried to prison, without any farther ceremony than taking from us every farthing that we had in the world.
"The next morning we were brought before a magistrate, who reserved Phillis's case for his private consideration. As to mine, as nothing could be proved against me, except that I had called myself the Count de Grilmagnac without being able clearly to prove all my quarters of nobility, I was ordered to be whipped through the town for my ignorance of heraldry, and then discharged. My whipping I bore with Christian fortitude; but the loss of my doublet, which the executioner kept for his fee, and the loss of my money, which the archers kept because they liked it, tore my heartstrings; and setting out from that accursed town of Lyons, where injustice and cruelty walk hand-in-hand, I begged my way to Paris, and reached the famous hotel where you had appointed me to meet you. There the landlord told me no such person as your lordship resided, and bade me get out for a lazy beggar. A black dog, that stood in the yard, instantly took up the matter where the landlord left off, and I was in the act of making my escape from them both when the boy you sent arrived, inquiring for me.
"The joy which took possession of my heart, I need not tell; suffice it that I made the boy run all the way here, and that, having now found you, I have determined never to leave you, or let you leave me again; for while we were together nothing but good fortune attended us, and since we have been separated nothing but ill-luck has been my share; so that the only consolation I can have, will be to hear, that while my scale was down, yours has been up, and that Dame Fortune has at least befriended one of us."
I could not refuse to tell my history also to my little attendant, though it occasioned less amusement to him than his had done to me; and his face grew longer and longer at every incident I detailed, till at last, passing over all that regarded Helen, I informed him that, on being conveyed home I found my pocket encumbered with a hundred louis.
This news instantly cleared his countenance. "Who would not be thrown out of window for a hundred louis?" cried he; "but Vive Dieu! your excellency has suffered yourself to be desperately cheated in regard to your ring. Six louis! If I know anything of diamonds, it was well worth thirty. However, first let me exercise my chirurgical skill upon your eminence's shoulder, and after that I will see whether the ring cannot be recovered."
"Nay, nay," cried I, "my good Achilles, give me what titles of honour you like, except your eminence; that is a rank which it might be dangerous to usurp. Call me your majesty, if you like, but not your eminence. As to the ring, I believe you are right, and I will willingly give double what I received to recover it again."
"Less than that will do," replied Achilles; "a louis for me to buy myself a suit at a fripier's, a louis for anarcher de la cour, and the sum you had originally received, and I think I can manage it."
I warned him, if I may use the homely proverb, not to go forth to shear and come home shorn; and having suffered him to examine my shoulder, gave him the address of the jeweller, and let him depart.
From my lodging, as he told me afterwards, he went to the shop of a fripier, where he furnished himself with a decent suit of livery, and thence proceeded to find out an archer of one of the courts of justice, to whom he explained the affair, and gave half a louis as earnest, promising the other half if the ring should be recovered. The eloquence of the little player touched the tender heart of the archer, at the same moment that the money touched his palm; and, shouldering his partisan, without more ado he followed to the shop of the jeweller. Achilles entered alone, and desiring to see some diamond rings, made up a slight allegory to suit the occasion, informing the jeweller that his master, the Count de l'Orme, had commissioned him to buy him a handsome jewel, as a present for his mistress. The jeweller instantly produced a case of rings, which he spread out before the eyes of Achilles, commenting on their beauty. Achilles instantly pitched upon the one I had sold, and asked the price. "Forty louis!" replied the jeweller, "and I only sell it so cheap because I bought it second-hand. I require no more than a fair profit. If I gain five per cent., may I be branded for a rogue!"
"I will tell you a secret, jeweller," replied Achilles. "You are very likely to be branded for a rogue. You bought this ring, knowing it to be stolen." The jeweller stared. "It was taken from the person of my noble lord the Count de l'Orme," proceeded Achilles, "when he was knocked down and robbed in the Rue St. Jacques. One of the thieves is taken--the very one who sold it to you--a tall, dark young man, with curling hair, black moustache, and a beard not six months old. He says you gave him six louis for it; and as you know it to be worth forty, you must have been very well aware, when you bought it, that it was stolen."
