A page, a soldier, and one of the valets who were following Martigue through the field, disentangled me from my horse, and raised me with some care and kindness from the ground. For some time I could scarcely walk, from the stiffness and bruises consequent upon the horse falling upon my leg and thigh. I made a great effort to do so, however, and the men who accompanied me asked me if I were hurt in the leg. I replied I was not; and, being soon stripped of my armour, I was enabled to move more easily. My right arm, however, still continued powerless; and the men who had me in charge led me away, according to Martigue's orders, to search for a surgeon. The only men of skill, it seems, who accompanied the Catholic army, were to be found with the division of the Duke of Anjou, and in seeking them we passed through several bodies of men that were advancing rapidly towards Jarnac. All, however, was now passing quietly; the battle was over, the Protestant army in full flight, the victory secured, and I felt not the slightest apprehension that either insult or injury would be offered to any fair combatant, wounded and a prisoner. Thus passing on with Martigue's people, without a word being said to me, I came near a gallant body of cavaliers, brilliantly armed, and equipped with the finest horses in the field, and followed by another glittering band of evidently picked men. There might be twenty or thirty gentlemen in advance and some four hundred behind; and I saw there the Duke of Montpensier, and the Prince d'Auvergne his son.
They were no longer, however, occupying the first rank; for about half a yard before either of them rode a young man, in fact, scarcely more than a boy, for he did not yet seem twenty years of age. His arms were covered with a rich surcoat, and on one side of his horse, a page on foot carried his casque, while another bore a lance on the other side. Everything about his person and his charger was glittering and splendid, and thefleur-de-lis, which were profusely scattered over all his accoutrements, at once marked him as the Duke of Anjou.
The little party by which I was led along made way instantly for the others to pass, and I took no notice of the prince's countenance till some one called us up before him. I then lifted my eyes, and considered him attentively while he spoke to Martigue's page, whom he seemed to have recognised. He was certainly handsome, and there was something commanding in his figure and deportment; but there was a sinister expression about his countenance which was not pleasant, and a peculiarity in his features which, in the course of my whole life, I have only seen in two other men besides himself. It was, that, as long as he remained grave and serious, though somewhat stern, the expression was not so bad; but, the moment that he smiled, it made one's blood run cold. After speaking two words to the page, he turned to me, saying sternly, "Do you know whether the Prince de Condé has escaped from the field?"
"Only by death, sir," I replied.
"Why," answered the duke, "I saw his great white standard myself, with some thirty or forty men, fly across the upland twenty minutes ago."
"The prince, sir," I said, "is dead, depend upon it. I, with my own eyes, saw him murdered."
"Murdered!" exclaimed the Duke of Anjou, with that same sort of sinister smile coming over his face. "What call you murder, sweet friend, in such a field as this?"
"Shooting a man, sir," I replied, "after he has been received to quarter, and surrendered to honourable gentlemen."
"It may be justice, not murder, sir," replied the duke, frowning upon me. "And pray who are you, who are so choice in your expressions!"
"My name, sir," I replied, "is De Cerons; and I, too, am a prisoner."
"Ha!" cried the duke; "The most insolent varlet in the camp of the rebels. We have heard of your doings."
Though I knew it might cost me my life, I could not restrain myself, and I replied, "Not a varlet, sir, but a knight and a French gentleman!"
"Take him away, and--" cried the duke; but, before he could finish his sentence, which probably was intended to have been a command to treat me in the same way as the Prince de Condé, the Duke of Montpensier urged his horse forward, and spoke a word or two to the duke in a low tone.
"Take him away!" repeated the duke, after listening for a moment. "Put him with that Scotch marauder Stuart, and bring them before me after supper to-night. Yet stay," he continued. "Where, think you, is the Prince de Condé! I would fain see him with my own eyes."
"If you go straight towards yon tree," I replied, pointing with my hand, "you will find his body under the bank, unless they have removed it."
"Go you, Magnac, and see," said the duke. "I will remain here. There is your man Constureau coming up, Montpensier. He knows the prince, let him go with Magnac. Stand there, sir: we shall soon see whether you speak truth or falsehood."
I made no reply, and the Baron de Magnac and another gentleman rode on to see if they could discover the body of the unfortunate Prince de Condé. While they were gone, the deepest stillness pervaded the whole scene. There was a sort of awful expectation about those who knew not whether I had spoken truth or not, which kept all silent; and it was evident that the Duke of Anjou himself, though he strove to appear perfectly calm and unmoved, concealed various emotions under the stern and harsh aspect which he assumed He spoke not either, but remained gazing forward in the direction which his messengers had taken, though the number of persons scattered about in different directions, and the bodies of horse and foot moving to and fro, prevented his distinguishing them after they had gone a hundred yards.
