‘Oh, I dare say,’ responded Manon, with an incredulous laugh. ‘Do you suppose I’m such a fool as to believe you?’
‘What nonsense, Manon! How should I know Monsieur de Vardes? But do tell me about him? Does he live at the Chateau?’
‘He has been living there lately,’ replied Manon, sulkily.
‘And where did he live before?’ inquired Francoise.
‘He has been travelling, I believe,’ said Manon.
This was true. Victor de Vardes had been making the tour of Europe, visiting foreign courts, jousting in tournaments, and winning fair ladies’ hearts, and was but now returned to inhabit his father’s chateau; who, thinking it high time he should be married, had summoned him home for the purpose of paying his addresses to Clemence de Montmorenci, one of the richest heiresses in France.
Victor, who had left home very young, had been what is commonly called in love a dozen times, but his heart had in reality never been touched. His loves had been mere boyish fancies, ‘dead ere they were born,’ one putting out the fire of another before it had had time to hurt himself or any body else; so that when he heard that he was to marry Clemence de Montmorenci, he felt no aversion to the match, and prepared himself to obey his father’s behest without a murmur. On being introduced to the lady, be was by no means struck with her. She appeared amiable, sensible, and gentle; but she was decidedly plain, and dressed ill. Victor felt no disposition whatever to love her; but, on the other hand, he had no dislike to her; and as his heart was unoccupied, he expressed himself perfectly ready to comply with the wishes of his family and hers, by whom this alliance had been arranged from motives of mutual interest and accommodation.
So he commenced his course of love; which consisted in riding daily to the chateau of his intended father-in-law, where, if there was company, and he found amusement, he frequently remained a great part of the morning. Now, it happened that his road lay through the village of Loques, where Manon lived, and happening one day to see her at the door, with the gallantry of a gay cavalier, he had saluted her. Manon, who was fully as vain as she was pretty, liked this homage to her beauty so well that she thereafter never neglected an opportunity of throwing herself in the way of enjoying it; and the salutation thus accidentally begun had, from almost daily repetition, ripened into a sort of silent flirtation. The young count smiled, she blushed and half smiled too; and whilst he in reality thought nothing about her, she had brought herself to believe he was actually in love with her, and that it was for her sake he so often appeared riding past her door.
But, on the present occasion, the sight of Francoise’s beautiful face had startled the young man out of his good manners. It is difficult to say why a gentleman, who looks upon the features of one pretty girl with indifference, should be ‘frightened from his propriety’ by the sight of another, in whom the world in general sees nothing superior; but such is the case, and so it was with Victor. His heart seemed taken by storm; he could not drive the beautiful features from his brain; and although he laughed at himself for being thus enslaved by a low-born beauty, he could not laugh himself out of the impatience he felt to mount his horse and ride back again in the hope of once more beholding her. But this time Manon alone was risible; and although he lingered, and allowed his eyes to wander over the house and glance in at the windows, no vestige of the lovely vision could he descry.
‘Perhaps she did not live there—she was probably but a visiter to the other girl?’ He would have given the world to ask the question of Manon; but he had never spoken to her, and to commence with such an interrogation was impossible, at least Victor felt it so, for his consciousness already made him shrink from betraying the motives of the inquiry. So he saluted Manon and rode on; but the wandering anxious eyes, the relaxed pace, and the cold salutation, were not lost upon her. Besides, he had returned from the Chateau de Montmorenci before the usual time, and the mortified damsel did not fail to discern the motive of this deviation from his habits.
Manon was such a woman as you might live with well enough as long as you steered clear of her vanity, but once come in collision with that, the strongest passion of her nature, and you aroused a latent venom that was sure to make you smart. Without having ever ‘vowed eternal friendship,’ or pretending to any remarkable affection, the girls had been hitherto very good friends. Manon was aware that Francoise was possessed of a great deal of knowledge of which she was utterly destitute; but as she did not value the knowledge, and had not the slightest conception of what it was worth, she was not mortified by the want of it nor envious of the advantage; she did not consider that it was one. But in the matter of beauty the case was different. She had always persuaded herself that she was much the handsomer of the two. She had black shining hair and dark flashing eyes; and she honestly thought the soft blue eyes and auburn hair of her cousin tame and ineffective.
