The Little Ball O' Fire; or, the Life and Adventures of John Marston Hall

by G. P. R. James

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  As soon as the treaty had been duly signed, the Princess de Cond?,with four of her principal supporters, of whom Monsieur de Villardinwas one, set out for Bourg, where they were as kindly received and ashospitably treated by the Court, as if they had never borne armsagainst the throne. The whole party was splendidly entertained at thelodging of the Cardinal prime minister; and on Monsieur de Villardin'sreturn to Bordeaux, I found that no slight impression had been made onhis mind by the gracious and unexpected reception he had met.

  The young King himself, he informed me, had condescended to press himto take an active part in his service: and I gathered that the Dukehad replied in such a manner, as to leave no doubt that, as soon asthe Princes were set at liberty, there would be none more zealous andindefatigable in the royal cause than himself. Determined uponconducting his troops back to Brittany in person, the Duke despatchedme with three or four servants across the country to Virmont, for thepurpose of giving notice to Father Ferdinand and Mademoiselle deVillardin, that he was safe and well, and would speedily join us inthe Orleanois.

  Very well comprehending how glad the Duke was to find a fair excusefor taking up his residence in a part of the country which was lesspainfully associated in his mind than that which he had latelyinhabited, I ventured to press him to be the bearer of his own goodnews to Virmont, and to suffer me to conduct the regiment back toBrittany, which I argued he might very well do, as almost all theother commanders were at once dismissing their men, and suffering themto find their way home as they best might. His ideas of duty, however,were in this respect far more strict than those of the other generals;and, adhering to his determination, he began his march on thefollowing day, while I set out for Virmont.

  I had now to travel through a part of the country I had never seen:and a rich and splendid land it was. No armies had passed for severalyears along the exact track which I took; and as I compared thesmiling abundance of everything around me with the scenes ofdevastation and ruin I had so often seen, new estimations of manythings on this earth began to present themselves to my mind, and I goteven as far as to admit that--whatever charms a military life mighthave--it would be a sad and terrible act, to change such prospects ofbeauty and happiness to scenes of ruin and desolation. The gradualprogress of all these slow alterations in my own mind and feelings,working themselves out one after another through life, has been asubject of curious investigation to myself; and as I write for my ownamusement, I shall still continue to put them down as they occur to myremembrance.

  The first feeling that in my bosom tended most certainly to soften allthe rest, was a growing taste for the beauties of nature, of everykind and description; and as I approached Virmont, the warm andluxuriant banks of the Loire struck me with the same pleasurablesensations as I had experienced on seeing the deep shades and tranquilstillness of the Pr?s Vall?e. Crossing the Loire at Gien, I turned tothe right, and a little beyond Bl?nau was directed by the peasantry tothe ch?teau de Virmont, which was situated in a dry and sandy soil,and surrounded by some rich but rather wild scenery. The house itselfwas not a very large one, but it possessed various advantages whichwere not to be found at either Dumont or the Pr?s Vall?e, and,especially in my eyes, was preferable to either of them, from beingtotally unconnected with the dark and gloomy remembrances that hunglike a boding cloud over both the others.

  Here I found Mademoiselle de Villardin with both Father Ferdinand andher worthy relation the good old Count de Loris; and great was the joyof all parties on hearing, not the successful issue of ourundertaking, but the safe and fortunate manner in which it hadterminated, after promising much less pleasant results. I think theten days that followed were amongst the happiest of my whole life. Iwas in the society of three people, each of whom,--though verydifferent from each other--I loved; I was in a beautiful scene whereall was new; I was myself caressed and applauded by every one; therewas no violent passion, either good or evil, in my bosom; and therewas no restraint upon my actions. Even after we were joined byMonsieur de Villardin, although the deep melancholy which had nowresumed its place in his demeanour, of course cast a degree of gloomover the whole household; and though I especially felt grieved andpained to witness the bitter sorrow that preyed upon the heart of aman to whom I was sincerely attached, still the days passed pleasantlyenough; and, treated in every respect as if I had been the Duke's ownson, I had every reason to be content with my condition.

