The Golden Dog by William Kirby (page 5)

upon the plan of life he has sketched out for both of you?”

“My good brother sketches so many plans of life that I really am not certain I know the one you refer to.” She guessed what was coming, and held her breath hard until she heard the reply.

“Well, you of course know that his plan of life depends mainly upon an alliance between yourself and the Chevalier de Repentigny.”

She gave vent to her anger and disappointment. She rose up suddenly, and, grasping the Intendant’s arm fiercely, turned him half round in her vehemence. “Chevalier Bigot! did you come here to propose for me on behalf of Le Gardeur de Repentigny?”

“Pardon me, Mademoiselle; it is no proposal of mine,–on behalf of Le Gardeur. I sanctioned his promotion. Your brother, and the Grand Company generally, would prefer the alliance. I don’t!” He said this with a tone of meaning which Angélique was acute enough to see implied Bigot’s unwillingness to her marrying any man–but himself, was the addendum she at once placed to his credit. “I regret I mentioned it,” continued he, blandly, “if it be contrary to your wishes.”

“It is contrary to my wishes,” replied she, relaxing her clutch of his arm. “Le Gardeur de Repentigny can speak for himself. I will not allow even my brother to suggest it; still less will I discuss such a subject with the Chevalier Bigot.”

“I hope you will pardon me, Mademoiselle–I will not call you Angélique until you are pleased with me again. To be sure, I should never have forgiven you had you conformed to your brother’s wishes. It was what I feared might happen, and I–I wished to try you; that was all!”

“It is dangerous trying me, Chevalier,” replied she, resuming her seat with some heat. “Don’t try me again, or I shall take Le Gardeur out of pure SPITE,” she said. Pure love was in her mind, but the other word came from her lips. “I will do all I can to rescue him from the Honnêtes Gens, but not by marrying him, Chevalier,–at present.”

They seemed to understand each other fully. “It is over with now,” said Bigot. “I swear to you, Angélique, I did not mean to offend you,–you cut deep.”

“Pshaw!” retorted she, smiling. “Wounds by a lady are easily cured: they seldom leave a mark behind, a month after.”

“I don’t know that. The slight repulse of a lady’s finger–a touch that would not crush a gnat–will sometimes kill a strong man like a sword-stroke. I have known such things to happen,” said Bigot.

“Well, happily, my touch has not hurt you, Chevalier. But, having vindicated myself, I feel I owe you reparation. You speak of rescuing Le Gardeur from the Honnêtes Gens. In what way can I aid you?”

“In many ways and all ways. Withdraw him from them. The great festival at the Philiberts–when is it to be?”

“To-morrow! See, they have honored me with a special invitation.” She drew a note from her pocket. “This is very polite of Colonel Philibert, is it not?” said she.

Bigot glanced superciliously at the note. “Do you mean to go, Angélique?” asked he.

“No; although, had I no feelings but my own to consult, I would certainly go.”

“Whose feelings do you consult, Angélique,” asked the Intendant, “if not your own?”

“Oh, don’t be flattered,–the Grand Company’s! I am loyal to the association without respect to persons.”

“So much the better,” said he. “By the way, it would not be amiss to keep Le Gardeur away from the festival. These Philiberts and the heads of the Honnêtes Gens have great sway over him.”

“Naturally; they are all his own kith and kin. But I will draw him away, if you desire it. I cannot prevent his going, but I can find means to prevent his staying!” added she, with a smile of confidence in her power.

“That will do, Angélique,–anything to make a breach between them!”

While there were abysses in Bigot’s mind which Angélique could not fathom, as little did Bigot suspect that, when Angélique seemed to flatter him by yielding to his suggestions, she was following out a course she had already decided upon in her own mind from the moment she had learned that Cecile Tourangeau was to be at the festival of Belmont, with unlimited opportunities of explanation with Le Gardeur as to her treatment by Angélique.

The Intendant, after some pleasant badinage, rose and took his departure, leaving Angélique agitated, puzzled, and dissatisfied, on the whole, with his visit. She reclined on the seat, resting her head on her hand for a long time,–in appearance the idlest, in reality the busiest, brain of any girl in the city of Quebec. She felt she had much to do,–a great sacrifice to make,–but firmly resolved, at whatever cost, to go through with it; for, after all, the sacrifice was for herself, and not for others.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MEROVINGIAN PRINCESS.

