other in a kind of trot, which, though it seemed, from its
height of action and the proud look of the steed, a pretension
to motion more than ordinarily brisk, was in fact a little slower
than a common walk.
This noble cavalier seemed sufficiently an object of cui-iosity
to my horse to induce the animal to testify his surprise by
shying, .very jealously and very vehemently, in passing him.
This ill breeding on his part was indignantly returned on the
part of the Korman charger, who, uttering a sort of squeak
and shaking his long mane and head, commenced a series of
curvets and capers which cost the old Frenchman no little
trouble to appease. In the midst of these equine freaks, the
horse came so near me as to splash my nether garment with a
liberality as little ornamental as it was pleasurable.
The old Frenchman seeing this, took off his cocked hat very
politely and apologized for the accident. I replied with equal
courtesy; and, as our horses slid into quiet, their riders slid
into conversation. It was begun and chiefly sustained by my
new comrade ; for I am little addicted to commence unneces-
sary socialities myself, though I should think very meanly of
my pretensions to the name of a gentleman and a courtier, if I
did not return them when offered, even by a beggar.
''It is a fine horse of yours. Monsieur," said the old French-
man ; " but I cannot believe ā pardon me for saying so ā that
your slight English steeds are so well adapted to the purposes
of war as our strong chargers, ā such as mine for example."
"It is very possible. Monsieur," said I. "Has the horse
you now ride done service in the field as well as on the road ? "
"Ah! le pauvre 2)eti-t mignon, ā no!" {petit, indeed! this
little darling was seventeen hands high at the very least) ā
DEVEREUX. 297
"no, Monsieur: it is but a young creature this; Lis grand-
father service! me well!"
"I need not ask you, Monsieur, if you have borne arms:
the soldier is stamped upon you ! "
"Sir, you flatter me highly!" said the old gentleman,
blushing to the very tip of his long lean ears, and bowing as
low as if I had called him a Conde. " I have followed the
profession of arms for more than fifty years."
"Fifty years! 'tis a long time."
"A long time," rejoined my companion, "a long time to
look back upon with regret."
"Regret! by Heaven, I should think the remembrance of
fifty years' excitement and glory would be a remembrance of
triumph."
The old man turned round on his saddle, and looked at me
for some moments very wistfully. "You are young, Sir," he
said, "and at your years I should have thought with you;
but ā " (then abruptly changing his voice, he continued) ā
"Triumph, did you say? Sir, I have had three sons: they are
dead; they died in battle; I did not weep; I did not shed a
tear, Sir, ā not a tear! But I will tell you when I did weep.
I came back, an old man, to the home I had left as a young
one, I saw the counti-y a desert. I saw that the noblesse
had become tyrants ; the peasants had become slaves, ā such
slaves, ā savage from despair, ā even when they were most
gay, most fearfully gay, from constitution. Sir, I saw the
priest rack and grind, and the seigneur exact and pillage,
and the tax-gatherer squeeze out the little the other oppress-
ors had left; anger, discontent, wretchedness, famine, a ter-
rible separation between one order of people and another; an
incredible indifference to the miseries their despotism caused
on the part of the aristocracy; a sullen and vindictive hatred
for the perpetration of those miseries on the part of the peo-
ple; all places sold ā even all honours priced ā at the co\irt,
which was become a public market, a province of peasants,
of living men bartered for a few livres, and literally passed
from one hand to another, to be squeezed and drained anew
by each new possessor: in a word. Sir, an abandoned court;
298 DEVEREUX.
an unredeemed noblesse, ā unredeemed, Sir, by a single bene-
fit which, in other countries, even the most feudal, the vassal
obtains from the master; a peasantry famished; a nation
loaded with debt which it sought to pay by tears, ā these are
what I saw, ā these are the consequences of that heartless
and miserable vanity from which arose wars neither useful
nor honourable, ā these are the real components of that tri-
umph, as you term it, which you wonder that I regret."
Now, although it was impossible to live at the court of
Louis XIV. in his latter days, and not feel, from the general
discontent that prevailed even there, what a dark truth the
old soldier's speech contained, yet I was somewhat surprised
by an enthusiasm so little military in a person whose bearing
and air were so conspicuously martial.
" You draw a melancholy picture, " said I ; " and the wretched
state of cvilture which the lands that we now pass through
exhibit is a witness how little exaggeration there is in your
colouring. However, these are but the ordinary evils of war ;
and, if your country endures them, do not forget that she has
also inflicted them. Eemember what France did to Holland,
and own that it is but a retribution that France should now
find that the injury we do to otliers is (among nations as well
as individuals) injury to ourselves."