At length, however, we saw a number of people coming forward in an irregular mass, with something carried apparently in the midst of them, and, as they approached the Duke of Anjou, one of the most painful and horrible sights that I ever beheld was exposed to view.
Stripped of his armour, and even of the buff coat which he had worn underneath, with his shirt and person dabbled with blood and dirt, was the body of the unfortunate Prince de Condé cast across an ass, with the head hanging down on one side and the feet on the other. His hair, which was long and very beautiful, fell in glossy curls towards the ground; but, from the point of the locks near the face, the blood, still streaming from his death-wound, dropped slowly as they bore him along upon the dusty ground, and made a small pool when the body stopped before the feet of the Duke of Anjou's horse. However much he might be changed since I had seen him, I knew the body at once, by the lace and the violet-coloured ribands which tied the sleeves of his shirt, which I had remarked particularly while he was putting on his casque at the moment that the horse had kicked him.
"Are you sure that is he?" said the Duke of Anjou. "Lift up his head, Magnac; one cannot see his face."
The Baron de Magnac twined his fingers in his hair and lifted up his face, exposing the ghastly wound from which he died, and which had so terribly disfigured him, that, what with blood and dirt, and the black smoke of the pistol, his features could hardly be recognised by any one. When I thought of that same countenance, as I had seen it but a few weeks before, smiling with gay and kindly feelings as he laid the blade of knighthood on my shoulder, and compared it with the dark, mutilated object before me, I myself could scarcely have told that it was the same, had it not been for the other marks I have mentioned.
"Some one bring water from the stream," cried the Duke of Anjou. "We must wash his face and see."
The water was soon brought in a morion; and, when the blood and dirt were washed away, there was no difficulty in recognising the features of the unfortunate prince.
"Get a sheet from some of the farmhouses," cried the Duke of Anjou, "and carry the body on to Jarnac. You have told the truth, sir," he added, turning to me. "Now get you gone. Do with him as I bade you. Put him with the Scotchman, and bring him up this night."
Thus saying, he rode on himself, and I was conducted to the rear, where a surgeon dressed my wounds, and, finding my right arm broken, set it as best he might. They then led me for about two miles on the road to Jarnac, when they brought me to a farmhouse, where they placed me in a small room with several other prisoners, among whom I found La Noue and the Prince de Soubise, but not Stuart.
All, as well might be supposed, were deeply depressed, but that did not prevent a great deal of conversation from taking place; and there were fewer lamentations over our defeat itself than over the negligence of those who had occasioned it, by suffering the enemy to pass the river. La Loue, whose turn it had been to guard the bridge of Chateauneuf, was very much blamed; and certain it is, that, even if the enemy had forced the passage, the delay which that would have occasioned might have given us a chance of victory; for it was afterward ascertained that not one sixth part of the Protestant cavalry, and not one tenth of the Protestant infantry, arrived within a league of the field of battle till the whole was over. The truth is, that not above four thousand men were ever, at one time, engaged upon our part.
The discussion of these events had been going on for some time before I was brought in, and I soon found that the worst news of the whole, the death of the Prince de Condé, was still unknown among the leaders taken. When I told them the fact, however, I could scarcely get them to believe it, so horrible and improbable seemed the action that Montesquieu had committed. If I had told them that he had fallen by some chance blow or shot in fair fight, they would have given me credit at once; but I found them even more incredulous than the Catholics had been; and Soubise insisted that I must have made a mistake in the person, for Argence would never have suffered Montesquieu to kill a prince of the blood royal in his hands.
About four o'clock the rest of the prisoners were removed and marched on towards Jarnac, but I was ordered to remain, and I continued in the room of the farm for about a quarter of an hour, suffering intense torture from the wound in my right arm, and giving myself up, in solitude, to every sad and gloomy thought and expectation that it was possible for imagination to conjure up.
At the end of that time the door of the room again opened, and Stuart was brought in. But oh, how changed he now appeared from the preceding night! He was wounded in two or three places, though not dangerously in any; yet the loss of blood had turned him very pale, and he walked with difficulty. But it was not so much in his colour or his gait that the change was remarkable; it was in the deep, profound melancholy that had fallen upon him.
"I grieve to meet you here, Stuart," I said, shaking him by the hand.
"And so I grieve for you, De Cerons," replied he. "I wish it had been God's will, De Cerons, that I had died three hours ago; but the villains would not kill me, though I refused them quarter and asked none myself. They knew better: they knew better."
"But, good God!" I said, "They will never think of butchering their prisoners now?"
