AT the door of the hovel I found Moric, with one of the men who had been wounded in the arm, and an old woman, who was bandaging up the injured limb. The first exclamation of my worthy lieutenant was, "You will find them both in there, sir; and a good ransom ought you to have for that fair youth. He is the Seigneur de Blays. The old gentleman is with the lad, who is badly hurt, and a surgeon too; but little good will they do him, I fear. He is drilled like a keyhole, and if there was any wind it would whistle through him."
Without questioning him farther, though not comprehending one half of what he meant, I entered the hut; when, to my utter astonishment, I found young Martin Vern stretched upon the straw which had served me during the previous night for a bed, and his uncle standing behind him, with a most anxious and sorrowful countenance, while a surgeon, with a large pair of forceps, was drawing something, which proved to be a bullet, from the wound in his side. The young man bore the operation, which must have been extremely painful, with the utmost fortitude and resolution, shutting his teeth hard, so as to prevent even a groan from escaping.
Martin Vern looked at me as I entered somewhat reproachfully; but at that moment the surgeon, holding up the bullet in his forceps, exclaimed, "Here it is, here it is!" And on my asking some questions concerning the poor youth, he proceeded to pour forth upon me a quantity of barbarous terms, to explain the precise course the ball had taken, and the parts external and internal which had been wounded.
I cut him short as soon as possible, thinking I perceived through all these technicalities that the surgeon had hopes the youth would get better, and wished to give importance to the cure.
"Some better bed," he said, "must be provided for him immediately." And he added that, if we would see for one, he would wait and superintend the movement of the wounded man himself. I immediately turned to see what could be done, and was followed by the merchant himself; who, as soon as we were out of the door, shook his head ruefully at me, saying, "Ah! Monsieur de Cerons, this was not kind of you, when you knew how much I wished to keep that boy from this warlike folly of his."
"My good friend," I replied, "You are entirely mistaken in supposing that I had any share in this matter. On my honour, I was not aware who it was that fought so gallantly beside me till I entered the hut this moment. He gave me no intimation of it; and I did not even know that I had an additional man in the field."
"I never knew anything of it," cried Moric Endem, who had heard our conversation. "I never knew anything of it till we were just going to march, and then he came up to me, and besought me, for pity's sake, to let him go with us. He had bought himself a casque and a cuirass; and I pushed him in anywhere into the ranks, thinking it a devil of a pity that a fine, high-spirited boy should be balked, and made a mere merchant of; to sit stupifying himself over a tall book, or selling silks and satins by the yard, when he is as proper a youth as ever was seen to take a lance in his hand and meet the enemy."
Martin Vern shook his head with a melancholy "What has come of it?" and added, "Well, Monsieur de Cerons, I am glad at least you had no share in it; for I owe you so much gratitude for different things, that I would rather repay you in any other way than think you had done me an unkindness to make the balance even. What I am to do now I cannot tell. Business of infinite importance, not only to myself, but to the prince and the admiral, calls me immediately to Bordeaux; and yet I cannot bear to leave this boy, whom his dying father placed under my charge not two months ago, without any one to take care of him or attend him."
"Leave him to me, my good friend; leave him to me," I said. "I will treat him, depend upon it, as a brother. To move him far now is out of the question; several days must elapse before Angoulême falls, as they have determined upon making another breach, and we have but five cannon in the army, two of which are but bastards. By the time the place is taken, he will be better able to bear moving; and no care shall be wanting on my part, I can assure you. You yourself will be back ere long, and, I trust, will find him better in all respects."
Martin Vern pressed my hand in his; and, thanking me with the deep, low-spoken words of true gratitude, he suffered it to be as I wished. At my suggestion, we sought for and were fortunate enough to find one of those beds which are fitted to horse-litters, which the merchant immediately bought in case that it should be necessary to move the wounded man to any distance. In it he was carried almost immediately to the house where Martin Vern had taken up his own abode, and which his wealth had ensured should be of a far superior description. There he placed in my hands the large sum of five hundred crowns for his nephew's expenses, and the fifty which he had promised for my escort. He besought me earnestly to spare nothing which could tend to the youth's recovery, to buy horses immediately to carry the litter in case of need; to ensure the constant attendance of the surgeon; and to see him myself as frequently as I could.
I said and did all that I could to comfort the worthy merchant; and a few words spoken to him in a low tone by his nephew ere he departed, telling him that, though I did not know who he was, I had saved his life by bearing him away from the breach, seemed to console good Martin Vern greatly, and give him greater confidence to leave the youth in my charge.
When all this was settled he bade him adieu, and mounted his horse to depart. He paused a moment to grasp my hand in his, and then, just as he was setting out, said, "The time will come, Monsieur de Cerons--the time will come, I am quite sure and confident, when I shall have an opportunity of showing my gratitude for all that you have done for me and mine."