The interior of the Cathedral of St. Marie seemed like another world, in comparison with the noisy, bustling Market Place in front of it.

The garish sunshine poured hot and oppressive in the square outside, but was shorn of its strength as it passed through the painted windows of the Cathedral, filling the vast interior with a cool, dim, religious light, broken by tall shafts of columns, which swelled out into ornate capitals, supporting a lofty ceiling, on which was painted the open heavens with saints and angels adoring the Lord.

A lofty arch of cunning work overlaid with gold, the masterpiece of Le Vasseur, spanned the chancel, like the rainbow round the throne. Lights were burning on the altar, incense went up in spirals to the roof; and through the wavering cloud the saints and angels seemed to look down with living faces upon the crowd of worshippers who knelt upon the broad floor of the church.

It was the hour of Vespers. The voice of the priest was answered by the deep peal of the organ and the chanting of the choir. The vast edifice was filled with harmony, in the pauses of which the ear seemed to catch the sound of the river of life as it flows out of the throne of God and the Lamb.

The demeanor of the crowd of worshippers was quiet and reverential. A few gay groups, however, whose occupation was mainly to see and be seen, exchanged the idle gossip of the day with such of their friends as they met there. The fee of a prayer or two did not seem excessive for the pleasure, and it was soon paid.

The perron outside was a favorite resort of the gallants of fashion at the hour of Vespers, whose practice it was to salute the ladies of their acquaintance at the door by sprinkling their dainty fingers with holy water. Religion combined with gallantry is a form of devotion not quite obsolete at the present day, and at the same place.

The church door was the recognized spot for meeting, gossip, business, love-making, and announcements; old friends stopped to talk over the news, merchants their commercial prospects. It was at once the Bourse and the Royal Exchange of Quebec: there were promulgated, by the brazen lungs of the city crier, royal proclamations of the Governor, edicts of the Intendant, orders of the Court of Justice, vendues public and private,–in short, the life and stir of the city of Quebec seemed to flow about the door of St. Marie as the blood through the heart of a healthy man.

A few old trees, relics of the primeval forest, had been left for shade and ornament in the great Market Place. A little rivulet of clear water ran sparkling down the slope of the square, where every day the shadow of the cross of the tall steeple lay over it like a benediction.

A couple of young men, fashionably dressed, loitered this afternoon near the great door of the Convent in the narrow Street that runs into the great square of the market. They walked about with short, impatient turns, occasionally glancing at the clock of the Recollets, visible through the tall elms that bounded the garden of the Gray Friars. Presently the door of the Convent opened. Half a dozen gaily-attired young ladies, internes or pupils of the Convent, sallied out. They had exchanged their conventual dress for their usual outside attire, and got leave to go out into the world on some errand, real or pretended, for one hour and no more.

They tripped lightly down the broad steps, and were instantly joined by the young men who had been waiting for them. After a hasty, merry hand-shaking, the whole party proceeded in great glee towards the Market Place, where the shops of the mercers and confectioners offered the attractions they sought. They went on purchasing bonbons and ribbons from one shop to another until they reached the Cathedral, when a common impulse seized them to see who was there. They flew up the steps and disappeared in the church.

In the midst of their devotions, as they knelt upon the floor, the sharp eyes of the young ladies were caught by gesticulations of the well-gloved hand of the Chevalier des Meloises, as he saluted them across the aisle.

The hurried recitation of an Ave or two had quite satisfied the devotion of the Chevalier, and he looked round the church with an air of condescension, criticizing the music and peering into the faces of such of the ladies as looked up, and many did so, to return his scrutiny.

The young ladies encountered him in the aisle as they left the church before the service was finished. It had long since been finished for him, and was finished for the young ladies also when they had satisfied their curiosity to see who was there and who with whom.

“We cannot pray for you any longer, Chevalier des Meloises!” said one of the gayest of the group; “the Lady Superior has economically granted us but one hour in the city to make our purchases and attend Vespers. Out of that hour we can only steal forty minutes for a promenade through the city, so good-by, if you prefer the church to our company, or come with us and you shall escort two of us. You see we have only a couple of gentlemen to six ladies.”

