Leaving Monsieur de Villardin to set out with Turenne, for the purpose of reconnoitring the enemy's position, I put myself at the head of my troop, and advanced towards Virmont. It was the fifth of April, and as beautiful a spring morning as ever was seen; and, winding away from the banks of the Loire, I led the troop through the shady and obscure roads in the neighbourhood of Briare, every inch of which I well knew. The Duke had left the choice of my quarters to myself, as we were not yet sufficiently acquainted with the enemy's dispositions to enable him to decide for me; but, before quitting head-quarters, I had fixed in my own mind upon the ground that I would select, if I found it practicable on nearer inspection. I soon learned that it was so, for as we proceeded I met several peasants on the road, from whose report I was convinced that the post I proposed to take up was sufficiently removed from the enemy's line to permit of my occupying it with little risk. Without further hesitation, then, I advanced to the top of the hill above Virmont, and entered the village which I had already fixed upon for my quarters. The hamlet itself was situated in the midst of a grove of tall trees, upon the slope of the hill looking towards Briare; but, on the other side of the highway, commanding a view down into the valley on the side of Virmont and Montargis, was placed a little auberge, at which we had frequently paused upon our hunting expeditions, and to the landlord of which I was consequently well known. The enemy's extreme outpost was, as I have said, at Virmont, with the exception of a few cravattes thrown forward to a farm-house by the side of the river. Thus the village that I occupied, being on the other side of the hill, was out of sight of any of their quarters, while the whole ground covered by their avant-garde could be seen from the back window and garden of the little auberge at which I took up my abode. The grove of trees already mentioned hid the village itself from Briare: but I had remarked, as we came, that a windmill, detached from the rest of the houses, was clearly to be seen at the head-quarters of Monsieur de Turenne.

The landlord of the inn was evidently delighted to see me, as he expected every hour to be put under contribution by the enemy; and he soon gave me a complete insight into all their movements since their arrival at Montargis. He set my mind at ease, too, in regard to the household at the chÂteau, assuring me that the officer who commanded at the village of Virmont had not suffered his men to commit any excess, nor even to penetrate within the walls of the park. All this was very satisfactory; but, of course, I determined to follow exactly the orders of Monsieur de Villardin; and, sending down a flag of truce, I demanded an interview with the commandant in the village. This he immediately granted, and riding down with two or three men, I met him in one of the meadows, by the side of a stream, across which our conversation was carried on. Explaining to him that it was the object of Monsieur de Villardin to remove his daughter and household to a place of greater security, I asked him, for courtesy's sake, to permit me to carry that purpose into effect.

To this he at once replied, that having the pleasure of being slightly acquainted with Monsieur de Villardin, he should be delighted to give him any proof of his high consideration and respect. He added, that I should be at liberty to pass the river with a serjeant's guard, if I thought it necessary, in order to escort the young lady to Briare or Gien.

As it was now near five o'clock, however, it was too late to take advantage of his offer that evening, and the officer charged himself to communicate to Father Ferdinand that I would be at the chÂteau the next morning, in order to guard himself and his charge to a place of security. Some farther conversation ensued in regard to the hour; and, in the midst of it, a horseman, followed by several attendants, came up at full speed, to communicate something to the officer with whom I had been speaking. The new comer sprang to the ground at once, and, amidst feathers, and plumes, and lace, and embroidery, I recognised immediately my old enemy Gaspard de Belleville. I saw that his remembrance of me was not less quick, but, as he turned his back towards me, and seemed desirous of avoiding every appearance of recognition, I assumed an air of perfect unconsciousness, and, bidding the officer adieu, with many thanks for his courtesy and politeness, I mounted my horse and again rode up the hill. The distance was about two miles, and almost all the farmers who occupied the ground from the river to the village were either tenants or vassals of Monsieur de Villardin and Monsieur Loris, and consequently completely at my command.

