CHAPTER XXXVI.
Of all the many personages which have figured in this tale, there arebut few of whom it behoves us to give any farther account. The livesof some stand written on the bright and glorious page of history,never to be effaced till the waters of time have rolled long over thisportion of the globe, have levelled our dwellings and our monumentswith the sands, have washed away our learning and our records, andblotted out not alone the sweet domestic memories--on which eachsucceeding generation sets its foot, trampling with all the insolenceof youth the withered flower just dead--but have also razed, from thehard tablet of glory, the few names that are really worthy of eternalconsecration. When such a change has taken place,--and who shall saythat it will not?--when Europe shall be called the land of forests andof barbarism, and some prying strangers alone shall come from theirhappier lands, and try to trace upon the desert shores the moulderingremnants of arts and sciences and nations long gone by, perhaps thename of Henry IV. of France, and those who resemble him, may beforgotten, but till then they have a glorious existence separate fromthe rest of men. The Duke of Mayenne, too, ambitious and intriguing,but generous and often wise, has a share of the page of history; andall those who continued to play a conspicuous part in the days ofHenry Quatre, either for good or for evil, have their record in theannals of the time. This tale can alone take farther note of thosewhose fate it has depicted in the preceding pages, and who at thispoint separate themselves from the general course of history, eitherto fall into the calm repose of sweet domestic life, or to seek arefuge from unhappy fortunes in the tomb.
The body of Beatrice of Ferrara being removed from the cottage whereEugenie de Menancourt had dwelt so long, was borne to the chateau inwhich she herself had spent the last hours of her own existence; andwith curses and imprecations upon his head, the tale of what hismachinations had wrought was told to the dwarf Bartholo by the morefaithful yet less attached servants of his late mistress.
He listened to the whole in sullen composure, and even a smile playedupon his lip as he heard of the death of the Count d'Aubin; but whenthe last sad event was mentioned by the narrator, and he learned thatBeatrice herself was dead, he struggled with the bonds that tied him,and then cast himself grovelling on the ground, which he dewed withhis bitter agonising tears. He strove to tear his flesh with histeeth; and when they took him up, more to gaze upon his torture, thanwith any feeling of compassion--for no one loved, and no onecompassionated him--he raved upon them with frantic and incoherentwords, and again cast himself down in raving despair. For several dayshe refused all food; but at length pity touched some one, and a leechwas sent for, who bled him largely, which produced a change. He nolonger raved, he no longer refused food, he took what was offered him,did what was bid him; but it was with the slow and sullen stupidity ofan idiot. The fire, too, had left his eye; his activity was gone; hiswitty sauciness at an end; and he would sit for days gazing vacantlyupon the floor, without hearing what was said to him, and withoutaddressing a word to any one. At length, the body of Beatrice ofFerrara was conveyed to Italy for the purpose of being interredamongst her princely ancestors; and then, though none knew how heescaped, it was perceived that the dwarf was gone also. It was not,indeed, extraordinary that he had disappeared without notice; forafter his frenzy had terminated in idiocy, no one had paid him muchattention.
How he travelled so great a distance, and how he supported himself bythe way, are equally unknown; but some three months after, thewretched being was seen wandering about in the long vacant streets ofFerrara, enduring the scoff of the schoolboy and the peasant. Heremained in that part of the country for several years; and those whohad known him when first he had entered the household of the princesof Legnano, often gave food and money out of charity to the poordwarf, whom they now despised and had formerly hated. At length, onemorning, when the sacristan took his early round through the chapel inwhich the dead of that noble house slept in the cold marble which wastheir place of last repose, he was startled by seeing something curledup at the end of the new monument erected to the Princess Beatrice. Hetouched it, but it stirred not; and, familiar with the dead, hecarelessly raised up the head, and beheld the lifeless features of thedwarf Bartholo.
The Count d'Aubin lay with his ancestors; and the noble estates ofwhich he had been once the improvident possessor passed to his nextmale heir, the Marquis of St. Real. To St. Real it was pointed out byskilful and honest lawyers that, as the creditors who had claims uponthe late Count could not easily prove their right, his estates mightbe rendered clear by a very simple process of law. But St. Realpreferred a simpler process still; and from the funds accruing fromlarge and well-managed lands discharged the debts, and freed theinheritance. The claims which were the most difficult to arrange werethose of the heirs and successors of one Albert of Wolfstrom, whohaving been executed, under a judicial sentence regularly pronouncedby a competent tribunal, for various transactions which did not evenpermit the harlot compassion of public excitement to attend his end,it was more than doubtful whether any of the demands which were madeupon St. Real in his name were really to be sustained. There were somethrough which the young Marquis at once struck his indignant pen, andothers which, though equally illegal, he paid at once; but in the end,as so often happens, the debts which had seemed overwhelming to himwhose bad management had incurred them, were easily liquidated by amore provident though not a less liberal lord; and the estates ofAubin made a splendid addition to those of the Marquis of St. Real.
