THE sun had long gone down, and the large clear autumn moon had risen high in his stead, throwing a paler, but a gentler light upon the wood of Laye, and the rich wild forest-scenery bordering the road from St. Germain to Mantes. The light, unable to pierce the deeper recesses of the wood, fell principally upon those old and majestic trees, the aristocracy of the forest, which, raising their heads high above their brethren of more recent growth, seemed to look upon the beam in which they shone, as the right of elder birth, and due alone to their aspiring height. The deep shadows of their branches fell in long sombre shapes across the inequalities of the road, leaving but glimpses every now and then, to light the footsteps of whatever being might wander there at that hour of silence.

On one of those spots where the full beams fell, stood the cottage of Philip, the woodman: and the humble hut with its straw thatch, the open space of ground before it, with a felled oak which had lain there undisturbed till a coat of soft green moss had grown thick over its rugged bark, the little stream dammed up to afford a sufficient supply of water for the horses, and the large square block of stone to aid the traveller in mounting, all were displayed in the clear moonlight as plainly as if the full day had shone upon them.

Yet, however fair might be the night, there were very few who would have chosen the beams of the moon to light them across the wood of Mantes. In sooth, in those days sunshine was the best safeguard to travellers. For France swarmed with those who gathered in their harvest at night, and who (to use their own phrase) had turned their swords into reaping-hooks.

Two grand objects fully occupied the mind of that famous minister, the Cardinal de Richelieu (who then governed the kingdom with almost despotic sway): the prosecution of those mighty schemes of foreign policy, which at the time shook many a throne, and in after years changed more than one dynasty; and the establishment of his own power at home, which, threatened by factions, and attacked by continual conspiracies, was supported alone by the terror of his name, and the favour of a weak and irresolute monarch. These more immediate calls upon his attention gave him but little time to regulate the long-neglected police of the country; and indeed it was whispered, that Richelieu not only neglected, but knowingly tolerated many of the excesses of the times; the perpetrators of which were often called upon to do some of those good services which statesmen occasionally require of their less circumspect servants. It was said too, that scarce a forest in France but sheltered a band of these free rovers, who held themselves in readiness to merit pardon for their other offences, by offending in the State’s behalf whenever it should be demanded, and in the mean time took very sufficient care to do those things on their own account for which they might be pardoned hereafter.

We may suppose then, it rarely happened that travellers chose that hour for passing through the wood of Mantes, and that those who did so were seldom of the best description. But on the night I speak of, two horsemen wound slowly along the road towards the cottage of the Woodman, with a sort of sauntering, idle pace, as if thoughtless of danger, and entirely occupied in their own conversation.

They were totally unattended also, although their dress bespoke a high station in society, and by its richness might have tempted a robber to inquire farther into their circumstances. Both were well armed with pistol, sword, and dagger, and appeared as stout cavaliers as ever mounted horse, having, withal, that air of easy confidence, which is generally the result of long familiarity with urgent and perilous circumstances.

Having come near the abreuvoir, one of the two gave his horse to drink without dismounting, while the other alighted, and taking out the bit, let his beast satisfy its thirst at liberty. As he did so, his eye naturally glanced over the ground at the foot of the tree. Something caught his attention; and stooping down to examine more closely, “Here is blood, Chavigni!” he exclaimed; “surely, they have never been stupid enough to do it here, within sight of this cottage.”

“I hope they have not done it at all, Lafemas,” replied the other. “I only told them to tie him, and search him thoroughly; but not to give him a scratch, if they could avoid it.”

“Methinks, thou hast grown mighty ceremonious of late, and somewhat merciful, Master Chavigni,” replied his companion; “I remember the time, when you were not so scrupulous. Would it not have been the wiser way, to have quieted this young plotter at once, when your men had him in their hands?”