"Ho, ho!" cried the jeweller; "so you wish to cheat me out of my ring. But come, my little man," he continued, catching Achilles by the collar, "I will send for an archer, and see you safe lodged in prison, without farther to do."
Achilles, according to his own account, took the matter very calmly. "As to the archer," said he to the jeweller, "I thought to myself before I came here, that a man who gave but six louis for a diamond worth thirty might be somewhat refractory, and, therefore, I brought one with me. Ho! archer! Without there?"
The jeweller, not a little confounded, instantly let go Achilles's collar; and, as the archer marched in with his partisan, began to shake in every limb, doubtless well aware that all his dealings would not bear that strict examination which they were likely to undergo, if chance should call the prying eyes of the law upon them.
"I take you to witness, archer," said Achilles, addressing his ally, "that I have offered this jeweller the same price which the young man swears he got for this ring, namely, six louis; and that he, the jeweller, will not sell it for less than forty, which proves that he knew it to be stolen."
"Certainly," said the archer, in a solemn tone.
"You never offered me the six louis," said the jeweller. "I never said I would not part with it under forty. Give me the six, and take it, and the devil give you good for it; for it is not worth more."
"Then you are a great rogue for having asked forty," replied Achilles, with imperturbable composure: and, thereupon, he entered into solemn consultation with the archer, as to whether he could safely and legally give the money and take back the ring; as it was evident the jeweller was an accomplice of thieves, and ought to be brought to justice.
"Gentlemen," cried the terrified jeweller at length, alarmed at all the awful catalogue of pros and cons which Achilles and the archer banded about between them, "I declare, on my salvation, I knew nothing of the ring being stolen. I thought the person who brought it here was some poor gentleman, pressed for money, who would sell it for anything; and, therefore, I offered six louis for it. All I ask back is what I gave, and I am content to present this worthy archer with a gold piece to compensate the trouble he has had."
"Give him the money," said the archer, "give him the money, and take the ring, we must not be too hard upon the poor devil."
The money was accordingly given, the archer received his fee, and Achilles carried off the ring to me in triumph; not only having had the satisfaction of biting the biter, but also having won the warm friendship of an archer of the Court of Aides, which, to a man of his principles and practice, was a most invaluable acquisition.
Achilles, on his return, amused me with the account I have just given, while he rubbed my shoulder with some unguent, bought for the purpose; and, though I was not over well pleased at having been played off as a robber, with so particular a description also as he had given of my person, yet I was not at all sorry that the jeweller had been pinched for his roguery, and not a little rejoiced with the recovery of my ring.
As I have before said, the little player, though as cunning as a sharper in some matters, was in others as simple as a child; and, like a boy with his first crown-piece, fortune never gave him any sum, however small, but he seemed to think it inexhaustible. Thus, from time to time, he found so many delightful ways of employing my hundred louis, that, had I followed his advice, one single day would have seen me at the end of all my riches: but I soon put a stop to the building of his castles in the air, by informing him that I intended to live with the most rigid economy, till such time as I had an opportunity of writing to my father; at the same time begging him to make up his mind to follow my example, if he still held his intention of remaining with me.
"Oh, very well, monseigneur, very well," cried he, gaily, "anything contents me. Icanlive upon ortolans and stewed eels, but I do not object to onion soup and a crust of bread. Nay, when the soup cannot be had, the crust must serve."
Having arranged in my own mind all my plans for pursuing my economical system as strictly as possible, I sat down to the long-deferred task of writing to my father: for now that I had seen Helen, half the difficulty was removed. No matter what were the contents of the letter which I wrote; it never went. Posts, in those days, were not the regular mechanical contrivances which our present glorious monarch has instituted for the purpose of facilitating the communication of every part of his dominions with the others. Couriers, indeed, passed to and fro from one part of the empire to another, carrying the letters of individuals, as well as the despatches of the state; but all the arrangements concerning them were much in the same state as Louis XI. had left them. Their departure from Paris was at uncertain and irregular times; and their journeys were generally directed towards the principal cities, having either commercial or political relations with the capital. The difficulty, therefore, of conveying anything to a remote and little frequented part of the empire delayed my letter for some time; and before an opportunity presented itself, circumstances had changed.