“I much prefer your company, Mademoiselle de Brouague!” replied he gallantly, forgetting the important meeting of the managers of the Grand Company at the Palace. The business, however, was being cleverly transacted without his help.

Louise de Brouague had no great esteem for the Chevalier des Meloises, but, as she remarked to a companion, he made rather a neat walking-stick, if a young lady could procure no better to promenade with.

“We come out in full force to-day, Chevalier,” said she, with a merry glance round the group of lively girls. “A glorious sample of the famous class of the Louises, are we not?”

“Glorious! superb! incomparable!” the Chevalier replied, as he inspected them archly through his glass. “But how did you manage to get out? One Louise at a time is enough to storm the city, but six of them at once–the Lady Superior is full of mercy to-day.”

“Oh! is she? Listen: we should not have got permission to come out to-day had we not first laid siege to the soft heart of Mère des Seraphins. She it was who interceded for us, and lo! here we are, ready for any adventure that may befall errant demoiselles in the streets of Quebec!”

Well might the fair Louise de Brouague boast of the famous class of “the Louises,” all composed of young ladies of that name, distinguished for beauty, rank, and fashion in the world of New France.

Prominent among them at that period was the beautiful, gay Louise de Brouague. In the full maturity of her charms, as the wife of the Chevalier de Lery she accompanied her husband to England after the cession of Canada, and went to Court to pay homage to their new sovereign, George III., when the young king, struck with her grace and beauty, gallantly exclaimed,–

“If the ladies of Canada are as handsome as you, I have indeed made a conquest!”

To escort young ladies, internes of the Convent, when granted permission to go out into the city, was a favorite pastime, truly a labor of love, of the young gallants of that day,–an occupation, if very idle, at least very agreeable to those participating in these stolen promenades, and which have not, perhaps, been altogether discontinued in Quebec even to the present day.

The pious nuns were of course entirely ignorant of the contrivances of their fair pupils to amuse themselves in the city. At any rate they good-naturedly overlooked things they could not quite prevent. They had human hearts still under their snowy wimples, and perhaps did not wholly lack womanly sympathy with the dear girls in their charge.

“Why are you not at Belmont to-day, Chevalier des Meloises?” boldly asked Louise Roy, a fearless little questioner in a gay summer robe. She was pretty, and sprightly as Titania. Her long chestnut hair was the marvel and boast of the Convent and, what she prized more, the admiration of the city. It covered her like a veil down to her knees when she chose to let it down in a flood of splendor. Her deep gray eyes contained wells of womanly wisdom. Her skin, fair as a lily of Artois, had borrowed from the sun five or six faint freckles, just to prove the purity of her blood and distract the eye with a variety of charms. The Merovingian Princess, the long-haired daughter of kings, as she was fondly styled by the nuns, queened it wherever she went by right divine of youth, wit, and beauty.

“I should not have had the felicity of meeting you, Mademoiselle Roy, had I gone to Belmont,” replied the Chevalier, not liking the question at all. “I preferred not to go.”

“You are always so polite and complimentary,” replied she, a trace of pout visible on her pretty lips. “I do not see how any one could stay away who was at liberty to go to Belmont! And the whole city has gone, I am sure! for I see nobody in the street!” She held an eye-glass coquettishly to her eye. “Nobody at all!” repeated she. Her companions accused her afterwards of glancing equivocally at the Chevalier as she made this remark; and she answered with a merry laugh that might imply either assent or denial.

“Had you heard in the Convent of the festival at Belmont, Mademoiselle Roy?” asked he, twirling his cane rather majestically.

“We have heard of nothing else and talked of nothing else for a whole week!” replied she. “Our mistresses have been in a state of distraction trying to stop our incessant whispering in the school instead of minding our lessons like good girls trying to earn good conduct marks! The feast, the ball, the dresses, the company, beat learning out of our heads and hearts! Only fancy, Chevalier,” she went on in her voluble manner; “Louise de Beaujeu here was asked to give the Latin name for Heaven, and she at once translated it Belmont!”