“Thou wert born in the Fauxbourg St. Antoine, I would swear, and served apprenticeship to a butcher,” replied Chavigni. “Why, thou art as fond of blood, Lafemas, as if thou hadst sucked it in thy cradle! Tell me, when thou wert an infant Hercules, didst thou not stick sheep, instead of strangling serpents?”

“Not more than yourself, lying villain!” answered the other in a quick deep voice, making his hand sound upon the hilt of his sword. “Chavigni, you have taunted me all along the road; you have cast in my teeth things that you yourself caused me to do. Beware of yourself! Urge me not too far, lest you leave your bones in the forest!”

“Pshaw, man! pshaw!” cried Chavigni, laughing: “Here’s a cool-headed judge! Here’s the calm placid Lafemas! Here’s the Cardinal’s gentle hangman, who can condemn his dearest friends to the torture with the same meek look that he puts on to say grace over a Beccafico, suddenly metamorphosed into a bully and a bravo in the wood of Mantes.—But hark ye, Sir Judge!” he added, in a prouder tone, tossing back the plumes of his hat, which before hung partly over his face, and fixing his full dark eye upon his companion, who still stood scowling upon him with ill-repressed passion—“Hark ye, Sir Judge! Use no such language towards me, if you seek not to try that same sharp axe you have so often ordered for others. Suffice it for you to know, in the present instance, that it was not the Cardinal’s wish that the young man should be injured. We do not desire blood, but when the necessity of the State requires it to be shed. Besides, man,” and he gradually fell into his former jeering tone—“besides, in future, under your gentle guidance, and a touch or two of the peine forte et dure, this young nightingale may be taught to sing, and, in short, be forced to tell us all he knows. Now do you understand?”

“I do, I do,” replied Lafemas. “I thought that there was some deep, damnable wile that made you spare him; and as to the rest, I did not mean to offend you. But when a man condemns his own soul to serve you, you should not taunt him, for it is hard to bear.”

“Peace! peace!” cried Chavigni, in a sharp tone; “let me hear no more in this strain. Who raised you to what you are? We use you as you deserve; we pay you for your services; we despise you for your meanness; and as to your soul,” he added with a sneer, “if you have any fears on that head—why you shall have absolution. Are you not our dog, who worries the game for us? We house and feed you, and you must take the lashes when it suits us to give them. Remember, Sir, that your life is in my hand! One word respecting the affair of Chalais mentioned to the Cardinal, brings your head to the block! And now let us see what is this blood you speak of?”

So saying, he sprang from his horse, while Lafemas, as he had been depicted by his companion, hung his head like a cowed hound, and in sullen silence pointed out the blood, which had formed a little pool at the foot of the tree, and stained the ground in several places round about.

Chavigni gazed at it with evident symptoms of displeasure and uneasiness; for although, when he imagined that the necessities of the State required the severest infliction on any offender, no one was more ruthless than himself as to the punishment, no one more unhesitating as to the means—although, at those times, no bond of amity, no tie of kindred, would have stayed his hand, or restrained him in what he erroneously considered his political duty; yet Chavigni was far from naturally cruel; and, as his after life showed, even too susceptible of the strongest and deepest affections of human nature.

In his early youth, the Cardinal de Richelieu had remarked in him a strong and penetrating mind; but above all, an extraordinary power of governing and even subduing the ardent passions by which he was at times excited. As son to the Count de Bouthilliers, one of the oldest members of the Privy Council, the road to political preferment was open to Chavigni; and Richelieu, ever fearful of aught that might diminish his power, and careful to strengthen it by every means, resolved to bind the young Count to his cause by the sure ties of early habit and mutual interest. With this view he took him entirely under his own protection, educated him in his own line of policy, instilled into him, as principles, the deep stern maxims of his own mighty and unshrinking mind, and having thus moulded him to his wish, called him early to the council-table, and intrusted him with a greater share of his power and confidence than he would have yielded to any other man.