In the meanwhile, I employed my mornings in searching for the mansion wherein I had seen Helen; but, although aided by all the wit of little Achilles, to whom I communicated enough information to guide him on the search, I wandered through the streets of Paris in vain, watching the opening gates of every large hotel I saw, in the hope of beholding the livery in which the servants I had seen were dressed, and forcing my recollection to recall the appearance of the archway under which I had been carried, till a thousand times I deceived myself into hope, and as often encountered disappointment.
Once only I thought myself sure of the discovery. The porte-cochère of a house near the Place Royale struck me as the very same I had passed, while borne upon thebrancardby the servants. Every ornament, every pillar was there, as far as I could remember. There were the curious Gothic mouldings upon which the torch-light had flashed as we passed through--there were the two immense couchant bears carved in stone on each side of the arch, on the back of one of which the bearers had rested the litter, while their companions opened the gates. Everything seemed the same; and, taking my stand under the porch of the monastery of the Minims, I kept watch for two hours, till a servant coming out, showed me, to my surprise, a livery totally different from that which I had both hoped and expected to see.
It may be asked what was my object in thus seeking for Helen, when I knew, when I felt that my union with her was impossible--when at the very thought her brother's spirit seemed to rise up before me, and, with the same ghastly look which he had worn in death, bid me forget such hopes for ever. Why did I seek her? No one that has loved will ever ask. I sought her for the bright brief happiness which the presence of the loved still gives, after every expectation is crushed and withered. I sought her with that dreamy sort of lingering with which a mother hangs over the frail clay of her dead child. My hopes were blighted, my happiness was gone; and yet the very object that most nourished my regret was that on which I could look most fondly, and which I sought with the most anxious, most unremitting care.
Thus passed my mornings, in fruitless search and continual disappointment. My evenings flew in a different manner, not in studying "The Sure Way of Winning," or in practising its precepts, for such a horror had seized me of that hell-invented vice, gaming, and of all that appertains to it, that my first care had been to throw the book I had bought into the fire. The temporary passion which had seized me, I looked upon, and can almost look upon now, as a fit of insanity; for taught as I had been from my infancy to abhor its very name, nothing but absolute madness could have hurried me to a vice at once so degrading and so dangerous--which, as far as regards the mind, is in fact, at best, a combination of avarice and frenzy. I had now bought myself a variety of books on military tactics, and, without any defined purpose in the study, I spent my whole evenings in poring over these treatises of attack and defence--a greater and a nobler species of gambling than that which I had quitted, it is true, but only less mad, inasmuch as it is a game which any one nation can compel another to play, and where those must lose who have not studied to win.
I also went occasionally to a hall that an Italian fencer had fitted up in the Rue Pavée for the purpose of turning a high reputation he had acquired in Europe into ready money. Here the room, which was furnished with all sorts of arms offensive and defensive, was well lighted every night, and the assembled company either formed practising parties amongst themselves, or took lessons from the Italian himself, who was one of the most athletic men I ever beheld, and certainly a most complete master of his weapons.
My father, I have said, was perhaps the most skilful swordsman of his day; and he had taken care that his son should not be wanting in an accomplishment in which he was such a proficient. I was, therefore, certainly more than equal in point of skill to any one who frequented the Italian's hall, and very nearly a match for himself. This, however, seemed rather to give him pleasure than otherwise; and whenever I entered he saluted me with the respect which he enthusiastically imagined due to every one skilful in the noble science of arms, frequently inviting me to stretch my limbs with him in an assault, and taking a delight in showing me all the minute refinements of his art.