As soon as he was gone I bethought me of my prisoner, whose situation for the time had quite passed from my mind; and, hastening back where I had left Moric Endem, I found my worthy lieutenant busily engaged in making preparations for rendering the hovel a somewhat more comfortable dwelling. As, however, it had been now arranged that I was to take up my abode in the house which had been hired for the young merchant, the adorning of what he termed my lodging was no longer necessary; and, on inquiring after the prisoner, I found that they had put him in a sort of back shed, where the old woman I had before seen was even then in the act of dressing the wound on his head.
On entering, I found a sentry at the door, and the prisoner with his hands tied, and very indignant at the treatment he had received. I was informed, however, that he had twice endeavoured to make his escape, and I therefore thought that few apologies were necessary. In justification of his conduct, he said that he had never surrendered, rescue or no rescue; and in consequence, before I would suffer his hands to be untied, I made him pronounce these words, something against his will. Although he was undoubtedly brave and high-spirited, I never yet saw man more full of loud-tongued bravado: and I thought that, before he had vented his indignation, he would literally have tried to cut my throat in the shed. I listened to all he had to say with much more coolness than he seemed to think respectful, and merely replied while I uncovered my arm, that the old woman might exercise her skill upon me also, "Sir, you are a prisoner, and therefore privileged to rail."
Before his hands had been untied for five minutes, however, he approached, looked at my arm, and said, "That's an awkward wound. How did you come by that, sir!"
"It is your handiwork, my good friend," I replied. "It was well it didn't go through my body."
"Indeed, indeed!" he cried, rubbing his hands; and I must say I never saw a person more heartily rejoiced at anything in my life than he was that he had given me the wound under which I was then suffering. "Well," he added at length, "I suppose I must forgive you for tying my hands, after such a wound as that; and now tell me, at what ransom do you intend to put me?"
"I know who you are," I replied, "and all about you; and I must say you have shown yourself a gallant soldier, though somewhat rash withal. You know of what consequence you are as well as I do, or better, and therefore I shall leave you to name your own ransom; so now let us see what you value yourself at."
I was not wrong in my calculation. To say the truth, I had been very much puzzled at what rate to fix his ransom myself; but, in trusting to his vanity to do it, I knew I could not be very far wrong. He hesitated, however, and said, "If you know who I am and all about me, you had better fix it."
"I know so far about you," I replied, "That you are the Seigneur de Blaye; and the old and ordinary custom is, that a lord's ransom is one year's revenue, besides what his captor may think fit to exact on account of the prisoner's reputation in arms. You know your revenues better than I do, and your reputation in arms better than I do, and I therefore leave it to you to fix it yourself, being sure that so brave a man must be a man of honour."
"I see, sir," he said, "that I have fallen into the hands of a gentleman, and therefore will deal frankly with you. My revenues are four thousand crowns a year; but since my uncle's death I have somewhat hurt my means. I trust you will, therefore, take the four thousand without exacting anything more."
So surprised, so astounded, I may say, I was at the very name and idea of receiving such a sum, in consequence of my first day's actual service in arms, that I could not reply for some minutes. I had heard such things occasionally recounted, and I knew that the famous Montluc had gained, or was likely to have gained, some few years before, no less than eighty thousand crowns as the ransom of a young Italian nobleman; but when it came home to myself, I could hardly believe it, with difficulty concealing my astonishment.
He mistook my silence, it would seem, for discontent, and was going to add something in regard to his condition and inability to pay a larger sum, when I stopped him, saying, "It is enough, Monsieur de Blaye; it is enough. As an honourable man, I do not doubt your word; and I have heard that it is a common saying of one of the bravest captains on your own side, I mean Monsieur Montluc, that it is not the custom to skin one's prisoners in the present day. I have your word of honour as a gentleman; and you will accordingly remain in the camp and be my guest until such time as your ransom can arrive."
"Oh! as soon as the city falls," he replied, "I will pay it you; and, in the mean time, thank you for your hospitality."
"Then you calculate upon the city falling very soon," I said, with a laugh.
He smiled in return, replying, "It ought to see all you Reformers rot before it surrenders, if the people in it knew what they were about; but there's Argence, and Grignaud, and Meziere, brave enough men when they are in the field, but without the slightest idea of holding a walled place. The old woman who has just dressed your arm would make a better governor of Angoulême. But, however, as soon as you get into Angoulême you shall have the money. The Jews will give it me on my bond. It is crammed full of Jews to the very doors, and that is another reason it will fall. But, however, I hope this is not the house, the hospitality of which you invite me to partake;" and he looked round the shed in which we were still standing with some dismay.
"Oh, no!" replied. "This and the hovel near was my only lodging last night; but I have got better quarters to-day, and, if you will come up with me, I will show you where they are."
The old lady who fulfilled the office of surgeon to the soldiery and inferior officers had managed to bind up my arm very skilfully, pouring in some peculiar compound of her own devising, which healed the wound so rapidly that I can scarcely say I received any farther inconvenience from it. After she had done and received her reward, we walked up to my new dwelling, and I assigned to the young lord a room immediately beneath that which I had chosen for myself.