At each of the farm-houses, as I went, I paused for a few minutes, and, explaining to the farmers the necessity of keeping an acute watch upon the enemy, I made them promise that in case they saw, during the night, any movement in advance, they would each, one after another, set fire to a pile of brushwood in their court-yard; and, for the purpose of rendering our intelligence more secure, two or three of those in the immediate vicinity of the river agreed to take it by turns each night to sit up and mark the motions of the adverse force. On my arrival at the village, also, I rode directly to the mill, which luckily proved to be built of stone, with a little sort of platform near the top, by means of which the miller reached and regulated the sails. Much to his surprise, and somewhat to his consternation, I caused this little parapet to be loaded with brushwood, and then, explaining to him that it might be necessary to set fire to the pile, I told him to do his best to prevent the building itself from catching fire, in the event of our being compelled to use his mill as a stand for our beacon. Leaving half a dozen men to give him assistance in removing the sails and everything combustible from the neighbourhood of the platform, I returned to the little inn, and wrote a letter to Monsieur de Villardin, telling him what I had done, and informing him that if he saw my beacon lighted on the mill, he might be sure that the enemy were making some decided movement, preparatory to an attack upon the royal army. This I instantly sealed and sent off--though not without letting the Duke know that I had seen Gaspard de Belleville at the enemy's outpost; but leaving him to draw his own deductions.

Although these precautions might be very well justified by the general circumstances of the case, I confess that I should not have been so prudent as to take them, had no particular suspicion been superadded; but the simple fact of the appearance of Gaspard at the adverse avant-garde had set my mind upon forming a train of conclusions, which I shall now state, and which, though wild enough in themselves, ultimately proved correct. I have before said, that on being sent to Bordeaux by Monsieur de Villardin, the page, at his lord's solicitation, had received a commission in the regiment of the Duke de Bouillon. That regiment, officers and soldiers, had afterwards gone over to the Prince de CondÉ, and the last that we had heard of Gaspard de Belleville was, that he had gained considerable favour with the Prince, and had distinguished himself highly in his service during the revolt in Guienne. Every one believed that CondÉ was still in that province, hemmed in by the Count de Harcourt and the MarÉchal de Gramont. But Gaspard de Belleville, who was not the brightest genius that ever lived, had contrived to effect his passage through the forces of Harcourt and Gramont, and had joined the army of the Dukes of Beaufort and Nemours. Where he could pass, I thought, surely CondÉ could pass also; and I asked myself if there were not a thousand reasons for supposing he would make the attempt, if the enterprise were feasible. He could do little or nothing in Guienne--the Dukes of Nemours and Beaufort were wasting their time, and ruining a fine army by their dissensions--no one could put an end to those disputes but CondÉ, and if he could but contrive to join their force, instead of being cooped up in a distant corner of the kingdom, without power to act, he would be at the head of a superior force, and interposed in an advantageous position between the capital and the royal army. Thus I thought there was every inducement for him to make the attempt; that it might be made with success was proved by the appearance of Gaspard de Belleville; and I doubted not that the great CondÉ himself was by this time at the head of the troops opposed to us. The next conclusion was, that if he really were so, we should not be long without having reason to be quite certain of his presence; and such were the motives that induced me to take the precautions I have related.

Nay, more; so strong was the impression upon my mind that many hours would not elapse before we should have cause for activity and exertion, that I would not take off my own clothes; but, after having suffered the horses to rest for five or six hours, I ordered them to be again saddled towards nine o'clock, and, placing a sentry at the end of the garden, I lay down for an hour or two on the table in the inn kitchen, the door of which was left open, that I might hear the first alarm. Everything remained quiet, however, till midnight, when the sentry paused by the door to inform me that he had seen some lights moving through the wood in the direction of Montargis. I instantly sprang up and went out into the garden: but the lights had disappeared; and though I gazed out for several minutes, I could see nothing to confirm the soldier's account. As I was about to turn away, I heard a dull sort of sound, coming up from the valley; and the moment afterwards a small spot of light appeared in the direction of the farm-house nearest to the stream. In a moment it grew larger, increased into a blaze, my other watchers took up the signal, fire after fire blazed up along the side of the hill, and, ordering the beacon on the mill to be instantly fired, I commanded the men to mount and draw out upon the high road, while I went down to reconnoitre what was passing in the valley. Scarcely had I taken a dozen steps in that direction, however, when one of the farmers on whom I could depend came up in breathless haste, to inform me that the avant-garde of the enemy had marched out of the village, and were taking their way down the course of the stream. Another large body, he said, was advancing by the high road in the same direction; and, as I doubted not now that the lights which the sentry had seen towards the north-west had been a third division following the road from ChÀtillon, it seemed clear that the enemy's whole force were advancing upon the quarters of the MarÉchal d'Hocquincourt at BlÊnau. Instantly sending off a trooper with this intelligence to Monsieur de Turenne, and another to Monsieur d'Hocquincourt with the same news--which last courier, by the way, I chose because he was famous for speed, I prepared to lead my troop into the valley, in order to take advantage of anything that might occur, rather choosing to risk a little without orders than to remain in inactivity. When I had proceeded half-way down a steep and narrow lane, which conducted directly towards one of the gates of the park, I caught a glimpse of a large body of the enemy winding over a hill, which lay flat and dark against the sky, now faintly lighted by the beams of the rising moon. From what I saw, I concluded that it was their rear-guard which was thus accidentally exposed to my sight; but the moment after, a dull reddish colour began to tinge the clouds, just above the chÂteau of Virmont, growing brighter and brighter every moment, with a sort of flickering reflection, which showed that some large mass of buildings was on fire in that direction. The trees of the park prevented us from seeing what was the precise cause; but, filled with apprehension in regard to Mademoiselle de Villardin and good Father Ferdinand, I hurried our advance as much as the nature of the ground would admit, forded the river opposite the park, and, forcing the gate, which was locked, soon found myself in one of the alleys that led directly to the chÂteau.

