CHAPTER X.
THE STORY OF MONJOY.
It was long past midnight, however, before we were prepared to leave Ysembourg. To set out with the conviction that every tree, hedge, or thicket might conceal at least one musket, the contents of which were intended for my person, was more exciting than pleasing.
The horse provided for me was one of our grey troopers. It had been wounded by a pistol-ball at Minden, and halted on the off hind leg, thus our progress was slower than we could have wished.
As my purse had been taken by my captors, Boisguiller gave me a couple of louis d'ors, which sum I was to give in turn to the first French officer whom we took prisoner.
"Bon voyage!" cried he, with a loud voice, as we mounted at the arched gateway of the old castle; "which way do you ride?"
"Towards Hesse Cassel," replied Monjoy in the same tone, intended specially for the ears of those who loitered about; and among them was Armand de Pricorbin, who at once withdrew, and entered the castle, no doubt to report our departure to Bourgneuf.
"Hesse Cassel," continued Boisguiller; "ah, I was quartered there for three months before Minden, and added considerably to the debts and general discomfort of the citizens. Adieu, messieurs!"
"Adieu, M. le Chevalier!" and we rode off.
Though considerably hardened by campaigning and warfare—for had I not seen Lindsay, Charters, Keith, and many others who were dear friends and comrades perish?—I shuddered on passing where the corpse of Silvain de Pricorbin still swung as a warning to pillagers, from the arm of a tree above the pathway; there it swayed mournfully to and fro in the night wind, and I felt some remorse with the conviction, that by an almost heedless complaint, I had procured the death of this man—and for what? Abstracting a ring—a bauble—the gift of a girl who had discarded me for a man who was now perhaps tracking me to destruction.
The stars shone brightly and keenly in a calm sky as we rode down the hill from Ysembourg, and saw a few lights twinkling dimly in the little town of that name.
By the foraging and skirmishing of the light cavalry, the whole country between the Maine and Lahn had been reduced to a desert; and from Ysembourg to the Weser it was pretty much the same, for, according to their usual system, whatever the French did not require they burned or destroyed.
On our route I committed myself entirely to the guidance of the intelligent and friendly Monjoy—a pleasing young man, whose bearing impressed me with the decided conviction that something had happened in his life, which, to him, cast a shadow over the present and the future.
"From what passed between you and the Chevalier de Boisguiller," said he, "am I right in supposing that a deadly rivalry existed between you and Bourgneuf prior to his marriage?"
"No, Monjoy; I repeat to you that I never saw the Count until the day subsequent to Minden, and I did not know him even then, or until yesterday, when we stood together in the presence of Maréchal Broglie."
"Parbleu! 'tis most singular!"
"What?"
"How all this hostility on his part came to pass."
"I shall tell you, and the narrative may serve to shorten our journey."
I then related to him the whole story of my adventures in Brittany; my love for Jacqueline, and how strangely we were thrown together in that sequestered château; her abduction, and her supposed death. He seemed much struck by the recital, and when I concluded he sighed and said—
"I, too, have not been fortunate in the field of Cupid, and could tell you a story, not so stirring as yours certainly, but nevertheless full of most mournful interest to me."
"Ah! I now remember the miniature of that beautiful girl concerning whom Boisguiller rallied and warned you."
"Boisguiller is thoughtless," replied the young Frenchman, "but good-hearted and brave; yet he is not the kind of man to understand the depth of a passion such as mine—a passion all the deeper because its object is lost for ever!"
"Dead?"
"Worse, monsieur, she is married to another, and this little locket is all I possess to remind me of many happy, happy days that can never come again. I shall be equally confiding with you, monsieur, and will relate how I came to suffer so deeply."
After a little pause, he began thus.
"My aunt is Prioress of the Convent of Les Dames de Notre Dame de Charité, in the Rue St. Jacques, at Paris, where they occupy the ancient house of the Nuns of the Visitation. Her devotees observe the general vows of the four monastic orders, and occupy themselves with the education of young ladies of good family, who are boarded in the convent to acquire accomplishments.
