University of Virginia Library

THE TOKEN.
THE WHITE SCARF.

The reign of Charles the Sixth is one of the most humiliating
periods of the French history, which, in its centuries of
absolute kings and unquestioning subjects, presents us a most
melancholy picture of the degradation of man, and of the disheartening
prolongation of the infancy of society. Nature
had given Charles but an hereditary monarch's portion of
brains, and that portion had not been strengthened or developed
by education or exercise of any sort. Passions he had
not; he never rose to the dignity of passion; but his appetites
were strong, and they impelled him, unresisted, to every
species of indulgence. His excesses brought on fits of madness,
which exposed his kingdom to the rivalship and misrule
of the princes of the blood. Fortunately for the subsequent
integrity of France, these men were marked by the general,
and, as it would seem, constitutional weakness of transmitted
royalty; and were besides too much addicted to pleasure, to

crave political independence or renown in arms, the common
passions of the powerful and high-born.

Instead of sundering the feeble ties that bound them to
their allegiance, and raising their princely domains to the independence
of the crown, they congregated at Paris, then, as now,
the Paradise of the devotees to pleasure, and surrendered
themselves, as their chroniclers quaintly express it, to “festins,
mascarades, danses, caroles et ébattemens,” (every species
of diversion,) varied by an occasional affray, an ambuscade,
or an assassination. The talent, that is now employed
upon the arts of life, in inventing new machines, and contriving
new fabrics, was then exhausted in originating new pastimes.
Games of cards, and the revival of dramatic entertainments,
date from the period of our story—the beginning of the fifteenth
century.

There shone at Charles's court one of those stars, that
occasionally cross the orbit of royalty, whose brilliancy obscured
the splendour of the hereditary nobility,—the lights,
that, according to conservative opinion, are set in the firmament
to rule the day and night of the plebeian world.

In the month of September, of the year 1409, a stranger,
attended by a servant with a small travelling-sack, knocked
at the gate of a magnificent hôtel in Paris. He was answered
by a porter, who cast on him a glance of inquiry as keen
as a bank clerk's upon the face of an unknown bank-note; and,
seeing neither retinue, livery, nor other insignia of rank, he
was gruffly dismissing him, when the stranger said, “Softly,
my friend; present this letter to the Grand-Master, and tell
him the bearer awaits his pleasure! Throw the sack down
within the gate, Luigi!” he added to his attendant, “and
come again at twelve;” and, without more ado, he took his
station within the court, a movement in which the porter acquiesced,

seeing that in the free bearing of the stranger, and
in the flashing of his dark eye, which indicated, it were wise
not to question an authority that had nature's seal. On one
side of the court was a fountain, and on the other a group
of Fauns, rudely carved in wood. Adornings of sculpture
were then unknown in France;—the art was just reviving,
and the ancient models still lay buried under barbaric ruins.
Two grooms appeared, conducting, in front of the immense
flight of steps that led up to the hôtel, four horses caparisoned
for their riders, two for females, as was indicated by the form
of the saddles, and the gay silk knots that decked the bridles,
one of them being studded with precious stones. At the
same moment, there issued from the grand entrance a gentleman,
and a lady who had the comely embonpoint befitting
her uncertain “certain age.” She called her companion “mon
mari,” and he assisted her to mount, with that nonchalant,
conjugal air, which indicate that gallantry had long been obsolete
in their intercourse.

The interest the wife did not excite, was directed to
another quarter. Mon mari's eye was constantly reverting
to the door, with an expression of eager expectation. “Surely,”
said the lady, “Violette has had time to find my eau-de-rose;—let
us go, my husband,—we are losing the freshness
of the morning. She may follow with Edouard.”

“Go you, ma chère amie,” replied her husband. “Mount,
Edouard, and attend your mistress,—my stirrup wants adjusting,—I'll
follow presently. How slow she rides! a plague
on old women's fears!” he muttered, as she ambled off. “Ah,
there you are, my morning star,” he cried, addressing a young
girl who darted through the door, and appeared well to warrant
a comparison to the most beautiful of the celestial lights.
She wore a Spanish riding-cap, a cloth dress, the waist neatly

fitted to her person, and much in the fashion of the riding
costume of the present day, save that it was shorter by some
half-yard, and thus showed to advantage a rich Turkish pantalette
and the prettiest feet in the world, laced in boots.
“Is my lady gone?” she exclaimed, dropping her veil over
her face.

“Yes, Violette, your lady is gone, but your lord is waiting
for my lady's mignonne. Come, mistress of my heart!
here is my hand for your stepping-stone.” He then threw
his arm around her waist, under the pretext of assisting her to
mount; but she darted away like a butterfly from a pursuer's
grasp, and, snatching the rein from the groom's hand, and
saying, “My lord, I am country bred, and neither need nor
like your gallantries,” she led the horse to the platform on
which the Fauns were placed, and, for the first time seeing
the stranger, who stood, partly obscured by them, looking curiously
upon this little scene, she blushed, and he involuntarily
bowed. It was an instinctive homage, and she requited
it with a look as different from that which she returned to
the libertine gaze of the Count de Roucy, as the reflection in
a mirror of two such faces, the one bloated and inflamed, the
other pure and deferential, would have been. Availing herself
of the slight elevation of the platform, she sprang into
the saddle and set off at a speed that, in De Roucy's eye, provokingly
contrasted with her mistress's cautious movement.
“Who are you, and what do you here?” he said, turning to
the stranger.

“My name,” replied the stranger, without condescending
to notice the insolent manner of the question, “is Felice
Montano, and I am here on business with the Grand-Master.”

“Did ye not exchange glances with that girl?”

“I looked on her, and the saints reward her, she looked
on me.”

“Par amour?”

“I stand not here to be questioned;—I ne'er saw the
lady before, but, with Heaven's kind leave, I shall see her
again!”

“Take care,—the girl is my wife's minion, the property of
the house,—ye shall be watched!” muttered De Roucy, and,
mounting his horse, he rode off, just as the porter reappeared,
attended by a valet-de-place, whose obsequious address
indicated that a flattering reception awaited Montano.

Montano was conducted up a long flight of steps, and
through a corridor to an audience-room, whose walls were
magnificently hung with tapestry, and its windows curtained
with the richest Oriental silk. Silver vases, candelabra of
solid gold, and various costly furniture, were displayed with
dangerous profusion, offering a tempting spoil to the secret
enemies of their proprietor.

There were already many persons of rank assembled, and
others entering. Montano stood apart, undaunted by their
half insolent, half curious glances. He had nothing to ask,
and therefore feared nothing. He felt among these men, notorious
for their ignorance and their merely animal lives, the
conscious superiority of an enlightened man, that raised him
far above the mere hereditary distinction, stigmatized by a
proud plebeian as the “accident of an accident.” Montano
was an Italian, and proudly measured the eminence from
which his instructed countrymen looked down upon their
French neighbours.

As he surveyed the insolent nobles, he marvelled at the
ascendency which Jean de Montagu, the Grand-Master of the
Palace, had maintained over them for nearly half a century.

The son of a humble notary of Paris, he had been ennobled
by King John, had been the prime and trusted favourite of
three successive monarchs, had maintained through all his
capricious changes the favour of Charles, had allied his children
to nobles and kings, had liberally expended riches, that
the proudest of them all did not possess, had encouraged and
defended the labouring classes, and was not known to have
an enemy, save Burgundy, the fearful “Jean sans peur.”

