G. P. R. James

Which shows the truth of the French adage, “L’habit ne fait pas le moine.”

I KNOW I am very wrong, very partial, and very inconsiderate, to give two consecutive chapters to the Count de Blenau, when I have more people to despatch than had Captain Bobadil in the play, and less time to do it in. But I could not help it; those two last chapters would go together, and they were too long to be clapped up into one pat, as I have seen Sarah the dairy-maid do with the stray lumps of butter that float about in the butter-milk, after the rest of the churn’s produce has been otherwise disposed of. So I am very sorry, and so forth.—And now, if you please, my dear reader, we will go on to some one else. What would you think of the Norman?—Very well!—For my part, I look upon him as the true hero of the story; for according to the best accounts, he eat more, drank more, lied more, and fought more than any one else, and was a great rogue into the bargain; all which, in the opinion of Homer, is requisite to the character of a hero. See the Odyssey passim.

At Troyes, the Norman’s perquisitions were very successful. No Bow-street officer could have detected all the proceedings of Fontrailles with more acuteness. Step by step he traced him, from his first arrival at Troyes, till the day he set out for Mesnil St. Loup; and learning the road he had taken, he determined upon following the same track, for he shrewdly concluded, that whatever business of import the conspirator had been engaged in, had been transacted in the two days and one night, which, according to the story of the garÇon d’auberge at the Hotel du Grand Soleil, he had been absent from the good city of Troyes.

Now, our friend Monsieur Marteville had learned another piece of news, which made him the more willing to bend his steps in the direction pointed out as that which Fontrailles had taken. This was no other than that a considerable band of robbers had lately come down into that part of the country to collect their rents; and that their principal haunt was supposed to be the thick woods which lay on the borders of the high road to Troyes, in the neighbourhood of Mesnil.

True it is, the Norman had abandoned his free companions of the forest, and received the wages of Monsieur de Chavigni; but still he kept up a kind of desultory correspondence with his former associates, and had not lost sight of them till certain reports got about, that the Lieutenant Criminel was going to visit the forest of Laye, which induced them to leave the vicinity of St. Germain, for fear that there should not be room enough in the forest for them and the Lieutenant too. It was natural enough that Marteville should wish to make a morning call upon his old friends: besides—I’ll tell you a story. There was once upon a time a man who had a cat, of which he was so fond, that, understanding one Mr. Pigmalion had got an ivory statue changed into a wife by just asking it, he resolved to see what he could do for his cat in the same way. But I dare say you know the story just as well as I do—how the cat was changed into a woman, and how she jumped out of bed after a mouse, and so forth; showing plainly, that “what is bred in the bone will never go out of the flesh;” that “nature is better than a schoolmaster;” and that “you can never make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear;” as Sancho would say. But, however, the Norman had a strange hankering after his good old trade, and was very well inclined to pass a day or two in the free forest, and do Chavigni’s work into the bargain. There was a little embarras indeed in the case, respecting Louise, for whom, in these first days of possession, he did feel a certain degree of attachment; and did not choose to leave her behind, though he did not like to take her with him, considering the society he was going to meet. “Pshaw!” said he at length, speaking to himself, “I’ll leave her at Mesnil.”

This resolution he began to put in execution, by placing Louise upon one horse, and himself upon the other, together with their several valises; and thus, in the same state and order in which they had arrived at Troyes, so they quitted it for Mesnil St. Loup. All the information that Marteville possessed to guide him in his farther inquiries, amounted to no more than this, (which he learned from the aforesaid garÇon d’auberge;) namely, that the little gentleman in grey had taken the road apparently to Mesnil; that he had been absent, as before said, two days and one night; and that his horse, when it came home, appeared to have been furnished with a new shoe en route. This, however, was quite sufficient as a clue, and the Norman did not fail to turn it to its full account.

Passing through the little villages of Mehun and Langly, the Norman eyed every blacksmith’s forge as he went; but the one was next to the post-house, and the other was opposite the inn; and the Norman went on, saying within himself—“A man who was seeking concealment, would rather proceed with his beast unshod than stop there.” So, resuming his conversation with Louise, they jogged on, babbling, not of green fields, but of love and war; both of which subjects were much within the knowledge of the Sieur Marteville, his battles being somewhat more numerous than his wives, and having had plenty of both in his day.

