CHAPTER VII.
THE DUC DE BROGLIE.
There was one other present whom I could very well have spared—the Count de Bourgneuf—the stern young colonel, who eyed me steadily with a glance of a very mingled cast—at least, I thought so, for he was the husband of Jacqueline de Broglie.
The Duke, her father, a venerable and stately soldier, who wore the uniform of a maréchal of France, but of a fashion somewhat old, and who had his hair profusely powdered, received me with a polite salute.
The room in which we met was a vaulted chamber of the old castle. In a corner thereof stood a cornette, a standard peculiar to the French Light Cavalry, and from its pole there still hung the white silk scarf which was usually tied to these cornettes when the dragoons went into action, to render them conspicuous, so that they might be rallied round it; and this scarf had doubtless been there since the duke's own regiment had fled at a gallop from Minden. In a corner were embroidered the initials "J. de B." Had Jacqueline's fair fingers worked that scarf and standard? In another corner stood a pair of kettledrums and a few muskets.
A table, whereon lay some maps of Germany by Herman Moll, several French newspapers—particularly the Mercure—the Gazette de Bruxelles; bundles of dispatches and writing materials stood near the arched Gothic fireplace. A few antique chairs were round it, and on these were seated two or three field-officers of the Regiment de Bretagne, Monjoy, the engineer, and the Comte de Bourgneuf, all in full uniform, powdered and aiguiletted, with their swords, sashes, and orders on.
All these details I saw at a glance, and again my eyes rested on the benign face of the old Duc de Broglie, in whom, however, I failed to trace any resemblance to his daughter.
At the door of the room stood a sentinel of the Volontaires de Clermont, with his musket "ordered" and bayonet fixed—the same fellow who had so violently possessed himself of my emerald ring.
"Monsieur le prisonnier is an officer?" said the Duke, bowing again.
"I have the honour," said I, while Bourgneuf eyed me superciliously through his eyeglass.
"In the British service, as I see by your uniform."
"The Ecossais Gris."
"Bien!" said the Duke, smiling; "I remember some of them. Your rank?"
"Cornet."
"Ah—it is unfortunate to be taken thus, with a rank so junior; an old fellow like me might wish for a rest; but you—ah monsieur! you may be long a prisoner if this war continues."
My heart sank at this remark, but I said,
"I am not without hope of effecting an exchange."
"You were taken prisoner at the bridge of the Lahn?"
"Yes, monseigneur."
"Your people blew it up, M. Monjoy says. How was it that they did so without permitting you to repass it?"
"I know not, monseigneur," said I, for I would not own in that place that a British officer would act so basely as Shirley had done. The Duke repeated his question, but I simply bowed with the same answer.
"What forces are there?" he inquired.
"Only the Light Troop of my regiment—the 2nd Dragoons, or Ecossais Gris."
"The rest of the Regiment?"
"Are cantoned further down the river."
"Your strength, monsieur?" continued the Duke, glancing at a paper on the table.
"Six troops."
"That we know," said Count Bourgneuf, brusquely, "there is a troop of your Scottish Grey Horse in each of the six villages along the Lahn; but what is their numerical strength?"
"I have had no means of knowing since our rapid pursuit at Minden," said I, with reserve.
De Bourgneuf eyed me fiercely through his glass; but the Duke smiled, and asked,
"Where are the other regiments of milord Granby's Cavalry division?"
"I beg to be excused giving such information," replied I.
"Then, monsieur," said the Duke, suavely, "have you any idea of when Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick proposes to break up from winter quarters and take the field?"
"Happily I have no means of knowing—being merely a subaltern officer; but," added I, haughtily, "if I did know, most assuredly I should decline informing the General of the enemy!"
"Très bien—of course," said the old Duke, shrugging his shoulders.
"Beware, sir!" said the Comte de Bourgneuf, with a dark frown on his stern visage; "you would not tell, even if you knew, say you?"
"No, by Heaven!" said I, loftily.
"Monseigneur le Duc, have I your permission to summon a file of the guard with a piece of cord? Ha, coquin!" he added, imperiously turning to me, "I have ere now forced a more unwilling tongue to speak, by tying a cord round a prisoner's head, and wrenching it with my pistol-barrel or sword-hilt till half the scalp came off. And this I did in a district named the Morbihan, a part of France with which you once affected to be familiar."
This remark, and the keen, feverish glance which accompanied it, showed me at once that I stood on perilous ground.
"M. le Comte," exclaimed Monjoy, "bethink you of what you say and do. Monsieur is a prisoner of war. Ma foi! this will never pass."
"When I have been robbed by a French soldier under arms I need not be surprised by this display of ruffianism in one of his officers," said I, calmly, but while my heart swelled with anger and apprehension. The Count started to his feet; but the Duke raised his hand and voice authoritatively:
"Halt, Bourgneuf. In this matter your zeal goes beyond my wishes. But how say you, monsieur?" he added, turning sharply to me; "you speak of being robbed. Who has robbed you?"