“Tell no school tales, Mademoiselle Roy!” retorted Louise de Beaujeu, her black eyes flashing with merriment. “It was a good translation! But who was it stumbled in the Greek class when asked for the proper name of the anax andron, the king of men in the Iliad?” Louise Roy looked archly and said defiantly, “Go on!” “Would you believe it, Chevalier, she replied ‘Pierre Philibert!’ Mère Christine fairly gasped, but Louise had to kiss the floor as a penance for pronouncing a gentleman’s name with such unction.”

“And if I did I paid my penance heartily and loudly, as you may recollect, Louise de Beaujeu, although I confess I would have preferred kissing Pierre Philibert himself if I had had my choice!”

“Always her way! won’t give in! never! Louise Roy stands by her translation in spite of all the Greek Lexicons in the Convent!” exclaimed Louise de Brouague.

“And so I do, and will; and Pierre Philibert is the king of men, in New France or Old! Ask Amélie de Repentigny!” added she, in a half whisper to her companion.

“Oh, she will swear to it any day!” was the saucy reply of Louise de Brouague. “But without whispering it, Chevalier des Meloises,” continued she, “the classes in the Convent have all gone wild in his favor since they learned he was in love with one of our late companions in school. He is the Prince Camaralzaman of our fairy tales.”

“Who is that?” The Chevalier spoke tartly, rather. He was excessively annoyed at all this enthusiasm in behalf of Pierre Philibert.

“Nay, I will tell no more fairy tales out of school, but I assure you, if our wishes had wings the whole class of Louises would fly away to Belmont to-day like a flock of ring-doves.”

Louise de Brouague noticed the pique of the Chevalier at the mention of Philibert, but in that spirit of petty torment with which her sex avenges small slights she continued to irritate the vanity of the Chevalier, whom in her heart she despised.

His politeness nearly gave way. He was thoroughly disgusted with all this lavish praise of Philibert. He suddenly recollected that he had an appointment at the Palace which would prevent him, he said, enjoying the full hour of absence granted to the Greek class of the Ursulines.

“Mademoiselle Angélique has of course gone to Belmont, if pressing engagements prevent YOU, Chevalier,” said Louise Roy. “How provoking it must be to have business to look after when one wants to enjoy life!” The Chevalier half spun round on his heel under the quizzing of Louise’s eye-glass.

“No, Angélique has not gone to Belmont,” replied he, quite piqued. “She very properly declined to mingle with the Messieurs and Mesdames Jourdains who consort with the Bourgeois Philibert! She was preparing for a ride, and the city really seems all the gayer by the absence of so many commonplace people as have gone out to Belmont.”

Louise de Brouague’s eyes gave a few flashes of indignation. “Fie, Chevalier! that was naughtily said of you about the good Bourgeois and his friends,” exclaimed she, impetuously. “Why, the Governor, the Lady de Tilly and her niece, the Chevalier La Corne St. Luc, Hortense and Claude de Beauharnais, and I know not how many more of the very élite of society have gone to do honor to Colonel Philibert! And as for the girls in the Convent, who you will allow are the most important and most select portion of the community, there is not one of us but would willingly jump out of the window, and do penance on dry bread and salt fish for a month, just for one hour’s pleasure at the ball this evening, would we not, Louises?”

Not a Louise present but assented with an emphasis that brought sympathetic smiles upon the faces of the two young chevaliers who had watched all this pretty play.

The Chevalier des Meloises bowed very low. “I regret so much, ladies, to have to leave you! but affairs of State, you know– affairs of State! The Intendant will not proceed without a full board: I must attend the meeting to-day at the Palace.”

“Oh, assuredly, Chevalier,” replied Louise Roy. “What would become of the Nation, what would become of the world, nay, what would become of the internes of the Ursulines, if statesmen and warriors and philosophers like you and the Sieurs Drouillon and La Force here (this in a parenthesis, not to scratch the Chevalier too deep), did not take wise counsel for our safety and happiness, and also for the welfare of the nation?”

The Chevalier des Meloises took his departure under this shower of arrows.

The young La Force was as yet only an idle dangler about the city; but in the course of time became a man of wit and energy worthy of his name. He replied gaily,–

“Thanks, Mademoiselle Roy! It is just for sake of the fair internes of the Convent that Drouillon and I have taken up the vocation of statesmen, warriors, philosophers, and friends. We are quite ready to guide your innocent footsteps through the streets of this perilous city, if you are ready to go.”