"You do not know Henry of Anjou," replied Stuart. "But I know very well, De Cerons, that I have not long to live. Whether I speak him fair or not, there are things to be remembered which he will not forget. But, on your part, take my advice; if you see him, speak him fair, and perhaps you may save your life thereby. My day is done, De Cerons;" and, seating himself by the table, he leaned his brow upon his hand, and fell into deep thought.
It length he started up again, saying, "If you should live and get free, De Cerons, remember the dagger. It is with my baggage, which I trust is safe; for these Catholic tigers, it is evident, have won but a fruitless victory. Yet my people, perhaps, may not give it up. Stay; if we can get materials for writing, I will make an acknowledgment that it is yours." And, rising, he knocked hard at the door, which was locked. One of the soldiers immediately came; but it was some time before Stuart could procure what he wanted. At length, however, it came; and in haste, but with great precision, he wrote down the acknowledgment and gave it to me.
He had scarcely done so when we were ordered to march on towards Jarnac; and, under a small guard of soldiers, set out on foot for that place, which we reached shortly after dark. We were then conveyed to a small room on the ground floor of the castle, where some food was given to us, and a fire, for it was very cold. I had never been a prisoner before myself, but I had always seen the prisoners treated differently; and I could not but think that this long foot march of two wounded gentlemen was somewhat harsh.
I noticed the fact to Stuart, who said, "It is not a sign of the times, De Cerons, but it is a sign of the Duke of Anjou. There is not another commander in France who would have treated noble prisoners as he has done this day. However, to me it matters little; my account with this world is made; and, as soon as I have taken some nourishment, for I feel faint, I must try and make my peace with God."
After eating a small quantity, and drinking a cup of wine mingled with water, he turned away, and, kneeling in the most distant part of the room, remained for several minutes in prayer. He then rose and spoke more cheerfully, or perhaps I should say, more calmly; and in about half an hour we were both summoned to the presence of the Duke of Anjou. At the door we found two or three guards, who led us on up some dark steps, and then through a door into a long and wide but low stone gallery, with large gray columns every three or four steps, supporting the pointed vault of the roof. It was tolerably well lighted with torches placed here and there, and on the left side was a row of windows, while on the right was a row of doors between the columns.
At the third pillar from the entrance, two or three people were gathered round a large sort of stone table close underneath the column, and as I passed I saw that on it was stretched the corpse of the Prince de Condé, the body wrapped in linen with some degree of decency, but the head and face exposed. Those who were gazing upon it took no notice of us as we advanced, and at the very farther end of the hall we paused for the first time before a door, where stood a man-at-arms with his sword drawn.
One of those who accompanied us went in, and the next minute Stuart was called into the room beyond, while I remained without. I could hear nothing that passed, but I was not a little anxious and apprehensive for my poor comrade.
At length my name was called, and I passed on into the small passage which led to an inner room; it could scarcely be called the antechamber, for it was not above eight feet long and five or six in width. It was tapestried, however, and there was a lamp against the wall, but the door of the chamber beyond was partly open, and a great light streamed forth.
At the moment that the other door closed behind me, I could hear the voice of the Duke of Anjou exclaiming aloud and somewhat angrily,
"Away with the Scotch assassin! Away with him!" And, as I entered the room, I saw Stuart standing close by the door, with a tall, dark-looking man grasping him by the shoulder. My noble comrade's head, however, was raised and dignified; there was a bright red flush upon his brow, and his cheek was now anything but pale, while his right hand was stretched out, not exactly in the attitude of menace, but still bold and fearless.
"Take back the word assassin, prince," he said; "I am none; Had your false constable died by my hand in fight, as would to Heaven he had! he would have died well and deservedly, as the man who attempts to kill the person to whom he surrendered merits by every law of arms. I am no assassin: it is you who butcher prisoners in cold blood. But I warn you, the time shall come--ay, and the knife that shall do it is even now sharpened--when you shall regret the blood that you now wantonly spill, as the hand of some other butcher like yourself takes a life that you have misused too long. Now fare you well! Do your will! I care not how soon it comes!"
Thus saying, he turned away; he looked at me for a moment as if he would have spoken to me, but in that moment I could see his features change. I feel convinced that at that moment he recollected he might do me injury by any token of friendship, and he passed me as if he had never seen me before.
The moment he was gone and the door closed, the Duke of Anjou pronounced my name; but, before I could answer, I heard one or two blows struck without, a short cry suppressed into a groan, and then a heavy fall.