But the too evident saisissement of the young count had shown her a rival where she had not suspected one, and her vexation was as great as her surprise. Then she was so puzzled what to do. If she abstained from sitting at the door herself, she should not see Monsieur de Vardes, and if she did sit there her cousin would assuredly do the same. It was extremely perplexing; but Francoise settled the question by seating herself at the door of her own accord. Seeing this, Manon came too, to watch her, but she was sulky and snappish, and when Victor not only distinguished Francoise as before, but took an opportunity of alighting from his horse to tighten his girths, just opposite the door, she could scarcely control her passion.
It would be tedious to detail how, for the two months that ensued, this sort of silent courtship was carried on. Suffice it to say, that by the end of Francoise’s visit to Loques she was in complete possession of Victor’s heart, and he of hers, although they had never spoken a word to each other; and when she was summoned home to Cabanis to meet her father, she was completely divided betwixt the joy of once more seeing the dear old man and the grief of losing, as she supposed, all chance of beholding again the first love of her young heart.
But here her fears deceived her. Victor’s passion had by this time overcome his diffidence, and he had contrived to learn all he required to know about her from the blacksmith of the village, one day when his horse very opportunely lost a shoe; and as Cabanis was not a great way from the Chateau de Montmorenci, he took an early opportunity of calling on the old physician, under pretence of needing his advice.
At first he did not succeed in seeing Francoise, but perseverance brought him better success; and when they became acquainted, he was as much charmed and surprised by the cultivation of her mind as he had been by the beauty of her person. It was not difficult for Victor to win the heart of the alchemist, for the young man really felt, without having occasion to feign, on interest and curiosity with respect to the occult researches so prevalent at that period; and thus, gradually, larger and larger portions of his time were subtracted from the Chateau de Montmorenci to be spent at the physician’s. Then, in the green glades of that wide domain which extended many miles around, Victor and Francoise strolled together arm in arm; he vowing eternal affection, and declaring that this rich inheritance of the Montmorenci should never tempt him to forswear his love.
But though thus happy, ‘the world forgetting,’ they were not ‘by the world forgot.’ From the day of Victor’s first salutation to Francoise, Manon had become her implacable enemy. Her pride made her conceal as much as possible the cause of her aversion; and Francoise, who learned from herself that she had no acquaintance with Victor, hardly knew how to attribute her daily increasing coldness to jealousy. But by the time they parted the alienation was complete, and as, after Francoise went home, all communication ceased between them, it was some time before Manon heard of Victor’s visits to Cabanis. But this blissful ignorance was not destined to continue.
There was a young man in the service of the Montmorenci family called Jacques Renard; he was a great favourite with the marquis, who had undertaken to provide for him, whe
n in his early years he was left destitute by the death of his parents, who were old tenants on the estate. Jacques, now filling the office of private secretary to his patron, was extremely in love with the alchemist’s daughter; and Francoise, who had seen too little of the world to have much discrimination, had not wholly discouraged his advances. Her heart, in fact, was quite untouched; but very young girls do not know their own hearts; and when Francoise became acquainted with Victor de Vardes, she first learned what love is, and made the discovery that she entertained no such sentiment for Jacques Renard. The small encouragement she had given him was therefore withdrawn, to the extreme mortification of the disappointed suitor, who naturally suspected a rival, and was extremely curious to learn who that rival could be; nor was it long before he obtained the information he desired.