At all events, Louise was very well satisfied with the husband that Heaven had sent her, and looked upon him as a very fine gentleman, and a great warrior; and though, now and then, she would play the coquette a little, and put forth all the little minauderie which a Languedoc soubrette could assume, in order to prevent the Norman from having too great a superiority, yet Monsieur Marteville was better satisfied with her than any of his former wives; and as she rode beside him, he admired her horsemanship, and looked at her from top to toe in much the same manner that he would have examined the points of a fine Norman charger. No matter how Louise was mounted: suffice it to say, that it was not on a side-saddle, such things being but little known at the time I speak of.

While they were thus shortening the road with sweet discourse, at the door of a little hovel by the side of the highway, half hidden from sight by a clumsy mud wall against which he leaned, half exposed by the lolloping position he assumed, appeared the large, dirty, unmeaning face and begrimed person of a Champenois blacksmith, with one hand grubbing amongst the roots of his grizzled hair, and the other hanging listlessly by his side, loaded with the ponderous hammer appropriated to his trade. “C’est ici,” thought the Norman; “Quatre vingt dix neuf moutons et un Champenois font cent—Ninety-nine sheep and a Champenois make a hundred; so we’ll see what my fool will tell me.—Holla! Monsieur!”

“Plait-il?” cried the Champenois, advancing from his hut.

“Pray has Monsieur Pont Orson passed here to-day?” demanded the Norman.

“Monsieur Pont Orson! Monsieur Pont Orson!” cried the Champenois, trying to assume an air of thought, and rummaging in his empty head for a name that never was in it: “Pardie, I do not know.”

“I mean,” said the Norman, “the same little gentleman in grey, who stopped here ten days agone, to have a bay horse shod, as he was coming back from—what’s the name of the place?”

“No!” cried the Champenois; “he was going, he was not coming, when he had his horse shod.”

“But I say he was coming,” replied the Norman. “How the devil do you know he was going?”

“Mais dame!” exclaimed the other; “How do I know he was going? Why, did not he ask me how far it was to Mesnil? and if he had not been going, why should he wish to know?”

“It was not he, then,” said the Norman.

“Mais dame! ouai!” cried the Champenois. “He was dressed all in grey, and had a bay horse, on whose hoof I put as nice a piece of iron as ever came off an anvil; and he asked me how far it was to Mesnil, and whereabouts was the old Castle of St. Loup. ‘Monsieur Pont Orson! Monsieur Pont Orson? Dieu! qui aurait dÉvinÉ que c’Étoit Monsieur Pont Orson?’”

“Mais je vous dis que ce n’Étoit pas lui,” cried the Norman, putting spurs to his horse. “Allons, chÉrie. Adieu, Monsieur Champenois, adieu!—Ha! ha! ha!” cried he, when at a little distance. “Ganache! he has told me all that I wanted to know. Then he did go to Mesnil—the old Chateau of St. Loup! What could he want there? I’ve heard of this old chateau.”

“But who is Monsieur Pont Orson?” demanded Louise, interrupting the broken cogitations of her husband.

“Nay, I know not, ma chÈre,” replied her husband. “The man in the moon, with a corkscrew to tap yon fool’s brains, and draw out all I wanted to know about the person whom I told you I was seeking for Monsieur de Chavigni.—It was a mere name. But there, I see a steeple on yon hill in the wood. Courage! we shall soon reach it. It is not above a league.—That must be Mesnil.”

The Norman’s league, however, proved at least two, and Louise, though a good horsewoman, was complaining most bitterly of fatigue, when they arrived in the little street of Mesnil St. Loup, and, riding up to the dwelling of our old friend Gaultier the innkeeper, alighted under the withered garland that hung over the door.

“Holla! Aubergiste! GarÇon!” cried the Norman, “Holla!”

But no one came; and on repeating the summons, the sweet voice of the dame of the house was all that could be heard, screaming forth a variety of tender epithets, applicable to the garÇon d’Écurie, and intended to stimulate him to come forth and take charge of the strangers’ horses. “Don’t you know, Lambin,” cried she, “that that hog your master is lying up-stairs dying for no one knows what? And am I to go out, Maraud, and take people’s horses with my hands all over grease, while you stand l—s—ng yourself there? Cochon! if you do not go, I’ll throw this pot-lid at you.” And immediately a tremendous rattle on the boards at the farther side of the stable, announced that she had been as good as her word.

This seemed the only effectual method of arousing the occult sensibilities of the garÇon d’Écurie, who listened unconcerned to her gentler solicitations, but, yielding to the more potent application of the pot-lid, came forth and took the bridle of the horses, while our Norman lifted his lady to the ground.

The sight of such goodly limbs as those possessed by Monsieur Marteville, but more especially the blue velvet pourpoint to which we have formerly alluded, and which he wore on the present occasion, did not fail to produce the most favourable impression on the mind of the landlady; and, bustling about with the activity of a grasshopper, she prepared to serve the athletic cavalier and his pretty lady to the best cheer of the auberge.