Chavigni repaid the Cardinal with heartfelt gratitude, with firm adherence, and uncompromising service. In private life, he was honourable, generous, and kind; but it was his axiom, that all must yield to State necessity, or (as he said) in other words, to the good of his country; and upon the strength of this maxim, which, in fact, was the cause of every stain that rests upon his memory, he fancied himself a patriot!

Between Chavigni and the Judge Lafemas, who was the Jeffreys of his country, and had received the name of Le Bourreau du Cardinal, existed a sort of original antipathy; so that the Statesman, though often obliged to make use of the less scrupulous talents of the Judge, and even occasionally to associate with him, could never refrain for any length of time from breaking forth into those bitter taunts which often irritated Lafemas almost to frensy. The hatred of the Judge, on his part, was not less strong, even at the times it did not show itself; and he still brooded over the hope of exercising his ungentle functions upon him who was at present, in a degree, his master.

But to return, Chavigni gazed intently on the spot to which Lafemas pointed. “I believe it is blood, indeed,” said he, after a moment’s hesitation, as if the uncertainty of the light had made him doubt it at first: “they shall rue the day that they shed it contrary to my command. It is blood surely, Lafemas: is it not?”

“Without a doubt,” said Lafemas; “and it has been shed since mid-day.”

“You are critical in these things, I know,” replied the other with a cool sneer; “but we must hear more of this, Sir Judge, and ascertain what news is stirring, before we go farther. Things might chance, which would render it necessary that one or both of us should return to the Cardinal. We will knock at this cottage and inquire.—Our story must run, that we have lost our way in the wood, and need both rest and direction.”

So saying, he struck several sharp blows with the hilt of his sword against the door, whose rickety and unsonorous nature returned a grumbling indistinct sound, as if it too had shared the sleep of the peaceable inhabitants of the cottage, and loved not to be disturbed by such nocturnal visitations. “So ho!” cried Chavigni; “will no one hear us poor travellers, who have lost our way in this forest!”

In a moment after, the head of Philip, the woodman, appeared at the little casement by the side of the door, examining the strangers, on whose figures fell the full beams of the moon, with quite sufficient light to display the courtly form and garnishing of their apparel, and to show that they were no dangerous guests. “What would ye, Messieurs?” demanded he, through the open window: “it is late for travellers.”

“We have lost our way in your wood,” replied Chavigni, “and would fain have a little rest, and some direction for our farther progress. We will pay thee well, good man, for thy hospitality.”

“There is no need of payment, Sir,” said the Woodman, opening the door. “Come in, I pray, Messieurs.—Charles!” he added, calling to his son, “get up and tend these gentlemen’s horses. Get up, I say, Sir Sluggard!”

The boy crept sleepily out of the room beyond, and went to give some of the forest-hay to the beasts which had borne the strangers thither, and which gave but little signs of needing either rest or refreshment. In the mean while, his father drew two large yew-tree seats to the fire-side, soon blew the white ashes on the hearth into a flame, and having invited his guests to sit, and lighted the old brazen lamp that hung above the chimney, he bowed low, asking how he could serve them farther; but as he did so, his eye ran over their persons with a half-satisfied and inquiring glance, which made Lafemas turn away his head. But Chavigni answered promptly to his offer of service: “Why now, good friend, if thou couldst give us a jug of wine, ‘twould be well and kindly done, for we have ridden far.”

“This is no inn, Sir,” replied Philip, “and you will find my wine but thin: nevertheless, such as it is, most welcomely shall you taste.”

From whatever motive it proceeded, Philip’s hospitality was but lukewarm towards the strangers; and the manner in which he rinsed out the tankard, drew the wine from a barrique standing in one corner of the room, half covered with a wolf-skin, and placed it on a table by the side of Chavigni, bespoke more churlish rudeness than good-will. But the Statesman heeded little either the quality of his reception or of his wine, provided he could obtain the information he desired; so, carrying the tankard to his lips, he drank, or seemed to drink, as deep a draught as if its contents had been the produce of the best vineyard in Medoc. “It is excellent,” said he, handing it to Lafemas, “or my thirst does wonders. Now, good friend, if we had some venison-steaks to broil on your clear ashes, our supper were complete.”