"When a mere youth attending school, I used frequently to visit my aunt, and spent all my holidays at her convent in the Rue St. Jacques, and thus among the boarders I first saw Isabelle du Platel, who was placed there for her education. She was just past girlhood; her family were old Normans, and hence that exquisite fairness of complexion and golden-tinted hair which you remarked in her miniature.
"We were always playmates and companions in the convent garden; but after a time this was interdicted by my aunt the Prioress, who, foreseeing what might happen, wisely exiled me from the convent, and would only consent to receive me in the parlour, and then on stated days and certain occasions.
"I was in despair at this change in my affairs; but a friend and brother student, Boisguiller, then a sub-lieutenant in the French Guards, enabled me to circumvent to some degree the precautions of my worthy relative, as he possessed an old and unoccupied house in the Rue St. Jacques, the windows of which overlooked the convent garden; and thereat I spent the hours that were not devoted to the study of fortification, regular, irregular, and defensive, of Coehorn, de Ville, and Vauban, in watching for Isabelle, and exchanging the most passionate little billets by the simple process of lowering them by a string from the windows, which, fortunately perhaps, were too high up and too strongly grated to permit nearer meetings.
"For three years our love affair was conducted thus, and we were happy in the secrecy of our passion, which was all the deeper that (Boisguiller excepted) others knew it not, and could neither by jest or taunt bring the ready blush to our young cheeks; and so time passed, till Isabelle was sixteen and I was three years her senior, with an epaulette on my left shoulder.
"I can painfully recall the last day on which I repaired to the accustomed place, with a trinket I had brought for Isabelle, and tying it to the cord, waited impatiently, with my eyes fixed on the flowery vista of the garden walk by which she usually approached; but hour after hour passed, and there came no Isabelle to me!
"The next day and the next I met with no better success, and a terror filled my heart. Had we been betrayed or discovered? Isabelle was ill—dying, perhaps! I rushed to the convent gate, and sought an interview with my aunt. The old porteress had special orders to keep me out; but my excitement was too much for the good dame's nerves, and my impetuosity swept all her scruples away. Thus, she admitted me into the parlour and when my aunt came—a woman tall, thin, and stately in bearing, with a severe expression on her brow that boded evil fortune to me—I besought her to pardon me, and to say if Mademoiselle du Platel was ill!
"'I am most happy to inform you, my dear Gervais, that she is not—but she has left this——'
"'Left the convent,' I exclaimed; 'and for where?'
"'Her father's house.'
"'In the Rue de Tournon?'
"'Near the palace of the Luxembourg—yes.'
"'And she will return?' I continued, impetuously.
"'No more,' said my aunt, with a sad smile.
"'No more?' I repeated, with perplexity.
"At least, not as Mademoiselle du Platel.'
"'In heaven's name, madame—my dear aunt, I conjure you to tell me what you mean? See how I am trembling!'
"'Compose yourself, my dear boy; when next we see her, she will be Madame d'Escombas.'
"'Oh, impossible—absurd!' I exclaimed, with a perplexed heart and a flushing cheek; 'do you mean old M. d'Escombas, who also resides in the Rue de Tournon, whose copper-coloured nose is the laughing-stock of all Paris, and whom I have caricatured, with his wig, large buckles, and round shoulders, a dozen of times?'
"'Yes.'
"'But that hideous old man has no son to marry Isabelle?'
"'He is to marry her himself.'
"'Monstrous, madame!' I exclaimed, furiously; 'how can this be?'
"'Because the father of Isabelle is poor, and M. d'Escombas is rich enough to buy the Luxembourg and all that is in it. Such is the world, my poor Gervais, and such are its ways and vanities!'
