The Archbishop of Paris remained all this time seated before the altar; his eyes cast down, his pallid countenance giving no signs of interest or participation in the scene around him. It was noticed that in one of his hands, which was covered with a violet glove, he grasped firmly a pair of tablets, of enameled gold.
The Canoness de Rupelmonde conducted her niece to the prelate, to make her profession of self-devotion, and to utter the irrevocable vow. As the lovely novice knelt at his feet, the archbishop fixed on her his dark, beaming eyes, with a kind but earnest expression. “Sister!” said he, in the softest and most benevolent tone of voice, “What is your age?”
“Nineteen years, monseigneur,” eagerly interposed the Countess de
Rupelmonde.
“You will reply to me by-and-by, madame,” said the archbishop, dryly. He then repeated his question to the novice, who replied in a faltering voice, “Seventeen years.”
“In what diocese did you take the white veil?”
“In the diocese of Toul.”
“How!” exclaimed the archbishop, vehemently. “In the diocese of Toul? The chair of Toul is vacant! The bishop of Toul died fifteen months since; and those who officiate in the chapter are not authorized to receive novices. Your novitiate, mademoiselle, is null and void, and we cannot receive your profession.”
The archbishop rose from his chair, resumed his miter, and took the crozier from the hands of an attendant.
“My dear brethren,” said he, addressing the assembly, “there is no necessity for our examining and interrogating Mademoiselle de Lenoncour on the sincerity of her religious vocation. There is a canonical impediment to her professing for the present; and, as to the future, we reserve to ourselves the consideration of the matter; interdicting to all other ecclesiastical persons the power of accepting her vows, under penalty of interdiction, of suspension, and of nullification; all which is in virtue of our metropolitan rights, contained in the terms of the bull cum proximis:” “Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini!” pursued he, chanting in a grave and solemn voice, and turning toward the altar to give the benediction of the holy sacrament.
The noble auditory had that habitude of reserve, that empire, or rather tyranny, over all outward manifestations of internal emotions, which belongs to high aristocratical breeding. The declaration of the archbishop, therefore, was received as one of the most natural and ordinary things in the world, and all knelt down and received the pontifical benediction with perfect decorum. As soon, however, as they were released from the self-restraint imposed by etiquette, they amply indemnified themselves; and nothing was talked of for a month, in the fashionable saloons of Paris, but the loves of the handsome Viscount and the charming Henrietta; the wickedness of the canoness; the active benevolence and admirable address of the Princess de Beauvau; and the great wisdom of the archbishop, who was particularly extolled for his delicacy in defeating this maneuver without any scandal to the aristocracy, or public stigma on the name of De Rupelmonde, and without any departure from pastoral gentleness, by adroitly seizing upon an informality, and turning it to beneficial account, with as much authority as charitable circumspection.
As to the Canoness de Rupelmonde, she was defeated at all points in her wicked plans against her beautiful niece. In consequence of the caveat of the archbishop, her superior ecclesiastic, the Abbess de Panthemont, formally forbade Mademoiselle de Lenoncour to resume the white veil and the dress of a novitiate, and instead of a novice’s cell established her in a beautiful apartment as a boarder. The next morning the Canoness de Rupelmonde called at the convent to take away her niece; but, to her confusion, the abbess produced a lettre-de-cachet, which she had just received, and which forbade mademoiselle to leave the convent with any other person save the Prince de Beauvau.
Under the auspices and the vigilant attention of the prince, the whole affair was wound up in the most technical and circumstantial manner. The Countess de Rupelmonde, by a decree of the Grand Council, was divested of the guardianship of her niece. All the arrears of revenues accumulated during Mademoiselle de Lenoncour’s minority were rigorously collected, the accounts scrutinized and adjusted, and her noble fortune placed safely and entirely in her hands.