The suitors to the Grand-Master had assembled early, as
it was his custom to receive those who had pressing business
before breakfast, it being his policy not to keep his suitors in
vexing attendance. He knew his position, even while it
seemed firmest, to be an uncertain one; and he warily practised
those arts which smooth down the irritable surface of
men's passions, and lull to sleep the hydra, vanity.

“The Grand-Master is true as the dial!” said a person
standing near Montano; “the clock is on the stroke of nine;
—mark me! as it striketh the last stroke, he will appear.”

Montano fixed his eyes on the grand entrance to the saloon,
expecting, that, when the doors “wide open flew,” he
should see that Nature had put the stamp of her nobility on
the plebeian who kept these lawless lords in abeyance. The
portal remained closed, there was no flurishing of trumpets,
but, at a low side-door, gently opened and shut, entered a man
of low stature, and so slender and shrunken, that it would
seem Nature and time had combined to compress him within
the narrowest limits of the human frame. His features were
small, his chin beardless, and the few locks that hung, like
silver fringe around his head, were soft and curling as an
infant's. He wore a Persian silk dressing-gown over a citizen's
simple under-dress, and his tread was so light, his manner
so unpretending and unclaiming, that Montano would

scarcely have looked at him a second time, if he had not perceived
every eye directed towards him, and certain tokens of
deference analogous to those flutterings and shrinkings that
are seen in the basse cour, when its sovereign steps forth
among his subdued rivals. But, when he did look again, he
saw the fire glowing in a restless eye, that seemed to see and
read all at a glance,—an eye that no man, carrying a secret
in his bosom, could meet without quailing.

“Your Grace believes,” said the Grand-Master to the
Duke of Orleans, who had been vehemently addressing him
in a low voice, “that these mysteries are a kind of divertisement
that will minister to our sovereign's returning health?”

“So says the learned leech, and we all know they are the
physic our brother loves.”

“Then be assured, your poor servant will honour the
drafts on his master's treasury, though it be well nigh
drained by the revels of the late marriages. The king's poor
subjects starve, that his rich ones may feast; and children
scarce out of leading-strings are married, that their fathers
and mothers may have pretexts for dances and masquerades.”

“Methinks,” said the Count de Vaudemont, the ally and
messenger of Burgundy, “the Grand-Master's example is
broad enough to shelter what seems, in comparison of the
late gorgeous festival within these walls, but the revels of
rustics.”

“The festivals within these walls are paid with coin from
our own poor coffers,” replied the Grand-Master, “not drawn
from the King's treasury, and rusted with the sweat and
tears of his subjects. But what have we here?” He passed
his eye over a petition to the King, from sundry artisans,
whose houses had been stripped of their movables by the

valets of certain Dukes,—these valets pleading the common
usage of justification of this summary process. “Tell our
good friends,” he said, “it shall be my first business to present
this to our gracious sovereign; but, in the mean time,
let them draw on me for the amount of their losses. I can
better afford the creditor's patient waiting than our poor
friends who, after their day's hard toil, should lie securely
on their own beds at night. Ah, my lords, why do ye not,
like our neighbours of England, make the poor man's cottage
his castle.” After various colloquies with the different
groups, in which, whether he denied or granted, it was always
with the same gracious manner, the same air of self-negation,
he drew near to De Vaudemont, who stood apart from the
rest, with an air of frigid indifference, and apparent unconsciousness
of the Grand-Master's presence or approach, till
Montagu asked, in a low and deferential tone, “What answer
sendeth his Grace of B-b-b-b-b—?” Montagu had a stammering
infirmity, which beset him when he was most anxious
to appear unconcerned. He lowered his voice at every fresh
effort to pronounce the name, and this confidential tone gave
a more startling effect to the loud, rough voice, in which the
party addressed pronounced, “Burgundy! his Grace bids me
say, that for some diseases blood-letting is the only remedy.”

“Tell Burgundy,” replied the Grand-Master, now speaking
without the slightest faltering, and in allusion to the recent
alliance of his own with the royal family, “tell Burgundy,
that the humblest stream that mingles with the Ganges becomes
a portion of holy water, and that blood-letting is dangerous
when ye approach the royal arteries! Ah!” he continued,
turning suddenly to Montano, grasping his hand, and resuming
his usual tone, “You, I think, are the son of Nicoló Montano,
—welcome to Paris! You must stay to breakfast with me.

I have much to ask concerning my old friend. It is one and
twenty years since your mother put my finger in your mouth
to feel your first tooth. Bless me, what goodly rows are there
now! So time passes!”

“And where it were once safe to thrust your finger, it
might now be bitten off. Ha! Jean de Montagu?” growled
Vaudemont.

“When there are wolves abroad, we take care of our
fingers,” coolly replied Montagu.

These discourteous sallies and significant retorts were afterwards
remembered, as are the preludes to an earthquake
after the catastrophe has interpreted them. The assembly
broke up, Montagu bidding his young friend to take a stroll
in the garden, and rejoin him at the ringing of the breakfast
bell. When that sounded, a valet appeared and conducted
Montano to a breakfast room, where game, cakes, and
fruit were served on plate, and the richest wine sparkled in
cups that old Homer might fain have gemmed with his consecrating
verse. “I had forgotten,” said Montagu, “that a
boy of two and twenty needs no whetting to his appetite; but
sit ye down, and we will dull its edge. Ah, here you are,
De Roucy. We have a guest to season our fare this morning,
the son of my old schoolmate, Nicoló Montano.” De
Roucy bowed haughtily, and Montano returned the salutation
as it was given. “Why comes not Elinor to breakfast?”
asked Montagu of the Count de Roucy, who was the husband
of his eldest daughter.

“She likes not strangers.”

“God forgive her! Felice Montano is no stranger;—the
son of her father's first and best friend,—of the playfellow of
his boyhood,—of the founder of his fortunes, a stranger!”

“I thought you had woven your own fortunes, sir.”

“So have I, and interwoven with them some rotten
threads. Think not, De Roucy, I do not notice, or that, noticing,
I care for your allusion to my father's craft. Come
hither, Pierre.” De Roucy's son, a boy of seven, came and
stood at his knee. “When you are grown a man, Pierre,
remember, that, when your father's fathers were burning cottages,
bearing off poor men's daughters, slaughtering their
cattle, and trampling down their harvest-fields,—doing the
work of hereditary lordlings,—my child, your mother's ancestors
were employed in planting mulberries, rearing silk-worms,
multiplying looms,—in making bread and wine plenty,
and adding to the number of happy homes in their country.”

“But, grandpapa, I won't remember the wicked ones that
stole and did such horrid deeds!”

“Ah, Pierre, you will be a lord then, and learn in lordly
phrase to call stealing levying. Go, boy, and eat your breakfast;—God
forgive me! I have worked hard to get my posterity
into the ranks of robbers!”

At another moment, Montano would have listened with
infinite interest to all these hints, as so many clues to the history
and mind of a man who was the wonder of his times; but
now something more captivating to the imagination of two and
twenty, than the philosophy of any old man's history, occupied
him, and he was wondering, why no inquiry was made about
the companion of the Countess, and whether that creature, who
seemed to him only fit to be classed with the divinities, was
really a menial in the house of this weaver's son.