“We had better hasten too!” ejaculated Louise Roy, looking archly through her eye-glass. “I can see Bonhomme Michel peeping round the corner of the Côte de Lery! He is looking after us stray lambs of the flock, Sieur Drouillon!”

Bonhomme Michel was the old watchman and factotum of the monastery. He had a general commission to keep a sharp eye upon the young ladies who were allowed to go out into the city. A pair of horn spectacles usually helped his vision,–sometimes marred it, however, when the knowing gallants slipped a crown into his hand to put in the place of his magnifiers! Bonhomme Michel placed all his propitiation money–he liked a pious word–in his old leathern sack, which contained the redemption of many a gadding promenade through the streets of Quebec. Whether he reported what he saw this time is not recorded in the Vieux Récit, the old annals of the Convent. But as Louise Roy called him her dear old Cupid, and knew so well how to bandage his eyes, it is probable the good nuns were not informed of the pleasant meeting of the class Louises and the gentlemen who escorted them round the city on the present occasion.

CHAPTER XIX.

PUT MONEY IN THY PURSE.

The Chevalier des Meloises, quite out of humor with the merry Louises, picked his way with quick, dainty steps down the Rue du Palais. The gay Louises, before returning to the Convent, resolved to make a hasty promenade to the walls to see the people at work upon them. They received with great contentment the military salutes of the officers of their acquaintance, which they acknowledged with the courtesy of well-trained internes, slightly exaggerated by provoking smiles and mischievous glances which had formed no part of the lessons in politeness taught them by the nuns.

In justice be it said, however, the girls were actuated by a nobler feeling than the mere spirit of amusement–a sentiment of loyalty to France, a warm enthusiasm for their country, drew them to the walls: they wanted to see the defenders of Quebec, to show their sympathy and smile approval upon them.

“Would to heaven I were a man,” exclaimed Louise de Brouague, “that I might wield a sword, a spade, anything of use, to serve my country! I shame to do nothing but talk, pray, and suffer for it, while every one else is working or fighting.”

Poor girl! she did not foresee a day when the women of New France would undergo trials compared with which the sword stroke that kills the strong man is as the touch of mercy,–when the batteries of Wolfe would for sixty-five days shower shot and shell upon Quebec, and the South shore for a hundred miles together be blazing with the fires of devastation. Such things were mercifully withheld from their foresight, and the light-hearted girls went the round of the works as gaily as they would have tripped in a ballroom.

The Chevalier des Meloises, passing through the Porte du Palais, was hailed by two or three young officers of the Regiment of Béarn, who invited him into the Guard House to take a glass of wine before descending the steep hill. The Chevalier stopped willingly, and entered the well-furnished quarters of the officers of the guard, where a cool flask of Burgundy presently restored him to good humor with himself, and consequently with the world.

“What is up to-day at the Palace?” asked Captain Monredin, a vivacious Navarrois. “All the Gros Bonnets of the Grand Company have gone down this afternoon! I suppose you are going too, Des Meloises?”

“Yes! They have sent for me, you see, on affairs of State–what Penisault calls ‘business.’ Not a drop of wine on the board! Nothing but books and papers, bills and shipments, money paid, money received! Doit et avoir and all the cursed lingo of the Friponne! I damn the Friponne, but bless her money! It pays, Monredin! It pays better than fur-trading at a lonely outpost in the northwest.” The Chevalier jingled a handful of coin in his pocket. The sound was a sedative to his disgust at the idea of trade, and quite reconciled him to the Friponne.

“You are a lucky dog nevertheless, to be able to make it jingle!” said Monredin, “not one of us Béarnois can play an accompaniment to your air of money in both pockets. Here is our famous Regiment of Béarn, second to none in the King’s service, a whole year in arrears without pay! Gad! I wish I could go into ‘business,’ as you call it, and woo that jolly dame, La Friponne!

“For six months we have lived on trust. Those leeches of Jews, who call themselves Christians, down in the Sault au Matelot, won’t cash the best orders in the regiment for less than forty per cent. discount!”

