Volume Ii Part 6 (1/2)
”It was that I wished you to guard against,” replied the Abbe. ”Had you appeared less to seek, you would have been sought rather than avoided. It may be true, Gaspar, what authors have said, that a woman, like some animals of the chase, takes a pleasure in being pursued; but depend upon it, if she do so, she puts forth all her speed to insure herself against being caught. Unless you are very sure of your own speed and strength, you had better steal quietly onward, lest you frighten the deer. Had she heard much from my lips, and from those of her good but weak friend Madame de Saulny, of your high qualities, and of all those traits in your nature calculated to captivate and attract such a being as herself, while you seemed indifferent and somewhat cool withal, every thing--good that is in her nature would have joined with every thing that is less good--the love of high qualities and of manly daring would have combined with vanity and caprice to make her seek you, excite your attention, and court your love.”
”I have never yet seen in her,” said the young Marquis, ”either vanity or caprice; and besides, good friend, such things to me at least are not matters of mere calculation. I act upon impulses that I cannot resist. Mine are feelings, not reasonings: I follow where they lead me, and even in the pursuit acquire intense pleasure that no reasoning could give.”
”True,” replied the Abbe, bending down his head and answering thoughtfully. ”There is a great difference between your age and mine, Gaspar. You are at the age of pa.s.sions, and at that period of their sway when they defeat themselves by their own intensity. I had thought, however, that my lessons might have taught you, my counsel might have shown you, that with any great object in view it is necessary to moderate even pa.s.sion in the course, in order to succeed in the end.”
”But there is joy in the course also,” exclaimed Gaspar de Montsoreau.
”Think you, Abbe, that even if it were possible to win the woman we love by another's voice, we could lose the joy of winning her for ourselves--the great, the transcendant joy of struggling for her affection, even though it were against her coldness, her indifference, or her anger?”
”I think, Gaspar,” replied the Abbe, ”that if to a heart const.i.tuted as yours is, there be added a mind of equal power, nothing--not even the strongest self-denial--will be impossible for the object of winning her you love. But I am not a good judge of such matters,” he continued with a slight smile curling his lip--a smile not altogether without pride. ”I am no judge of such matters. The profession which I have chosen, and followed to a certain point, excludes them from my consideration. All I wish to do in the present instance is to warn you, Gaspar, against your own impetuosity in dealing with this Villequier. Be warned against that man! be careful! Promise him nothing; commit yourself absolutely to nothing, unless upon good and sufficient proof that he too deals sincerely with you. He is not one to be trusted, Gaspar, even in the slightest of things; and promise me not to commit yourself with him in any respect whatsoever.”
”Oh, fear not, fear not,” replied the Marquis. ”In this respect at least, good friend, no pa.s.sions hurry me on. Here I can deal calmly and tranquilly, because, though the end is the same, I have nothing but art to encounter, which may always be encountered by reason. When I am with her, Abbe, it is the continual strife of pa.s.sion that I have to fear; at every word, at every action, I have to be upon my guard; and reason, like a solitary sentinel upon the walls of a city attacked on every side, opposes the foes in vain at one point, while they pour in upon a thousand others.”
While he was yet speaking, a servant with a noiseless foot entered the room, and in a low sweet tone informed the Marquis, that Monsieur de Villequier had just returned from Vincennes, and desired earnestly to speak with him, for a moment, _alone_ in his own cabinet. The word ”alone” was p.r.o.nounced more loud than any other, though the whole was low and tuneful; for Villequier used to declare that he loved to have servants with feet like cats and voices like nightingales.
The Abbe marked that word distinctly, and was too wise to make the slightest attempt to accompany his former pupil. The Marquis, however, did not remark it; and, perhaps a little fearful of his own firmness and skill, asked his friend to accompany him. But the Abbe instantly declined. ”No, Gaspar,” he said, ”no; it were better that you should see Monsieur Villequier alone. I will wait for you here;” and, turning to the table, he took up an illuminated psalter, and examined the miniatures with as close and careful an eye as if he had been deeply interested in the labours of the artist.
He saw not a line which had there been drawn; but after the Marquis had followed the servant from the room he muttered to himself, ”So, Monsieur de Villequier, you think that I am a mean man, who may be over-reached with impunity and ease? You know me not yet, but you shall know me, and that soon.” And laying down the psalter, he took up another book of a character more suited to his mind at the moment, and read calmly till his young friend returned, which was not for near an hour.