The light we had seen no longer wanted any explanation. Through the long perspective of the trees I saw the house and all its offices in one general blaze, while on the terrace, in front of the chÂteau, a small body of infantry appeared, drawn up in military array, contemplating the spectacle which their own hands had produced. We were at such a distance, and the noise in the neighbourhood of the burning building was so great, that the enemy neither saw nor heard our first entrance into the park, although the bright light in which they stood enabled us to remark their movements as well as if it had been day. I had at this time about eighty men with me, almost every one of them born in the neighbourhood; and well knowing what are the feelings of those who see the flame of warfare brought to their own homestead, I merely said, "Now, my men, if you have the feelings of men, follow me, to avenge your lord and your commander. You, Bourdon, lead your men round by the alley on the left, where they will not see you; I will take round by the right; and when we get to the sloping ground which leads up to the terrace, let us charge them on both flanks, and drive them into the flames they have kindled."

This plan was executed as soon as proposed. Bourdon, my lieutenant, led one half of the troop to the left of the terrace, at the same moment that I appeared on the other side; and though the enemy had by this time become aware of our approach, and received us with a severe fire of musketry, we charged them with all the determination of hatred and revenge, and cut them down almost to a man. At that moment, however, an event occurred, which, in the passion and heat of the circumstances, I had not at all anticipated. A much larger body of infantry than that which had occupied the terrace drew out from the court behind, and I had just time to recognise in their commander my old enemy, Gaspard de Belleville, when the word was given to fire. Ten or twelve of my men dropped round about me in a moment; a violent blow seemed to strike my right shoulder, and with a strange feeling of faintness I fell headlong from my horse. I made one ineffectual effort to rise; but as I did so, the terrace, the park, the conflict that was still going on, and the burning chÂteau, swam round and round before my eyes; the feeling of faint sickness increased more and more, and in another instant complete forgetfulness of everything came over me. Nearly two hours must have passed as I lay in this state; and when I recovered my senses, I found myself cast carelessly upon a baggage-wagon, stiff, bruised, and in great pain, though a number of bandages round my neck and shoulders showed me that I had been tended with some degree of care. It was still night, but there was a slight tinge of grey in the sky, which spoke that morning was not far distant, and by the noise of other wagons and the tramp of marching men, I judged that I was carried along with a retreating army. In the front part of the wagon, at a very short distance from me, sat a female figure, the countenance of which I could not distinguish in the darkness; but a groan breaking from my lips, as the jolts of the vehicle gave me a degree of agony indescribable, caused her to approach and take my head in her lap, adding a few words of comfort. The voice I recognised at once as that of Suzette, who had been the servante of Madame de Villardin; but it was so changed in its tone, so low and sad, that I was almost led to doubt whether my ear had not deceived me. A feeling of abhorrence towards the woman--excited certainly more by my suspicions than by my knowledge--would have made me shrink from her, had it been possible. So weak, however, had I become, that I could neither move hand nor foot, and the pain of the attempt only called another groan from my bosom, which drew her attention still more towards me. Whether she had any particular motive in the care she took of me, or whether it sprung alone from that tender-heartedness which even the worst of women feel on beholding suffering and distress, of course I could not tell; but to do her but justice, she certainly tended me most kindly, and just as day was breaking, we found ourselves at the little town of ChÂteau Renard. Here she descended from the wagon, and was giving directions to the drivers to lift me gently into a little auberge, when Gaspard de Belleville himself, riding up at full speed, caught her by the shoulder, and giving her a rude shake, exclaimed, "Get up!--get up! You are not going to halt here!"--and then turning to the wagoners, he cursed them brutally for having paused at all, ordering them to make all speed onward towards Champagne.