“That is true!” broke in another officer, whose rather rubicund face told of credit somewhere, and the product of credit,–good wine and good dinners generally. “That is true, Monredin! The old curmudgeon of a broker at the corner of the Cul de Sac had the impudence to ask me fifty per cent. discount upon my drafts on Bourdeaux! I agree with Des Meloises there: business may be a good thing for those who handle it, but devil touch their dirty fingers for me!”

“Don’t condemn all of them, Emeric,” said Captain Poulariez, a quiet, resolute-looking officer. “There is one merchant in the city who carries the principles of a gentleman into the usages of commerce. The Bourgeois Philibert gives cent. per cent. for good orders of the King’s officers, just to show his sympathy with the army and his love for France.”

“Well, I wish he were paymaster of the forces, that is all, and then I could go to him if I wanted to,” replied Monredin.

“Why do you not go to him?” asked Poulariez.

“Why, for the same reason, I suppose, so many others of us do not,” replied Monredin. “Colonel Dalquier endorses my orders, and he hates the Bourgeois cordially, as a hot friend of the Intendant ought to do. So you see I have to submit to be plucked of my best pen-feathers by that old fesse-mathieu Penisault at the Friponne!”

“How many of yours have gone out to the great spread at Belmont?” asked Des Meloises, quite weary of commercial topics.

“Par Dieu!” replied Monredin, “except the colonel and adjutant, who stayed away on principle, I think every officer in the regiment, present company excepted–who being on duty could not go, much to their chagrin. Such a glorious crush of handsome girls has not been seen, they say, since our regiment came to Quebec.”

“And not likely to have been seen before your distinguished arrival– eh, Monredin?” ejaculated Des Meloises, holding his glass to be refilled. “That is delicious Burgundy,” added he, “I did not think any one beside the Intendant had wine like that.”

“That is some of La Martinière’s cargo,” replied Poulariex. “It was kind of him, was it not, to remember us poor Béarnois here on the wrong side of the Atlantic?”

“And how earnestly we were praying for that same Burgundy,” ejaculated Monredin, “when it came, as if dropped upon us by Providence! Health and wealth to Captain La Martinière and the good frigate Fleur-de-Lis!”

Another round followed.

“They talk about those Jansenist convulsionnaires at the tomb of Master Paris, which are setting all France by the ears,” exclaimed Monredin, “but I say there is nothing so contagious as the drinking of a glass of wine like that.”

“And the glass gives us convulsions too, Monredin, if we try it too often, and no miracle about it either,” remarked Poulariez.

Monredin looked up, red and puffy, as if needing a bridle to check his fast gait.

“But they say we are to have peace soon. Is that true, Des Meloises?” asked Poulariez. “You ought to know what is under the cards before they are played.”

“No, I don’t know; and I hope the report is not true. Who wants peace yet? It would ruin the King’s friends in the Colony.” Des Meloises looked as statesmanlike as he could when delivering this dictum.

“Ruin the King’s friends! Who are they, Des Meloises?” asked Poulariez, with a look of well-assumed surprise.

“Why, the associates of the Grand Company, to be sure! What other friends has the King got in New France?”

“Really! I thought he had the Regiment of Béarn for a number of them–to say nothing of the honest people of the Colony,” replied Poulariez, impatiently.

“The Honnêtes Gens, you mean!” exclaimed Des Meloises. “Well, Poulariez, all I have to say is that if this Colony is to be kept up for the sake of a lot of shopkeepers, wood-choppers, cobblers, and farmers, the sooner the King hands it over to the devil or the English the better!”

Poulariex looked indignant enough; but from the others a loud laugh followed this sally.

The Chevalier des Meloises pulled out his watch. “I must be gone to the Palace,” said he. “I dare say Cadet, Varin, and Penisault will have balanced the ledgers by this time, and the Intendant, who is the devil for business on such occasions, will have settled the dividends for the quarter–the only part of the business I care about.”

“But don’t you help them with the work a little?” asked Poulariez.

“Not I; I leave business to them that have a vocation for it. Besides, I think Cadet, Vargin, and Penisault like to keep the inner ring of the company to themselves.” He turned to Emeric: “I hope there will be a good dividend to-night, Emeric,” said he. “I owe you some revenge at piquet, do I not?”