“Your father,” resumed the Grand-Master, “writes with a
plainness that pleases me. I thank him. It shall not be my
fault, if every window in my sovereign's palace is not curtained
with the silks from his looms; and, if it were not that my

son's espousals have drained my purse, I would give you the
order on the instant for the re-furnishing of my hôtel. But
another season will come, and then we shall be in heart again.
Your father does not write in courtly vein. He says, that,
amid his quiet and obedient subjects, who toil and spin for
him while he sleeps, he envies not my uncertain influence over
a maniac monarch, and dominion over factious nobles. Uncertain,—St.
Peter! What think ye, De Roucy? May not
a man who has allied one daughter to your noble house,
another to the Sire de Montbaron, and another to Melun, and
now has affianced his only son to the Constable d'Albret,
doubly cousin to the King, may not he throw his glove in dame
Fortune's face?”

“Yes, my lord, and dame Fortune may throw it back
again. He only betrays his weakness, who props himself on
every side.”

“Weakness! I have not an enemy save Burgundy.”

“And he who has Burgundy needs none other.”

“You are billious this morning, De Roucy. But come,
wherewith shall we entertain our young friend? We have no
pictures, no statues. Our gardens are a wilderness, Montano,
to your Paradise of Italy; but I have one piece of workmanship,
that I think would even startle the masters of your land.”
He called the servant in waiting, and whispered an order to
him. In a few moments the door re-opened, and a young girl
appeared, bearing a silver basket of grapes. Her hair was
golden, and, parted in front and confined on her temples with
a silver thread, fell over her shoulders, a mass of curls. Her
head was gracefully bent over the basket she carried, showing,
in its most beautiful position, a swan-like neck. Her features
were all symmetrical, and her mouth had that perfection of
outline, that art can imitate, and that flexibility, obedient to

every motion of the soul, in which Nature is inimitable. Her
dress was of rich materials, cut in the form prescribed to her
rank. The mistresses were fond of illustrating their own
generosity, or outdoing their rivals, by the rich liveries of their
train, while they jealously maintained every badge of the gradation
of rank. Her dress was much in the fashion of a Swiss
peasant girl of the present times. Her petticoat, of a fine
light-blue cloth, was full and short, exposing a foot and ankle,
that a queen might have envied her the power to show, and
which she, however, modestly sheltered, with the rich silver
fringe that bordered her skirt. Her white silk boddice was
laced with a silver cord, and her short, full sleeves were looped
with cords and tassels of the same material. “Can ye match
this girl in Italy?” whispered the old man to Montano.

“In Italy! nay, my lord, not in the world is there such
another model of perfection!” replied Montano, who, changed
as she was, by doffing her demi-cavalier dress, had, at a glance,
recognized his acquaintance of the morning.

“Thank you! Violette,” said Montagu, “are these grapes
from your own bower?”

“They are, my lord.”

“Then they must needs be sweeter than old Roland's, for
they have been ripened by your bright eyes and sunny smiles.”

“Ah, but grandfather,” interposed little Pierre, “Violette
did not say that, when I asked her for her grapes. She said,
they would only taste good to her father, for whom she reared
them, and that I should love Roland's better.”

“And why did you not thus answer me, Violette?”

“You asked for them, my lord,—the master's request is
law to the servant.”

“God forgive me, if I be such a master! Take away the
grapes, Violette, and send them, with what else ye will from

the refectory, to the forester. Nay, no thanks, my pretty
child, or, if you will, for all thanks let me kiss your cheek.”
Violette stooped and offered her beautiful cheek, suffused
with blushes, to Montagu's lips.

“The old have marvellous privileges!” muttered De
Roucy. The same thought was expressed in Montano's
glance, when his eye, as Violette turned, encountered hers.
She involuntarily curtsied, as she recognized the gallant of
the court. “A very suitable greeting for a stranger, Violette,”
said the Grand-Master; “but this youth must have a
kinder welcome from my household. It is Felice Montano,—
my friend's son,—give him a fitting welcome, my child.”

“Nobles and princes,” she replied, in a voice that set her
words to music, “have welcomes for your friends, my lord;
but such as a poor rustic can offer, she gives with all her
heart.” She took from her basket of grapes a half-blown rose.
“Will ye take this, Signor?” she said, “it offers ye Nature's
sweet welcome.”

Montano kissed the rose, and placed it in his bosom, as
devoutly as if it had dropped from the hand of his patron
saint. He then opened the small sack which his attendant
had brought to the hôtel, and which, at his request, had been
laid on a side-table. It contained specimens of the most
beautiful silks manufactured in his father's filature in Lombardy,
unrivalled in Italy. While these were spread out and
displayed, to the admiration of the Grand-Master, he took
from among them, a white silk scarf, embroidered in silver
with lilies of the valley, and, throwing it over Violette's shoulders,
he asked, if she “would grace and reward their arts of
industry by wearing it?”

“If it were fitting, Signor, one to whom it is prescribed

what bravery to wear, and how to wear it,” she replied, looking
timidly and doubtfully at the Grand-Master.

“It is not fitting,” interposed De Roucy.

“And pray ye, Sir, why not?” asked Montagu; “we do
not here allow, that gauds are for those alone who are born
to them;—beneath our roof-tree, the winner is the wearer;—
keep it, my pretty Violette, it well becomes thee.” Violette
dropped on her knee, kissed the Grand-Master's hand, and
casting a look at Montano, worth, in his estimation, all the
words of thanks in the French language, she disappeared.

Montagu insisted, that during the time his young friend's
negotiations with the silk venders of Paris detained him there,
he should remain an inmate of his family; and nothing loath
was Montano to accept a hospitality, which afforded him facilities
for every day seeing Violette. His affairs were protracted;
day after day he found some plausible pretext, if
pretext he had needed, for delaying his departure; but, by his
intelligence, his various information, and his engaging qualities,
he had made such rapid advances in Montagu's favour,
that he rather wanted potent reasons to reconcile him to their
parting. If such had been the progress of their friendship, we
need not be surprised, that one little month sufficed to mature
a more tender sentiment, a sentiment, that, in the young
bosoms of southern climes, ripens and perfects itself with the
rapidity of the delicious fruits of a tropical sun. Daily and
almost hourly, Violette and Montano were together in bower
and hall. Set aside by their rank from an equal association
with the visitors of the Grand-Master, they enjoyed a complete

immunity from any open interference with their happiness;
but Violette was persecuted with secret gallantries from
De Roucy, that had become more abhorrent to her since her
affections were consecrated to Montano. At the end of the
month, their love was confessed and plighted;—the Grand-Master
had given his assent to their affiancing, and the Countess
de Roucy had yielded hers, glad to be relieved from a
favourite, whom she had begun to fear as a rival. The eighth
of October was appointed for their nuptials. “To-morrow
morning, Violette,” said Montagu to her on the evening of
the sixth, “ye shall go and ask your father's leave and blessing,
and bid him to the wedding. Tell him,” he added, casting
a side-glance towards De Roucy, who stood at a little
distance, eyeing the young pair “with jealous leer malign,”
“that I shall envy him his son-in-law;—nay, tell him not
that, I will not envy any man aught; my course has been one
of prosperity and possession,—I have numbered threescore
and fifteen years,—I am now in sight of the farther shore of
life, and no man can interrupt my peaceful passage to it!”