Having done this, and given some little regularity to my affairs, I went out to visit the different quarters of the camp, and to see more with my own eyes than I had hitherto been able to see. The day passed over without any farther effort on our side than the erection and opening of the new battery; but, as I went round every part of the encampment, I twice met the Prince de Condé and D'Andelot, and once the Admiral de Coligny. They noticed me, I saw, though neither of them spoke; and while their conduct showed me there was no want of activity or vigilance on the part of our leaders, my appearance at different points of the camp was construed by them, I afterward found, into proofs of my zeal and industry. I mentioned that each of these generals had praised my conduct highly in the morning; but the most satisfactory proof to myself of having really acted well was afforded to me that night. On my return, towards supper-time, I found, besides one of my men on guard at the door, good Moric Endem standing talking to him while waiting my arrival.
"No want of men now, sir," he said. "This morning's work has got your name up famously. You have nothing to do but to whistle, and you'll have all the stray men of the camp. I have had a hundred talking to me about it already, at least; but, of course, I could do but little till I spoke to you. There were five or six rare old hands, however, that I could not let go away; so that we now muster seventeen. How many more would you like engaged?"
"At present." I replied, "not more than five-and-twenty or thirty in all, Moric. We can do a good deal with that number; more may be difficult to manage; and, though we are well provided for at present, they might, in the end, be difficult to feed."
"You are quite right, sir, you are quite right," replied my good lieutenant. "A small band, every one a good man, depend upon it, is better than an army, with every other man an ass or a sheep; and sure I am that I can fill up your troop till there shall not be thirty more desperate, fearless, skilful ragamuffins in the whole place."
"Well, do so," I replied, "as speedily as possible. And now, where is this Monsieur de Blaye?"
"Oh! you will find him down there, at the house by the river," replied Moric, with a grin, applying to the house at the same time an epithet which I had never heard before, but which instantly designated it as a place where no man of any refinement of mind or feeling could be found. "There he has been ever since you went away almost; and I hear from a soldier who served with him two years ago, that he is never satisfied except he is there, or with a dice-box in his hand. If you don't send Andriot after him, he'll not be up to supper."
"Andriot is a mere youth," I replied. "I wish you would go yourself, Moric."
"That I will, that I will," he said. "I am no prude about such things; though I cannot but think that a gentleman with his head broke might do better, or, at least, wait till the campaign is over."
Thus saying, he sped away, and soon returned, bringing the Seigneur de Blaye along with him. As I had not the keeping of my prisoner's morality, it gave me but little concern at the time; but it became afterward, I grieve to say, a matter of sad and great importance; and I must add here, that, during the three or four days he remained with me, though brave and good-humoured, as well as vain and light, his life was one continued course of the lowest intemperance and debauchery.
On the following day I went early to see the battery and the effect it had produced; but there was, as yet, no appearance of its being practicable; and the Prince de Condé, whom I met near the spot, stopped his horse to speak with me upon the subject, saying, "Probably tomorrow we may be able to do something. Will you be of the storming-party again, Monsieur de Cerons?"
"Willingly, my lord," I answered; "and hope to be permitted to take the same post."
"No," replied the prince, "I will not suffer you to expose yourself too far. Besides, D'Andelot is jealous of you, and will lead the party this time himself. But you shall be one of the number, if you desire it. You can take four men with you, if you please, but not more; for, after yesterday's exploits, every gentleman in the camp wants to have a share in the business."
I thanked him for the permission, and retired; and about eleven on the following morning the attack was determined upon. The army was drawn up in battle array; the storming party was formed, and led by D'Andelot himself; the batteries were redoubling their fire; and we were even beginning to march, when a white flag was suddenly displayed upon the breach, and some horsemen came forth from the city with an offer of capitulation. The terms were soon agreed upon; the garrison was permitted to march out with their swords, the leaders with their baggage, and the town was surrendered immediately.
A little incident occurred in the marching in of the troops which struck me greatly, and showed that the good old spirit of our ancient armies was not entirely extinct. There was some dispute at first as to what regiment should take possession of the town; but the admiral settled the matter by declaring that the storming party, having been disappointed, should march in first through the breach, with his brother D'Andelot at the head, while he led another party round by the gates. This was accordingly effected; and, as was natural enough under such circumstances, on taking possession of the city, we found almost all the houses shut up and barricaded. As we came into the long street, however, which runs down the hill, we saw the troops of the admiral advancing, and a good deal of confusion taking place. We had ourselves preserved the strictest order; but, as there were many officers and leaders among us, D'Andelot permitted us to separate, in order to remedy any evil that might be going on.