Though Francoise and her lover cautiously kept far away from that part of the estate which was likely to be frequented by the Montmorenci family, and thus avoided any inconvenient reencounter with them, they could not with equal success elude the watchfulness of the foresters attached to the domain; and some time before the heiress or Manon suspected how Victor was passing his time, these men were well aware of the hours the young people spent together, either in the woods or at the alchemist’s house, which was on their borders. Now the chief forester, Pierre Bloui, was a suitor for Manon’s hand. He was an excellent huntsman, but being a weak, ignorant, ill-mannered fellow, she had a great contempt for him, and had repeatedly declined his proposals. But Pierre, whose dullness rendered his sensibilities little acute, had never been reduced to despair. He knew that his situation rendered him, in a pecuniary point of view, an excellent match, and that old Thierry, Manon’s father, was his friend; so he persevered in his attentions, and seldom came into Loques without paying her a visit. It was from him she first learned what was going on at Cabanis.
‘Ay,’ said Pierre, who had not the slightest suspicion of the jealous feelings he was exciting; ‘ay, there’ll be a precious blow up by and by, when it comes to the ears of the family! What will the Marquis and the old Count de Vardes say, when they find that, instead of making love to Mam’selle Clemence, he spends all his time with Francoise Thilouze?’
‘But is not Mam’selle Clemence angry already that he is not more with her?’ inquired Manon.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Pierre; ‘but that’s what I was thinking of asking Jacques Renard, the first time he comes shooting with me.’
‘I’m sure I would not put up with it if I were she!’ exclaimed Manon, with a toss of the head; ‘and I think you would do very right to mention it to Jacques Renard. Besides, it can come to no good for Francoise; for of course the count would never think of marrying her.’
‘I don’t know that,’ answered Pierre; ‘Margot, their maid, told me another story.’
‘You don’t mean that the count is going to marry Francoise Thilouze!’ exclaimed Manon, with unfeigned astonishment.
‘Margot says he is,’ answered Pierre.
‘Well, then, all I can say is,’ cried Manon, her face crimsoning with passion—‘all I can say is, that they must have bewitched him, between them; she and that old conjuror, my uncle!’
‘Well, I should not wonder,’ said Pierre. ‘I’ve often thought old Michael knew more than he should do.’
Now, Manon in reality entertained no such idea, but under the influence of the evil passions that were raging within her at the moment, she nodded her head as significantly as if she were thoroughly convinced of the fact—in short, as if she knew more than she chose to say; and thus sent away the weak superstitious Pierre possessed with a notion that he lost no time in communicating to his brother huntsmen; nor was it long before Victor’s attentions to Francoise were made known to Jacques Renard, accompanied with certain suggestions, that Michael Thilouze and his daughter were perhaps what the Scotch call, no canny; a persuasion that the foresters themselves found little difficulty in admitting.
In the meanwhile, Clemence de Montmorenci had not been unconscious of Victor’s daily declining attentions. He had certainly never pressed his suit with great earnestness; but now he did not press it at all. Never was so lax a lover! But as the alliance was one planned by the parents of the young people, not by the election of their own hearts, she contemplated his alienation with more surprise than pain.
The elder members of the two families, however, were far from equally indifferent; and when they learned from the irritated, jealous Jacques Renard the cause of the dereliction, their indignation knew no bounds. It was particularly desirable that the estates of Montmorenci and De Vardes should be united, and that the lowly Francoise Thilouze, the daughter of a poor physician, who probably did not know who his grandfather was, should step in to the place designed for the heiress of a hundred quarterings, and mingle her blood with the pure stream that flowed through the veins of the proud De Vardes, was a thing not to be endured.
The strongest expostulations and representations were first tried with Victor, but in vain. ‘He was in love, and pleased with ruin.’ These failing, other measures must be resorted to; and as in those days, pride of blood, contempt for the rights of the people, ignorance, and superstition, were at their climax, there was little scruple as to the means, so that the end was accomplished.
It is highly probable that these great people themselves believed in witchcraft; the learned, as well as the ignorant, believed in it at that period; and so unaccountable a perversion of the senses as Victor’s admiration of Francoise naturally appeared to persons who could discern no merit unadorned by rank, would seem to justify the worst suspicions; so that when Jacques hinted the notion prevailing amongst the foresters with respect to old Michael and his daughter, the idea was seized on with avidity.