  The passing of such days do not bear detail; but in the meantimeevents were taking place in other parts of France that again called usinto active life. In Paris, the popular faction called the Fronde, atthe head of which, as I have before said, were the Archbishopcoadjutor de Retz and the Duke of Beaufort, had begun to take umbrageat the kindness which Mazarin and the Court had shown to the defendersof Bordeaux; and knowing very well that the minister had only employedtheir party for the purpose of delivering himself from the Prince deCond? and his friends, the popular leaders began to suspect thatMazarin, as soon as it suited him, would make what conditions hepleased with the imprisoned Princes, and set them at liberty withoutthe intervention of the Fronde. The success of the war in Guyenne hadraised the minister higher than they liked also; and the Cardinal,foolishly believing himself quite secure, soon began to treat theFrondeurs with very little ceremony.

  The Viscount de Turenne, it is true, was still in arms in Champagne,but the good fortune of Mazarin was again triumphant in this instance,as if on purpose to make him think himself beyond the power of fate.

  The Mar?chal du Plessis Praslin, an experienced officer, but onecertainly inferior to Turenne in every respect, was sent against theonly formidable opponent of the Court that now remained, and, aftervarious man[oe]uvres on both parts, completely defeated Turenne, whofled to Bar-le-Duc, accompanied only by five hundred horse. Thissuccess increased the pride of Mazarin, and taught him vainly toimagine that he could at length put down the faction which had so longeither ruled or disorganized the state; and although the parties ofthe Court and the Fronde had, for a time, unnaturally united for theruin of Cond? and his family, they now found that the moment was comewhen the struggle between themselves was to be renewed. Eachdetermined upon the liberation of the Princes; but Mazarin sought toobtain more from the prisoners than the Fronde were inclined todemand; and he consequently temporised too long, while De Retz andBeaufort stirred up the people and the Parliament; and the cry for theliberation of Cond? became as general amongst the Parisians as therejoicings for his imprisonment had been about a year before. The Dukeof Orleans, also, Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, always weak andalways false, abandoned once more the cause of the minister. The cryfor the liberation of the Princes was succeeded by a clamour for theexile of Mazarin. After many ineffectual struggles, the Queen Regentwas obliged to yield her favourite to popular turbulence, and theminister fled from the Court, happy to escape with life. The very nextmorning, the Parliament of Paris, which not long before had condemneda man to death for publishing a libel against the Cardinal, now foundreasons for declaring him a _disturber of the public peace_, and forpassing sentence of outlawry against him; and the people and theParliament prepared to liberate with joy the Princes who had so latelybeen the objects of their execrations.

  Mazarin, however, outstripped them in that very design; and wishing totake the credit of the act to himself, no sooner had he quitted thecapital, than, proceeding to Havre, whither Cond? and his companionshad been removed, he threw open their prison doors, and himselfannounced their liberation. The Princes treated him with the contempthe merited, and the disgraced minister, finding himself withoutresource, fled from a country to which he was destined to return,after a very short lapse of time, more powerful than ever.

  One of the first acts of the Prince de Cond? was to write a letter ofthanks to Monsieur de Villardin, for the part he had taken in the lateevents; and he condescended especially to notice my somewhat dangerousenterprise in finding my way into Vincennes, for the pur
pose ofcommunicating to him the plan framed by Gourville for his deliverance.He added, that he might have supposed I had deceived him, as thescheme was never put in execution, but that he had learned from othersources the cause which prevented the attempt; and he concluded byassuring Monsieur de Villardin that, if he could point out any objectwhich either he or I desired, the whole influence of the house ofCond? should be exerted to obtain it for us. This probably might haveled me into other scenes, and indeed might have changed the complexionof my whole after-life, had not events arisen which soon placed thePrince in a state of fiercer opposition to the Court than ever.