Taking my way down the street towards the spot where I had seen some confusion, I found that, in spite of all commands and efforts, some excesses had been committed. A jeweller's shop had been broken open; and the admiral, having been informed thereof, had turned back and ordered the house to be surrounded and the men to be marched out one by one. The regiment commanded to perform this service was that of an old soldier, famous for his courage, named the Seigneur de Puyviault; and, as I came up on foot, I heard more of the facts than the admiral himself was aware of. The soldiers in the house, it seems, were Puyviault's own men; and it was very evident, from the dispositions he made, that the worthy commander was inclined to screen them from the punishment which was justly their due, and which the admiral would certainly have inflicted had he discovered them. The moment they were driven forth, they were swallowed up in the mass of Puyviault's men surrounding the door; and Coligny, seeing what nobody could help seeing, rode up in fury, and pushed Puyviault vehemently with his leading staff. The colour came into that commander's cheek, and one or two of his followers behind exclaimed, "He has struck you! he has struck you!" One moment of forgetfulness on the part of Puyviault would have given another striking instance of how frail are the bonds which unite volunteer armies together; but, turning to those behind him, he said, "I endure everything from my leader, nothing from my enemies: and I this day show you what I expect from you."
There was a murmur of applause ran through those around; and, after that little incident, the town was quietly occupied by the Protestant troops.
It is needless for me to pause upon all the movements that subsequently took place. They have met with historians more competent to treat of military details than myself; nor would my own personal narrative for several weeks, nay, for months, present many matters of interest. No sooner had Angoulême capitulated and order been restored in the town, than Monsieur de Blaye found means easily to procure the money for his ransom, and paid me the sum of four thousand crowns, which was certainly far more than I had ever possessed before in my life. In the arrangements which had been made between myself and Moric Endem, and which he communicated to the men as we engaged them, the ransom of prisoners, it may be remembered, had been held apart as belonging to the actual captors. Nevertheless, I determined to endeavour, as far as possible, to attach the men to me by liberality, and to show that I could recompense good service, in order that, if necessity required it, I might be the more fully justified in punishing bad conduct.
I accordingly called the men together as soon as I had received the ransom of my prisoner; and explaining to them what I was about to do, and the reason why, I divided the money into two equal portions, and, having reserved one for myself, I again divided the other half into two, whereof I bestowed one upon my good lieutenant, Moric Endem, to whom I owed so much, and distributed the residue among the men who accompanied me to the breach. The others, who had chosen to wait till they saw me tried, looked a little foolish and mortified upon the occasion, but acknowledged it was all just; and, to give them some consolation, I bestowed ten crowns a man upon them out of my own stock, only requiring that each two should provide themselves with a small tent, and each five with a baggage-horse, and a boy to ride it.
After this was done, my next thought was to redeem the dagger which I had left in the hands of the Jew; but the matter was somewhat difficult to be arranged; for how was I to obtain the weapon without going myself to Bordeaux, or without sending some one in whom I could fully trust? I thought of Andriot, of whose honesty I felt as certain as of my own; but then he was by far too illiterate and simple in his nature to deal with so shrewd a personage as the Jew; and the specimen which I had had of good Solomon Ahar's proceedings was not very well calculated to increase my confidence in his probity. Although the weapon might be considered as a mere gewgaw, yet I clung to the thought of regaining it as speedily as possible with feelings which some people will easily enter into. It seemed as if it were my inheritance; it was the only thing I possessed of my father's; it was the tie between me and past years. I meditated over this for some time, without coming to any satisfactory conclusion; and at length remembering that there were many other things to think of, I proceeded to the bedside of young Martin Vern, to prepare him for removal on the following day.
Since the extraction of the ball he had been daily recovering strength. The great quantity of blood he had lost had in all probability been the cause that no great fever had ensued; and he had been able to lie and talk to me at various times during the preceding day without any apparent inconvenience. I now found him still better; and he heard that the siege of Angoulême was over, and that we were preparing to make a retrograde movement, to attack the small town of Pons, with apparent pleasure. He expressed himself perfectly willing and able to be moved; but only desired to find a messenger to bear intelligence of his state to his uncle, and to tell him in what direction we were likely to proceed.
I instantly caught at the opportunity of communicating with the Jew through Martin Vern; and, after consulting with the young man upon the subject, and telling him the whole facts, the matter was very easily arranged. Andriot was sent back to Bordeaux with a mere verbal message concerning the movements of the army, but with a letter from me to the merchant, which told him of his nephew's improved health, and of my own wishes with regard to the Jew, and also enclosed both the receipt which the worthy Solomon had given me, and the requisite sum for redeeming the dagger.
Andriot by this time had nearly enough of military service, and was not at all sorry to lay aside the cuirass and helmet. He did not even affect to conceal that such was the case; but, at the same time, begged that I would let him return and join me in the capacity of a servant as before.
Early on the following morning we began our march for Pons; and that city was besieged in form, the garrison expressing its determination to hold out to the last extremity. They kept their word in the town; the place was taken by assault; and for the first time I beheld the most awful scene that war, always terrible, can display. Death, and destruction, and cold-blooded massacre surrounded me on every side; but, terrible as it all was, I had the satisfaction of contributing, in some degree, to the cessation of the evil. One or two of the officers joined with me; and we endeavoured, as far as possible, to shelter even the officers and soldiers that surrendered.