“You capoted me last night at the Taverne de Menut, and I had three aces and three kings.”

“But I had a quatorze, and took the fishes,” replied Des Meloises.

“Well, Chevalier, I shall win them back to-night. I hope the dividend will be good: in that way I too may share in the ‘business’ of the Grand Company.”

“Good-by, Chevalier; remember me to St. Blague!” (This was a familiar sobriquet of Bigot.) “Tis the best name going. If I had an heir for the old château on the Adour, I would christen him Bigot for luck.”

The Chevalier des Meloises left the officers and proceeded down the steep road that led to the Palace. The gardens were quiet to-day– a few loungers might be seen in the magnificent alleys, pleached walks, and terraces; beyond these gardens, however, stretched the King’s wharves and the magazines of the Friponne. These fairly swarmed with men loading and unloading ships and bateaux, and piling and unpiling goods.

The Chevalier glanced with disdain at the magazines, and flourishing his cane, mounted leisurely the broad steps of the Palace, and was at once admitted to the council-room.

“Better late than never, Chevalier des Meloises!” exclaimed Bigot, carelessly glancing at him as he took a seat at the board, where sat Cadet, Varin, Penisault, and the leading spirits of the Grand Company. “You are in double luck to-day. The business is over, and Dame Friponne has laid a golden egg worth a Jew’s tooth for each partner of the Company.”

The Chevalier did not notice, or did not care for, the slight touch of sarcasm in the Intendant’s tone. “Thanks, Bigot!” drawled he. “My eggs shall be hatched to-night down at Menut’s. I expect to have little more left than the shell of it to-morrow.”

“Well, never mind! We have considered all that, Chevalier. What one loses another gets. It is all in the family. Look here,” continued he, laying his finger upon a page of the ledger that lay open before him, “Mademoiselle Angélique des Meloises is now a shareholder in the Grand Company. The list of high, fair, and noble ladies of the Court who are members of the Company will be honored by the addition of the name of your charming sister.”

The Chevalier’s eyes sparkled with delight as he read Angélique’s name on the book. A handsome sum of five digits stood to her credit. He bowed his thanks with many warm expressions of his sense of the honor done his sister by “placing her name on the roll of the ladies of the Court who honor the Company by accepting a share of its dividends.”

“I hope Mademoiselle des Meloises will not refuse this small mark of our respect,” observed Bigot, feeling well assured she would not deem it a small one.

“Little fear of that!” muttered Cadet, whose bad opinion of the sex was incorrigible. “The game fowls of Versailles scratch jewels out of every dung-hill, and Angélique des Meloises has longer claws than any of them!”

Cadet’s ill-natured remark was either unheard or unheeded; besides, he was privileged to say anything. Des Meloises bowed with an air of perfect complaisance to the Intendant as he answered,–“I guarantee the perfect satisfaction of Angélique with this marked compliment of the Grand Company. She will, I am sure, appreciate the kindness of the Intendant as it deserves.”

Cadet and Varin exchanged smiles, not unnoticed by Bigot, who smiled too. “Yes, Chevalier,” said he, “the Company gives this token of its admiration for the fairest lady in New France. We have bestowed premiums upon fine flax and fat cattle: why not upon beauty, grace, and wit embodied in handsome women?”

“Angélique will be highly flattered, Chevalier,” replied he, “at the distinction. She must thank you herself, as I am sure she will.”

“I am happy to try to deserve her thanks,” replied Bigot; and, not caring to talk further on the subject,–“what news in the city this afternoon, Chevalier?” asked he; “how does that affair at Belmont go off?”

“Don’t know. Half the city has gone, I think. At the Church door, however, the talk among the merchants is that peace is going to be made soon. Is it so very threatening, Bigot?”

“If the King wills it, it is.” Bigot spoke carelessly.

“But your own opinion, Chevalier Bigot; what think you of it?”

“Amen! amen! Quod fiat fiatur! Seigny John, the fool of Paris, could enlighten you as well as I could as to what the women at Versailles may decide to do,” replied Bigot in a tone of impatience.

“I fear peace will be made. What will you do in that case, Bigot?” asked Des Meloises, not noticing Bigot’s aversion to the topic.