"What in the devil's name have you there?" he exclaimed, pointing towards me, whose face he could not very well see.

"Only a wounded officer," replied Suzette.

"And what business has a wounded officer on your wagon?" cried he, sharply; "but get up, get up, and lose no time;" and riding on to the wagons which had preceded us, and which had likewise halted, he apparently gave more particular orders, and then galloped back, calling to Suzette as he passed to make the best of her way to Marou, and wait his coming there.

As I had never heard of Marou in my life, I was of course at a loss to know in what direction I was about to be borne; but, to tell the truth, in the state of feebleness and pain in which I then was, I cared so little what became of me, that I did not give the matter a second thought. The wagon rolled on; but at a little village, about five miles farther on, we were obliged to pause till fresh horses could be procured; and as this was not to be done without compulsion, a good deal of time was lost, while, lying on the top of the packages with which the vehicle was loaded, wounded, exhausted, and feverish, I suffered more than it is possible to describe. It luckily happened that the sky was dull and cloudy; for had it been one of those hot oppressive days which are sometimes met with in April, I do not think I should have been alive at night. Suzette, however, was kinder than I imagined she could have been: brought me drink several times to assuage the burning thirst that now consumed me, assured me that before night I should have a surgeon to dress my wounds, and did all in her power to keep up my spirits and to soothe my pain. A change had apparently taken place in her feelings since last I had beheld her, and a change had also taken place in her appearance, for I saw--and remembered afterwards, though it made but little impression on my mind at the time--that her dress was very different from that in which she had appeared in Bordeaux; and, indeed, the only mode of conveyance which was assigned to her would have rendered any other apparel than that of the simplest kind both ridiculous and cumbersome.

Through the whole of that day we travelled on, accompanied, as it appeared to me, by a small party of horse; but, nevertheless, Gaspard de Belleville did not again make his appearance, and towards night we halted at a village near Joigny. Here a surgeon was procured for me, who, though none of the best, contrived to extract the ball out of my side, after putting me to terrible torture for nearly half an hour. The relief, however, that I experienced was immediate; and the wound being properly dressed, I fell sound asleep, even before I was removed from the table on which the operation had been performed. The next morning early I found Suzette again by the side of the straw-bed on which I was stretched; and by this time I had recovered sufficient strength to ask her what had become of Father Ferdinand and Mademoiselle de Villardin, when the chÂteau of Virmont had been burned. She replied, that she could not tell, as she had not come up till afterwards; and she added, at the same time, an injunction not to trouble myself about other people, but to keep as quiet as circumstances would permit, out of consideration for myself.

This warning was uttered with a touch of that flippancy which had been her characteristic while in the service of Madame de Villardin, but it was the only remaining trait of the kind that I now remarked. It was sufficient, however, to make me turn from her again in some degree of disgust, by awakening all the memories of the past; but she did not seem to perceive any emotion of the sort, and the party being once more prepared to set out, I was again placed on the wagon, though a pile of straw had been spread to form a sort of bed for me on the top of the packages, and a piece of canvas had been drawn across as an awning for my head. Another day's journey brought us about twenty miles further in Champagne, and towards four o'clock, the wagon in which I was placed stopped at the turning of a cross-road, near which was a farmhouse. A number of the peasants were called up to the side of the vehicle; and, under the directions of Suzette, several of the packages which it contained were carried down the road. A couple of planks were then procured, and, being tied together, I was placed thereon, and lifted up from the ground by four stout men, who proceeded to bear me in the direction which those who carried the baggage had already taken. At the distance of about a mile and a half from the high road we came to a house, which, though distinguishable in every respect from a farm, did not at all deserve the name of a chÂteau. It was, indeed, one of those dwellings which, at that time, were commonly called in France a gentilhommiÈre, and which were generally inhabited by persons of gentle birth but small fortunes, who, after having served in the army the customary five or six years, retired to fit their younger children for becoming lawyers, abbÉs, and soldiers of fortune, while the heir to the estate prepared to tread exactly in his father's footsteps, and follow the same laudable and quiet path.