This attempt was nearly vain, however; but it prepared the way for more successful efforts when the pillage of houses commenced. To prevent plunder was impossible, I found; but to stop massacre was less difficult, and most of my soldiers were beginning to listen to the repeated commands that they received, and form into some order, when, suddenly, a girl rushed from one of the houses, pursued by a trooper whom I had engaged at Barbazieux, and who had shown himself somewhat slack in the combat and eager in the pillage.
Both the girl and the man heard clearly the orders I was in the very act of repeating, to abstain from outrage, and, rushing forward, she clung to my knees. The man darted on after her, swearing that he would have his lawful prey; that the town was taken by assault, and nobody should stop him. There was a large body of soldiers coming up at the time under Monsieur de Boucard, and I knew that at that moment example was everything. The man had the insolence to seize the woman by the shoulder at my very feet; but my heavy double-edged sword was naked in my hand at the instant, and his foul fingers had scarcely touched her when his spirit went to its dark account.
"Rightly done, rightly done, Monsieur de Cerons!" cried Boucard, turning partly towards his men and partly towards me. "The same punishment for any one who commits such excesses."
The greater part of the town's people were saved, but four hundred of the soldiery were massacred in cold blood; and I grieve to say, that four hundred more were afterward slain when the citadel was taken. There was every reason to believe that the castle had capitulated; but, by some mistake, the assailants got in at once, and put to death every soul they met with. I was not in the town at the moment that this latter act took place, having been ordered to follow the Admiral de Coligny with all speed towards Chauvigny, whither he had marched some days before in pursuit of the Duke of Montpensier. I was ordered to bear to him tidings of the fall of Pons; and a company of foot soldiers was added to my band, so that we might afford at once a small re-enforcement to his division of the army, and give him notice that those he had left behind would soon be prepared to support him.
Various movements on the part of both the Catholic and Protestant armies followed during the greater part of the winter and the early spring of the ensuing year. The Duke of Montpensier collected his forces in the neighbourhood of Chatelherault; and tidings spread abroad that the Duke of Anjou, the king's brother, was coming down with a great force, to put himself at the head of the Catholic armies. Various disasters also befell different detachments of Protestant soldiers making their way up from distant parts of the country, to join the main body under the admiral and the Prince de Condé. The Protestant leaders, however, did not suffer themselves to be daunted, and still acted upon the offensive, harassing the enemy in continual skirmishes, and prepared even to risk the event of a general battle.
In all these proceedings I had my share. I knew that all and everything depended upon my own exertions and my own success; and, daily becoming more and more habituated to the life I led, I suffered no opportunity to pass of attacking any detached body of the enemy. When I thought myself not strong enough to attempt any of the small fortified towns or castles, soon found plenty of leaders who were willing to aid me for a share of the plunder which was likely to be taken. Thus I was scarcely ever out of the saddle; rarely two days at a time without crossing my sword with an enemy; and never suffering myself, by any ambition, to be led into the great mistake of increasing the numbers of my band, it became rather a privilege than otherwise to obtain admission into it.
Such exertions were not without their reward; for, though in the course of the campaign I did not meet with any other such rich prize as Monsieur de Blaye had proved, yet many a prisoner of less importance was taken--several by my own hand; while a large quantity of booty was obtained, especially after the gay and luxurious soldiery of the Duke of Anjou began to arrive in the country.
On one occasion we took an immense quantity of baggage, belonging to two or three noblemen of the court, in a village which they had fortified for their own defence, so that the amount of fifteen thousand crowns in money alone was divided between our troop and a band of foot who had joined us in the enterprise. We had been told that the Duke of Joyeuse himself was in the village; but if he was so, he made his escape with the other nobles before we forced our way in. Had I been able to capture him, indeed, I might have thought myself deserving of the name which I had by this time acquired in the army, of the "Fortunate Monsieur de Cerons." I was indeed, in many respects, extremely fortunate; for I had escaped without any wounds that deserved the name, except the pistol-shot in the arm which I received at Angoulême; and in the month of February I had in my own private store an accumulation of nearly six thousand crowns.
Not twelve months before I should have considered that fortune as quite sufficient for all my wants and wishes through life; but my feelings had changed; I desired more, far more. What was it that was at my heart? Was it avarice? Oh, no! What was it, then? I cannot tell. There was a hope, and an expectation, and a looking forward into the future, that made me greedy without greediness, and aspiring without ambition.