“Let no man count on that from which one hour of life
divides him!” cried De Roucy, starting from his fixed posture,
and striding up and down the saloon. His words afterwards
recurred to all that then heard him, as a prophecy.

Montano asked, for his morning's ride, an escort of six
armed men. “I have travelled,” he said to the Grand-Master,
“over your kingdom with no defence but my own good
weapon, and with gold enough to tempt some even of your
haughty lords to violence; till now, I never felt fear, or used
caution.”

“Because till now,” replied Montagu, “your heart was
not bound up in the treasure you exposed. That spirit is
not human, that is not susceptible of fear.”

The escort was kindly provided, and, by Montagu's order
furnished with baskets of fruit, wine, &c., to aid the extempore
hospitalities of Violette's cottage-home. Before the sun
had nearly reached the meridian, she was within sight of that
dear home, on the borders of the Seine; and her eyes filled
with tears, as, pointing out to Montano each familiar object,
she thought how soon she was to be far separated from these
haunts of her childhood. It was a scene of sylvan beauty
and rustic abundance. Stacks of corn and hay, protected
from the weather, not only witnessed the productiveness of
the well-cultured farm, but seemed to enjoy the security, with
which they were permitted to lie on the lap of their mother
earth,—a rare security in those times of rapine, when the
lazy nobles might, at pleasure and with impunity, snatch
from the laborers the fruit of their toil. The cows were
chewing the cud under the few trees of their sunny
pasture, the sheep feeding on the hill-side, the domestic
birds gossiping in the poultry-yard, and the oxen turning up,
for the next summer's harvest, the rich soil of fields whose
product the proprietor might hope to reap, as he enjoyed,
through the favour of the Grand-Master, the benefit of the act
called an exemption de prise. Barante, Violette's father, was
lying on an oaken settle, that stood under an old pear-tree,
laden with fruit, at his door. Two boys, in the perfection of
boyhood, were eating their lunch and gambling on the grass
with a little sturdy house-dog; while an old, blind grandmother
sat within the door; she was the first to catch the
sound of the trampling of the horses' hoofs. “Look, Henri,
who is coming,” she said. The dog and the boys started forth
from the little court, and directly there was a welcoming bark,
and shouts of, “It's Violette! it's our dear sister!” Amidst

this shouting and noisy joy, Violette made her way to her
father's arms, and the fond embrace of the old woman.

“And whom shall I bid welcome, Violette?” asked Barante,
offering his hand to Montano.

“Signor Felice Montano,” answered Violette, her eyes cast
down, and her cheek burning, as if, by pronouncing the name,
she told all she had to tell.

“Welcome here, Sir,” resumed Barante; “ye have come,
doubtless, to see how poor folk live?” and the good man
looked round on his little domain with a very proud humility.

“Oh no, dear father; he came not for that.”

“What did he come for, then, sister?” asked little Hugh.

“I came not to see how you live,” said Montano, “but to
beg from you wherewith to live myself,” and, taking Barante
aside, he unfolded his errand.

“Come close to grandmother, Violette,” said Henri, “and
let her feel your russet gown. I am glad you come not home
in your bravery, for then you would not seem like our own
sister.”

“And yet,” said the old woman, with a little of that
womanish feeling, that clings to the sex, of all conditions and
ages, “I think none would become it better;—but, dear me,
Lettie, how you've grown! I can hardly reach to the top of
your head.”

“Not a hair's breadth have I grown, grandmother, since I
saw you last; but now do I seem more natural?” and she
knelt down before the old woman.

“Yes,—yes,—now you are my own little Lettie again,—
your head just above my knee. How time flies! it seems but
yesterday, when your mother was no higher than this, and it's
five years, come next All-Saints-Day, since we laid her in the
cold earth. But why have you bound up your pretty curls in

this net-work, Lettie?” Henri playfully snatched the silver
net from her head, and her golden curls fell over her shoulders.
The old woman stroked, and fondly kissed them, and
then passed her shrivelled fingers over Violette's face, seeming
to measure each feature. “Oh, if I could but once more see
those eyes,—I remember so well their colour,—just like the
violet that is dyed deepest with the sunbeams,—and that was
why we call you Violette; but, when they turned from the
light, and glanced up through your long, dark eyelashes, they
looked black; so many a foolish one disputed with me the
colour, as if I should not know, that had watched them by all
lights, since they first opened on this world.”

“Dear grandmother, I am kneeling for your blessing, and
you are filling my head with foolish thoughts.”

“And there is another, who would fain have your blessing,
good mother,” said Montano, whose hand Barante had just
joined to Violette's.

“What?—a stranger!—who is this?”

“One, good mother, who craves a boon, which if granted,
he desires nought else; if denied, all else would be bootless to
him.”

“What means he, Violette?”

“Nothing,—and yet much, grandmother,” replied Violette,
with a smile and a blush, that would, could the old woman
have seen them, have interrupted Montano's words.

“Ah, a young spark!” she said. “It is ever so with
them,—their cup foameth and sparkleth, and yet there is
nothing in it.”

“But there is much in it this time,” interposed Barante;
and, a little impatient of the periphrasing style of the young
people, he proceeded to state, in direct terms, the character
and purpose of his visitor, and said, in conclusion, “I have

given my consent and blessing; for you know, mother, we
can't keep our Lettie,—we bring up our children for others,
not for ourselves, and, when their time comes, they will, for
it's God's law, leave their father's house and cleave unto a
stranger.”

“But why, dear Lettie,” asked the old woman, “do ye not
wed among your own people? why go among barbarians?”

“Barbarians! dear grandmother,—if ye knew all that I
have learned of his people, from Felice Montano, ye would
think we were the barbarians, instead of they. Why, grandmother,
Felice can both read and write like any priest, while
our great lords can only make their mark. And so much do
these Italians know of what the learned call the arts and sciences
(I know not the meaning of the words, but Felice has
promised to explain them to me, when we can talk of such
things), that our people call them sorcerers.”

“Ah, well-a-day! I thought how it would be, when the
Lady Elinor took such a fancy to your bonnie face, and begged
you away from us. But why cannot ye content yourself at the
Grand-Master's?”

“Oh, ask me not to stay there. He is as kind as my
father, and so is the Lady Elinor; but,” added Violette in a
whisper, “her husband is a bold, bad man; he hath said to me
what it maketh me blush to recall.”

“Why need ye fear him, Violette?”

“Why fear him, grandmother! If all be true that men
whisper of him, he dares do whate'er the Evil One bids him.
They say he was at the bottom of the horrid affair at the
Hôtel de St. Paul, and that, at Mans, he it was, that directed
the mad King against the Chevalier de Polignac.”[1]

“But surely, dear child, the Grand-Master can protect
ye.”

“Now he can,—but we know not how long his power may
last. They say that he is far out of favour with Burgundy,
and none standeth long, on whom he frowneth. Indeed, indeed,
dear grandmother, it is better your child should go away,
to a safe shelter.”

“Ye have given me many reasons; but that ye love, is
always enough for you young ones. Well,—God speed ye,—
ye must have your day; kneel down, both, and take an old
woman's blessing,—it may do ye good, under good conduct—
it can do ye no harm!”