My old Frenchman curled his mustaches with the finger
and thumb of his left hand: this was rather too subtile a
distinction for him.
"That may be true enough, Monsieur," said he; "but,
viorhleu ! those viaudits Dutchmen deserved what they sus-
tained at our hands. ISTo, Sir, no : I am not so base as to for-
get the glory my country acquired, though I weep for her
wounds."
"I do not quite understand you. Sir," said I; "did you
not just now confess that the wars you had witnessed were
neither honourable nor useful? What glory, then, was to
be acquired in a war of that character, even though it was
so delightfully animated by cutting the throats of those
vimulits Dutchmen?"
"Sir," answered the Frenchman, drawing himself up, "you
DEVEREUX. 299
did not understand me. When we punished Holland, we did
rightly. We conquered."
" Whether you conquered or not (for the good folk of Hol-
land are not so sure of the fact)," answered I, "that war was
the most unjust in Avhich your king was ever engaged; but
pray, tell me, Sir, what war it is that you lament? "
The Frenchman frowned, whistled, put out his under lip,
in a sort of angry embarrassment, and then, spurring his great
horse into a curvet, said, ā
" That last war with the English ! "
"Faith," said I, "that was the justest of all."
" Just ! " cried the Frenchman, halting abruptly and darting
at me a glance of lire, "just! no more. Sir! no more! I was
at Blenheim and at Eamilies ! "
As the old warrior said the last words, his voice faltered;
and though I could not help inly smiling at the confusion of
ideas by which wars were just or unjust, according as they
were fortunate or not, yet I respected his feelings enough to
turn away my face and remain silent.
"Yes," renewed my comrade, colouring with evident shame
and drawing his cocked hat over his brows, " yes, I received
my last wound at Rarailies. Then my eyes were opened to
the horrors of war; then I saw and cursed the evils of ambi-
tion; then I resolved to retire from the armies of a king who
had lost forever his name, his glory, and his country."
Was there ever a better type of the French nation than this
old soldier? As long as fortune smiles on them, it is "Mar-
chons au diable ! " and " Vive la gloire ! " Directly they get
beaten, it is " Ma pauvre patrie ! " and " Les calamites af-
freuses de la guerre ! "
"However," said I, "the old King is drawing near the end
of his days, and is said to express his repentance at the evils
his ambition has occasioned."
The old soldier shoved back his hat, and offered me his
snuff-box. I judged by this that he was a little mollified.
" Ah ! " he renewed, after a pause, " ah ! times are sadly
changed since the year 1667; when the young King ā he was
young then ā took the field in Flanders, under the great Tu-
300 DEVEREUX.
renne. Sacristie ! "Wliat a hero lie looked upon his -white
war-horse ! I would have gone ā ay, and the meanest and
backwa,rdest soldier in the camp would have gone ā into the
very mouth of the cannon for a look from that magnificent
countenance, or a word from that mouth which knew so well
what words were! Sir, there was in the war of '72, when we
were at peace with Great Britain, an English gentleman, then
in the army, afterwards a marshal of France : I remember, as
if it were yesterda}^, how gallantly he behaved. The King
sent to compliment him after some signal proof of courage
and conduct, and asked what reward he would have. 'Sire,'
answered the Englishman, 'give me the white plume you
wore this day.' From that moment the Englishman's fortune
was made."
"The flattery went further than the valour! " said I, smil-
ing, as I recognized in the anecdote the first great step which
my father had made in the ascent of fortune.
" Sacristie ! " cried the Frenchman, " it was no flattery then.
We so idolized the King that mere truth would have seemed
disloyalty; and we no more thought that praise, however ex-
travagant, was adulation, when directed to him, than we
should have thought there was adulation in the praise we
would have given to our first mistress. But it is all changed
now! "Who now cares for the old priest-ridden monarch?"
And upon this the veteran, having conquered the momen-
tary enthusiasm which the remembrance of the King's earlier
glories had excited, transferred all his genius of description
to the opposite side of the question, and declaimed, with
great energy, upon the royal vices and errors, which were
so charming in prosperity, and were now so detestable in
adversity.
While we were thus conversing we approached Versailles.