  Anne of Austria resolved to recal her favourite Mazarin: Cond?himself, aspiring to govern the state, was determined that theminister should remain in exile. Means were soon found to embroil himwith the party of the Fronde; and the Prince at length made up hismind both to revenge himself upon those who had caused hisimprisonment, and to strike boldly for the supreme power by force ofarms. Having once taken his resolution, he pursued it with all thatfearless decision which rendered him a great general, but more thanonce made him a bad subject. Retiring from Paris, he negotiated withall his former friends and adherents; and, carrying his measures stillfarther, treated with Spain itself, the open and declared enemy of hisnative country. From that crown he received every assurance ofassistance that he could desire, which assurances were fulfilled tothe letter; but with his former partisans in France he was not by anymeans so successful. His causes of complaint against the Court werenot at all such as to justify the violent and ruinous measures he waspursuing. His own ambitious motives were apparent to every eye, and animmense change of circumstances had been effected by the simple factof the young King having attained his majority. What people mightaffect to consider a struggle amongst the different powers of thestate for the administration of the realm during the infancy of theKing, could now be looked upon in no other light than as actualrebellion against the royal authority. The Duke of Bouillon,--tied bythe engagement made at Bourg, and seeing the present situation of thePrince in a very different light from that in which his position whileunder imprisonment had appeared to him--positively refused to takepart in his rebellion, though the regiment he had raised, officers andsoldiers, went over to the party of Cond?. Turenne followed theexample of his brother the Duc de Bouillon, and declined to act withthe Prince against the Court. Monsieur de Villardin also, in reply toa letter from Cond? upon the subject, while he assured him of hisunabated personal regard, informed him plainly that he not only wouldrefuse all participation in new schemes against the Court, but wouldconsider himself bound to serve against any one found in rebellion tothe royal authority, now that the monarch had attained his majority.

  Cond? still, however, pursued his plan, and but too many were found togive him support in its execution. Nor did he calculate alone, itwould seem, upon his present partisans, and upon the assistance ofSpain; but, knowing the levity of all political characters in thatday, he reckoned boldly upon a great number of his present enemiescoming over to his side, and foresaw, it would appear, that theapproaching recal of Mazarin would soon induce the Fronde itself tocooperate directly or indirectly in his schemes. Retiring uponGuyenne, which, from various causes, was almost always ready forrevolt, he at length absolutely raised the standard of rebellionagainst the King. A large body of troops, called the Corps de Cond?,abandoned the royal army on the frontiers of Flanders, and went overat once to the Spanish force, which was now leagued with the Prince.Considerable bodies of troops joined him in Bordeaux, a great part ofBerri took arms in his favour, and, once more, the flame of civil warwas lighted throughout the land.

  Negotiations were immediately entered into between the Court and allthose officers who had refused, on the present occasion, to serve withthe Prince. Of these, Monsieur de Villardin was, of course, one; andfull powers were given to him to raise a regiment in the name of theKing, with a great many other marks of the royal favour andconfidence. He accepted the task without hesitation, and declared hispositive determination never to suffer any circumstances to induce himagain to oppose the royal authority; but, at the same time, in thevain hope that other events would cause Cond? to make his submission,he delayed as long as possible taking any active part in the warlikeoperations against his friend, under the pretence of requiring sometime to complete his preparations.

  In the meantime, Cond? had lost no time, but was making such progressin Guyenne, that the whole country began to take alarm at his success.The Count de Harcourt, however, soon after checked his advance on theside of Cogniac; and the Mar?chal de Gramont, marching with aconsiderable body of troops towards Langon, threatened to turn theflank of the Prince's army. Each of the royal generals commanded moremen, and better disciplined forces, than those which followed Cond?,and the Prince found himself obliged to choose between fighting underdisadvantages which must have proved fatal, or temporising with theCourt, in order to give time for a diversion to be effected in hisfavour. He accordingly, with consummate policy, made overtures to theQueen for permitting the return of Mazarin. The Queen, whosepartiality for her minister did not permit her to see what Cond?, as Ihave before said, had at once perceived, that the recal of theCardinal would immediately throw the whole party of the Fronde,together with the Parliament and a great body of the people, entirelyinto the hands of the rebellious Prince, caught eagerly at the idea ofthe minister's return. Not only did she give Cond? both time andrepose by negotiating, at a moment when her generals might have pushedtheir advantage to his complete overthrow, but, blindly running beforethe negotiation, she despatched courier after courier to Mazarin,without at all requiring that the Prince should commit himself withthe Fronde by joining in the recal of the obnoxious Italian.