This ceremony over, the boys, who had heard they were
bidden to the wedding, and who thought not of the parting,
nor any thing beyond it, were clamorous in their expressions
of joy. Their father sent them, with some refection, to the
men, who, at his bidding, had conducted their horses to a little
paddock in the rear of his cottage, where they were refreshing
them from his stores of provender.

The day was passing happily away. Never had Violette
appeared so lovely in Montano's eyes, as in the atmosphere of
home, where every look and action was tinged by a holy light
that radiated from the heart. Time passed as he always does
when he “only treads on flowers,” and the declining sun admonished
them to prepare for their departure. “But first,”
said Barante, “let us taste together our dear patron's bounty.
Unpack that hamper, boys, and you, dear Violette, serve us
as you were wont.” Violette donned her little home-apron of
white muslin, tied with sarsnet bows, and, spreading a cloth
on the ground under the pear-tree, she and the boys arranged
the wine, fruit, and various confections from the basket. “It's
all sugar, Hugh!” said Henri, touching his tongue to the tip
of a bird's wing. “And this is sugar, too,!” replied Hugh,
testing in the same mode a bunch of mimic cherries. The

French artistes already excelled all others in every department
of the confectionary art, and to our little rustics their
work seemed miraculous. “Hark ye, Hugh!” said his brother;
“I believe St. Francis dropped these from his pocket, as he
flew over.”

“Come, loiterers!” cried his father, “while you are gazing,
we would be eating. Ah, that is right, Signor Montano!
Is it the last time, my pretty Violette?” to Violette and
Montano, who were leading the old woman from her chair to
the oaken settle. “Come, sit by me, my child. Now we are
all seated, we will fill the cup, and drink `Many happy years
to Jean de Montagu!”'

As if to mark the futility of the wish, the progress of the
cup to the lip was interrupted by an ominous sound; and
forth from the thick barrier of shrubbery, that fenced the
northern side of the cottage, came twelve men, armed and
masked.

“De Roucy! God help us!” shrieked Violette.

“Seize her instantly, and off with her, as I bade ye!”
cried a voice, that Montano recognised as the Count de
Roucy's.

“Touch her at your peril, villain!” cried Montano, drawing
his sword and shouting for his attendants. Montano and
Barante, the latter armed only with a club, kept their assailants
at bay till his men appeared, and they, inspired by
their master's example and adjurations, fought valiantly! but
one, and then another of their number fell, and the ruffians
were two to one against Violette's defenders. The rampart
they had formed around her was diminishing. “Courage, my
boys, courage!” cried Barante, as he shot a glance at his
children, crouching round his old mother, motionless as panic-struck

birds. “Courage! God and the Saints are on our
side!”

“Beat them back, my men!” shouted Montano. Jean de
Montagu will reward ye!”

“Jean de Montagu!” retorted De Roucy, “his bones are
cracking on the rack! Ah! I'm wounded!—'tis but a
scratch!—seize her, Le Croy!—press on, my men!—the
prize is ours!” But they, seeing their leader fall back, for an
instant faltered.

A thought, as if from Heaven, inspired Montano. De
Roucy, to avoid giving warning of his approach, had left his
horses on the outer side of the wood. Montano's attendants
had, just before the onset of De Roucy's party, saddled their
master's horse, and led him to the gate of the court; there
he was now standing, and the passage from Violette to him
unobstructed. Once on him and started, thought Montano,
she may escape. “Mount my horse, Violette,” he cried, “fear
nothing,—we will keep them back,—Heaven guard you!”
Violette shot from the circle, like an arrow loosed from the
bow, unfastened the horse, and sprang upon him. He had
been chafing and stamping, excited by the din of arms, and
impatient of his position; and, as she leaped into the saddle,
he sprang forward, swift as an arrow from the Tartar's bow.
Violette heard the yell of the ruffians mingling with the
victorious shouts of her defenders. Once her eye caught
the flash of their arms; but whether they were retreating or
still stationary, she knew not. She had no distinct perception,
no consciousness, but an intense desire to get on faster
than even her flying steed conveyed her. There were few
persons on the road, though passing through the immediate
vicinity of a great city. Many of those, who cultivated the
environs of Paris, had their dwellings, for greater security,

within the walls; and, their working-day being over, they had
already retired within them.[2]

From a hostelrie, where a party of cavaliers were revelling,
there were opposing shouts of “Stop!” and “God speed
ye!” and, of the straggling peasants returning from market,
some crossed themselves, fancying this aerial figure, with
colourless face and golden hair streaming to the breeze, was
some demon in angelic form; and others knelt and murmured
a prayer, believing it was indeed an angel. She had just
made a turn in the road, which brought her within sight of
Notre Dame and the gates of Paris, when she heard the
trampling of horses coming rapidly on behind her. Her horse
too heard the sound, and, as if conscious of his sacred trust and
duty, redoubled his speed. The sounds approached nearer and
nearer, and now were lost in the triumphing shouts of her
pursuers. Violette's head became giddy; a sickening despair
quivered through her frame. “We have her now!” cried the
foremost, and stretched his hand to grasp her rein. The
action gave a fresh impulse to her horse. He was within a
few yards of the barriers. He sprang forward, and in an
instant was within the gates. “We are balked!” cried the
leader of the pursuit, reining in his horse; and pouring out a
volley of oaths, he ordered his men to retreat, saying, it was
more than the head of a follower of De Roucy was worth, to
venture within the barriers. As the sounds of the retiring
party died away, Violette's horse slackened his speed, and
was arrested by the captain of the guard, who had just begun

the patrol for the night. To his questions Violette replied
not a word. Her consciousness was gone, and exhausted and
fainting, she slid from the saddle into his arms. Fortunately
he was a humane man; he was touched with her youthful and
lovely face; and, not knowing to what other place of shelter
and security to convey her, he procured a litter, and carried
her to his own humble home, where he consigned her to the
care of his good wife Susanne. There being then little provision
for the security of private property and individual
rights, Montano's horse was classed among those strays, that,
in default of an owner, escheated to the King, and was sent,
by the guard, to the King's stables; and thus all clue to
Montano was lost.

As soon as Violette recovered her consciousness, her first
desire was to get news of those whom she had left in extremest
peril; and, as the readiest means of effecting this, she entreated
the compassionate woman, who was watching at her
bedside, to send her to the Grand-Master.

“The Grand-Master!” replied the good dame; “Mary
defend us! what would ye with him?”

Violette, in feeble accents, explained her relations with
him, and her hope, through him, to obtain news of her friends.
Susanne answered her with mysterious intimations, which implied,
not only that he, whom she deemed her powerful protector,
could do nothing for her, but that it was not even safe
to mention his name; and then after promising her that a
messenger should be despatched, in the morning, to her
father's cottage, she administered the common admonitions
and consolations, that seem so very wise and sufficient to the
bestower,—are so futile to the receiver. “She must hope for
the best;”—“she must cast aside her cares;”—“sleep would
tranquillize her;”—“brighter hours might come with the

morning; but if they came not, she might live to see what
seemed worst now, to be best, and, at any rate, grieving would
not help her.”