"Men of the regiment of Count de Clermont, deprived me of my cloak, of my haversack—there was little in it, save three days' half-rations; of my purse—there was little in it, so they were welcome to that too; but this man, who is now sentinel at your door, with the muzzle of his cocked musket at my head, like a common footpad or cutpurse, robbed me of a valuable ring, on which, for the memory of past days, I set a singular value."
Such was my dread of M. de Bourgneuf, that circumstanced as I then was I dared not tell when, or where, or for what service I had received the ring.
"Is this true, fellow?" demanded the Duke, turning sternly to the sentinel, who was too terrified to reply either in the affirmative or the negative.
"You will find it in his haversack," said I.
De Bourgneuf, without ceremony, plunged his hand into the canvas bag which was slung over the poor wretch's right shoulder, and among his ration biscuits, hair and shoe-brushes, &c., drew forth the ring, which he handed to the Duke. On beholding it the latter started and visibly changed colour.
"Is this your ring, monsieur?" he asked, while surveying me and it alternately.
"Yes, monseigneur."
"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, with growing perplexity; "this is most singular—most marvellous! Whence had you this ring? for on my honour as peer and maréchal of France, it belonged to my dead wife and was my parting gift to my dear daughter when I left Paris to command the army in Germany."
"I got it, monseigneur, while serving with the first expedition to Brittany," said I, evasively, and to gather time for thought, as the sharp glittering eyes of Bourgneuf were fixed on me with stern scrutiny.
"May I inquire from whom?"
"From Mademoiselle Jacqueline De Broglie on the morning when I saved her life from a galley-slave, a felon escaped from St. Malo, named Theophile Hautois, whom I afterwards flung into the Black Torrent at St. Aubin du Cormier."
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the Duke.
"Tres bon! Marvellous!" added Monjoy, and all present save Bourgneuf, who muttered audibly the offensive epithet, "Marmiton!"
"I have heard of some of those things," said the Duke, extending his hands to me, "and so I pray you to keep the ring and accept my sincere gratitude for your brave protection of my child. Comte Guillaume De Boisguiller, our kinsman, who commands at St. Malo, has told me of those passages. Bourgneuf, have you nothing to say to the protector of Jacqueline—of your wife?"
The Count had heard, perhaps, more than I wished, for he merely made a French grimace, and presented two fingers of his hand, and then turned on his heel.
"Monsieur le prisonnier," said the Duke, "you shall dine with me to-day. To-morrow you shall be sent across the Lahn to your regiment free, and you will have no reason to forget your interview with one so old in harness as the Maréchal De Broglie; but meanwhile you shall see how we in France punish the soldier who dishonours his colours, and degrades himself by acts of plunder. Count, make that sentinel a prisoner; assemble a drumhead court-martial, and desire the drummers of the Volontaires de Clermont to beat to arms."
The Count retired. A great bustle reigned for a time in the old castle of Ysembourg. The man who had plundered me was taken into a room adjoining that in which the Duke continued to write his letters and orders, and to take a pinch of rappee from time to time while conversing most affably with me; and I could glean that Madame De Bourgneuf had never informed him of my enacting the part of her niece's soubrette. How the Count knew of it was more than I could learn; but his grim hint about "the Morbihan" sufficed to show that he knew all. The Duke studiously abstained from all reference to military matters, save a few remarks about the new and then famous Prussian discipline and manoeuvres. I listened to the old man with pleasure, and looked forward with joy and impatience to my rejoining the Greys, and to the punishment I meant to inflict upon Major Shirley.
Meanwhile I heard the tread of feet, the clatter of accoutrements, and loud words of command uttered where the Volontaires de Clermont were parading in open column of companies on the plateau before the gate. The trial was soon over, as the sentence had been resolved on even before the drumhead court—a mere formality—had assembled. The battalion formed a hollow square, and then the Duke led me to a window from whence I could see the whole parade and ceremony.
A sergeant of the company, to which the culprit belonged, led him into the centre in heavy marching order, and fully accoutred, but having his arms tied with a rope. The brief proceedings of the court and its sentence were read by the adjutant, and then the sergeant said in a loud voice,
"Finding thee, Silvain de Pricorbin, unworthy to bear arms, we thus degrade and render thee incapable of carrying them."
He then took the musket from his shoulder backwards, cut away his epaulettes and knapsack, drew off his cross-belts, sword and bayonet, and giving him a most deliberate kick upon the hinder part of his person, repeated,
"Te trouvant indigne de porter les armes, nous t'en dégradons. So thus art thou, Silvain de Pricorbin, degraded—begone!"
The sergeant then withdrew, on which the provost marshal advanced and laid his hand upon the poor pale wretch, whom, to my dismay, I saw hanged upon a tree about fifty yards from the gates, and in presence, it would seem, of a brother.
The drums beat a ruffle; all was over, and the Volontaires de Clermont were dismissed to resume their games of piquet, trictrac, or dominoes, and to smoke and joke in the frosty sunshine, as if nothing so terrible had occurred; and so ended the first episode of my compulsory visit to the old castle of Ysembourg.