This was the sole diversion I allowed myself, though while I mingled with the crowds where I knew no one, and wandered through the streets where I was a stranger, a sad feeling of loneliness--of miserable desolation--crept over my heart, and I returned to my lodging in the evening, grave, melancholy, and discontented.
Although there were now several companies of actors continually at Paris, to the play I never went, that being a sort of amusement too costly for the narrow bounds to which I had restrained my expenses; and, indeed, so strictly economical was I in all my habits, that my good landlady began to fancy me in want, and to show her commiseration for my condition by all those little delicate pieces of charity which a person who has felt both pride and suffering knows how to evince towards those whose spirit has not yet wholly bowed to its fate. Any little delicacy which fell in her way, she would add it to the breakfast that Achilles brought me from the traiteur's. Nor did she ever ask for her rent, but rather avoided me on those days when it became due; though I believe, in truth, she needed it not a little.
I understood her motives; and though I did not choose to undeceive her, I took care that she should not be a loser by the kindness which she showed me. Finding in her also a delicacy of feeling and refinement of conversation which were above her station, I would sometimes, when any chance led me to speak with her, endeavour to ascertain whether her situation had ever been more elevated than that which she at present filled; and on one of these occasions, she told me gratuitously that she had been in former years governante to the beautiful Henriette de Vergne, whose private marriage with the Count de Bagnols I have already mentioned more than once.
She was surprised to find that I was acquainted with so much of the history, of which she knew very little more herself. "As I was found to have been privy to the marriage," said she, "I was sent away directly, and denied all communication with my young lady, after it was discovered; but I saw the bloody spot where the poor count was slain, and the dents of the feet where the struggle had passed; and a fearful struggle it must have been, for two of the Marquis of St. Brie's men remained ill at the village for weeks afterwards, and no one was allowed to see them but his own surgeon. One of them died also; and his confession was said to be so strange, that the priest sent to Rome to know how far he was justified in keeping it secret. After that I came to Paris; and I heard no more of the family, which all went to ruin, except, indeed, some one told me that my young lady died shortly afterwards in a convent at Auch."
As I was, of course, anxious to transmit the papers which chance had placed in my hands, to any of the surviving members of the Count de Bagnols' family, I inquired particularly what information she could give me concerning them; but she was more ignorant of everything relating to them than even myself.
One morning, on my return from my vain searching after Helen, I was surprised on being informed that a stranger had inquired for me during my absence, and had begged the landlady to inform me that he would call again in the evening.
Where reason has no possible clue to guide her through the labyrinth of any doubt she pauses at the gate, while imagination seems to step the more boldly in; and, as if in mockery of her timid companion, sports through every turning till she either finds the track by accident, or, tired of wandering through the inexplicable maze, she spreads her Dædalian wings and soars above the walls that would confine her. I had no cause to believe that one person sought me more than another, and yet my fancy set to work as busily as if she had the most certain data to reason from. My first thoughts immediately turned to Arnault, and my next to the Chevalier de Montenero; and so strange was the ascendency which the last had gained over my mind, that the very idea of meeting with him inspired me with as much joy as if all my difficulties had been removed; but the description given in answer to my inquiries at once put to flight such a supposition. The stranger, my landlady informed me, was evidently a clergyman by his dress, and by his manner and appearance she guessed him to be one of a distinguished rank. It was, therefore, evidently neither the Chevalier nor Arnault, and the only supposition I could form upon the subject was that the Cardinal de Richelieu had at length deigned to take some notice of me.
My disposition was naturally impatient of all expectation, and the dull heaviness of the last week, which I had passed day after day in the same fruitless pursuit, had worked me up to a pitch of irritable anxiety, which people of a different temperament can hardly imagine. I wearied imagination, I exhausted conjecture; I hoped, I feared, I doubted, till day waned and night came; and, giving up all expectation of seeing the stranger that evening, I cursed him heartily for having said he would come, and not keeping his word, and sat down once more to my theory of tactics. I had scarcely, however, got through one quarter of a campaign, when the rapid motion of Achilles' feet on the stairs announced news of some kind, and in a moment after he threw open the door, giving admission to a stranger.