“Would Madame choose some stewed escargots pour se restaurer? Would Monsieur take un coup de vin before dinner to wash the dust out of his mouth? Would Madame step up-stairs to repose herself? Would Monsieur take a gouter?” These and a thousand other civil proffers the hostess showered upon the Norman and Louise, some of which were accepted, some declined; but the principal thing on which the Norman seemed to set his heart was the speedy preparation of dinner, which he ordered with the true galloping profusion of a beggar on horseback, demanding the best of every thing. While this was in progress, he forgot not the principal object of his journey, but began with some circumlocution to draw the hostess towards the subject of Fontrailles’ visit to Mesnil.

At the very mention, however, of a little man in grey, the good landlady burst forth in such a torrent of invective that she went well nigh to exhaust her copious vocabulary of epithets and expletives; while the Norman, taken by surprise, stood gazing and shrugging his shoulders, wondering at her facility of utterance, and the vast rapidity with which she concatenated her hard names. The little man in grey, who had been there precisely ten days before, was, according to her opinion, a liar, and a rogue, and a cheat; a conjuror, a Huguenot, and a vagabond; a man without honour, principle, or faith; a maraud, a matin, a misÉrable; together with a great many other titles the enumeration of which she summed up with “et s’il n’est pas le Diable, le Diable l’emporte!”

“C’est vrai,” cried the Norman every time she paused to take breath; “C’est vrai. But how came you to find out he was so wicked?”

The lady’s reply was not of the most direct kind; but from it the Norman gathered, with his usual acuteness, that after our friend Gaultier had pointed out to Fontrailles the road to the old Castle of St. Loup, he returned home, his mind oppressed with the consciousness of being the confidant of a Sorcerer. He laboured under the load of this terrific secret for some days; and then, his constitution not being able to support his mental struggles, he sickened and took to his bed, where he still lay in a deplorable state, talking in his sleep of the conjuror in grey, and of PÈre Le Rouge, and the Devil himself, and sundry other respectable people of the same class. But when awake, it must be remarked, the aubergiste never opened his lips upon the subject, notwithstanding all the solicitations which his better half, being tempted by the curiosity of her sex, did not fail to make. From all this the good dame concluded that the little man in grey had bewitched her husband and driven him mad, causing him to lie up there upon his bed like a hog, neglecting his business and leaving her worse than a widow.

All this was corn, wine and oil to the mind of the Norman, who, wisely reserving his opinion on the subject, retired to consult with Louise, having a great esteem for woman’s wit in such cases. After some discussion, a plan was manufactured between them, which, though somewhat bold in conception, was happily brought to issue in the following manner.

During the dinner, at which the bourgeoise waited herself, she was not a little surprised to hear Louise more than once call Marteville by the reverend appellation of mon pÈre; and if this astonished, how much was her wonder increased when afterwards, during a concerted absence of the Norman, the fair lady informed her, under a promise of profound secrecy, that the goodly cavalier, whose blue velvet doublet she had so much admired, was neither more nor less than the celebrated PÈre Alexis, directeur of the Jesuits of AlenÇon, who was travelling in disguise in order to place her (one of his penitents) in a monastery at Rome.

True, Louise either forgot or did not know that they were not precisely in the most direct road to Rome, but she was very safe in the person she spoke to, who had even less knowledge of where Rome stood than herself. Now the story of Louise was a very probable one in every other respect, considering the manners of the day; for les bons pÈres Jesuites very often travelled about in disguise for purposes best known to themselves, and very few of the bons pÈres, whether Jesuits or not, were averse to a fair penitent. Be that as it may, the simple bourgeoise never doubted it for a moment, and casting herself at the feet of Louise, she entreated her, with tears in her eyes, to intercede with the reverend directeur to confess and absolve her sinful husband, who lay up-stairs like a hog, doing nothing.

Just at this moment the Norman re-entered the room; and though his precise object, in the little drama they had got up, was neither more nor less than to confess the unhappy aubergiste, yet, as a matter of form, he made some difficulty to meddling with the penitent of another; but after faintly advising that the CurÉ of the village should be sent for, he agreed, as the case was urgent, to undertake the office of confessor himself, though he mildly reproached Louise, in presence of the hostess, for having betrayed his real character, and bade her be more careful in future.