"Seeing that my eyes were full of tears, she continued—
"'Gervais, listen to me, my dear boy. M. du Platel, though he has been unable to accumulate riches, for the acquisition of which his desire is a passion very strong, if not stronger than that of love itself—has enough, but barely so, to maintain a numerous family. God has given him a daughter lovely in the extreme—good, amiable, and gentle too. M. d'Escombas is fired by her beauty: he is old and coarse certainly; he has a nose covered with rappee, cheeks that are rouged, and false teeth; but then, he is so rich! Ah, mon Dieu, my dear boy, how you groan and grind your teeth!'
"I had heard enough, and retired, choking with resentment, indignation, love, jealousy, and pity; and with all the thoughts, fierce, bitter, and stinging, that could madden a young and loving heart, I found myself going I knew not, cared not whither, jostling and staggering like a blind man among the passers in the sunlit Rue St. Jacques. I was full of vague plots and wild plans—full of schemes of bitter vengeance, none of which could take any tangible form, until I met my friend Guillaume de Boisguiller, who had just come off guard at the Louvre, and who advised me to see Isabelle at once—to run off with her. But whither? Diable! I had no money—nothing but my silver epaulette. Then he suggested that I should run d'Escombas through the body. That would be simple enough; but I knew that a duel between an old man and a mere boy was not to be thought of, even in Paris, where all kinds of absurdities are committed every hour; and then he was a near kinsman of the Governor of the Conciergerie du Palais, and the very thought of that grim personage, and his horrid place, made my blood run cold."
(Poor gentle and amiable Monjoy! while speaking to me how little did he foresee that some of his last hours would be spent in that degrading prison!)
"Taking a hint from the plot of a comedy we had seen at the Théâtre Français—then the only one in Paris in which regular tragedies and comedies could be acted, and which had an exclusive right to represent the plays of Corneille, Racine, Molière, and Voltaire—Boisguiller borrowed the gown, hat, and trinket-box of a Jew who was patronized by the officers of his regiment, and by adopting a false beard, a pair of horn spectacles, and painting a few wrinkles round his eyes, made his disguise complete. He then set out for the residence of M. du Platel in the twilight of an October evening.
"I was too nervous and too excited to have done this in person; so Boisguiller, whose coolness—impudence he was pleased to term it—was invincible, became my ambassador.
"He was not a chevalier then, not having won his cross of St. Louis. He contrived to introduce himself to Isabelle, and while she was looking over the trinkets in his box, to whisper my name in her ear, and to slip into her hand a note from me, to which he begged an answer ere he went away.
"'You are a friend of Gervais,' she whispered; 'and in disguise?'
"His friend and companion—Boisguiller, an officer of the French Guards.'
"'I thank you, monsieur, from my soul! Oh, tell Gervais it is true about this marriage—all too true, too true! Despite my love for him, a love of which I told them in my agony, my parents sell me to that odious and pitiless old man. Sell me,' she continued, while her blue eyes sparkled with grief and anger, and her soft cheek glowed with a feverish red, 'even as a Circassian girl is sold in a Turkish bazaar! I have been taken—torn from my convent, and am kept here till my purchaser arranges his household. Oh, vile system! How my soul revolts at the life, the hopeless future, to which I am doomed!'
"'And you will meet Gervais?'
"'But once, and then all is over, and for ever!'
"'When—where will you meet him?' urged my friend.
"'In the garden of the Luxembourg, near the white marble lions, at noon to-morrow; and failing that, on the next day at the same hour.'
"Exulting in his diplomacy, Boisguiller hurried back to me, relinquished his disguise and resumed his uniform, talking the while with noisy admiration of the beauty and high spirit of Mademoiselle du Platel. Spirit? mon Dieu! he little knew how, by all the appliances of domestic and parental tyranny it had been crushed and broken.
"With a soul inspired by tenderness and anxiety, I repaired at the appointed hour to the place of rendezvous—the avenue to the garden nursery, containing specimens of every kind of fruit then cultivated in the provinces of France; and there I leaned, so great was my emotion, against the base of one of the white marble lions, and my heart fluttered at the sight of every female figure. But the clocks of Paris struck the hour in vain; it passed away; another hour succeeded, and there came no Isabelle.
