Volume Iii Part 6 (1/2)
”No, no, Gaspar of Montsoreau!” exclaimed the Abbe quickly, ”I have not done any of these things you talk of. I have not aided in any one degree to take from you the happiness you formerly had. There is but one secret for the preservation of happiness, Gaspar. It matters not what is the object of desire, for any thing that we thirst for really may give us happiness in nearly the same portion as another. Happiness is gained by the right estimation of the means. If a man ever uses means that he regrets, to obtain any object that he desires, he loses the double happiness which may be obtained in life, the happiness of pursuit and the happiness of enjoyment. Every means must, of course, be proportioned to its end; where much is to be won, much must be risked or paid: but the firm strong mind, the powerful understanding, weighs the object against the price; and, if it be worthy, whatever that price may be, after it is once paid and the object attained, regrets not the payment. It is like an idle child who covets a gilt toy, spoils it in half an hour, and then regrets the money it has cost, ever to sorrow over means we have used, when those means have proved successful. Say not, Gaspar, that I disturbed your happiness!
While you were in your own lands, enjoying the calm pleasures of a provincial life, knowing no joys, seeking no pleasures but those which, like light winds that ruffle the surface and plough not up the bosom of the water, amuse the mind but never agitate the heart, I lived contented and happy amongst you, believing that, but once or twice at most in the life of man, a joy is set before him, which is worthy of being bartered against amus.e.m.e.nt. I joined in all your sports, I furnished you with new sources of the same calm pleasures; and as long as I saw the pa.s.sions were shut out, I sought no change for myself or for you either. But when the moment came, that strong and deep pa.s.sions were to be introduced; when I saw that your heart, and that of your brother, like the moulded figure by the demiG.o.d, had been touched with the ethereal fire, and woke from slumber never to sleep again, then it was but befitting that I should aid him who confided in me, in the pursuit that he was now destined to follow. If the object was a great and worthy one, the means to obtain it were necessarily powerful and hazardous. No man ought to yield his repose for any thing that is not worth all risks; but having once begun the course, he must go on; and weak and idle is he who cannot overleap the barriers that he meets with, or, when the race is won, turns to regret this flower or that which he may have trampled down in his course.”
”You are harsh, Abbe,” replied the Marquis thoughtfully, somewhat shaken by his words--for though the wounds of remorse admit no balm, they are sometimes forgotten in strong excitement. ”You are harsh, but yet it is a terrible thing to have slain one's brother.”
”It is,” replied the Abbe; ”but circ.u.mstances give the value of every fact. It is a terrible thing to slay any human being; to take the life of a creature, full of the same high intelligences as ourselves: but if I slay that man in a room, and for no purpose, it is called murder; if I slay him in a battle-field, in order to obtain a crown, it is a glorious act, and worthy of immortal renown.”
The Marquis listened to his sophistry, eager to take any theme of consolation to his heart. But any one who heard him, would have supposed that the Abbe de Boisguerin thought his companion too easily consoled. Perhaps it might be that the Abbe himself sought to defend his share in the transaction, rather than to give any comfort to his unhappy cousin. At all events, after a brief pause, during which both fell into thought, he added, ”What I grieve the most for is, that Charles was kind-hearted and generous, frank and true, and I believe sincerely that, but for this unhappy business, he loved us both.”
”Ay, there is the horror! there is the horror!” exclaimed the Marquis, casting himself down into a chair, and covering his eyes with his hands. ”He did love me, I know he did; and I believe he sought to act generously by me.”
The Abbe suffered him to indulge in his grief for a moment or two, and then replied, ”But the misfortune is, that, with all this, your object is not yet secured; that though you have once more s.n.a.t.c.hed her from the power of the Guises, you have not contrived to keep her in your own.”
The Marquis waved his hand impatiently, saying, ”I cannot--I will not talk of such things now. Leave me, Abbe, leave me! I can but grieve; there is no way that I can turn without encountering sorrow.”
The Abbe turned and left him; and descending the steps into the gardens, he walked on in the calm suns.h.i.+ne, as tranquilly as if purity and holiness had dwelt within his breast. ”I must bear this yet a while longer,” he said to himself. ”But now, if I could find some enthusiastic priest, full of wild eloquence, such as we have in Italy, to seize this deep moment of remorse, we might do much with him to make him abjure this pursuit; perhaps abjure the world! The foolish boy thinks that it was his hand that did it, and does not know that I fired at all, when his hand shook so that he could not well have struck him. Perhaps there may be such a priest as I need up there,” he continued, looking towards Augouleme, ”perhaps there may be such a priest up there, of the kind I want. Epernon has his fits of devotion too, I believe. At all events, I will go up and see. The madder the better for my purpose.”
Thus saying he called some servants, ordered his horse, and, as soon as it was brought, rode away towards Augouleme.
CHAP. V.
Gaspar de Montsoreau remained in the same position in which the Abbe had left him for nearly an hour, and the struggle of the various pa.s.sions which agitated his heart, were perhaps as terrible as any that had ever been known to human being. His situation, indeed, was one which exposed him more than most men are ever exposed, to the contention of the most opposite feelings. He had not been led gradually on, as many are, step by step, to evil; but he had been taken from the midst of warm and kindly feelings, from the practice of right, and an habitual course of calm and tranquil enjoyment, and by the mastery of one strong and violent pa.s.sion had been plunged into the midst of crimes which had left anguish and remorse behind them.