  Mazarin lost no time, but, at the head of a body of troops which hehad raised in Germany, he entered France, and being immediately joinedby the royal army in Champagne, he advanced at once across the countrytowards Poitiers. All that Cond? had foreseen now took place: theFronde, the Parliament, the people, were astonished and indignant atthe unexpected return of the hated minister. The Duke of Orleansobtained a decree from the Parliament of Paris, commanding allgovernors of towns to arrest him in his progress; a reward of fiftythousand crowns was offered for his head; an army was raised by theDuc de Beaufort, who effected his junction with the Duke de Nemours,the strongest partisan of the Prince de Cond?, and their united forceswere joined by a large body of Spaniards, which had been promised sometime before. At the same time the Duke de Rohan, governor of Anjou,declared for Cond?, with the whole province that he commanded, andevery part of the empire seemed rising at once against the authorityof the Court.

  Monsieur de Villardin now found that it was no longer a time forhesitation, and that if all the royalists remained inactive, theconstitution of the country itself must be overthrown. The greaterpart of the regiment which had served with him at Bordeaux had beenagain collected by his orders in Brittany; three or four more troopswere easily raised in the Orleanois; the whole had been more perfectlydisciplined during the time he had remained in inactivity than theyhad ever been before, and the moment that he heard of the generalrevolt, he despatched couriers to the Court at Poitiers, to announcethat he was on his march to support its cause, with an effective forceof twelve hundred men. This reinforcement was a matter of no smallconsequence to a royal army in those days; and the pleasure that thisnews occasioned to the young King and his Court was greatly increasedfrom the circumstances of the time at which Monsieur de Villardin'sdeclaration arrived, and from the hope it held out of others followinghis example.

  A new era was now opening for me. One of the troops of Monsieur deVillardin's regiment, raised by the authority of the King himself, hadbeen given to me, and the high road to honour and promotion was nowthrown wide before me. The political events which I have narratedabove had occupied a considerable space of time, so that I was nowmore than seventeen. The little property which the kindness of LordMasterton and of Monsieur de Villardin had bestowed upon m
e, wasmore than sufficient for all my wants and wishes; my troop wasas fine and well disciplined a one as any in the service; and on thetwenty-eighth of February I commenced my march with Monsieur deVillardin, full of all the hopes of youth, although I had beenprematurely taught the experience of manhood. I do not know that sucha combination of the two is either pleasant or beneficial to him whopossesses them; and I do believe that nature's plan is the best, injoining youthful inexperience to youthful passions. For my own part, Imay safely say, that having by the circumstances of my early days beencarried too far forward all through life, I have always found that itwas painful to be older than one's years.

  We conducted our march as rapidly as possible towards Poitiers, and Iremember nothing worth relating that occurred on the way. We found,however, at that town, that the Court and army had proceeded toSaumur, and following it thither, with only a day's halt, we againapproached the Loire. We were welcomed with infinite joy, and I waspresented by Monsieur de Villardin to the minister and to the youngKing, by both of whom I was treated with great kindness. The formerwas an elderly man of mild and insinuating manners, but with nothingeither impressive or graceful in his demeanour: the latter was a youthof a fine intelligent countenance, but apparently far more occupiedwith the thoughts of field sports and courtly gallantries than affairsof state or war.