The person who entered was not much older than myself; he was tall and apparently well-made, but his clerical dress served him a good deal in this respect, concealing a pair of legs which were somewhat clumsy, and not the straightest in the world. His head was one of the finest I have ever seen; and his face, without, perhaps, possessing, one feature that was regularly handsome, except the full rounded chin and the broad expanse of forehead, instantly struck and pleased, giving the idea of great powers of mind joined with a light and brilliant wit that sparkled playfully in his clear dark eye. He bowed low as he entered, and advanced towards a seat, which I begged of him to take, with that quietness of motion which, without being stealthy, is silent and calm, and is ever a sign of high breeding and good society. I made Achilles a sign to withdraw; and expressing myself honoured by the stranger's visit, begged to know whether I was to attribute it to any particular object, or merely to his kind politeness towards a stranger.
"If there were any kindness in doing a pleasure to oneself," replied the stranger, "I would willingly take the credit of it; but in the present instance, as the gratification is my own, I cannot pretend to any merit."
This answer was somewhat too vague to satisfy me; and I replied, that "I was fully sensible of the honour done me; and would have much pleasure in returning his visit, when I knew where I might have the opportunity."
My method of receiving him, as equal with equal, seemed, I thought, somewhat to surprise him; for, half closing his eyes, in a manner which seemed common to him, he glanced round my small apartment with a scrutinizing look, too brief to be impertinent, and yet too remarking to escape my notice. "I shall esteem myself honoured by your visit," replied he, at length; "I am but a poor abbé,--my name Jean de Gondi, and you will find me for the present at the house of my uncle, the Duke de Retz."
It was, indeed, the famous abbé, afterwards Cardinal de Retz, with whom I was then in conversation. Not yet three and twenty years of age, he had already acquired one of the most singular reputations that ever man possessed. Daring, intriguing, and ambitious, nothing daunted him in his enterprises, nothing repelled him in their course. Storms and tumults were his element; and when, before he was seventeen, he wrote his famous "Conjuration de Fiesque," he seemed to point out the scene in which he was himself destined to act, to which nature prompted him from the first, and circumstances called him in the end. In his manner, there was a strange mixture of calm suavity, thoughtless vivacity, policy, frankness, and pride, which, combined together, served perhaps better to cover his immediate motives, and hide his real character, than the appearance of any uniform habit of mind which he could have assumed.
All men contain within themselves strange contradictions; but he was the only one I ever knew, who, upon the most mature reflection, acted in continual contradiction to himself. He would often put in practice the most consummate strokes of policy to gain a trifle, or to satisfy an appetite; and he would commit the most egregious follies and affect the most extravagant passions, to hide the shrewdest political schemes and conceal the best calculated and most subtle enterprises. He was a man on whom one could never calculate with certainty. It seemed his pleasure to disappoint whatever expectations had been formed of him; and yet, to hear him reason, one would have judged that the slightest action of his life was regulated by strong conclusions from fixed unvarying principles.
I had heard his character from many others, as well as from the Marquis de St. Brie; but as this last gentleman had calculated, when he sketched it to me, that my life would be limited to three days at the utmost, he could have had no possible motive in deceiving me.
With this knowledge of his character, then, it required no great discernment to see that the visit of De Retz was not without an object; and resolving, if it were possible, to ascertain precisely what that object was, I bowed on his announcing himself, and said, "Of course, Monsieur de Retz, it is needless for me to give you my name. You were certainly aware of that before you did me the honour of this visit."
"No, indeed!" replied he; "I am perfectly ignorant both of your name and rank, though, by your appearance, and by all I have heard of you, I can have no doubt in regard to the latter. The truth is, I was informed by persons on whom I could depend, that a young gentleman of singularly prepossessing appearance and manners had taken this apartment, and was supposed to be under some temporary difficulty."