Whether Jacques believed in his own allegation it is difficult to say; most likely not; but it gratified his spite and served his turn; and his little scrupulous nature sought no further. The marquis shook his head ominously, looked very dignified and very grave, said that the thing must be investigated, and desired that the foresters, and those who had the best opportunities for observation, should keep an attentive eye on the alchemist and his daughter, and endeavour to obtain some proof of their malpractices, whilst he considered what was best to be done in such an emergency.
The wishes and opinions of the great have at all times a strange omnipotence; and this influence in 1588 was a great deal more potential than it is now. No sooner was it known that the Marquis de Montmorenci and the Count de Vardes entertained an I’ll will against Michael and Francoise, than every body became suddenly aware of their delinquency, and proofs of it poured in from all quarters. Amongst other stories, there was one which sprung from nobody knew where—probably from some hasty word, or slight coincidence, which flew like wildfire amongst the people, and caused an immense sensation. It was asserted that the Montmorenci huntsmen had frequently met Victor and Francoise walking together, in remote parts of the domain; but that when they drew near, she suddenly changed herself into a wolf and ran off. It was a favourite trick of witches to transform themselves into wolves, cats, and hares, and weir-wolves were the terror of the rustics: and as just at that period there happened to be one particularly large wolf, that had almost miraculously escaped the forester’s guns, she was fixed upon as the representative of the metamorphosed Francoise.
Whilst this storm had been brewing, the old man, absorbed in his studies, which had received a fresh impetus from his late journey to Paris, and the young girl, wrapt in the entrancing pleasures of a first love, remained wholly unconscious of the dangers that were gathering around them. Margot, the maid, had indeed not only heard, but had felt the effects of the rising prejudice against her employers. When she went to Loques for her weekly marketings, she found herself coldly received by some of her old familiars; whilst by those more friendly, she was seriously advised to separate her fortunes from that of persons addicted to such unholy arts. But Margot, who had nursed Francoise in her infancy, was deaf to t
heir insinuations. She knew what they said was false; and feeling assured that if the young count married her mistress, the calumny would soon die away, she did not choose to disturb the peace of the family, and the smooth current of the courtship, by communicating those disagreeable rumours.
In the mean time, Pierre Bloui, who potently believed ‘the mischief that himself had made,’ was extremely eager to play some distinguished part in the drama of witch- finding. He knew that he should obtain the favour of his employers if he could bring about the conviction of Francoise; and he also thought that he should gratify his mistress. The source of her enmity he did not know, nor care to inquire; but enmity he perceived there was; and he concluded that the destruction of the object of it would be on agreeable sacrifice to the offended Manon. Moreover, he had no compunction, for the conscience of his superiors was his conscience; and Jacques Renard had so entirely confirmed his belief in the witch story, that his superstitious terrors, as well as his interests, prompted him to take an active part in the affair.
Still he felt some reluctance to shoot the wolf; even could he succeed in so doing, from the thorough conviction that it was in reality not a wolf, but a human being he would be aiming at; but he thought if he could entrap her, it would not only save his own feelings, but answer the purpose much better; and accordingly he placed numerous snares, well baited, in that part of the domain most frequented by the lovers; and expected every day, when he visited them, to find Francoise, either in one shape or the other, fast by the leg. He was for some time disappointed; but at length he found in one of the traps, not the wolf or Francoise, but a wolf’s foot. An animal had evidently been caught, and in the violence of its struggles for freedom had left its foot behind it. Pierre carried away the foot and baited his trap again.
About a week had elapsed since the occurrence of this circumstance, when one of the servants of the chateau, having met with a slight accident, went to the apothecary’s at Loques, for the purpose of purchasing some medicaments; and there met Margot, who had arrived from Cabanis for the same purpose. Mam’selle Francoise, it appeared, had so seriously hurt one of her hands, that her father had been under the necessity of amputating it. As all gossip about the Thilouze family was just then very acceptable at home, the man did not fail to relate what he had heard; and the news, ere long, reached the ears of Pierre Bloui.
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