"Seigneur de Cerons!" repeated the voice of the Duke of Anjou in a fierce tone; and, turning to the table, I saw that prince's countenance extremely red, while the faces of all those who were standing around were deadly pale. I have never been accustomed to set any great value upon life, but I have never, in the course of my existence, felt so utterly careless of living and dying as I did at that moment. The great event seemed close upon me, and I advanced to the table as calmly as if I had been going to sit down to meat. The Duke of Anjou fixed his eyes upon me, and again there came upon his countenance that unpleasant smile, which, whether I interpreted it right or wrong I know not, seemed to augur anything but good.
"You appear alarmed," said the duke, gazing at me.
"If so, my lord," I replied, "my countenance must sadly belie my heart."
"Then you fear nothing," he said. "We shall soon see how you will bear your fate."
"Very probably, your highness," I replied, "as other men bear theirs; though, as to fear, I am as free from it as your highness."
Among the officers who stood behind the duke, two made me a sign at this moment. The Duke of Montpensier pointed to the door through which Stuart had just passed, then lifted his hand as if to beseech me to be silent. Martigue, though evidently friendly towards me, knit his brows and shook his fist at me. But the Duke of Anjou, after gazing on me for a moment, exclaimed, "What babblers and braggarts these Huguenots are! Take the Maheutre out, and hang him to one of the spouts of the castle!"
"I beg your highness's pardon," said Martigue, advancing with a frank and somewhat jocular air: "You will recollect he is my prisoner; and, before you hang him, you must pay me fifteen hundred crowns for his ransom."
"Oh, I will pay you, I will pay you, Martigue," said the prince.
"I will give no credit," replied Martigue, in the same tone. "Down upon the table, my lord, or you don't have him! A hanged man is no good to me, and, I should think, none to your highness either."
"I should think not indeed," said one of the gentlemen who stood behind: "besides, my lord, I really do not know anything that Monsieur de Cerons has done, either against your highness or his majesty's service which should excite your indignation against him: besides, he is a knight, my lord.
"Has he not done plenty?" exclaimed the duke, still maintaining his anger, although he had smiled upon Martigue. "A knight! Haven't I heard that he is a mere marauder, cutting off our parties, stealing into our camp as a spy, setting fire to villages? I say, is he not a mere marauder?"
Perhaps the love of existence had grown upon me as I heard the question of life and death discussed; and, at all events, I had a very strong objection to hanging from one of the spouts of Jarnac. The duke looked towards me as he asked the last time if I were not a marauder, and I replied, "Your highness has been greatly misinformed. I am no marauder, but acting under a commission from the princes of the Protestant league. Neither can it ever be said of me, sir, or of one single man under my command, that we have ever sacked or pillaged a Catholic house, that we have ever drawn the sword against any unarmed man, or that I have demanded one shilling of contribution from any village in which I lodged. The bare walls of the house in which I was quartered was all that I ever demanded; and my purse has ever been ready to pay for everything that I took."
"That is more than his highness, or any one else here can say," cried Martigue; and the duke himself burst into a loud laugh.
"Allow me to add," I said, "That my entering your highness's camp, though somewhat bold, was in no degree as a spy; for I came with my men at my back, and all of us armed to the teeth: neither was there say great harm in coming to rescue a relation, which was our sole object; nor, did we injure any one till we were ourselves attacked."
"Ay!" cried the duke; "and, if I remember right, your cousin rewarded you by refusing to go."
"You must be a poor mouse, Monsieur de Cerons," cried Martigue, laughing, and evidently trying to set the prince in good-humour again, "you must be a poor mouse to get into the trap, and not to get the bait after all."
"Ay, but the mouse not only got out of the trap," I replied, "but bit the rat-catcher's fingers. Was it not so, Monsieur Martigue!"
"Ha! he has you there, Martigue," cried the duke. "What say you now? Will you hang him in revenge for the loss of that cornet?"
"I say, sir," replied Martigue, gayly, "That the young gentleman speaks very true. The mouse did bite the rat-catcher's fingers, and bit him to the bone. But the rat-catcher has caught him at last, and, by your highness's good leave, will keep him now he's got him."
It was evident that some progress had been made in moving the Duke of Anjou, and at that moment the Duke of Montpensier joined in.
"I told your highness this morning," he said, "That it was my intention to ask a boon of you in regard to Monsieur de Cerons; but, as your highness knows, I intercede for no one without good reason. In the first place, let me say, that this gentleman, instead of being a mere marauder, as some one has induced your highness to believe, is perhaps the most generous and scrupulous of the enemy's party. I can speak of the accounts given of him by the peasantry myself; and, besides, I have had certain information, from a gentleman who saw it in the town of Pons, that he was there known to cut down one of his own men for some of the horrors usually committed in a town taken by assault. But this is not all, sir. I personally owe him a deep debt of gratitude for saving the life of my son, and sending him back into the camp without demanding a ransom."