Thus it has been from the time of Job's comforters to
the present; words have been spoken to the wretched, as impotent
as the effort of the child, who stretching his arm
against a torrent, expects to hold it back! But, to do Dame
Susanne justice, she acted as well as spoke; and the next
morning a messenger was sent, and returned in due time with
news, which no art could soften to Violette. Her father's
cottage was burned to the ground, and all about it laid waste.
Some peasants reported that they had seen the flames during
the night, and men, armed and mounted, conveying off whatever
was portable, and driving before them Barante's live
stock. What had become of the poor man, his children, and
old mother, no one knew; but there were certain relies among
the ashes, which too surely indicated they had not all escaped.
Poor Violette had strength neither of body nor mind left, to
sustain her under such intelligence. She was thrown into a
delirious fever, during which she raved continually about her
murdered family and Montano, who was never absent from
her thoughts. But, whatever an individual sufferer might
feel, such scenes of marauding and violence were too common
to excite surprise. “Barante,” it was said, “had but met at
last the fate of all those, who were fools enough to labor and
heap up riches, for the idle and powerful to covet and enjoy.”

This feeling was natural and just in the labouring classes,
when the valets of princes were legalized robbers, and were
permitted, whenever their masters' idle followers were to be
accommodated, not only to slay the working man's beeves,
and appropriate the produce of his fields, but to enter his
house and sweep off the blankets that covered him, and the

pillows on which his children were sleeping. Those, who
fancy the world has made no moral progress, should read
carefully the history of past ages, and compare the condition
of the labourers then, like so many defenceless sheep on the
borders of a forest filled with beasts of prey, to the security
and independence of our working sovereigns. They would
find, that the jurisdiction of that celebrated judge, who unites
in his own person the threefold power of judge, jury, and
executioner, was then exercised by the armed and powerful;
that it was universal and unquestioned; whereas now, if he
ventures his summary application of Lynch law, his abuses
are bruited from Maine to Georgia, and men shake their heads
and sigh over the deterioration of the world, and the licentiousness
of liberty!

On the ninth day of her illness, while Susanne was standing
by Violette, she awoke from her first long sleep. Her
countenance was changed, her flaming colour was gone, and
her eye was quiet. She feebly raised her head, and, bursting
into tears, said, “Oh, why did you not wake me sooner?”

“Why should I wake you, dear?”

“Why! do you not hear that dreadful bell?” The great
bell of Notre Dame was tolling. “They will be buried,—the
boys and all,—all,—before I get there!”

“Dieu-merci, child, your people are not going to the
burial;—that bell tolls not for such as yours and mine. We
are thrown into the earth, and Notre Dame wags not her
proud tongue for us.”

“Ah, true,—true.” She pressed her hand on her head, as
if collecting her thoughts; and then, looking up timidly and
shrinking from the answer, she said, “Ye've heard nothing
of them?”

“Nothing as yet; but you are better, and that's a token

of more good to follow. Now rest again. It is a noisy day.
All the world is abroad. It's the nobles' concern, not ours;
so I pray ye sleep again, and, whatever ye hear, lift not your
head; there be throngs of bad men in the street, and where
such are, there may be ugly sights. I will go below, and keep
what quiet I can for ye.”

Susanne's dwelling was old and rickety. The apartment
under that which Violette occupied, was a little shop,
where Dame Susanne vended cakes, candies, and common
toys. Violette could hear every sentence spoken there in an
ordinary tone; but, owing to Susanne's well-meant efforts, her
ear caught only imperfect sentences, such as follow.

“Good day, Mistress Susanne! will you lend me a look-out
from your window to see the —”

“Hush!”

“They're coming, mother! they're coming!”

“Hush!”

“There are Burgundy's men first; ye'll know them, boy,
by the cross of St. Andrew on their bonnets; and there are
the Armagnacs,—see their scarfs!”

“Speak lower, please neighbour!”

“It's well for them they have provided against a rescue;
—the bourgeois are all for him,—every poor man's heart is
for him; for why? he was for every poor man's right; God
reward him.”

“Pray speak a little lower, neighbour.”

“But is it not a shame, Dame Susanne? But ten days
ago and all, save Burgundy, were his friends, and now—”

“There he is mother! see! see!”

“They stop! oh, mother, see him show his broken joints!
Mother! mother! how his head hangs on one side! Curse
on the rack, that cracked his bones asunder!”

“Hush! I bid ye hush!”

“Who can that goodly youth be, that stands close by his
side? See, he is speaking to him!”

“Oh, he looks like an angel,—so full of pity, mother!

“By St. Dominie, neighbour, the boy is right!”

“Oh, mother, what eyes he has;—now he is looking up,—
see!”

“Hush!”

“But look at them, Dame Susanne,—would ye not think
the lamp of his soul was shining through them?”

“See him kiss the poor, broken hand, that hangs down so!
God bless him! there's true courage in that; and see those
same lips, how they curl in scorn, as he turns towards those
fierce wretches! he is some stranger-youth. Whence is he,
think ye, Susanne?”

“I think by the cut of his neckcloth, and the fashion of
his head-gear,” replied Susanne, who for a moment forgot her
caution, “he comes from Italy.”

The words were talismanic to Violette. She sprang from
her bed to the window, and the first object she saw amid a
crowd was Montano; the second, her protector and friend,
Jean de Montagu, the Grand-Master. He was stretched on a
hurdle, for the torments of the rack had left him unable to
sustain an upright position. Violette's eye was riveted to the
mutilated form of her good old master. Her soul seemed
resolved into one deep supplication; but not one word expressed
its intense emotions, so far did they “transcend the
imperfect offices of prayer.” Not one treacherous glance
wandered to her lover, till the procession moved; and then
the thought, that she was losing her last opportunity of being
reunited to him, turned the current of feeling, and suggested
an expedient, which she immediately put into execution.

She had taken her white scarf, in her pocket, to the cottage,
to show it to her father; and through her delirium she had
persisted in keeping it by her. She now hung it in the window,
in the hope, that, fluttering in the breeze, it might attract
Montano's eye. She watched him, but his attention
was too fixed to be diverted by any thing, certainly not by a
device so girlish. The procession moved on. The hurdle,
and the stately figure beside it, were passing from her view.
She threw the casement open, and leaned out. The scaffold,
erected at the end of the street, struck her sight. She
shrieked, fainted, and fell upon the floor. That one moment
gave the colour to her after-life. She had been seen, and
marked,—and was remembered.

The Duke of Burgundy had taken advantage of a moment,
when Charles was but partially recovered from a fit of insanity,
to compass the Grand-Master's ruin. The nobles had
wept at Montagu's execution, but they had been consoled by
the rich spoils of his estate. There was no such balm for
the sovereign; and it became a matter of policy to get up
some dramatic novelty to divert his mind, and prevent a recurrence
to the past, which might prove dangerous, even to
Burgundy. Accordingly, a new mystery was put in train for
presentation, and one month after the last act of Montagu's
tragedy, and while his dishonoured body was still attached to
the gibbet of Montfauçon, the gay world of Paris assembled,
to witness the representation of a legend of a certain saint,
called “The Espousals of St. Thérèse.”