The young lord himself saw Eugenie de Menancourt reinstated in herancestral halls, and wandered with her for a few days through thescenes they had both loved in childhood--scenes where the memories ofthe past, both dark and bright, blended into a solemn, but a sweet andsoothing light, which, shining mellow and calm upon the happy present,gradually brightened into hope as the eye turned towards the future.It was like the twilight of the summer sky in a far northern land,where the night and the day mingle together in the west; and the softand shaded, yet radiant, sunset continues till the dawning of themorning appears on the opposite horizon, so that the beams of the pastand the future day meet in the zenith of the present.
It might be said that the experience which Eugenie de Menancourt andHuon St. Real already had of the past was sufficient to have justifiedtheir immediate marriage. But Eugenie had her scruples, and St. Realhad a confidence derived from higher sources than either the usualhappy fortunes of his house, or the promising turn which the war hadtaken. An old female relation was sought to bear the young heiresscompany for the next six months. To her Eugenie's education had beenprincipally confided during her youth; her instructions had greatlytended to render her what she was, and St. Real thought that thesociety of no one could be better for her he loved till the day oftheir marriage at length arrived. In the meantime, he rejoined theking's army, and took part in the various events of the war whichultimately placed Henry IV. in possession of the capital of hiskingdom, and put an end to the troublous times by which his reignbegan; but it will be remembered by all persons well versed in thatportion of the history of France, that the part of the country inwhich the estates of Eugenie de Menancourt were situated never fellagain into the hands of the League. Various detached towns in Normandyand Maine that faction did indeed continue to hold for some time, butthe progress of the king after the battle of Ivry was uninterrupted,though gradual, till peace crowned his efforts; and his people learnedto love, nay, almost to adore, the monarch against whom many of themhad drawn their swords.
At length, six months after the death of Beatrice of Ferrara, Eugeniede Menancourt gave her hand to him whom she was not now ashamed to ownshe had loved from her earliest youth. Henry signed the marriagecontract; and when the young Marquis, having seen him firmly seated onthe throne of his ancestors, took leave of the monarch and his court,resolved to spend the rest of his life, as his fathers had done beforehim, in the calm tranquillity of his paternal domains, Henry placedround his neck the order of the _St. Esprit_, saying, that as
he wellknew he should but seldom see his face again, he was resolved to givehim something whereby to remember the days he had passed with HenryQuatre.
Do we need to inquire how St. Real and Eugenie passed their afterlife? It sometimes happens, indeed, that two people who have lovedwell and truly in the first burst of youthful passion, crossed,disappointed, and soured, persevere against all opposition throughlong years of withering anxiety, till they meet together at length,with tempers irritated, and hearts no longer the same; and findnothing but misery in that union, from which they had anticipatednothing but happiness. Not so, however, St. Real and Eugenie deMenancourt. They had long loved without knowing it; and had chieflyhad to struggle with the opposition of their own principles to theirown wishes. They had been thwarted, but not disappointed; they hadbeen grieved, but not irritated. Their sorrows had served like theblack leaf on which the diamond is set, to increase, not tarnish, thelustre of the happiness they now enjoyed. But happiness will not beardescription. It is the calm stream that neither foams nor murmurs; andtheirs continued flowing on like a mighty river, which, troubled andobstructed at its source, soon overbears all obstacles, and then,having once reached the calm level of the open country, flows onincreasing in volume, though it loses in brightness, till the fullcompleted stream falls into the bosom of the eternal ocean.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: The passion for dwarfs as attendants in great houses wasso universal in France at this time, that the most extravagant sumswere given for them. Henry III. is reported to have had no less thannine at one time; and at his court there was a regular _tailleur_ and_valet des nains_.]
[Footnote 2: This speech of the dwarf applies to various modes oftravelling then known in France, which it might be tedious to explainmore fully in this place.]
[Footnote 3: The Duke of Guise, who held the throne of Henry III. andwas afterwards barbarously assassinated by command of that monarch,had been his bosom friend in youth.]
[Footnote 4: In English, a mortgage. This sort of encumbrance was buttoo frequently created in France during the wars of the League and theepoch of debauchery which preceded, accompanied, and followed them.]
[Footnote 5: I have, in another romance, published long since thiswork was written, given a description of the phenomenon herementioned, and have in that tale attempted to depict it as it appearedto the Royalists.]
WOODFALL, AND KINDER PRINTERS, LONG ACRE, LONDON.
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