"What! your son, Montpensier?" exclaimed the duke; "What! D'Auvergne?"
"Neither more nor less, my lord," replied the duke. "When we decamped from the neighbourhood of Loudun, Monsieur de Cerons led those that pursued. My son turned to drive them back. In themêléehe was borne to the ground, and was absolutely under the feet of Monsieur de Cerons' horse. That gentleman helped him to rise; and, telling him to mount in haste, suffered him to retire unhurt. Under these circumstances, I must not only beg his life of your highness, if you ever seriously thought of putting him to death, which I do not believe; but I would also offer to pay his ransom at once to Monsieur de Martigue and set him free, only that I trust, by keeping him here in our camp for some time, we may cure him of some prejudices of education, and gain a very distinguished soldier back to religion and to loyalty. Such gentlemen as Monsieur de Cerons, my lord, are far better worth winning than hanging, depend upon it."
"You will ruin us all, you will ruin us all!" cried a voice from behind, which I found afterward came from the well-known Chicot. "If you convert Monsieur de Cerons, and bring him into our camp, the army's lost, the king's throne shaken, and he may play at bowls with the globe and crown. Why, heavens and earth! wasn't it bad enough when we had only Martigue to lead us into every mad adventure, while the Huguenots had this mad fellow to run his head against our crack-brained galloper! If you bring, over another such to our side to match Martigue, the army will be like a string between two young dogs, pulled here and there over every bush, and hill, and fence, through the whole land. 'Pon my soul, I had hoped and trusted that I should hear Martigue had been killed to-day; for I am tired to death, and my brain quite weary with thinking where he will be next: but if you come to add to him this same night-walking spectre of cast iron, there is no chance of any one ever having a moment's repose through life."
"Pray attend to Chicot's reasons, your highness," said Martigue; "for, like some old verses that I've met with, they always read the wrong way, you know."
"Well," said the prince, "if you will all have it so, so it must be, I suppose; but, at all events, I shall expect no slight apology from Monsieur de Cerons for the rash and insolent words he addressed to me this morning."
"I trust, sir," I replied, "That in my grief for the disasters of this day, I have not been mad enough to address to your highness, the brother of my king, any words of insolence whatever. I am quite ignorant and unconscious of having done so, but beg your highness's pardon most sincerely and most humbly for anything that could have been construed to that effect."
"That is well, that is well," replied the duke: "you must indeed have forgotten yourself; but the words that you spoke, sir, about the Prince de Condé, were rash and insolent."
"But were never applicable to your highness," I replied. "They were entirely and totally meant for and pointed at the Baron de Montesquieu, the cold-blooded murderer of a gallant prince; and I am sure, sir, that, had you seen the act as I did, your generous nature would have been roused in a moment to avenge the butchery of your cousin upon his foul assassin."
"Perhaps I might," replied the prince: but the Duke of Montpensier, who knew that such discussions with the Duke of Anjou became dangerous in every point of view when carried too far, took advantage of a slight thoughtful pause to say, "I think your highness graciously granted my request."
The prince bowed his head, and Montpensier, passing round the table, took me by the arm, nodding to Martigue, who replied, if I might read his looks, "Get him away as fast as you can."
The prince, however, detained us for a moment longer, saying, "I will speak to Monsieur de Cerons at some future time: his countenance pleases me."
"No reply," whispered the Duke of Montpensier; and, merely bowing my head low as my answer, I followed the duke through the door. In that little passage antechamber, however, my first step was into a pool of dark blood, and I was about to draw back with an exclamation, when the duke pulled me on sharply by the left arm; and after we had got several paces down the gallery, he said, in a low, deep tone,
"Young man, young man! you have been sporting with a tiger, who has already torn one to pieces, and has got the thirst for blood upon him strong!"
To the Duke of Montpensier's words I made no reply, as there were several persons not far off at the time, and I feared that whatever I might say at such a moment would be less calm and temperate than I could have wished it. The duke added nothing more, but led me on past the spot where the body of the Prince de Condé lay, to the lower story of the building, where we found, not far from the room in which I had been at first confined, a considerable body of his attendants, with his son, the Prince d'Auvergne. The moment the young man saw me, he started forward and grasped my hand, exclaiming, "He is safe, he is safe!"
"He is so," replied the duke; "but it is not his own fault that he is not now lying stark and cold as some others that I could name. Take him away with you, D'Auvergne, to our quarters, and, for Heaven's sake, teach him to be cautious where he is. Monsieur de Cerons," he continued, turning to me, "I need not ask you whether I have your parole."