Still, however, the pa.s.sion which had at first led him astray, existed in all its fierceness and all its intensity; and, like some quiet field--from which the husbandman has been accustomed to gather yearly, in the calm suns.h.i.+ne, a rich and kindly harvest--when suddenly made the place of strife by contending armies, his heart, so tranquil and so happy not a year before, had now become the battle-place of remorse and love.
Sometimes the words of the Abbe came back upon his ear, urging him to abandon for ever, as a penance for his crime, the pursuit which had already led him to such awful deeds; but then again the thought of Marie de Clairvaut, of never beholding that beautiful being again, of yielding her for ever, perhaps, to the arms of others, came across his brain, and almost drove him mad.
Then would rush remorse again upon his heart, the features of his brother rose up before him, his graceful form seemed to move within his sight; the frank warm-hearted, kindly smile, that had ever greeted him when they met, was now painted by memory to his eye; and many a trait of generous kindness, many a n.o.ble, many an endearing act, the words and jests of boyhood and infancy, the long remembered sports of early years, the accidents, the adventures, the tender and twining a.s.sociations of youth and happiness, forgotten in the strife of pa.s.sion and the contention of rivalry, now came back, as vividly as the things of yesterday--came back, alas! now that death had ended the struggle, rendered the deeds of the past irreparable, thrown the pall of remorse over the last few months, and left memory alone to deck the tomb of the dead with bright flowers gathered from their spring of life.
It was too much to bear: he turned back again to the words, not of consolation but of incitement, which the Abbe had spoken to him. He tried to think it was folly to regret what had been done; he tried to recollect that it was in a scene of contention, and in moments of strife, that his brother had fallen; he strove to persuade himself that Marie de Clairvaut had been under his care and guidance and direction, and that his brother Charles had had no right even to attempt to take her out of his hands. He laboured, in short, to steel his heart; to render it as hard iron, in order to resist the things that it had to endure. He sought anxiously to rouse it into activity; and he tried to fix his mind still upon the thoughts of winning Marie de Clairvaut. He resolved, at whatever price, by whatever sacrifice, to gain her, to possess her, to make her his own beyond recall: with the eagerness of pa.s.sion and the recklessness of remorse, he determined to pursue his course, trusting, as many have idly trusted, that he should induce the woman, whose affections and feelings he forced, to love the man to whose pa.s.sions she was made a sacrifice.
The struggle was still going on, the voice of conscience was raising itself loudly from time to time, memory was doing her work, and pa.s.sion was opposing all, when, without hearing any step, or knowing that any one had arrived at the house, he felt a hand quietly laid upon his arm, and starting up with a feeling almost of terror, which was unusual to him, he beheld the dark and sinister, though handsome, countenance of Villequier.
The courtier grasped his hand with enthusiastic warmth, and gazed in his face with a look of deep interest. ”You are sad, Monsieur de Montsoreau,” he said; ”I grieve to see you so sad. I fear that the news which I came to break to you has been told you, perhaps, in a rash and inconsiderate manner. You are aware then that your brother is no more. I hoped to have been in time, for I only heard it the day before yesterday, in the evening, from the Duke of Guise, who is now with the King, and, as you know, all powerful.”
Gaspar de Montsoreau heard him to an end, and then merely bowed his head, saying, ”I have heard all, Monsieur de Villequier.” But although he saw that his companion--who had more than once witnessed the fierceness of his feelings towards his brother regarding Mademoiselle de Clairvaut--was surprised at the deep grief he now betrayed, he dared not let him know how much that grief was aggravated by remorse, from the belief that his own hand had cut the thread of his brother's life.
”I am sorry. Monsieur de Montsoreau,” added Villequier, ”to see you so deeply affected by this matter. Pray remember, that though Monsieur de Logeres was your brother, he was struggling with you for the hand of the person you love, and that his being now removed, renders your hope of obtaining the hand of Mademoiselle de Clairvaut no longer doubtful and remote, but certain and almost immediate.”
”I see not the matter in the same cheering light that you do, Monsieur de Villequier,” replied Gaspar de Montsoreau thoughtfully. ”You say, and I hear also that it is so, that the Duke of Guise is now all powerful with the King; if such be the case, what results have we to antic.i.p.ate? Do you think that the Duke of Guise will ever consent to the union of his ward with me? Do you think that, prejudging the question as he has already done, he will give me the bride that he promised to my brother? Have I not heard from those who were present, that he has sworn by all he holds sacred, that never, under any circ.u.mstances, should she be mine?”
”The Duke of Guise is not immortal,” replied Villequier drily; ”and his death leaves her wholly in my power. Should such an event not take place, however, and the period of her attaining free agency approach, we must risk a little should need be, and employ a certain degree of gentle compulsion to drive or lead her to that which we desire.”
”When will it be?” demanded Gaspar of Montsoreau. ”Why should we pause? why should we risk any thing by delay?”
”She becomes a free agent by the law,” replied Villequier, ”on the morrow of next Christmas. If that day pa.s.ses, it is true, prayers and supplications will be all that can be used, for the Parliament will extend its protection to her, and not the King himself can force her to wed any one she does not choose. Before that period her guardian can, for such is the feudal law of this realm, that she can be forced either to resign her lands or produce some one in her stead to lead her retainers in the King's service. The law has been somewhat stretched, it is true; but on more than one occasion, with the consent of the King, the guardian of a young lady difficult to please, has compelled her to make a choice, and the Parliament has sanctioned the act.”