“Such I have not to offer, Sir,” replied Philip, “or to that you should be welcome too.”

“Why, I should have thought,” said Chavigni, “the hunters who ran down a stag at your door to-day, should have left you a part, as the woodman’s fee.”

“Do you know those hunters, Sir?” demanded Philip, with some degree of emphasis.

“Not I, in truth,” replied Chavigni; though the colour rose in his cheek, notwithstanding his long training to courtly wile and political intrigue, and he thanked his stars that the lamp gave but a faint and glimmering light: “Not I, in truth; but whoever ran him down got a good beast, for he bled like a stag of ten. I suppose they made the curÉe at your door?”

“Those hunters, Sir,” replied Philip, “give no woodman’s fees; and as to the stag, he is as fine a one as ever brushed the forest dew, but he has escaped them this time.”

“How! did he get off with his throat cut?” demanded Chavigni, “for there is blood enough at the foot of yon old tree, to have drained the stoutest stag that ever was brought to bay.”

“Oh! but that is not stag’s blood!” interrupted Charles, the woodman’s son, who had by this time not only tended the strangers’ horses, but examined every point of the quaint furniture with which it was the fashion of the day to adorn them. “That is not stag’s blood; that is the blood of the young Cavalier, who was hurt by the robbers, and taken away by—”

At this moment the boy’s eye caught the impatient expression of his father’s countenance.

“The truth is, Messieurs,” said Philip, taking up the discourse, “there was a gentleman wounded in the forest this morning. I never saw him before, and he was taken away in a carriage by some ladies, whose faces were equally strange to me.”

“You have been somewhat mysterious upon this business, Sir Woodman,” said Chavigni, his brow darkening as he spoke; “why were you so tardy in giving us this forest news, which imports all strangers travelling through the wood to know?”

“I hold it as a rule,” replied Philip boldly, “to mind my own business, and never to mention any thing I see; which in this affair I shall do more especially, as one of the robbers had furniture of Isabel and silver;” and as he spoke he glanced his eye to the scarf of Chavigni, which was of that peculiar mixture of colours then called Isabel, bordered by a rich silver fringe.

“Fool!” muttered Chavigni between his teeth; “Fool! what need had he to show himself?”

Lafemas, who had hitherto been silent, now came to the relief of his companion: taking up the conversation in a mild and easy tone, “Have you many of these robbing fraternity in your wood?” said he; “if so, I suppose we peril ourselves in crossing it alone.” And, without waiting for any answer, he proceeded, “Pray, who was the cavalier they attacked?”

“He was a stranger from St. Germain,” answered the Woodman; “and as to the robbers, I doubt that they will show themselves again, for fear of being taken.”

“They did not rob him then?” said the Judge. Now nothing that Philip had said bore out this inference; but Lafemas possessed in a high degree the talent of cross-examination, and was deeply versed in all the thousand arts of entangling a witness, or leading a prisoner to condemn himself. But there was a stern reserve about the Woodman which baffled the Judge’s cunning: “I only saw the last part of the fray,” replied Philip, “and therefore know not what went before.”

“Where was he hurt?” asked Lafemas; “for he lost much blood.”

“On the head and in the side,” answered the Woodman.

“Poor youth!” cried the Judge in a pitiful tone. “And when you opened his coat, was the wound a deep one?”

“I cannot judge,” replied Philip, “being no surgeon.”

It was in vain that Lafemas tried all his wiles on the Woodman, and that Chavigni, who soon joined in the conversation, questioned him more boldly. Philip was in no communicative mood, and yielded them but little information respecting the events of the morning.