We thought the vicinity of the town seemed unusually de-
serted. We entered the main street : crowds were assembled ;
a universal murmur was heard ; excitement sat on every coun-
tenance. Here an old crone was endeavouring to explain
something, evidently beyond his comprehension, to a child of
three years old, who, with open mouth and fixed eyes, seemed
DEVEREUX. 301
to make up in -wonder for the want of intelligence; there a
group of old disbanded soldiers occupied the way, and seemed,
from their muttered conversations, to vent a sneer and a jest
at a priest who, with downward countenance and melancholy
air, was hurrying along.
One young fellow was calling out, " At least, it is a holy-
day, and I shall go to Paris ! " and, as a contrast to him, an
old withered artisan, leaning on a gold-headed cane, with
sharp avarice eloquent in every line of his face, muttered out
to a fellow-miser, "No business to-day, no money, John; no
money ! " One knot of women, of all ages, close by which my
horse passed, was entirely occupied with a single topic, and
that so vehemently that I heard the leading words of the dis-
cussion. "Mourning ā becoming ā what fashion? ā how
long? ā Ciel!^^ Thus do follies weave themselves round
the bier of death!
"What is the news, gentlemen?" said I.
"News! what, you have not heard it? ā the King is dead! "
"Louis dead! Louis the Great, dead!" cried my com-
panion.
" Louis the Great? " said a sullen-looking man, ā " Louis the
persecutor! "
" Ah, he 's a Huguenot ! " cried another with haggard cheeks
and hollow eyes, scowling at the last speaker. " Never mind
what he says : the King was right when he refused protection
to the heretics ; but was he right when he levied such taxes
on the Catholics?"
"Hush! " said a third ā "hush: it may be unsafe to speak;
there are spies about ; for my part, I think it was all the fault
of the noblesse.''^
"And the Favourites! " cried a soldier, fiercely.
"And the Harlots! " cried a hag of eighty.
" And the Priests ! " muttered the Huguenot.
" And the Tax-gatherers ! " added the lean Catholic.
We rode slowly on. My comrade was evidently and pow-
erfully affected.
"So, he is dead!" said he. "Dead! ā well, well, peace be
with him! He conquered in Holland; he humbled Genoa;
302 DEVEREUX.
he dictated to Spain; he commanded Conde and Turenne; he
ā Bah! What is all this! " then, turning abruptly to me, my
companion cried, "I did not speak against the King, did I,
Sir?"
"Xot much."
"I am glad of that, ā yes, very glad!" And the old man
glared fiercely round on a troop of boys who were audibly
abusing the dead lion.
" I would have bit out my tongue rather than it had joined
in the base joy of these yelping curs. Heavens! when I
think what shouts I have heard when the name of that man,
then deemed little less than a god, was but breathed! ā and
now ā why do you look at me, Sir? My eyes are moist; I
know it, Sir, ā I know it. The old battered broken soldier,
who made his first campaigns when that which is now dust
was the idol of France and the pupil of Turenne, ā the old
soldier's eyes shall not be dry, though there is not another
tear shed in the whole of this great empire."
"Your three sons?" said I; "you did not weep for them?"
"No, Sir; I loved them when I was old; but I loved Louis
when I was young ! "
"Your oppressed and pillaged country? " said I, "think of
that."
"No, Sir, I will not think of it! " cried the old warrior in a
passion. "I will not think of it ā to-day, at least."
" You are right, my brave friend ; in the grave let us bury
even public wrongs; but let us not bury their remembrance.
May the joy we read in every face that we pass ā joy at the
death of one whom idolatry once almost seemed to deem im-
mortal ā be a lesson to future kings ! "
My comrade did not immediately answer; but, after a
pause and we had turned our backs upon the town, he said, ā
"Joy, Sir, ā you spoke of joy! Yes, we are Frenchmen:
we forgive our rulers easily for private vices and petty faults ;
but we never forgive them if they commit the greatest of
faults, and suffer a stain to rest upon ā "
"What?" I asked, as my comrade broke off.
" The national glory, Monsieur ! " said he.
DEVEREUX. 303
"You have hit it," said I, smiling at the turgid sentiment
which was so really and deeply felt. " And had you written
folios upon the character of your countrymen, you could not
have expressed it better."
CHAPTER VIII.
IN WHICH THERE IS KEASON TO FEAR THAT PRINCES ARE
NOT INVARIABLY FREE FROM HUMAN PECCADILLOES.