Up the steps of this building was I carried by my sturdy bearers, and in the hall I found Suzette, who had preceded us by some minutes, giving orders for my accommodation to two or three servants, male and female, who called her Madame, and acknowledged her commands as those of their mistress. Carried into a neat small chamber on the ground floor, I was undressed by the hands of the lacquey, and put to bed. In a few hours more a surgeon visited me, and I saw no one else but himself and the servant for two or three days, except when, once every morning, Suzette visited my bed-side, asked briefly whether I was getting better, and left me as soon as I had replied.

On the fourth day, however, when she appeared, she sat down by my bed-side, and, instead of addressing me in the usual hurried manner, she paused thoughtfully, and looked anxiously in my face, even before she inquired after my health. Her whole manner, indeed, was absent and agitated; and after two or three remarks on indifferent subjects, she said, abruptly, "I have something to tell you, Monsieur Hall, which must be told, and which shall be told, though I had intended to wait for two or three days longer, till you were well enough to hear it, and I had got courage enough to tell it; but he is coming home to-morrow, and heaven knows, if I do not tell it now, whether I shall ever be permitted to tell it at all."

As there was much that she had in her power to communicate which I would have given my right hand to hear, I assured her that I was quite well enough to attend to and remember everything she might say. She hesitated, however, long, although it was evident that it was the question, how to tell her tale, not any doubt in regard to telling it, that embarrassed her; and after beginning and breaking off at least twenty times, she at length summoned courage, and proceeded with her story as follows:--

"SUZETTE'S CONFESSION.

"I must make what I have to say a sort of history," she said, "in order that you may understand me clearly. In my early life you, of course, would find no manner of interest, and I shall therefore only tell you, as some excuse for much that happened after, that both my parents died young, and left me, before my education had commenced, to the care of a brother, who, though a daring, clever, courageous young man, was wild, obstinate, and headstrong himself, and, therefore, but little fitted to guide or direct me. He served early in various capacities in the navy; but as he never thought of saving anything which might have put us in a better station in life, the best that he could do for me was to fit me for the station of waiting-woman to a lady of high rank, and to obtain for me that situation in the family of Madame de Villardin. I followed my mistress to Paris, where I learnt from other women in the same situation all that is bad and foolish in the character of a Parisian soubrette, and added a vast quantity of conceit and obstinacy of my own. My mistress was gay and light, but in those respects she was not more so than every other woman in Paris, while, at the same time, she differed from all of them in never suffering herself to believe that it was possible to wrong her husband, even by a thought. This purity of mind, however, which should have made me admire and love her, had, I am sorry to say, quite the contrary effect. Almost every other suivante with whom I was acquainted in Paris was the confidante of her mistress, and the depositary of a number of secrets which would not have well suited the public eye. I had learned, too, from the femme-de-chambre of Madame de Montbazon and several others, that a woman was never sure of her place, secure of her perquisites, or, in short, was half so well treated, as when her mistress was engaged in some affair which put her, in a degree, into the power of her soubrette. Thus, those qualities in Madame de Villardin which best entitled her to respect and affection, produced quite a different result with me. I confess, too, that I often did my best, as far as I could, without ruining myself in her opinion, to lead her to follow the example set her by so many of her friends and acquaintances; but though at first this would have appeared an easy task, from her apparent thoughtlessness and great love of admiration, yet I found that the endeavour was in vain, and I soon learned that if I risked any bold counsel of the kind, I should soon be dismissed in disgrace.

"About that time Monsieur de Belleville, the only son of the gentleman to whom this property then belonged, was admitted, as a great favour, amongst the pages of Monsieur de Villardin. He was but fifteen, and I was twenty; he was the son of a gentleman, I of the class bourgeoise; but, notwithstanding all these obstacles, I determined, from the moment that he entered the family, to make it my business so to captivate him, as to relieve myself from a situation that I detested by becoming his wife. To obtain this end there were few things that I would not have done, and I soon found that, thanks to his natural disposition and my own address, I was very likely to succeed, as soon as Monsieur de Villardin obtained for him that commission which it was understood he was to receive at the age of seventeen or eighteen.