At length, weary of this fruitless interrogation, Chavigni started up—“Well, friend!” said he, “had there been danger in crossing the forest, we might have stayed with thee till daybreak; but, as thou sayest there is none, we will hence upon our way.” So saying he strode towards the door, the flame-shaped mullets of his gilded spurs jingling over the brick-floor of Philip’s dwelling, and calling the Woodman’s attention to the knightly rank of his departing guest. In a few minutes all was prepared for their departure, and having mounted their horses, the Statesman drew forth a small silk purse tied with a loop of gold, and holding it forth to Philip, bade him accept it for his services. The Woodman bowed, repeating that he required no payment.

“I am not accustomed to have my bounty refused,” said Chavigni proudly; and dropping the purse to the ground, he spurred forward his horse.

“Now, Lafemas,” said he, when they had proceeded so far as to be beyond the reach of Philip’s ears, “what think you of this?”

“Why, truly,” replied the Judge, “I deem that we are mighty near as wise as we were before.”

“Not so,” said Chavigni. “It is clear enough these fellows have failed, and De Blenau has preserved the packet: I understand it all. His Eminence of Richelieu, against my advice, has permitted Madame de Beaumont and her daughter Pauline to return to the Queen, after an absence of ten years. The fact is, that when the Cardinal banished them the Court, and ordered the Marchioness to retire to Languedoc, his views were not so extended as they are now, and he had laid out in his own mind a match between one of his nieces and this rich young Count de Blenau; which, out of the royal family, was one of the best alliances in France. The boy, however, had been promised, and even, I believe, affianced by his father, to this Pauline de Beaumont; and accordingly his Eminence sent away the girl and her mother, with the same sangfroid that a man drives a strange dog out of his court-yard; at the same time he kept the youth at Court, forbidding all communication with Languedoc: but now that the Cardinal can match his niece to the Duke D’Enghien, De Blenau may look for a bride where he lists, and the Marquise and her daughter have been suffered to return. To my knowledge, they passed through Chartres yesterday morning on their way to St. Germain.”

“But what have these to do with the present affair?” demanded Lafemas.

“Why thus has it happened,” continued Chavigni. “The youth has been attacked. He has resisted, and been wounded. Just then, up come these women, travelling through the forest with a troop of servants, who join with the Count, and drive our poor friends to cover. This is what I have drawn from the discourse of yon surly Woodman.”

“You mean, from your own knowledge of the business,” replied Lafemas, “for he would confess nothing.”

“Confess, man!” exclaimed Chavigni.—“Why he did not know that he was before a confessor, and still less before a Judge, though thou wouldest fain have put him to the question. I saw your lip quivering with anxiety to order him the torture; rack, and thumb-screw, and oubliette were in your eye, every sullen answer he gave.”

“Were it not as well to get him out of the way?” demanded Lafemas. “He remarked your livery, Chavigni, and may blab.”

“Short-sighted mole!” replied his companion. “The very sulkiness of humour which has called down on him thy rage, will shield him from my fears—which might be quite as dangerous. He that is so close in one thing, depend upon it, will be close in another. Besides, unless he tells it to the trees, or the jays, or the wild boars, whom should he tell it to? I would bet a thousand crowns against the Prince de Conti’s brains, or the Archbishop Coadjutor’s religion, or Madame de Chevreuse’s—reputation, or against any thing else that is worth nothing, that this good Woodman sees no human shape for the next ten years, and then all that passes between them will be, “Good day, Woodman!’—‘Good day, Sir!’—and he mimicked the deep voice of him of whom they spoke. But, notwithstanding this appearance of gaiety, Chavigni was not easy; and even while he spoke, he rode on with no small precipitation, till, turning into a narrow forest path, the light of the moon, which had illuminated the greater part of the high road, was cut off entirely by the trees, and the deep gloom obliged them to be more cautious in proceeding. At length, however, they came to a little savanna, surrounded by high oaks, where Chavigni entirely reined in his horse, and blew a single note on his horn, which was soon answered by a similar sound at some distance.