I turned very red, I believe; but he proceeded. "People will talk of their neighbours' affairs, you know; and 'tis useless to be angry with them--but hearing this, as I have said, I felt an irresistible impulse to visit you, and to render you any assistance in my power. Nor will I regret it, even if I have been misinformed, inasmuch as it has gained me the pleasure of your acquaintance."
With such a speech there was no possible means of being offended, though I felt not a little angry at my affairs having been made matters of commiseration throughout the town. I was rather inclined to believe also, that the trouble which M. de Retz had given himself did not originate entirely in benevolence. I did not doubt that charity might have some part therein, for he had acquired a reputation, which I believe he deserved, for generous feeling towards the sufferings of his fellow-creatures; but the motives of men are so mixed that it is in vain tracing their original source. Like a great stream, the course of human action arises very often in five or six different fountains, each of which has nearly the same right as the others to be considered the head: and besides this, in flowing on from its commencement to its end, it receives the accession of a thousand other different currents, so that at the last not one drop in a million is the pure water which welled from any individual source.
I was very sure, therefore, of doing Monsieur de Retz no great injustice in supposing that his benevolence might be tinged with other feelings; and I replied, "I should be sorry, sir, that a mistake had given you the trouble of coming here, did I not derive so much benefit from that false rumour. My name is the Count de l'Orme, and I am happy that the bounty you proposed to exercise upon me may be turned towards some other person more needing and deserving it than I do."
"Be not offended, Monsieur de l'Orme," replied De Retz, "at a mistake which has nothing in it dishonouring. Poverty is much oftener a virtue than wealth. But your name strikes me--De l'Orme!--Surely that was not the name of the young gentleman that his highness the Count de Soissons expected to join him from Bearn--oh, no, I remember! it was Count Louis de Bigorre."
"But no less the same person," replied I, with an unspeakable joy at seeing the clouds break away that had hung over my fate--at finding myself known and expected where I had fancied myself solitary amongst millions. I felt as if at those few words I leapt over the barrier which had confined me to my own loneliness, and mingled once more in the society of my fellows. "I have always," continued I, "been called Count Louis de Bigorre; but circumstances induced me, when I left my father's house, to assume the title which really belongs to the eldest son of the Counts of Bigorre."
Monsieur de Retz saw that there was some mystery in my conduct, and he applied himself to discover my secret with an art and industry which would have accomplished much greater things. Nor did I take any great pains to conceal it from him. It is astonishing how weakly the human heart opens to any one who brings it glad news. The citadel of the mind throws wide all its gates to receive the messenger of joy, and takes little heed to secure the prisoners that are within. In the course of half an hour my new acquaintance had made himself acquainted with the greater part of my history; and when I began to think of putting a stop to my communication, I found that the precaution was of no use.
The moment, however, that he saw me begin to retire into myself, he turned the conversation again to the Count de Soissons, whom he advised me to seek without loss of time. "You will find in him," said he, "all that is charming in human nature. In his communion with society, he had but one fault originally; which was great haughtiness. He knew that it was a fault, and has had the strength of mind to vanquish it completely; so that you will see in him one of the most affable men that France can boast. In regard to his private character, you must make your own discoveries. The great mass of a man's mind, like the greater part of his body, he takes care to cover, so that no one shall judge of its defects except they be very prominent; and there are, thank God, as few that have hump-backed minds, as hump-backed persons! Indeed, it has become a point of decency to conceal every thing but the face even of the mind, and none but tatterdemalions and sans culottes ever suffer it to appear in its nakedness. To follow my figure, then, Monsieur le Comte is always well-dressed, so that you will find it difficult to know him; but, however, it is not for me to undress him for you. Take my advice, set out for Sedan to-morrow, where, of course, you know he is--driven from his country by the tyrannizing spirit of our detested and detestable cardinal. I rather think the Count intends to initiate you somewhat deeply into politics, but that must be his own doing also. Break your fast with me to-morrow, and I will give you letters and more information. Is it an engagement?"
I accepted the invitation with pleasure; and having answered one or two questions which I put to him, M. de Retz left me for the night.