As soon as he had signified his consent, the bourgeoise ran to tell her husband that the very reverend PÈre Alexis, directeur of the Jesuits of AlenÇon, had kindly consented to hear his confession and absolve him of his sins; and in the mean while the Norman gave directions to Louise, whose adroitness had often served him in discovering the secrets of the Palace, while she had remained with Madame de Beaumont, to gain, in the present instance, all the information she could from the wife, while he went to interrogate the husband.

This being settled, as a blue velvet pourpoint was not exactly the garb to play a confessor in, Louise ran in all haste to strip the Astrologer’s robe we have already mentioned of all its profane symbols, and the Norman, casting its shadowy folds over his lusty limbs, and drawing the hood over his head, appeared to the eye as goodly a friar as ever cracked a bottle. No great regard to costume was necessary, for the landlady took it all for granted; and when she beheld the Norman issue forth from the room in which the valise had been placed, clothed in his long dark robes, she cast herself at his feet in a transport of reverence and piety.

Monsieur Marteville, otherwise the PÈre Alexis, did not fail to give her his blessing with great gravity, and with a solemn demeanour and slow step followed to the chamber of the sick man.

Poor Gaultier was no longer the gay rosy-cheeked innkeeper which he had appeared to Fontrailles, but, stretched upon his bed, he lay pale and wan, muttering over to himself shreds and tatters of prayers, and thinking of the little man in grey, PÈre Le Rouge, and the Devil. As soon as he beheld the pretended PÈre Alexis enter his chamber, he essayed to rise in his bed; but the Norman motioned him to be still, and sitting down by him, exhorted him to make a full confession of his sins, and then, to give greater authenticity to his character, he knelt down and composed an extempore prayer, in a language equally of his own manufacture, but which the poor aubergiste believed devoutly to be Latin, hearing every now and then the words sanctissimus, in secula seculorum, and benedictus, with which the Norman did not fail to season it richly, being the only stray Latin he was possessed of.

“Humgumnibus quintessentialiter expositu dum dum; benedictus sint foolatii et sanctissimus fourbi. Hi sty Aubergisti rorum coram nobis excipe capones poulardici generi, fur grataverunt pectus, legbonibus venzon in secula seculorum sanctissimus benedictus,” said the Norman.

“Amen!” cried the innkeeper from the bottom of his heart, with such fervency that the PÈre Alexis could scarcely maintain his gravity.

The Norman now proceeded to business, and putting down his ear to a level with the lips of Gaultier, he once more desired him to make a clear breast.

“Oh, mon PÈre,” cried Gaultier, “Je suis un pauvre pÉcheur, un misÉrable!”

The good Father exhorted him to take courage, and to come to a detail of his crimes.

“Oh, mon PÈre,” cried he, “I have sold cats for rabbits, and more especially for hares. I have moistened an old hareskin with warm water and bloodied it with chicken’s blood, to make my cats and my badgers and my weasels pass for what they really were not. I have cooked up snakes for eels, and dressed vipers en matelot. I have sold bad wine of Bois-marly for good wine of Epernay; and, Oh, mon PÈre, je suis un pauvre pÉcheur.”

“Well, well, get on,” cried the Norman somewhat impatiently, “I’ll give you absolution for all that. All innkeepers do the same. But what more have you done?”

“Oh, mon PÈre, je suis un pauvre pÉcheur,” proceeded Gaultier in a low voice; “I have charged my customers twice as much as I ought to charge. I have vowed that fish was dear when it was cheap; and I have—”

“Nom de Dieu!” cried the Norman, getting out of temper with the recapitulation of Gaultier’s peccadilloes. “Nom de Dieu! that is to say, in the name of God, I absolve you from all such sins as are common to innkeepers, masters of taverns, cooks, aubergistes and the like—sins of profession as they may be called—only appointing you to kneel before the altar of your parish church for two complete hours, repeating the Pater and the Ave during the whole time, by way of penance;” thought he, for making me hear all this nonsense.—“But come,” he continued, “bring up the heavy artillery—that is, let me hear your more uncommon sins. You have some worse things upon your conscience than any you have told, or I am mistaken.”

“Oh, mon PÈre! Oh, mon bon PÈre!” groaned Gaultier, “Je suis un pauvre pÉcheur, un misÉrable.”

“Now it comes,” thought the Norman; “Allons, allons, mon fils, ayez courage! l’Eglise est pleine de misÉricorde.”