"Of course, my lord," I replied, "of course; I surrendered voluntarily to Monsieur Martigue, and by the same right that I claim my life, not as a matter of grace, but as a matter of justice, I consider myself as a prisoner till my ransom is granted and paid."
The duke bowed his head and left me, and the Prince d'Auvergne, with his attendants, led me out into the streets of Jarnac, where, with several torches before us, we proceeded to the lower part of the town, and entered a large dwelling which had been taken possession of by the Duke of Montpensier. A good deal to my surprise, for I had as yet seen nothing but the Huguenot camp, I found nearly as much splendour and luxury reigning in the temporary abode of the Catholic commander as if he had been in the mansion of his ancestors. There were servants in splendid dresses, there were lights in all the rooms, and the prince led me into a great hall, where a large table was set out as if for the supper of some twenty or thirty persons.
"My father," he said, "Will soon return; but, till he does so, Monsieur de Cerons, let us go into this little room beyond, and converse for a few moments quietly."
He then led me in, asked after the wounds I had received, spoke to me of the different events of the late battle, and mentioned the death of the Prince de Condé with so much kindly and noble feeling, that, had not my mind been altogether prepossessed in his favour before, those words would have attached me to him for ever. He then gave me several cautions with regard to my conduct during my stay in the Catholic camp.
"Neither my father nor myself," he said, "Would wish you to abandon your opinions except upon full conviction; but, at the same time, it will be much better for you, as far as possible, to restrain any expression of those opinions, for there are dangerous men around us all, and you might place yourself in situations from which it might be difficult, if not impossible, to extricate you."
I promised to follow his counsel; and then, judging from his conversation that he must have more experience in the ways of courts and camps than I had imagined, I asked him if this was the first campaign in which he had served.
"Oh, no!" he replied; "I am older than I appear, Monsieur de Cerons."
And I found that such indeed was the case, but that in him there was the extraordinary combination of high powers of mind and considerable experience, with unpresuming modesty, and all the frank, quick emotions of boyhood. There was something fine and noble, too, in the demeanour of the father to the son and the son to the father. The duke felt all the eager apprehensions and tender anxiety for the young prince that he had felt when he was a boy, flew always to his succour in the battle-field, and seemed to feel unwilling to yield the affectionate privilege of guiding, guarding, and defending his boy; but, at the same time, he was aware and proud of his son's high qualities, had every confidence in his mind and judgment, and treated his opinions with that respect which ensured the respect of others. The son, on his part, though well aware of his own capability of directing and defending himself, ever showed the deepest gratitude for his father's tenderness, and reverence for his authority and advice.
Not long after our conversation had begun, there were some steps heard in the hall, and the voice of the Duke of Montpensier was heard exclaiming, "Where are you, Francis? Where is Monsieur de Cerons?"
In another moment the duke entered the room, before his son could go to meet him. He was accompanied by Martigue, who entered the little room with him, and by several others, who remained behind in the supper-room.
The moment he entered, Martigue seized me roughly by the collar on both sides of my buff coat, and gave me a little but friendly shake, exclaiming, "You young scoundrel, you owe me double ransom, I swear." And, as he spoke, the old soldier looked me over from head to foot with the eye of a connoisseur, as if calculating what portion of strength there was in my limbs.
"Upon my honour, Monsieur de Martigue," I replied, "I think I do; for you have certainly once spared my life and once saved it."
"You are honest, you are honest!" replied Martigue, in the same tone: "but here I and Monsieur de Montpensier have been quarrelling for you. He says he will keep you here till your wounds are whole, to try if he cannot cure you of Calvinism, or, at all events, teach you to serve the king in another way than fighting his troops and cutting the throats of his subjects. I want you to be put to ransom directly, in order that you and I may, some day or another before long, have a fair opportunity of trying our right hands; for we have not had it out yet, seeing that you got off in such a shabby way this morning by shooting my horse."
"I could not help it, Monsieur de Martigue," I replied, "or I would not have done it. I was in the midst of your people; and if I had not taken that moment to escape, I must have surrendered to them, even if I had got the better of you. However, I surely made up for it afterward."
"What! in the village?" cried Martigue. "Oh, I never got near you there."
"No," I replied; "after that unfortunatemêlée, I made up my mind that I would surrender to none but you if I could help it, and lay still there, while twenty people passed, till I saw you come up."