On entering Paris, my veteran fellow-traveller took leave
of me, and I proceeded to my hotel. When the first excite-
ment of my thoughts was a little subsided, and after some
feelings of a more public nature, I began to consider what
influence the King's death was likely to have on my own
fortunes. I could not but see at a glance that for the cause
of the Chevalier, and the destiny of his present exertions
in Scotland, it was the most fatal event that could have
occurred.
The balance of power in the contending factions of France
would, I foresaw, lie entirely between the Duke of Orleans
and the legitimatized children of the late king: the latter,
closely leagued as they were with Madame de Maintenon,
could not be much disposed to consider the welfare of Count
Devereux; and my wishes, therefore, naturally settled on the
former. I was not doomed to a long suspense. Every one
knows that the very next day the Duke of Orleans appeared
before Parliament, and was proclaimed Regent; that the will
of the late King was set aside; and that the Duke of Maine
suddenly became as low in power as he had always been des-
picable in intellect. A little hubbub ensued : people in gen-
eral laughed at the 'Regent's Jinesse; and the more sagacious
admired the courage and address of which the Jinesae was
composed. The Regent's mother wrote a letter of sixty-nine
304 DEVEREUX.
pages about it; and the Ducliess of Maine boxed tlie Duke's
ears very heartily for not being as clever as herself. All
Paris teemed with joyous forebodings; and the Eegent,
whom every one some time ago had suspected of poisoning
his cousins, every one now declared to be the most perfect
prince that could possibly be imagined, and the very picture
of Henri Quatre in goodness as well as physiognomy. Three
days after this event, one happened to myself with which my
public career may be said to commence.
I had spent the evening at a house in a distant part of
Paris, and, invited by the beauty of the night, had dismissed
my carriage, and was walking home alone and on foot. Oc-
cupied with my reflections, and not very well acquainted
with the dangerous and dark streets of Paris, in which it was
very rare for those who have carriages to wander on foot, I
insensibly strayed from my proper direction. When I first
discovered this disagreeable fact, I was in a filthy and obscure
fane rather than street, which I did not remember having
ever honoured with my presence before. While I was paus-
ing in the vain hope and anxious endeavour to shape out
some imaginary chart ā some "map of the mind," by which
to direct my bewildered course ā I heard a confused noise
proceed from another lane at right angles with the one in
which I then was. I listened: the sound became more dis-
tinct; I recognized human voices in loud and angry alterca-
tion; a moment more and there was a scream. Though I did
not attach much importance to the circumstance, I thought I
might as well approach nearer to the quarter of noise. I
walked to the door of the house from which the scream pro-
ceeded; it was very small and mean. Just as I neared it, a
window was thrown open, and a voice cried, "Help! help!
for God's sake, help!"
"What's the matter?" I asked.
" Whoever you are, save us ! " cried the voice, " and that
instantly, or we shall be murdered ; " and, the moment after,
the voice ceased abruptly, and was succeeded by the clashing
of swords.
I beat loudly at the door; I shouted out, ā no answer; the
DEVEREUX. 305
scuffle within seemed to increase. I saw a small blind alley
to the left; one of the unfortunate women to whom such
places are homes was standing in it.
" What possibility is there of entering the house? " I asked.
"Oh!" said she, "it does not matter; it is not the first
time gentlemen have cut each other's throats there ^
"What! is it a house of bad repute?"
"Yes; and where there are bullies who wear knives, and
take purses, as well as ladies who ā "
" Good heavens ! " cried I, interrupting her, " there is no
time to be lost. Is there no way of entrance but at this
door?"
" Yes, if you are bold enough to enter at another ! "
"Where?"
"Down this alley."
Immediately I entered the alley; the woman pointed to
a small, dark, narrow flight of stairs; I ascended; the sounds
increased in loudness. I mounted to the second flight;
a light streamed from a door; the clashing of swords was
distinctly audible within; I broke open the door, and found
myself a witness and intruder on a scene at once ludicrous
and fearful.
A table, covered with bottles and the remnants of a meal,
was in the centre of the room; several articles of women's
dress were scattered over the floor; two women of unequivo-
cal description were clinging to a man richly dressed, and
who having fortunately got behind an immense chair, that
had been overthrown probably in the scuffle, managed to keep
oif with awkward address a fierce-looking fellow, who had
less scope for the ability of his sword-arm, from the circum-
stance of his attempting to pull away the chair with his left
hand. Whenever he stooped to effect this object his antago-
nist thrust at him very vigorously, and had it not been for
the embarrassment his female enemies occasioned him, the
latter would, in all probability, have despatched or disabled
his besieger. This fortified gentleman, being backed by the
window, I immediately concluded to be the person who had
called to me for assistance.