"Had they discovered our assignation, those venal parents? Was she ill—what had happened?
"It was, however, merely a visit of that provoking Monsieur d'Escombas which interfered with her arrangements, as he insisted on escorting her, wherever she was going. But next day, when I sought the same place and pressed her to my breast, we retired to a secluded part of the garden, where we could converse and freely deplore the hard destiny which was about to separate us for ever.
"Grand Dieu! Monsieur Gauntlet, why should I weary you with all this, and what interest can it possibly have for you?" exclaimed the Frenchman, suddenly interrupting himself; but I pressed him to continue, for the modulated tones of his voice, a certain pathos in it, and his sorrowful earnestness, gave his story an interest which cannot be imparted to it here.
"I implored Isabelle to elope with me; but she trembled, closed her eyes, and whispered, in a broken voice, that she dared not.
"'You are but sixteen, Isabelle, and they would consign you to a man of sixty—a sweet young girl like you surrendered to the cold arms of one whose heart is but the dregs and lees of a life spent in Paris! Oh, it is piteous!'
"'And bitterly they taunt me——'
"'Who taunt you?'
"'My father and mother,' said she, shuddering and closing her eyes, 'taunt me with you, Gervais. I ask for a husband who will love me as I would wish to be loved, and in reply they lay diamonds, jewels, fans and feathers at my feet. Away with these, I exclaimed, lest I tread upon them!'
"And then the poor young girl wept passionately—
"'My beloved Isabelle,' I exclaimed, 'how shall I survive seeing you consigned to a fate so miserable—to such a hopeless life—to a lord and master whose age, ideas, tastes, and ways are all so unbearable and uncongenial? Whose scorn and cruelty—oh, I know him well—will make you shrink as the frosty wind withers the early flowers of spring, and whose sordid coldness will crush your little heart! God preserve you, Isabelle, from the fate of many others who are similarly mated and lost in our worthy city of Paris!'
"'I have to thank you for the character you give of me, friend Monjoy, but 'twill avail you little,' said a voice behind us, and we found ourselves in the presence of M. du Platel, and M. d'Escombas who had just spoken, and also of his grim kinsman, the governor of the Conciergerie du Palais.
"Fortunately the latter personage, of whom I had—I know not why—an instinctive horror, was present; for we were in a solitary part of the garden. I had my sword on, and the malevolent smile on the thick lips and coarse dark visage of M. d'Escombas, with the furious scorn and indignation of M. du Platel, might have prompted me to commit some desperate extravagance.
"'Oh, my father, my father!' implored Isabelle; 'let me go back to my convent. Mother St. Rosalie de Sicile assures me that I have a true vocation!'
"'So it seems,' sneered M. d'Escombas, 'by your coming here to meet a young spark three days before your marriage.'
"'Father, it is better to endure the poverty, the vows, the life-long self-abnegation of all in a convent, than an union without love to a man who is older even than thee.'
"Her voice was most touching—her expression lovely; but the old barbarians heard her unmoved.
"'Child, you know not what you say,' replied M. de Platel, in great wrath. 'I provide a rich marriage, a wealthy husband, who will prove a kind one, too; a splendid house here, close by the Luxembourg; a life of freedom and gaiety; and, diable! what more would you have? unless it is this rascal of a student, who would be better inside La Force than here, creating mischief and dispeace.'
"'Oh, why torture me thus?' she replied, faintly, while pressing her hands on her heart.
"'Torture—bon diable! she talks of torture, with a suitor here who has ever so many thousand livres per annum,' said M. du Platel, shrugging up his shoulders.
"'Mon père,' she demanded, with her little nostrils quivering, and her blue eyes flashing fire; 'for how many thousand purses do the Circassians sell?'
"'Morbleu! she is always speaking about Circassians,' growled M. d'Escombas; 'what do we know of them, save that they are pagans who eat horseflesh on Friday, and never sign the cross or keep the month of Mary.'