"By the Lord, you might have done worse!" cried Martigue. "If Montluc had got hold of you, he would have given you a pistol-shot for your pains. By-the-way, it was shrewd of you, Monsieur de Montpensier, to send Montluc away towards Cognac; for, by Heavens! if he had been at the ear of monseigneur to-night, instead of quiet people like ourselves, there is no knowing what would have come of it."
"The streets of Jarnac would have flowed with blood," replied the duke; "however, Monsieur de Cerons, you are now safe, and I have to inform you that Monsieur de Martigue consents to receive your ransom from me, so that you are now my prisoner. I trust I may add, also, that you are my son's friend, and therefore will beg you to remain with us some few weeks, as I have every reason to believe that, ere long, matters will assume a more pacific aspect, and the contentions which now desolate France be brought to an end without your taking any farther share therein."
I had no choice but to obey; for, of course, I could not compel them to set me at liberty before they thought fit. I knew also that, for the time, I was unable to do any effectual service in the field, and therefore I regretted less to be thus detained a prisoner.
When all this was settled, the duke informed me that he intended to send a flag the next morning to the admiral, and that, if I chose it, I could communicate at the same time with any of my friends in the camp, and give any orders concerning my baggage and attendants that I might think fit. This information was gratifying to me in several respects, but in none more than inasmuch as it showed me that the admiral had been enabled to save a large portion of the Huguenot army and all the baggage. I took advantage of the duke's offer, then, to send word to Moric Endem to take the command of my troop till my return, and to send me three horses and two horse-boys; to carry the small chest, in which I had placed the ransom of Monsieur de Jersay, with other money, to the admiral, and desire him to open it, with a request that he would divide a thousand crowns among the men of my troop, and, sending me a thousand crowns, would put the rest in safety for me till the Catholics admitted me to ransom. I wrote these directions down at once by the duke's desire, as the messenger was to set off early on the following morning; and, ere I had done, for it took me some time to write with my left hand, one of the servers announced to the duke that supper was upon the table.
"You look pale and worn, Monsieur de Cerons," said the duke. "My principal officers sup with me to-night; pray come and take some refreshment, after which you shall retire to a chamber prepared for you, and I will send my own surgeon to attend you, for I see you are somewhat hurt."
Thus saying, he left me; and, finishing what I was writing, I directed it to Moric Endem, with a note stating that, if he was not to be found, it was to be given to the admiral. I then followed to the supper-table, which I found surrounded by a number of distinguished men, but with a seat reserved for me among them; and I must say that I never in my life met with more kindness and courtesy than greeted me there, while a prisoner, at the Duke of Montpensier's table.
The duke and the prince both pressed me to eat, but the wound in my arm had given me excessive pain during the whole evening; my shoulder was burning and inflamed; I felt bruised, feverish, sick, and weary; and before my eyes, as I sat at the table, were floating continually vague images of all the terrible scenes and events that I had been witness of during that day. It may well be conceived, therefore, that I loathed the very sight of food, and yet every moment I felt myself becoming more and more faint. I saw the eyes of the Prince d'Auvergne upon me from time to time, and at length he sent round one of the attendants, who was pouring out for him some choice wine, to carry the flagon to me. I held the cup for him, thinking that the wine might revive me; but, as I did so, and turned my head somewhat suddenly, all the objects in the room seemed to swim around me, and I fell back senseless upon the floor of the hall.
When I recovered in some degree, I found myself in bed in a very comfortable room, with a gentleman in the dress of a surgeon beside me, and two or three attendants around. I have only a vague recollection, however, of what passed on that occasion, for I was during the whole night in a state approaching delirium, with wild images of the battle and its consequences rising up before my mind the moment I closed my eyes to sleep. Now I was in the midst of the enemy, again fighting hand to hand with Martigue; then he suddenly changed to the Prince de Condé, and by some strange process of the imagination I became Montesquieu, and was about to shoot him under the bank, hating myself all the time for what I was doing, yet hurried on irresistibly to accomplish it. Then suddenly a strong hand seemed to seize me, and I found myself a prisoner; and at other times I beheld the gallant prince who had fallen, as he sat before the last fatal charge, raising his hand towards the white banner above his head, and addressing those last, terrible, memorable words to us who surrounded him.
In such wild visions passed the whole night; but an hour or two before daybreak I fell into a somewhat sounder sleep, and when I woke, just after dawn, I found the Prince d'Auvergne sitting beside me, and speaking to one of the attendants.
"Oh, is that you, monseigneur," I said, turning partly towards him.
"Yes, Monsieur de Cerons," he replied, "I did not like to disturb you, because the attendant tells me you have had a bad night; but, as you are awake, I may as well ask you if there is anything that I can do for you this morning, as I am going with the rest of the officers to the field of battle, to see the loss on either side, and to make arrangements in regard to the wounded and the dead. I fear that you must, like most of us, have some friend there."