20
306 DEVEREUX.
At the other corner of the apartment was another cavalier,
who used his sword with singular skill, but who, being hard
pressed by two lusty fellows, was forced to employ that skill
rather in defence than attack. Altogether, the disordered
appearance of the room, the broken bottles, the fumes with
which the hot atmosphere teemed, the evident profligacy of
the two women, the half-undressed guise of the cavaliers, and
the ruffian air and collected ferocity of the assailants, plainly
denoted that it was one of those perilous festivals of pleasure
in which imprudent gallants were often, in that day, betrayed
by treacherous Delilahs into the hands of Philistines, who,
not contented with stripping them for the sake of plunder,
frequently murdered them for the sake of secrecy.
Having taken a rapid but satisfactory survey of the scene,
I did not think it necessary to make any preparatory parley.
I threw myself upon the nearest bravo with so hearty a good
will that I ran him through the body before he had recovered
his surprise at my appearance. This somewhat startled the
other two ; they drew back and demanded quarter.
"Quarter, indeed! " cried the farther cavalier, releasing him-
self from his astonished female assailants, and leaping nimbly
over his bulwark into the centre of the room, "quarter, in-
deed, rascally ivrognes! No; it is our turn now! and, by
Joseph of Arimathea! you shall sup with Pilate to-night."
So saying, he pressed his old assailant so fiercely that, after
a short contest, the latter retreated till he had backed him-
self to the door; he then suddenly turned round, and vanished
in a twinkling. The third and remaining ruffian was far
from thinking himself a match for three men ; he fell on his
knees, and implored mercy. However, the c i-dev ant ^w&t^mQV
of the besieged chair was but little disposed to afford him the
clemency he demanded, and approached the crestfallen bravo
with so grim an air of truculent delight, brandishing his
sword and uttering the most terrible threats, that there Avould
have been small doubt of the final catastrophe of the trem-
bling bully, had not the other gallant thrown himself in the
way of his friend.
"Put up thy sword," said he, laughing, and yet with an air
DEVEREUX. 307
of command; "we must not court crime, and then punish it."
Then, turning to the bully, he said, "Kise, Sir Rascal! the
devil spares thee a little longer, and this gentleman will not
disobey his as well as th?/ master's wishes. Begone ! "
The fellow wanted no second invitation : he sprang to his
legs, and to the door. The disappointed cavalier assisted his
descent down the stairs with a kick that would have done
the work of the sword to any flesh not accustomed to similar
applications. Putting up his rapier, the milder gentleman
then turned to the ladies, who lay huddled together under
shelter of the chair which their intended victim had
deserted.
"Ah, Mesdames," said he, gravely, and with a low bow,
" I am sorry for your disappointment. As long as you con-
tented yourselves with robbery, it were a shame to have in-
terfered with your innocent amusements; but cold steel
becomes serious. Monsieur D'Argenson will favour you
with some inquiries to-morrow ; at present, I recommend you
to empty what remains in the bottle. Adieu! Monsieur,
to whom I am so greatly indebted, honour me with your arm
down these stairs. You" (turning to his friend) "will fol-
low us, and keep a sharp look behind. Allans ! Vive Henri
Quatre ! "
As we descended the dark and rough stairs, my new com-
panion said, " What an excellent antidote to the effects of the
vin de champagne is this same fighting! I feel as if I had
not tasted a drop these six hours. What fortune brought you
hither. Monsieur?" addressing me.
We were now at the foot of the first flight of stairs ; a high
and small window admitted the moonlight, and we saw each
other's faces clearly.
"That fortune," answered I, looking at my acquaintance
steadily, but with an expression of profound respect, ā "that
fortune which w^atches over kingdoms, and which, I trust,
may in no place or circumstance be a deserter from your
Highness."
"Highness!" said my companion, colouring, and darting a
glance, first at his friend and then at me. "Hist, Sir, you
308 DEVEREUX.
know me, then, ā speak low, ā you know, then, for whom you
have drawn your sword?"
" Yes, so please your Highness. I have drawn it this night
for Philip of Orleans ; I trust yet, in another scene and for
another cause, to draw it for the Eegent of France ! "