The seat over which the regal canopy was suspended, corresponded
to our stage-box, and afforded an access to the

stage, that royalty might use at pleasure. The King was
surrounded by his own family. His wandering eye, his vacant
laugh, and incessant talking, betrayed the still disordered
state of his mind; for when sane, amidst a total destitution
of talents and virtues, he had a certain affability of
manner, and the polish of conventional life, which, as his historian
says, acquired for him the “ridiculous title of `well-beloved.”'
On Charles's right sat his Queen, Isabel of
Bavaria, a woman remarkable for nothing but excessive
obesity, the gluttony that produced it, and the indolence
consequent upon it,—and one passion, avarice. But she was
a branch of transmitted royalty—and ruled by divine right!
(And sovereigns, such as these, are, in some men's estimation,
rulers.) Behind the Queen, a place was left vacant for the
Duke of Orleans who, in consequence of a marvellous escape
from death during a thunder-storm, when his horses had
plunged into the Seine, had vowed to pay his creditors,
and had, on that very day, bidden them to dinner, at which
he had promised the dessert should be a satisfaction of their
debts. “So soon from your dinner, my lord?” said his
Duchess to him as he entered, with an expression of face,
which indicated a fear that all had not gone as she wished.

“Yes. A short horse is soon curried.”

“What? Came they not? Surely of the eight hundred
bidden, there were many who would not do you such discredit,
as to believe your virtue exhaled with the shower?”

“Ah, their faith was sufficient,—they came, every mother's
son of them, butchers, bakers, fruiterers, and all.”

“And you sent them away happy?”

“Yes, with one of the beatitudes;—blessed are those
who have nothing! I charged my valets to turn them back

from my gate, and to tell them, if they came again, they
should be beaten off!”

There was a general laugh through the box. The
Duchess of Orleans alone turned away with an expression of
deep mortification. Valentine Visconti, daughter of the Duke
of Milan and Duchess of Orleans, was one of the most celebrated
women of her time. Her graceful beauty seemed the
impersonation of her lovely land—something quite foreign to
the French court. As she sat by the gross queen, she inspired
the idea of what humanity might become, when invested with
the “glorified body” of the Saints. Her soul beamed with
almost preternatural lustre from her eyes, and spoke in the
musical accents of her beautiful lips. Her gentleness and
sympathy, more than the intellectual power and accomplishments,
that signalized her amidst a brutified and ignorant
race, gave her an ascendency over the mad King, which afforded
some colour to the wicked imaginations of those who, in
the end, accused her of sorcery!—an accusation very common
against the Italians of that period, whose superior civilization
and science were attributed to the diabolical arts of magic.
The secret of Valentine's power over the maniac King has
been discovered and illustrated by modern benevolence. She
could lead him like a little child, when, for months, he would not
consent to be washed or dressed, and when these offices were
performed at night by ten men, masked, lest, when their sovereign
recovered all the reason he ever possessed, he should
cause them to be hung for this act of necessary violence!

The spectators, while awaiting the rising of the curtain,
were exchanging the usual observations and salutations. “Valentine,”
whispered the beautiful young wife of the old Duke
of Berri, “did not that man,—mon Dieu, how beautiful he is!
—who stands near the musicians, kiss his hand to you?”

“Yes,—he is my countryman.”

“I thought so;—he looks as if the blood of all your proud
old nobles ran in his veins;—the Confalonicris, Sforzas, Viscontis,
and Heaven knows who.”

“He has a loftier nobility than theirs, my cousin; his
charter is direct from Heaven, and written by the finger of
Heaven on his noble countenance. As to this world's honours,
he boasts none but such as the son of a rich and skilful
weaver of silks may claim.”

“Mon Dieu! is it possible; he is a counterfeit, that
well might pass in any King's exchequer. But he looks sad
and abstracted, and, seeing, seemeth as though he saw not.
Know ye, cousin, what aileth him?”

“Yes, but it is a long tale; the lady of his thoughts has
strangely disappeared, and, though for more than a month he
has sought her, day and night, he hath, as yet, no trace of her.
He has come hither to-night at my bidding, for I deeply pity
the poor youth, and would fain divert his mind;—but soft,—
the curtain is rising!”

“Pray tell me what means this scene, Valentine?”

“It is the interior of a chapel. You know this legend of
St. Thérèse?”

“Indeed I do not. I cannot read, and my confessor never
told it to me.”

“She was betrothed to one she loved. The preparations
were made for the espousals, when, on the night before her
marriage, she saw, in vision, St. Francis, who bade her renounce
her lover, and told her, that she was the elected bride
of Heaven; that she must repair to the convent of the Sisters
of Charity, and there resign the world, and abjure its sinful
passions. You now see her obedient to the miraculous visitation.
She has concluded her novitiate. One weakness she

has as yet indulged. She has secretly retained the last gift
of her betrothed. Hark! there you hear the vesper-bell.
She is coming to deposit it at that shrine, yonder.”

A female now entered, closely veiled and clad in a full,
gray stuff dress, that concealed every line of her person. She
held something in her hands, which were folded on her bosom,
and walking, with faltering steps, across the stage to the
shrine, knelt and made the accustomed signs and prayer.
She then rose, and raising the little roll to her lips, kissed it
fervently, and then, as if asking pardon for this involuntary
weakness, again dropped on her knees, and depositing the roll,
withdrew. It would seem, she had entered completely into
the tender regrets of the young saint she impersonated, for a
tear she had dropped on the last bequest of the lover was
seen, as it caught and reflected the lamp's rays. Immediately,
through an open window in the ceiling, a dove entered, the
symbol of the Holy Spirit. It was not uncommon, in these
mysteries, to bring the sacred persons of the Trinity upon
the scene. The bird descended, and took the roll in his bill.
As he rose with it, it unfolded, and the white silk scarf, given
to poor Violette, represented the last earthly treasure of
Saint Thérèse. The dove made three evolutions in his ascent,
and disappeared. While the cries of “Bravo! Bravissimo!
Petit oiseau! Jolie colombe!” were resounding through
the house, the Duchess de Berri whispered to Valentine,
“See your compatriot! he looks as if he would spring upon
the stage! how deadly pale! and his eyes! blessed Mary!
they are like living fires! Surely he is going mad!”

“Heaven help him!” replied the gentle Valentine. “I
erred in counselling him to come hither! Would I could
speak with him.”

“Never mind him now, cousin; the scene is changing;—
tell me, what comes next?”

“Next you will see St. Thérèse praying before her crucifix,—ah,
there she is! there is the coffin in which she
sleeps at night,—there the death's-head she contemplates
all day.”

“Shocking! shocking! I never would be a nun.”

“It is but for the last days of her penitence. After her
vows are made, she, like all her order, will be devoted to
nursing the sick, and succouring the wretched,—a happier life
than ours, my cousin!”

“Think ye so? Methinks the next world will be soon
enough to be a saint, and do much tiresome good deeds. But
why has she that ugly mantle drawn over her head, so that
one cannot see her hair, or the form of her neck and shoulders?”

“Be not so impatient. You see the door behind her.
The Devil is coming into her cell under the form of her lover.
Ah, there he is!”

“Bless my heart, if I were the Devil, I would never leave
that goodly form again. Now she'll turn! now we shall see
her face! Pshaw! she has pulled that ugly mantle over, for
a veil.”

“Pray be still, cousin;—this is her last temptation. I
would not lose a word. Listen,—hear how she resists the
prince of darkness.”