I must now return to speak for a moment of one whom I have not noticed for some time. The progress of young Martin Vern was slow but steady; and at the end of about a month or six weeks he was enabled to sit up and walk about the camp. In a week more he could ride out with me on horseback, when with no particular enterprising view I went forth to reconnoitre the enemy or examine the country around. From his uncle he had received no intelligence up to that period at which the Protestant army was marching upon Saumur, being completely master of the country between the Loire and the Charente. But a terrible storm was gathering to the east, where the army of the Duke of Anjou was daily increasing in strength, and moving rapidly towards us. A degree of ferocity, too, was beginning to animate both parties. The Count de Lude attacked the town of Mirabeau; received its surrender upon capitulation, and yet ordered the greater part of the garrison to be put to the sword in cold blood. The wrath and indignation of the Protestants now exceeded all bounds, especially as La Borde and his brother, who were among the first victims at Mirabeau, were universally loved and admired in the army. No one felt their death more bitterly than the Admiral de Coligny; and, swearing by all he held sacred that he would avenge them, he refused all terms of capitulation to the town of St. Florent, which he was then besieging, but gave the garrison notice to defend themselves to the last, as beyond all doubt he would put every man to the sword.
I was myself, at the time, marching forward with a large body of troops towards Loudun; but I heard shortly afterward that the admiral had too terribly kept his word. We came in presence of the enemy in the neighbourhood of Loudun; and on the assembling of the whole Protestant force, it was found that we were not much inferior in number to our antagonists. But the weather had now become extremely severe; and the Duke of Anjou not judging it prudent to risk a general battle at that moment, retired, leaving us to take a little repose in winter-quarters.
Some days before he retreated, however, I was at length rejoined by the good youth Andriot, who bore a letter from Martin Vern, announcing that he would speedily join us in our quarters. Andriot himself had much to tell; for he had been at the Chateau de Blancford, and had borne tidings of all my proceedings, as far as he knew them, to those in whom he believed I was interested at my ancient home. He repeated to me all the kind things that the boys had said; all the affectionate words of old La Tour; and he told me how Louise's eyes had sparkled when she saw him; how she had made him repeat over and over again everything that related to me; and how she had wept to hear of my good success, which the youth declared he could not understand at all, though I understood it right well. He had taken care, he said, as far as possible, to keep out of the way of the baron; but he was caught the second day of his visit, and made his escape as fast as he could, to avoid being beaten out with stirrup-leathers, which my worthy cousin threatened highly.
The letter of Martin Vern gave but little intelligence of anything but his own approach, and we looked anxiously for his arrival during three or four days; at the end of which time, as I was sitting with his nephew in my quarters at the little village of Troismoutiers, the good merchant made his appearance, accompanied by a much more imposing train of followers than he had displayed when I last saw him. His first attention was of course given to his nephew; but, after embraces and congratulations, he turned to me to speak on my affairs, and told me that he had succeeded in one part of his mission, but had been unsuccessful in another. The dagger, he said, he had not been able to redeem, having found that my friend Monsieur Stuart had already redeemed it when he heard how fortunate I had been in the army, with the purpose of carrying it to me direct. This intelligence mortified me a good deal; but the worthy merchant had consolation for me.
"I have seen your fair cousin," he said, "and a beautiful creature she is. Not knowing whether there was anything private in your letter or not, I delivered it to her as she passed through the room where the baron kept me waiting; and the tidings that you gave her must have moved her much, for she first turned so pale that I thought she would have fainted, and then grew red again, and pressed your letter to her lips, and thanked me a thousand times for bearing it. As she ran away to read it, and I did not see her when I went back again to the chateau, I feared that I should have no answer to give you; but the servant who brought me, two days after, some bonds for the money that your cousin wanted, gave me also this letter for you, and I think it is in a woman's writing."
The moment I saw it I knew Louise's hand; and, approaching the sconce, I tore it open and read--oh, how my heart beat! oh, how nearly were my eyes overflowing as I read the sweet, the dear, the tender, the affectionate words with which she greeted me.
"Dearest, dearest Henry!" it began, "how can I ever thank you for the comfort, for the consolation, for the joy that your letter has given me! the only consolation, the only joy that I have had since you left me! I will not upbraid you for leaving me without bidding me adieu; for to fly was all that you could do, and to go without farewell saved me, perhaps, a long and bitter pang, even though it denied me a sad and painful pleasure. The news of your success, from your own hand, is indeed gratifying; but farther accounts of your success have now reached me, and I trust in Heaven that they may be true.
"Oh, Henry! can I doubt anything that is told me of you, which represents you as braver, and nobler, and more generous than any one else? Perhaps it is all very foolish to think in this way; but you have been my companion from my childhood; the kindest, the dearest, the best of brothers to me! the one that I have loved the most on all the earth since my poor mother's death. How, then, can I think sufficiently of you? how can I think at all of any one else with hope and comfort than of you? My two poor brothers, Charles and Albert, are suffering under the same dark and cheerless fate as myself; and when we steal up to sit together in the room that once was yours, we talk of you and of all your kindness, and of the days that are gone by for ever; and we mingle our tears together when we think that we may never see him again whom we all loved so dearly. They indeed vow that, when they are able, they will fly to join you at the army, and fight under your sword. But what is to become of me?