In a little while the noble personages who had been invited to the ceremony of taking the veil received another invitation, on the part of the Countess dowager de Gondrecourt, and the Marshal Prince de Beauvau, to attend the marriage of Adrien de Gondrecourt, Viscount of Jean-sur-Moselle, and Henrietta de Lenoncour, Countess de Hevouwal, etc., which duly took place in the chapel of the archiepiscopal palace at Paris.
*
So much for the beautiful Henrietta de Lenoncour. We will now draw forth a companion picture of a handsome young cavalier, who figured in the gay world of Paris about the same time, and concerning whom the ancient marchioness writes with the lingering feeling of youthful romance.
*
THE CHARMING LETORIÈRES
“A good face is a letter of recommendation,” says an old proverb; and it was never more verified than in the case of the Chevalier Letorieres. He was a young gentleman of good family, but who, according to the Spanish phrase, had nothing but his cloak and sword (capa y espada), that is to say, his gentle blood and gallant bearing, to help him forward in the world. Through the interest of an uncle, who was an abbe, he received a gratuitous education at a fashionable college, but finding the terms of study too long, and the vacations too short, for his gay and indolent temper, he left college without saying a word, and launched himself upon Paris, with a light heart and still lighter pocket. Here he led a life to his humor. It is true he had to make scanty meals, and to lodge in a garret; but what of that? He was his own master; free from all task or restraint. When cold or hungry, he sallied forth, like others of the chameleon order, and banqueted on pure air and warm sunshine in the public walks and gardens; drove off the thoughts of a dinner by amusing himself with the gay and grotesque throngs of the metropolis; and if one of the poorest, was one of the merriest gentlemen upon town. Wherever he went his good looks and frank, graceful demeanor, had an instant and magical effect in securing favor. There was but one word to express his fascinating powers — he was “charming.”
Instances are given of the effect of his winning qualities upon minds of coarse, ordinary mold. He had once taken shelter from a heavy shower under a gateway. A hackney coachman, who was passing by, pulled up, and asked him if he wished a cast in his carriage. Letorieres declined, with a melancholy and dubious shake of the head. The coachman regarded him wistfully, repeared his solicitations, and wished to know what place he was going to “To the Palace of Justice, to walk in the galleries; but I will wait here until the rain is over.”
“And why so?” inquired the coachman, pertinaciously.
“Because I’ve no money; do let me be quiet.”
The coachman jumped down, and, opening the door of his carriage, “It shall never be said,” cried he, “that I left so charming a young gentleman to weary himself, and catch cold, merely for the sake of twenty-four sous.”
Arrived at the Palace of Justice, he stopped before the saloon of a famous restaurateur, opened the door of the carriage, and taking off his hat very respectfully, begged the youth to accept of a Louis-d’or. “You will meet with some young gentlemen within,” said he, “with whom you may wish to take a hand at cards. The number of my coach is 144. You can find me out, and repay me whenever you please.”
The worthy Jehu was some years afterward made coachman to the Princess Sophia, of France, through the recommendation of the handsome youth he had so generously obliged.
Another instance in point is given with respect to his tailor, to whom he owed four hundred livres. The tailor had repeatedly dunned him, but was always put off with the best grace in the world. The wife of the tailor urged her husband to assume a harsher tone. He replied that he could not find it in his heart to speak roughly to so charming a young gentleman.
“I’ve no patience with su
ch want of spirit!” cried the wife; “you have not the courage to show your teeth: but I’m going out to get change for this note of a hundred crowns; before I come home, I’ll seek this ‘charming’ youth myself, and see whether he has the power to charm me. I’ll warrant he won’t be able to put me off with fine looks and fine speeches.”
With these and many more vaunts, the good dame sallied forth. When she returned home, however, she wore quite a different aspect.
“Well,” said her husband, “how much have you received from the ‘charming’ young man?”
“Let me alone,” replied the wife; “I found him playing on the guitar, and he looked so handsome, and was so amiable and genteel, that I had not the heart to trouble him.”
“And the change for the hundred-crown note?” said the tailor.
The wife hesitated a moment: “Faith,” cried she, “you’ll have to add the amount to your next bill against him. The poor young gentleman had such a melancholy air that — I know not how it was, but — I left the hundred crowns on his mantelpiece in spite of him!”