The pretended lover performed his part so as to do
honour to the supernatural power he represented. At first,
he would have embraced the saint; but she shrunk from
him, and, reverently placing her hand on the crucifix, stood
statue-like against the wall. He then knelt and poured out
his passion vehemently. He reminded her of their early

love,—of the home, where he had wooed and won her; he
besought her to speak to him,—once to withdraw her veil,
and look at him. She was still silent and immovable. He
described the wearisome and frigid existence of a conventual
life, and then painted, in passionate words, the happiness
that awaited him, if she would but keep her first vow, made
to him. He told her, that horses awaited them at the outward
gate. The force of the temptation now became apparent.
The weak, loving girl, was triumphing over the saint.
Her head dropped on her bosom, her whole frame trembled,
and was sinking. Her lover saw his triumph and sprang
forward to seize her. But her virtue was re-nerved; she
grasped the crucifix, and looking up to a picture of the Virgin,
shrieked, “Mary, blessed mother! aid me!”

The Evil One extended his arm to wrest the crucifix,
when, smitten by its holy virtue, he sunk through the floor,
enveloped in flames. The saint again fell on her knees, the
dove again descended and fluttered around her, and the curtain
fell.

In those days, when conventual life had lost nothing of
its sacredness, and men's minds were still subjected to a belief
in the visible interference of good and evil spirits in men's
concerns, such a scene was most effective. The spectators
were awed; not a sound was heard, till the Duchess of Berri,
never long abstracted from the actual world, whispered, “Valentine,
did you see your Italian when she shrieked; how he
struck his hand upon his head! and see him now, what a colour
in his cheek! He will certainly go mad, and, knowing you,
he may dart hither before we can avoid him. Will ye not ask
Orleans to order those men at arms to conduct him out?—
you know,” in a whisper, “I have such a horror of madmen.”

“You need have none, believe me, in this case. My poor

countryman is suffering from watching and exhaustion, and
his imagination is easily excited. The next scene will calm
him. The saint, victorious over the most importunate of
mortal passions, will resolutely make her vows, and receive
the veil.”

“Oh, then we shall see her face, after all?”

“Yes, and with all the factitious charm that dress and
ornament can lend it; for, to render her renunciation of the
world more striking, she is to appear in a bridal dress, decked
with the vanities that we women cling last to;—but hush!
the curtain is rising!”

The curtain rose, and discovered the chapel of a convent.
The nuns and their superior stood on one side, a priest and
attendants on the other. A golden crucifix was placed in
the centre, with a figure of the Saviour, as large as life. Before
this, St. Thérèse was kneeling. Her dress was white
silk, embroidered with pearls, with a full sleeve, looped to the
shoulder with pearls. A few symbolical orange-buds drooped
over her forehead, certainly not whiter than the brow on
which they rested. Her hair was parted in front, and drawn
up behind in a Grecian knot of rich curls, and fastened there
with a diamond cross. She was pale as monumental marble;
her eyes not raised to Heaven, but riveted to earth, as if she
were still clinging to the parting friend. The priest advanced
to cut off her hair, the last office previous to investing her
with the gray gown and fatal veil. As he unfastened the
diamond cross, her bright tresses fell over her neck and shoulders,
and, reaching even to the ground, gave the finishing
touch to her beauty, and called forth a general shout of
“Beautiful! beautiful! most beautiful!”

Over every other voice, and soon stilling every other, was
heard the King's, and, seized with an access of madness, he

rushed upon the stage clapping his hands and screaming, “She
is mine! my bride! Out with ye, ugly nuns! She is mine!
mine!” Each reiteration was followed by a maniac yell.

“Nay, she is mine! my own Violette! my betrothed
wife!” interposed Montano, springing forward and encircling
Violette with one arm, while he repelled Charles with the
other.

A general rising followed. The stage was filled with the
nobles, rushing forward to chastise the stranger who had presumed
to lay his hands on sacred majesty. A hundred weapons
were drawn, and pointed at Montano. There was a
Babel confusion of sounds. At this crisis, Valentine penetrated
into the midst of the mêlée, whispering, as she passed
Montano, “Be quiet—be prudent—leave all to me.”

The lords, who had more than once seen her power over
the madness of their sovereign, fell back. She placed herself
between the King and Montano, and putting her hand soothingly
on Charles, she said, with a smile, “Methinks, my lord
King, we are all beside ourselves with this bewitching show,—
we know not who or what we are. Here is a churl hath
dared to come between the King and his subject, and you,
my sovereign,” (in a whisper), “have strangely forgotten your
Queen's presence. Unhand that maiden, sir stranger. Kneel,
my child, to your gracious sovereign, and let him see you
loyally hold yourself at his disposal.” Violette mechanically
obeyed.

“Nay, my pretty one, kneel not,” said Charles, still wild,
but no longer violent. “Ah, I had forgot! here are the
bridal orange-buds. Come, come, you lazy priest,—come
marry us!” Violette looked as if she would fain again take
refuge in Montano's arms.

“To-morrow, my lord King, will surely be soon enough,”

whispered Valentine with a confidential air, and, pointing to
Isabel, she added, “it would not seem well to have the rites
performed in her presence!” The Queen, with characteristic
nonchalance, had remained quietly in her place, where she
seemed quite absorbed in devouring a bunch of delicious
grapes.

“You are right, dear sister,” replied the King,—thus, in
his softened moods, he always addressed Valentine,—“it is
not according to church rule to marry one wife in presence of
another!” He then burst into a peal of idiotic laughter,
which, after continuing for some moments, left him in a state
of imbecility, so nearly approaching to unconsciousness, that
he was conveyed to his palace without making the slightest
resistance.

A general movement followed the King's departure, and
cries rose, that the stranger must be manacled and conveyed
to prison. The Duchess of Orleans interposed. “My lords,”
she said, “I pray ye give this youth into my charge. He is
my countryman. I will be responsible for him to our gracious
sovereign.” There were murmurings of hesitation and discontent.
“In sooth, my lords,” added Valentine, “ye should
not add an injustice to a stranger to our usages, to the error
you have already committed this night, in bringing our royal
master, but half recovered from his malady, into this heated
atmosphere and exciting scene;—it were well, if we can avoid
it, to preserve no memorials of this night's imprudence.” This
last hint effected what an appeal to their justice had failed to
obtain, and the lords permitted Montano unmolested to withdraw
with the Duchess of Orleans.

Intent on making those happy, who could be happy, Valentine
bade Montano and Violette attend her to her carriage.
After weeping with joy on her lover's bosom, Violette's first

words were, “My father,—my brothers, Montano, can ye tell
me aught of them?”

“They are safe,—safe and well, in all save their ignorance
of you, dear Violette,” replied Montano; “and by this time
are they arrived in my happy country.”

“Thank God!—and my dear old grandmother?”

“Nay, ask no farther to-night.”

“Better it is, my good friend,” said Valentine, “to satisfy
her inquiry now, while her cup is full and sparkling with joy;
—you can bear, my child, patiently a single bitter drop?”

“She was murdered, then?”

“She is at rest, my child,—you may weep,—we should
weep for the good and kind.”

Before the little party separated for the night, Violette
explained, that in consequence of having been seen at the window
on the day of Montagu's execution, she had been sought
out by the managers of the mystery, and compelled, in the
King's name, to obey their behests.

“And to-morrow,” said Valentine, “ye shall obey mine.
I, too, will be the manager of a mystery, and real espousals
shall be enacted by Montano and Violette; then, ho! for my
happy country.”