"But I will not make you sad, Henry, with my sadness; nor will I dwell upon all that is terrible to me, and painful in this house at this moment. From the little that you saw, you may conceive the rest; and nothing is too terrible to be true. Perhaps, if you were to write to my father, it might do good; for, though he is very much exasperated against you, and will not even hear your name mentioned from any of us, yet when I have heard other people praise you, and mention some high deed you have done, my father's eyes have looked bright, and I have the thought he seemed somewhat proud that you should be his near relation. Of his plans or his purposes at present I can give you no account. He is evidently wretched here; and I have heard some words spoken in regard to a journey to the capital if a truce or peace were to take place, or if a safeguard could be obtained from the court. When I see him so unhappy, I would fain console him, but he will not be consoled; and the moment I attempt to do it, the expression of his face changes from melancholy to anger.
"You tell me to think of you, and that you think of me constantly. Oh, dear Henry! if you could see my thoughts, you could never fancy that you were forgotten even for a moment by
"Louise de Blancford."
The worthy merchant had not been long with us before he was summoned to the presence of the Prince de Condé, to whom his arrival had been notified; and I was not allowed mere than a few minutes alone to dream over the letter of Louise, when an officer from the admiral warned me to have everything prepared to march before daybreak on the following morning, for the purpose of attacking the Catholic army in its retreat.
When morning came the admiral himself led theavant garde, while the Prince of Condé followed at the head of the rest of the forces; and I, with my own troop and another small troop which was placed under my command for the purpose, was ordered to man[oe]uvre on the prince's right, for the purpose of deceiving the enemy into the belief that we were marching in three divisions. The task was allotted to me, because it was well known that I had thoroughly reconnoitred the whole country on that side during the three or four preceding days. The issue of the attempt would have been more fortunate, however, had they attached me to the admiral's division; for we were at that time in a part of the country filled with Catholics, and I have not the slightest doubt that both the generals were purposely deceived by their guides. Of the admiral we saw nothing for a long time after his departure; and the Prince de Condé, beginning his march about half an hour before daybreak, was led straight on to the enemy's camp, instead of approaching it on the north, as he had intended.
About eight o'clock in the morning, both he and I perceived the position of the Duke of Anjou, strongly intrenched and flanked by a stream, but not the slightest appearance of the admiral on any side; and, from the whole aspect of the scene, the strongest proof that Coligny had not even approached the enemy's camp. Notwithstanding the great inferiority of numbers, however, the prince determined to commence the attack, seeing clearly that the admiral had been misled, and hoping that the sound of the cannon would bring him up to the field of battle. The order was then given for the skirmishers to advance; and, according to the directions I had received, I made the greatest possible display of my forces on the right, occupying the attention and diverting the efforts of a part of the Duke of Anjou's army.
The troops that the Prince de Condé had thrown forward were met by the cavalry of Souline, Monsalis, and La Vallette, and driven back for some way at the point of the sword; but the famous Count de Montgomery and several other distinguished officers caused the cannon to be brought forward upon the height, and opened a sharp fire upon the duke's encampment. Each party was animated by the same courage and spirit; the troops on both sides were fighting under the eyes of their most celebrated leaders; and the advantages of the day remained so completely balanced, that if the admiral had come up in time, the camp of the duke must have been forced, and his army in all probability annihilated.
In the mean time, Martigue, at the head of three cornets of horse, had come out to reconnoitre my strength; but it luckily so happened that the small body of men which had been placed under my command in addition to my own troop, consisted principally of horse arquebusiers, and I contrived, by thinly lining the hedges with these soldiers dismounted, while I filled up the gaps with my cavalry, to make my force appear much larger than it really was. Martigue, who was an old and experienced soldier, at first seemed to entertain great suspicions of what was really the case, and advanced up the hill with a resolute face, as if he had been determined to dislodge me.
Although I had no chance in contending with him, I determined not to give way till I was forced; and, suffering him calmly to come completely within shot, I ordered the arquebusiers to fire and then spring upon their horses. This was done through the hedges with considerable effect, several of the shots telling in the midst of Martigue's own troop, and producing great confusion, while what seemed to them a body of fresh cavalry appeared behind the hedges, and decided their retreat. The shortness of the daylight at that period of the year favoured not a little the Duke of Anjou; for, or the arrival of the admiral, who had been led several miles out of his way, the day was found to be too near the close for any farther advantage to be gained.
Not a few difficulties and dangers, however, presented themselves to the Protestant army when it contemplated a retreat, and the prince determined to stop upon the ground he had occupied. Just as it was turning dark, this resolution was notified to me by an officer, who brought me also high praises from the prince, not for having fought well, but for having avoided fighting. His orders now were to retreat a little from the ground I occupied, to do my best to cover my right flank, and to send him instant notice in case of attack, making what head against the enemy I could, in order to give him time for preparation. He would have sent me more men, he said, but the position that both he and the admiral occupied was so hazardous that he could not spare any.