The captivating looks and manners of Letorieres made his way with equal facility in the great world. His high connections entitled him to presentation at court, but some questions arose about the sufficiency of his proofs of nobility; whereupon the king, who had seen him walking in the gardens of Versailles, and had been charmed with his appearance, put an end to all demurs of etiquette by making him a viscount.
The same kind of fascination is said to have attended him throughout his career. He succeeded in various difficult family suits on questions of honors and privileges; he had merely to appear in court to dispose the judges in his favor. He at length became so popular that on one occasion, when he appeared at the theater on recovering from a wound received in a duel, the audience applauded him on his entrance. Nothing, it is said, could have been in more perfect good taste and high breeding than his conduct on this occasion. When he heard the applause, he rose in his box, stepped forward, and surveyed both sides of the house, as if he could not believe that it was himself they were treating like a favorite actor, or a prince of the blood.
His success with the fair sex may easily be presumed; but he had too much honor and sensibility to render his intercourse with them a series of cold gallantries and heartless triumphs. In the course of his attendance upon court, where he held a post of honor about the king, he fell deeply in love with the beautiful Princess Julia, of Savoy Carignan. She was young, tender, and simple-hearted, and returned his love with equal fervor. Her family took the alarm at this attachment, and procured an order that she should inhabit the Abbey of Montmartre, where she was treated with all befitting delicacy and distinction, but not permitted to go beyond the convent walls. The lovers found means to correspond. One of their letters was intercepted, and it is even hinted that a plan of elopement was discovered. A duel was the consequence, with one of the fiery relations of the princess. Letorieres received two sword-thrusts in his right side. His wounds were serious, yet after two or three days’ confinement he could not resist his impatience to see the princess. He succeeded in scaling the walls of the abbey, and obtaining an interview in an arcade leading to the cloister of the cemetery. The interview of the lovers was long and tender. They exchanged vows of eternal fidelity, and flattered themselves with hopes of future happiness, which they were never to realize. After repeated farewells, the princess reentered the convent, never again to behold the charming Letorieres. On the following morning his corpse was found stiff and cold on the pavement of the cloister!
It would seem that the wounds of the unfortunate youth had been reopened by his efforts to get over the wall; that he had refrained from calling assistance, lest he should expose the princess, and that he had bled to death, without any one to aid him, or to close his dying eyes.
THE EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RINGWOOD
NOTED DOWN FROM HIS CONVERSATIONS
[Footnote: Ralph Ringwood, though a fictitious name, is a real personage: the worthy original is now living and flourishing in honorable station. I have given some anecdotes of his early and eccentric career in, as nearly as I can recollect, the very words in which he related them. They certainly afforded strong temptations to the embellishments of fiction; but I thought them so strikingly characteristic of the individual, and of the scenes and society into which his peculiar humors carried him, that I preferred giving them in their original simplicity. — G. C.]
“I am a Kentuckian by residence and choice, but a Virginian by birth. The cause of my first leaving the ‘Ancient Dominion,’ and emigrating to Kentucky was a jackass! You stare, but have a little patience, and I’ll soon show you how it came to pass. My father, who was of one of the old Virginian families, resided in Richmond. He was a widower, and his domestic affairs were managed by a housekeeper of the old school, such as used to administer the concerns of opulent Virginian households. She was a dignitary that almost rivaled my father in importance, and seemed to think everything belonged to her; in fact, she was so considerate in her economy, and so careful of expense, as sometimes to vex my father, who would swear she was disgracing him by her meanness. She always appeared with that ancient insignia of housekeeping trust and authority, a great bunch of keys jingling at her girdle. She superintended the arrangement of the table at every meal, and saw that the dishes were all placed according to her primitive notions of symmetry. In the evening she took her stand and served out tea with a mingled respectfulness and pride of station, truly exemplary. Her great ambition was to have everything in order, and that the establishment under her sway should be cited as a model of good housekeeping. If anything went wrong, poor old Barbara would take it to heart, and sit in her room and cry; until a few chapters in the Bible would quiet her spirits, and make all calm again. The Bible, in fact, was her constant resort in time of trouble. She opened it indiscriminately, and whether she chanced among the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the Canticles of Solomon, or the rough enumeration of the tribes in Deuteronomy, a chapter was a chapter, and operated like balm to her soul. Such was our good old housekeeper Barbara, who was destined, unwittingly, to have a most important effect upon my destiny.