"Several, I doubt not, my lord," I replied; "but, of course, my principal care must be for my own people. Should you find among the prisoners or the wounded any men belonging to my band, I trust you will have them kindly treated for my sake. There is one poor lad, indeed, for whom I am anxious to make inquiries. He is named Andriot, and followed me to the field, not as a man-at-arms, but merely as an attendant; he fell upon the slope of the hill, about half a mile from Triac, in face of Monsieur de Brissac's arquebusiers."
"I will not fail to make inquiries for him," replied the prince, "and for the others also; and I will report to you, as soon as I return, what has been done. It may be late, however, before I come back; and, in the mean time, I understand the surgeon has left especial orders that you should not quit your bed on any account whatever."
I would fain have risen, but the prince insisted so strongly upon my obeying the surgeon's commands to the letter, that I promised him to do so, and soon found the benefit of yielding to better knowledge than my own.
After remaining for an hour, or somewhat more, in sorrowful but more tranquil thoughts than during the preceding evening I had been able to obtain, exhaustion and weakness again brought on sleep, but of a far more calm and beneficial character; and, till nearly four o'clock in the evening, I enjoyed a long lapse of peaceful slumber.
At length I awoke, and found a servant still with me, with whom I talked for some time on the rumours of the day, and found, much to my satisfaction, that a large force of Protestants occupied Cognac, and that the rest of the army had effected its retreat in complete safety to the town of Sainctes. Very few prisoners were said to have been taken, and the whole baggage of the Protestant army had, it seems, been saved. The attendant, however, spoke confidently of Cognac being attacked the next day; talked of the Protestant cause as utterly ruined and hopeless, and exalted the virtues, skill, and courage of the Duke of Anjou to the very skies. Remembering the warning I had received on the preceding night, I made no reply, but only asked questions, to which he very willingly returned an answer.
In the midst of our conversation, however, I heard irregular footfalls without, as if of some lame person approaching the chamber, and in a moment or two after, not a little to my satisfaction, poor Andriot hobbled in, supporting himself upon a stick. The same ball, it seems, which had killed his horse, had wounded him also in the leg; and though the man was by no means a coward, and, I believe, was perfectly insensible of anything like nervous agitation, he avoided from that moment every scene of strife, declaring deliberately that wounds in the leg were not comfortable.
I was visited on the same night by the Prince d'Auvergne, and on the following day was permitted to rise, and spent an hour in the morning with the Duke of Montpensier. The duke and his son both showed me the greatest kindness; but there was not the slightest word said about admitting me to ransom, and I remarked that the subject was carefully avoided. In the evening, my horses and the grooms I had sent for arrived, together with the money and a letter from Moric Endem, which was couched in the following terms:
"Monseigneur,
"I have never seen any one comport himself better in a hotmêléethan you did yesterday, which must console you for being taken prisoner and for having to pay a ransom, which is always, of course, the most unpleasant thing that can happen to any gentleman adventurer. I dare say, for a gentleman of your kidney, it would have been pleasanter, take it upon the whole, to be killed outright by the side of our brave prince. I have often heard gentlemen--that is to say--young gentlemen, say such things; but I never could manage to feel anything of the kind myself, always looking upon a live ass to be a great deal better than a dead lion. I have not the slightest doubt, therefore, that some time or another hereafter you will find it a very comfortable thing indeed to be alive; and you will have the advantage, too, of being able to get yourself killed another time in case you like it.
"In the mean time, I will do my best to lead the troop as you have done, and trust we shall have plenty of plunder to give an account of when you come back again. The enemy are not so successful at that work as we are, and you will be glad to hear that all the baggage is quite safe. I have taken the chest to the admiral, as you commanded; and have distributed the thousand crowns among the men, who are very grateful; and I send you the thousand that you require for yourself, together with the admiral's receipt for the remainder, amounting to three thousand seven hundred and sixty crowns of the sun, with two livres tournois, six sous, and two derniers. I am sorry to tell you that we have lost no less than thirteen men, of whom nine were killed or disabled before you quitted us on the hill. Poor Moriton we got off, but he died last night, having been shot very funnily by two arquebus balls at the same moment, which must have touched each other, for they made a long wound just like a keyhole. I have kept his cuirass, poor fellow, for one may live many a day without seeing such a thing as that. I myself have lost the tip of my right ear, which is no great loss after all, for it only makes that one match the left, the end of which was shot off some years ago by a mad fellow called Chicot. I send you below a list of our killed and wounded, and am, Your devoted servant,
"Moric Endem."