  The royal army at this time was commanded by Marshals Turenne andd'Hocquincourt; and Monsieur de Villardin immediately received such anappointment under the command of the former as suited his rank andexperience. We found, however, that our long march to Saumur mighthave been spared us, for within four days after our arrival, it wasannounced that, quiet being restored in Anjou, and the Prince de Cond?being kept in check by the Count de Harcourt and the Mar?chal deGramont, the King intended to return immediately to Paris, in order totake measures against the combined force of Spaniards and insurgentswhich was rapidly traversing Champagne, and advancing towards theNivernois. The next morning the order to march was given; andfollowing the course of the Loire, for the purpose of securing thelarge towns situated upon that river, we passed through Tours,Amboise, and Blois, finding the country in general loyal, and willingto receive the royal army. Orleans, however, shut her gates againstus; and as our own force was small, while the enemy, to the number offifteen thousand men, had already entered the Orleanois, the attemptto reduce the city by force would have been in vain.

  Both the Court and the generals were now eager to meet the Dukes ofNemours and Beaufort, who commanded the adverse force on the otherside of the river, and between whom dissensions were said to existwhich were likely to neutralise entirely the superiority of theirforces: but none, certainly, was more desirous of dislodging them fromtheir post than Monsieur de Villardin, inasmuch as they occupied aposition extending from Montargis to the Loire, in a line drawndirectly between Loris and Virmont, at the latter of which places wehad left Mademoiselle de Villardin, now a pretty little girl of abouteleven years old. Ere anything else could be attempted, it wasnecessary to secure the bridge of Gergeaux, lest the enemy should passthe river and fall upon our rear. This, however, was not to be donewithout some trouble, as the bridge had already been seized by M. del'Etouf, Lieutenant-General of the enemy's force, who had found timeto effect a lodgment, and place his cannon, before sufficient troopscould be brought up to dispute the possession.

  Here, however, the genius of Turenne at once remedied alldifficulties. Without ammunition, and with only two hundred men, hekept possession of the little town, erected a barricade upon thebridge, defended it for two hours against an immensely superior force,and yielded not a step till a sufficient reinforcement arrived toenable him to drive back the enemy and blow up the bridge.

  Although not present at the beginning of the affair, I obtained leaveto ride on before the party destined to support Monsieur de Turenne,and brought him the first news of its approach; nor throughout all thescenes of the kind that I have witnessed, did I ever behold a man who,in the midst of danger and excitement, displayed such calm, unmovedtranquillity. He neither looked vehement, nor heated, nor anxious,but, in the midst of the enemy's fire, which was tremendous, listenedto my report as if I had been giving him an invitation to dinner.

  As soon as we had secured our rear by the destruction of the bridge ofGergeaux, we marched direct upon Gien, and passing the Loire by thebridge at that town, took up a position at the distance of aboutfifteen miles from the enemy, in order to ascertain their exactsituation before hazarding any very bold stroke with our inferiorforce. The Court established itself at Gien; and Turenne fixed hishead-quarters at Briare, while the Mar?chal d'Hocquincourt took up hisat Bl?nau. But it was now discovered that forage, which had beenscarce along the whole line of our march, was not to be had in anysufficient quantity, and the cavalry was obliged to disperse in troopsamongst the villages, in a semicircle of about twenty miles to theright, left, and rear, of our general position.

  Monsieur de Villardin was obliged to remain with Turenne, but hedirected me to post my troop as near as possible to the park andch?teau of Virmont; though, as a part of the enemy's advanced guardoccupied the little village of that name, I could not approach so nearas I could wish. We found, however, upon inquiry, that our adversarieswere behaving with much courtesy to the people of the country, andthat the ch?teau of Monsieur de Villardin had as yet been respected;but, nevertheless, he was extremely anxious to withdraw his daughterand household, if possible, from so exposed a situation; and, ontaking my leave of him, I promised to negotiate with the officer whooccupied the village, in order to carry his wish into effect.

  Thus long have I been obliged to pause upon the general history of thetimes, which has been much better detailed by others; and as I am nowabout to return to my private life and personal adventures, I shallclose this chapter here, and begin my narration of the events whichfollowed on a fresh page.