“It came to pass, during the days of my juvenility, while I was yet what is termed ‘an unlucky boy,’ that a gentleman of our neighborhood, a great advocate for experiments and improvements of all kinds, took it into his head that it would be an immense public advantage to introduce a breed of mules, and accordingly imported three jacks to stock the neighborhood. This in a part of the country where the people cared for nothing but blood horses! Why, sir! they would have considered their mares disgraced and their whole stud dishonored by such a misalliance. The whole matter was a town talk and a town scandal. The worthy amalgamator of quadrupeds found himself in a dismal scrape: so he backed out in time, abjured the whole doctrine of amalgamation, and turned his jacks loose to shift for themselves upon the town common. There they used to run about and lead an idle, good-for-nothing, holiday life, the happiest animals in the country.
“It so happened that my way to school lay across this common. The first time that I saw one of these animals it set up a braying and frightened me confoundedly. However, I soon got over my fright, and seeing that it had something of a horse look, my Virginian love for anything of the equestrian species predominated, and I determined to back it. I accordingly applied at a grocer’s shop, procured a cord that had been round a loaf of sugar, and made a kind of halter; then summoning some of my schoolfellows, we drove master Jack about the common until we hemmed him in an angle of a ‘worm fence.’ After some difficulty, we fixed the halter round his muzzle, and I mounted. Up flew his heels, away I went over his head, and off he scampered. However, I was on my legs in a twinkling, gave chase, caught him and remounted. By dint of repeated tumbles I soon learned to stick to his back, so that he could no more cast me than he could his own skin. From that time, master Jack and his companions had a scampering life of it, for we all rode them between school hours,
and on holiday afternoons; and you may be sure schoolboys’ nags are never permitted to suffer the grass to grow under their feet. They soon became so knowing that they took to their heels at the very sight of a schoolboy; and we were generally much longer in chasing than we were in riding them.
“Sunday approached, on which I projected an equestrian excursion on one of these long-eared steeds. As I knew the jacks would be in great demand on Sunday morning, I secured one overnight, and conducted him home, to be ready for an early outset. But where was I to quarter him for the night? I could not put him in the stable; our old black groom George was as absolute in that domain as Barbara was within doors, and would have thought his stable, his horses, and himself disgraced, by the introduction of a jackass. I recollected the smoke-house; an out-building appended to all Virginian establishments for the smoking of hams, and other kinds of meat. So I got the key, put master Jack in, locked the door, returned the key to its place, and went to bed, intending to release my prisoner at an early hour, before any of the family were awake. I was so tired, however, by the exertions I had made in catching the donkey, that I fell into a sound sleep, and the morning broke without my awaking.
“Not so with dame Barbara, the housekeeper. As usual, to use her own phrase, ‘she was up before the crow put his shoes on,’ and bustled about to get things in order for breakfast. Her first resort was to the smoke-house. Scarce had she opened the door, when master Jack, tired of his confinement, and glad to be released from darkness, gave a loud bray, and rushed forth. Down dropped old Barbara; the animal trampled over her, and made off for the common. Poor Barbara! She had never before seen a donkey, and having read in the Bible that the devil went about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour, she took it for granted that this was Beelzebub himself. The kitchen was soon in a hubbub; the servants hurried to the spot. There lay old Barbara in fits; as fast as she got out of one, the thoughts of the devil came over her, and she fell into another, for the good soul was devoutly superstitious.
Complete Fictional Works of Washington Irving (Illustrated) Page 152