In the mean time the Marquis had proceeded to the cabinet of Villequier, who, the moment he saw him, rose from the chair in which he had been seated busily writing, and pressed him warmly by the hand.
”My dear young friend,” he said, ”one learns to love the more those in whose cause one suffers something; and, since I saw you, I have had to fight your battle manfully.”
”Indeed! and may I ask, my Lord, with whom?” demanded the young Marquis.
”With many,” answered Villequier. ”With the King,--with Epernon,-with your own brother.”
”With my brother?” exclaimed Gaspar of Montsoreau, while the blood rushed up in his face. ”Does he dare to oppose me after all his loud professions of disinterestedness and generosity? But where is he, my Lord? Leave me to deal with him. Where does he dwell? Is he in Paris?”
Villequier smiled, but so slightly, that it did not attract the eyes of his companion. That smile, however, was but the announcement of a sudden thought that had pa.s.sed through his own mind.
Shrewd politicians like himself, fertile in all resources, and unscrupulous about any, feel a pride and pleasure in their own abundance of expedients, which makes the conception of a new means to their end as pleasant as the finding of a diamond. On the present occasion the subtle courtier thought to himself with a smile, as he saw the angry blood mount into the cheek of the young Marquis of Montsoreau at the very mention of his brother's name,--”Here were a ready means of ridding ourselves, were it needful, of one if not both of these young rash-headed n.o.bles, by setting them to cut each other's throats.”
It suited not his plan however at the moment to follow out the idea, and he consequently replied, ”No, no, Monsieur de Montsoreau. I should take no small care, seeing how justly offended you are with your brother, to prevent your finding out his abode, as I know what consequences would ensue. But in all probability, by this time, he has gone back to the Duke of Guise, having with difficulty been frustrated, for the King was much inclined to yield to his demands.”
”What did he demand?” exclaimed the Marquis vehemently. ”What did he dare to demand, after the professions he made to me at La Ferte?”
”That matters not,” answered Villequier. ”Suffice it that his demands were such as would have ruined all your hopes for ever.”
”But why should the King support his demands,” said the Marquis, ”when well a.s.sured of how attached he is to the great head of the League that tyrannises over him?”
”Hush, hus.h.!.+” said Villequier. ”The League only tyrannises so long as the King chooses. Henry wields not the sword at present, but the sword is still in his hands to strike when he thinks fit. But to answer your question, my young friend. The King knows well, as you say, that your brother is attached to the Duke of Guise: but you must remember at the same time, Monsieur de Montsoreau, that as yet he is not fully a.s.sured that you are attached to himself. Nay, hear me out, hear me out! The King's arguments, I am bound to say, were not only specious but reasonable. He had to consider, on the one hand, that the Duke of Guise, with whom it is his strongest interest to keep fair, demands this young lady as his ward, which, according to the laws of the land, Henry has no right to refuse. Your brother, on the Duke's part, threatens loudly; and what have I to oppose to a demand to which it seems absolutely necessary in good policy that the King should yield?
Nothing; for, on the other hand, Henry affirms that he can be in no degree sure of yourself; that your family for long have shown attachment for the House of Guise; that you yourself were upon your march to join the Duke, when this lady, falling into the hands of the King's troops, induced you to abandon your purpose for the time; but that the moment he favours your suit, or gives his consent to your union with her, you may return to your former attachments, and purchase the pardon and good will of the Duke of Guise by returning to his faction.”
”I am incapable of such a thing!” exclaimed the Marquis vehemently: but the recollection of his abandonment of the Duke's party came over him with a glow of shame, and he remained for a moment or two without making any farther reply, while Villequier was purposely silent also, as if to let what he had said have its full effect. At length he added:
”I believe you are incapable of it, Monsieur de Montsoreau, and so I a.s.sured the King. He, however, still urged upon me that I had no proof, and that you had taken no positive engagement to serve his Majesty. All the monarch's arguments were supported by Epernon, who, I believe, wishes for the hand of the young lady for some of his own relations, in order to arrange for himself such an alliance with the House of Guise as may prove a safeguard to him in the hour of need.”
And again Villequier smiled at his own art in turning back upon the Duke of Epernon the suspicion which the Duke had expressed in regard to himself.
The warning of the Abbe de Boisguerin, however, at that moment rang in the ears of Gaspar of Montsoreau, and he roused himself to deal with Villequier not exactly as an adversary, but certainly less as a friend.