“There was an old owl in the barn,” said Gaultier, “and woodcocks being scarce—”

“Ventre Saint Gris!” cried Marteville to himself, “this will never come to an end;” “Mais, mon fils,” he said aloud, “I have told you, all that is pardoned. Speak, can you charge yourself with murder, treason, conspiracy, sorcery,”—Gaultier groaned—“astrology,”—Gaultier groaned still more deeply—“or of having concealed any such crimes, when committed by others?” Gaultier groaned a third time. The Norman had now brought him to the point; and after much moaning, hesitation, and agony of mind, he acknowledged that he had been privy to a meeting of sorcerers.—Nay, that he had even conducted a notorious Astrologer, a little man in grey, on the road to meet the defunct PÈre Le Rouge and his companion the Devil, at the old Chateau of St. Loup; and that it was his remorse of conscience for this crime, together with his terror at revealing it, after the menaces of the Sorcerer, that had thrown him into the lamentable state in which he then lay.

By degrees, the Norman drew from him every particular, and treasuring them up in his memory, he hastened to give the suffering innkeeper absolution; which, though not performed in the most orthodox manner, quite satisfied Gaultier; who concluded, that any little difference of form from that to which he had been used, proceeded from the Norman being a Jesuit and a directeur; and he afterwards was heard to declare, that the PÈre Alexis was the most pious and saintly of men, and that one absolution from him was worth a hundred from any one else; although the CurÉ of the village, when he heard the method in which it had been administered, pronounced it to be heterodox and heretical, and in short a damnable error.

And here be it remarked, that a neighbouring CurÉ having taken up the quarrel of PÈre Alexis, and pronounced his form to be the right one, a violent controversy ensued, which raged in Champagne for more than fifty years, producing nine hundred pamphlets, three thousand letters, twenty public discussions, and four Papal bulls, till at length it was agreed on all hands to write to the Jesuits of AlenÇon, and demand their authority for such a deviation from established rules: when it was discovered that they administered absolution like every one else; and that they never had such a person as PÈre Alexis belonging to their very respectable and learned body.

But to return to the Norman. As soon as he had concluded all the ceremonies he thought right to perform, for the farther consolation of Gaultier, he said to him—“Fear not, my son, the menaces of the Sorcerer; for I forbid all evil beings, even were it the Devil himself, to lay so much as the tip of a finger upon you; and moreover, I will go this very night to the old Chateau of St. Loup, and will exorcise PÈre Le Rouge and drive his spirit forth from the place, and, morbleu! if he dare appear to me I will take him by the beard, and lead him into the middle of the village, and all the little children shall drum him out of the regiment—I mean out of the town.”

With this bold resolution, Monsieur Marteville descended to the ground floor, and communicated his design to Louise and the bourgeoise, who were sitting with their noses together over a flaggon of vin chaud. “Donnez moi un coup de vin,” said he, “et j’irai.”

But Louise, who did not choose to trust her new husband out of her sight, having discovered by a kind of instinct, that in his case “absence was worse than death,” declared she would go with him, and see him take PÈre Le Rouge by the beard. The Norman remonstrated, but Louise persisted with a sort of sweet pertinacity which was quite irresistible, and, though somewhat out of humour with her obstinacy, he was obliged to consent.

However, he growled audibly while she assisted to disembarrass him of his long black robe; and probably, had it not been for his assumed character, would have accompanied his opposition with more than one of those elegant expletives with which he was wont to season his discourse. Louise, notwithstanding all this, still maintained her point, and the horses being brought forth, the bags were placed on their backs, and the Norman and his spouse set forth for the old Chateau of St. Loup, taking care to repeat their injunction to the landlady not to discover their real characters to any one, as the business of the PÈre directeur required the utmost secrecy.

The landlady promised devoutly to comply, and having seen her guests depart, entered the public room, where several of the peasantry had by this time assembled, and told every one in a whisper that the tall gentleman they had seen get on horseback was the PÈre Alexis, directeur of the Jesuits of AlenÇon, and that the lady was Mademoiselle Louise de Crackmagnole, sa penitente. Immediately, they all ran in different directions, some to the door, some to the window, to see so wonderful a pair as the PÈre Alexis and his penitente. The bustle, rushing, and chattering which succeeded, and which the landlady could no way abate, called the attention of the Sieur Marteville, who, not particularly in a good humour at being contradicted by Louise, was so much excited into anger by the gaping of the multitude, that he had well nigh drawn the portentous Toledo which hung by his side, and returned to satisfy their curiosity by presenting his person rather nearer than they might have deemed agreeable. He bridled in his wrath, however, or rather, to change the figure, kept it in store for some future occasion; and consoling himself with a few internal curses, in which Louise had her share, he rode on, and soon arrived at that part of the wood which we have already said was named the Sorcerer’s Grove.

Of the unheard of adventures which there befel, the giants that he slew, and the monsters that he overcame, we shall treat in a future chapter, turning our attention at present to other important subjects which call loudly for detail.