Chapter L: Rather Political

I now rehearsed, as succinctly as I could, considering the agitation of my thoughts, my adventures with Marie Louise on our journey; omitting only such passages as I deemed might prove unnecessary, or unwelcome. When I concluded, her brother expressed much satisfaction, and gave me earnest thanks, adding that in everything, my relation agreed with that given by Mademoiselle to himself, and to the Duke.

'A further proof that she has not told them all,' thought I, again.

'Now that I have heard your story, and that those blustering Counts are gone elsewhere to swear and grumble over pots of Rhenish, or jugs of German beer,' said the gay Prince, filling up my wine-horn again, 'tell me, how are all my enemies, the good people of Paris? Marion de l'Orme, Ninon de l'Enclos, Louis _le Juste_ (faugh!), and Anne of Austria; and how is Father Richelieu himself--the great master showman in red hat and stockings, who makes all these little marionettes to hop and dance whenever he pulls the political strings?'

'Marion is still surrounded by lovers, and Ninon ditto, having quite forgotten the Count de Poligni,' I replied, in the same bantering tone; 'Louis is still in the silken meshes of Clara d'Ische; Anne of Austria still makes confessions to Monseigneur, the Archbishop of Paris, and still powders, paints, and patches; and eats and drinks as usual with the regal voracity of a pike; while Richelieu, the Coadjutor's rival in her heart, still enrols regiments, and levies treasures, to carry the frontiers of France towards the Rhine.'

The expression of Vaudemont's face changed, and his eyes sparkled at these words.

'Louis, most falsely surnamed the Just, is a prince without honour, and without gratitude!' said he, flinging his empty silver cup upon the table; 'he is at once the slave and the tool of Cardinal Richelieu, whom he hates and fears, and yet obeys--Richelieu, the most stern and bloody minister that ever stained the annals of France!--and now to divert the attention of her people from the intrigues by which he is surrounded, and by which he, a presumptuous priest, has obtained all but the royal authority, he has plunged Louis into this wanton war with the Empire and Lorraine, on the bold plea, ever so pleasing to French vanity, that their frontier shall be the Rhine. Marched by Champagne, and bordered by the Rhine, with Burgundy on one hand, and Luxemburg on the other, doubtless my father's ancient dukedom presents a tempting morsel to our friend M. le Cardinal and his creatures--and to enable them to swallow this morsel with ease, he has poured five armies into Germany and Italy. But our people are brave, bold, and hardy; our valleys are covered by vineyards; our mountains teem with mines of the richest ore, and hence this old Lorraine of ours--this patrimony which we have inherited since the days of the Merovingian kings--forms a prize too valuable to be relinquished to the grasping house of Bourbon: and while we have a rial and a rapier left, with God's help and the Emperor's, we shall defend it!'

'Louis asserts that Lorraine belongs to him, because Charles the Simple united it to France in the tenth century, and made Regnier governor over it.'

'Pardieu--no! 'tis our devil of a Cardinal who asserts this. But France will not be content with her boundaries at the Rhine, and if so, where is this spirit to end? Since the days of Charles the Great, the French dominions have not had such prospects of extension as they have now by the schemes of Richelieu, who has cast his eyes on Lorraine, Alsace, Brissac, and Philipsburg. He has cast them over Flanders, towards Dunkirk; across the Pyrenees, and over Rousillon into Catalonia. The annexation of our duchy to France would bring her frontier forty leagues into the empire; it would make Louis XIII. master of all the land between the Saar and the Moselle; it would secure his possession of Burgundy, and open up his path to the Palatinate; but never while blood and breath remain to Duke Charles and his son will they submit to France, and place the coronet of their independent dukedom under the closed-crown of the imperious line of St. Louis! And now, M. Blane, for your own affairs. You must be aware, my friend, that the sooner you leave Nanci, the better for your honour and for your life. In the first place rumour may indulge in unpleasant surmises about your sojourn here; and in the second, I would have you to rejoin your comrades without delay, lest Pappenhem, this Æneas of ours who seeks a wife, and his fidus Achates, the Petardier, who seeks that, which is much the same, mischief--may work you evil; for they are at no pains to conceal their hostility.'

'Prince, you speak my very thoughts; I am, indeed, most anxious to be gone,' said I, though the prospect of leaving Nanci without a parting word from Marie Louise was agony to me; yet, fooled and deceived as I had been, what would a parting word avail me now? 'I will this night depart for the French camp; but I know not where my comrades are, or how far I have to travel.'

'Morbleu! you do not know where they are?'

'No.'

'How--'

'You forget, M. le Prince, that I have passed a winter in the seclusion of the Bastille, where I heard nothing of Paris but the hum of its streets, far down below my chamber window.'

'The French are still before Elsace Zaberne.'

'I think Madame d'Amboise mentioned that siege to me.'

'Very probably.'

'Colonel Mulheim defends it?'

'Ma foi! yes: a valiant Lorrainer, a handsome and gallant seigneur, who will give them some trouble, for he is as proud and as obstinate as a Scot or a Spartan. He will give them a heavy butcher's bill of killed and wounded to send king Luis.'

'Them--whom?'

'Messieurs Hepburn, Lavalette, and Saxe-Weimar.'

'Is he in the field, too?'

'You must understand that old Father Richelieu has just concluded a notable treaty with the Duke of Weimar, who has bound himself to maintain eighteen thousand Germans for the service of France, in return for which the Cardinal, with the greatest liberality, has made him a free and perpetual gift of _our_ province of Alsace, which was ceded to us by the treaty of Verdun, and which, though taken from us by the Empire and given to the Bishop of Strasbourg and its boy-duke, we still deem ours. The inhabitants of Zaberne, our principal city and fortress there, have naturally conceived some objections to this transference of our rights: thus they are all in arms, and the walls are obstinately defended by Colonel Mulheim against some thirty thousand French, Scots, and Germans; but unless Count Gallas, who is on the march to relieve it and to form a junction with our troops now here in Nanci, crosses the Rhine within a week, I fear it must fall; for our couriers say that Count John of Hanau has been slain; that the walls were breached on the 9th of June, and that Hepburn's Scots were clamouring to be led to the assault. This is now the 14th of June, and by this time perhaps they have planted the standard of the Louises above the grave of the gallant Mulheim; for our noble Lorrainer vowed that Zaberne should be his tomb before it yielded to a foe.'

'By what route should I proceed there?'

'Any route that will secure you from the snares and hostility of Pappenheim, in whose eye, when he left us, I read so deadly an expression.'

'Prince,' said I, passionately, as anger and jealousy fired me, 'I will fight him hand to hand, on foot or horseback, with sword and pistol, in the public market-place of Nanci, if you urge this on me more.'

'Fight _him_--my sister's affianced husband, the love of your friend, the little Nicola of your romantic journey? Peste! Comrade, you must not think of that, but rather study how to avoid him. Two roads lead from this to Zaberne,' he added, taking down from the wall one of those maps of Lorraine and the Rhine engraved by Ferrari, the then celebrated author of an epitome of geography. 'I would have you to leave Nanci to-night, quietly and alone, after dusk, and I will see that you are well armed and fleetly mounted.'

'And the distance to Zaberne is--'

'About twenty French leagues.'

'Thanks, M. le Prince.'

'You have still four hours left to dine with me and prepare for your journey; but do me the favour to remain in your own apartments till I come for you, as Nanci is full of men, who, like De Bitche, are infuriated against the soldiers of Louis XIII. I go to parade my regiment in the great square, but in two hours will return--till then, adieu!'

'Adieu, M. le Prince, with a thousand thanks for all your kindness.'

We bowed and separated.