My retreat was easily effected; but, as I came down the hill, I was somewhat alarmed and surprised by seeing a large body of men moving up in the dusk across one of the wide open fields of that part of the country. In the dim twilight I could not distinguish anything farther than that there must be two or three thousand men, with what seemed to be artillery; and I was upon the point of sending off intelligence of the fact to the Prince de Condé, when the sound of some bells, such as they hang round the necks of the draught oxen, caught my ear, and made me comprehend at once what sort of apparition this was. It proved that a rascally guide, who had accompanied the attendants, camp followers, and others who were bringing up the baggage, had misled this important body also, and was guiding it direct into the midst of the Duke of Anjou's men. An immense booty it certainly would have been to the Catholics had I not fortunately met the mass of rabble horseboys, suttlers, bad men, bad women, and baggage wagons that were thus trooping on into the hands of the enemy. Approaching cautiously, that I might be quite sure I was right, I called out as soon as I had ascertained the fact, and commanded this great procession to halt. At the very first word, the guide, it seems, would have fled; but the leader of the party, who was a man of execution and an old soldier, had entertained suspicions for some time that all was not right, and, on the man's attempt to spur away, shot him through the head. As soon as some explanations had taken place between myself and the rest, a stratagem struck me, which I instantly proceeded to put in practice.
All the men who had just come up were very willing to put themselves under my command; and, returning up the hill till I came within sight of the lights of the enemy's camp, I formed an encampment there, defending it as well as I could with carts and wagons. I then collected together all the most likely varlets that I could find, put my own men in command over them, and arming them to the best of my power, prepared to defend that post in case of need, making sure that, for an hour or two at least, I could completely cover the right of the Prince de Condé. I despatched a messenger to him, however, to tell him what had occurred, and to say that, if he thought fit, when he and the admiral fired their cannon at nine o'clock, as was very customary, I would do the same, as there was an old dismounted culverine in one of the baggage-wagons, which would the more completely serve to impose upon the enemy.
On his return the messenger told me the prince laughed heartily; and, entering into the spirit of the thing at once, bade me follow out my plan according to my own proposal. It took some time, indeed, to get out the culverine, to place it in such a position that it could be fired without danger, and to draw out a nail which had been driven into the touchhole. This was all accomplished, however, before the hour appointed; and no sooner was the gun fired from the quarters of the Prince de Condé, than the admiral on one hill and I on the other shot off our ordnance, doubtless much to the surprise, and somewhat to the consternation, of the camp below.
Indeed, our position formed a scene altogether not a little striking and beautiful; and somewhat imposing and majestic it must have appeared to the enemy, who could see it all at once. I had gone forth to fire the culverine myself, fancying that, what between its antiquity and the quantity of powder with which it had been crammed, in order to make the report the louder, it might do what it did not, and burst under the operation. I then gazed, with feelings near akin to awe, along the range of the camp, and the immense numbers of fires lighted all along the lines to keep the people warm, blazing lightly over a great extent of the opposite hill, and sweeping quite down across the mouth of the valley where the Prince de Condé's division remained, till the illumination was taken up again by the people who were with me on those heights. There, too, at about the distance of three quarters of a mile, were the fires and lights of various kinds in the camp of the Duke of Anjou, while between that globe of flame and the semicircle of fire that surrounded it on our side, there remained a dark black ring, on which the struggle of the morning had been carried on, and in which nothing was now to be seen but a single lantern, or a torch wandering here and there, and seeking for the wounded or the dead.
As I stood and gazed, the murmur of merriment which was kept up by the varlets and the people of the little encampment behind me was carried away by the wind, which blew strong from the northeast, and borne upon its wings from the camp of the admiral came suddenly one of the Protestant psalms, sung by several thousands of voices at once, and sweeping mournfully but sweetly through the dark and solemn night. If I joined not in the melody, I joined at least in the prayer that it conveyed on high; and I was listening still with no small delight, when the youth Andriot plucked me by the sleeve, and told me that there was somebody who wished to speak with me in the encampment.
There was a meaning look in the youth's face--a mixture of joy and archness which I did not at all understand; but I followed without farther question to a tent which had been prepared for me, and towards which he now led the way. There were lights within, and a good number of people standing round it; and in drawing back the flap of the tent, I saw a table laid out with a very splendid supper, which, as I afterward found, had been prepared for the Prince de Condé, and who, probably, that night went without. But that which surprised me much more (for I was well aware that the whole provisions of the army were with my part of the encampment) was to see a respectable-looking elderly lady with her back towards me, and an old man with white hair bending down to point out to her something in a book upon the table. The little noise I made in entering did not disturb them; but my first step in the tent caused the old man to raise his head, and, to my inexpressible astonishment, I beheld good old Monsieur La Tour; while the old lady, turning round, displayed to my sight the well-known features of her who had been the faithful attendant of the former Baroness de Blancford and her daughter for several years.