"Such was the state of things when you entered the dwelling of Monsieur de Villardin, and some quarrel took place between you and Gaspard, which ended in his conceiving a hatred for you, which never was and never will be quenched. He, of course, communicated his hatred to me, and more than one scheme did we form between us, for the purpose of compelling you to quit the dwelling that we inhabited. This was the extent of our design at first, but it soon spread out to baser and more criminal purposes, which, for motives that I may hereafter explain, I am now about to reveal to you fully. The high estimation in which you were held by Monsieur de Villardin, of course acted upon Gaspard in adding envy to dislike; but, before two months were over, he found an opportunity of gratifying both, which he did not fail to seize. You communicated, one day, it seems, to Monsieur de Villardin in his presence, that you had rescued a man from the gallows, and, without well knowing whether the consequence would be your own death in place of the malefactor, or your imprisonment in the Bastile for life, he found means of informing against you that very night, and had you not been promptly sent from Paris, you would have been arrested the next morning.

"About that time the Count de Mesnil first began to visit at the hotel of Monsieur de Villardin, and I soon saw that regard for his friend was rapidly giving place to admiration for his friend's wife; and, of course, I had no objection to promote his views, though I perceived from the first that Madame de Villardin looked upon him with, if anything, less complacency than she did upon the other gentlemen who frequented our house. As I knew, however, that the estates of Monsieur de Mesnil were in the immediate vicinity of those belonging to Monsieur de Villardin in Brittany, and as my brother, whom I was very anxious to see, and whom I truly loved, was in that province, I determined to try whether I could not bring about a removal of the whole family thither; and, taking advantage of Monsieur de Villardin's jealousy, which I had long marked as an engine to be made use of in case of necessity, I contrived by a few well directed hints and words to make him quit Paris in haste, and proceed to the PrÉs VallÉe. His jealousy, indeed, went farther than I had intended; and he was foolish enough to give way to a vehement fit of passion with his wife, which inflicted the first deep and painful stroke upon her domestic happiness. Although I had not intended this, I confess it did not give me any great pain, for I sincerely disliked my mistress, while affecting to be very much attached to her. In the meanwhile, the hatred of Gaspard towards you increased rather than diminished, as well as his passion for myself, which had, by this time, become as ardent as I could desire it. Some of our love meetings, however, in the woods of the PrÉs VallÉe had, as it seemed, been observed by some one, who communicated the facts to the Duchess. She immediately spoke to me upon the subject, and that in too severe a manner to be forgotten or forgiven by one of my disposition. On her accusing me of lightness of conduct towards a boy like Gaspard, I replied, 'What, if he choose to marry me?' But this only called down upon me a more severe proof; and she pointed out the difference of age and station in such a tone as made my blood boil, adding, that if ever I were seen walking with him again, she would instantly communicate the whole affair to Monsieur de Villardin, and at once dismiss me from her service. Of all this I, of course, informed Gaspard, and our prejudice against you led us to conclude, though I now know that we did so erroneously, that you had acted as a spy upon our conduct. The consequence was, that we determined upon a plan, the object of which was, at once to revenge ourselves upon you and upon my mistress. I must not paint myself or him, however, in worse colours than we deserve, and I must say that we neither of us contemplated the full extent of evil that was likely to ensue from the very designs that we formed. Neither Gaspard nor myself had ever received any strict or powerful principles, and, therefore, much that was really wrong we did not regard as any evil, while that which we really did know to be improper, our passions induced us to undertake at all risks. The plan which we formed I will now tell you. But you are fatigued," she added; "and the surgeon warned me to keep you from all conversation. I am obliged, indeed, to disobey his directions, for I shall have no other opportunity than that afforded me by to-day, to relate to you events which you must promise me faithfully to recapitulate, word for word, as far as you can remember, to Monsieur de Villardin. However, to-day is still ours, and as you are now fatigued, I will leave you for a couple of hours, and finish my story when I return."

I would fain have persuaded her to conclude it at once, and endeavoured to make her believe that I was really not fatigued; but I rather imagine that my appearance contradicted the assertion, and, adhering to her determination, she left me to repose.