"'And yet they sell their daughters, M. d'Escombas, just like the subjects of the Most Christian king.'
"'Child, this is treason and blasphemy—and close to the walls of the Luxembourg, too!'
"''Tis truth and despair.'
"'Summon a fiacre, M. d'Escombas—a thousand devils, 'tis time to end this!' exclaimed du Platel, grinding his teeth, and then they bore her away from me.
"In three days after this sorrowful meeting I heard the bells of St. Germain de Prè ringing gaily for the marriage of Isabelle to the wealthy citizen d'Escombas, who was willing to take her without a portion—a circumstance that had quite sufficient influence with one so sordid and cruel as her father, without considering on the other hand the vast wealth of her suitor.
"After this, I was long ill and tired of life, and believe that but for the unwearying friendship of Guillaume de Boisguiller I should have died—if indeed people ever die for love, which I don't think they do.
"It was about this time that all Paris, and all France, too, rung with the terrible story of the conspiracy, the trial, and execution of Robert Francis Damien; and M. d'Escombas, on hearing that I was ill, affected to pity me, and begged of Boisguiller that he might be permitted to pay me a visit. Then I—urged I know not by what motive or impulse—consented. On hearing this, what think you my fortunate rival did?—for all his plans we discovered after—how, need not be related here.
"He unlocked the secret drawer of an iron strong-box, and taking therefrom a ring, placed it, with a peculiar smile, upon a finger of his right hand. It was a large and antique ring, which his father, who was a dealer in jewellery, had procured in Venice at a sale of the trinkets of the old Doge, Marc Antonio Mocenigo, who became the spouse of the Adriatic in 1701. This gold ornament was what was then termed a Death Ring, used when acts of poisoning were common in the seventeenth century. It was of the purest metal; but attached to the outside were two lion's claws, made of the keenest steel, and having in each a cleft that was filled with the most deadly poison.
"In crowds, or balls, or elsewhere, the wearer of such a ring could exercise his secret revenge by the slightest scratch, in pressing the hand of the doomed person, who would next day be found, perhaps, in bed dead, no one knew why or how. So, armed with this most fatal trinket, M. d'Escombas came with Boisguiller to visit me.
"I have but a vague recollection of the interview. He knew how passionately I had loved Isabelle, and I saw the savage gleam that crossed his eyes, when I inquired for her, but as one might inquire for a sister. He assured me in brief and hurried terms that she was well, content, and happy. Then I congratulated him with a tongue that clove to the roof of my mouth.
"He rose, at last, to retire; bade me be of good heart, said his adieux, and pressing my hand, left me, with a dark smile in his eyes, which were small, black, glittering, and half obscured by their shaggy overhanging brows of grizzly hair, which, in fact, were like mustachios placed over his nose instead of below it.
"Scarcely was he gone before I felt an indescribable sensation pass over all my body; my eyesight grew dim; my brain reeled, and my thoughts became delirious. Then every faculty seemed to become paralysed, and the doctors—in his excitement Boisguiller soon had half the medical faculty of Paris at my bedside—declared that I had been poisoned by some mineral substance. But poisoned by whom, and how? Ah, le brigand! how little did we suspect!
"Strong antidotes were applied, and after a time I recovered, for the poison in the ring had been placed there so many years ago that it had not retained sufficient strength to destroy life; but I leave you, Monsieur Gauntlet, to imagine the hatred and horror I had of the traitor d'Escombas when I came to know the actual object of his visit.
"I recovered fully, and joined the army under the Marshals Contades and de Broglie, in Germany. So my Isabelle is still the wife of that man; but there is a sweet composure, a sadness of heart and of eye about her, a silence and enduring gentleness under the most insulting jealousy and coarse petty tyranny, which make all who know, pity her, and deplore the fate to which she has been consigned.
"Had she died I should have sorrowed for her long and deeply, and have eventually recovered from the shock; but to know that she lives, and for another, is enough to—but, hola! what have we here?”