“If the King makes it, invitus amabo! as the man said who married the shrew.” Bigot laughed mockingly. “We must make the best of it, Des Meloises! and let me tell you privately, I mean to make a good thing of it for ourselves whichever way it turns.”

“But what will become of the Company should the war expenditure stop?” The Chevalier was thinking of his dividend of five figures.

“Oh! you should have been here sooner, Des Meloises: you would have heard our grand settlement of the question in every contingency of peace or war.”

“Be sure of one thing,” continued Bigot, “the Grand Company will not, like the eels of Melun, cry out before they are skinned. What says the proverb, ‘Mieux vaut êngin que force’ (craft beats strength)? The Grand Company must prosper as the first condition of life in New France. Perhaps a year or two of repose may not be amiss, to revictual and reinforce the Colony; and by that time we shall be ready to pick the lock of Bellona’s temple again and cry Vive la guerre! Vive la Grande Compagnie! more merrily than ever!”

Bigot’s far-reaching intellect forecast the course of events, which remained so much subject to his own direction after the peace of Aix la Chapelle–a peace which in America was never a peace at all, but only an armed and troubled truce between the clashing interests and rival ambitions of the French and English in the New World.

The meeting of the Board of Managers of the Grand Company broke up, and–a circumstance that rarely happened–without the customary debauch. Bigot, preoccupied with his own projects, which reached far beyond the mere interests of the Company, retired to his couch. Cadet, Varin, and Penisault, forming an interior circle of the Friponne, had certain matters to shape for the Company’s eye. The rings of corruption in the Grand Company descended, narrower and more black and precipitous, down to the bottom where Bigot sat, the Demiurgos of all.

The Chevalier des Meloises was rather proud of his sister’s beauty and cleverness, and in truth a little afraid of her. They lived together harmoniously enough, so long as each allowed the other his or her own way. Both took it, and followed their own pleasures, and were not usually disagreeable to one another, except when Angélique commented on what she called his penuriousness, and he upon her extravagance, in the financial administration of the family of the Des Meloises.

The Chevalier was highly delighted to-day to be able to inform Angélique of her good fortune in becoming a partner of the Friponne and that too by grace of his Excellency the Intendant. The information filled Angélique with delight, not only because it made her independent of her brother’s mismanagement of money, but it opened a door to her wildest hopes. In that gift her ambition found a potent ally to enable her to resist the appeal to her heart which she knew would be made to-night by Le Gardeur de Repentigny.

The Chevalier des Meloises had no idea of his sister’s own aims. He had long nourished a foolish fancy that, if he had not obtained the hand of the wealthy and beautiful heiress of Repentigny, it was because he had not proposed. Something to-day had suggested the thought that unless he did propose soon his chances would be nil, and another might secure the prize which he had in his vain fancy set down as his own.

He hinted to Angélique to-day that he had almost resolved to marry, and that his projected alliance with the noble and wealthy house of Tilly could be easily accomplished if Angélique would only do her share, as a sister ought, in securing her brother’s fortune and happiness.

“How?” asked she, looking up savagely, for she knew well at what her brother was driving.

“By your accepting Le Gardeur without more delay! All the city knows he is mad in love, and would marry you any day you choose if you wore only the hair on your head. He would ask no better fortune!”

“It is useless to advise me, Renaud!” said she, “and whether I take Le Gardeur or no it would not help your chance with Amélie! I am sorry for it, for Amélie is a prize, Renaud! but not for you at any price. Let me tell you, that desirable young lady will become the bride of Pierre Philibert, and the bride of no other man living.”

“You give one cold encouragement, sister! But I am sure, if you would only marry Le Gardeur, you could easily, with your tact and cleverness, induce Amélie to let me share the Tilly fortune. There are chests full of gold in the old Manor House, and a crow could hardly fly in a day over their broad lands!”

“Perfectly useless, brother! Amélie is not like most girls. She would refuse the hand of a king for the sake of the man she loves, and she loves Pierre Philibert to his finger-ends. She has married him in her heart a thousand times. I hate paragons of women, and would scorn to be one, but I tell you, brother, Amélie is a paragon of a girl, without knowing it!”

“Hum, I never tried my hand on a paragon: I should like to do so,” replied he, with a smile of decided confidence in his powers. “I fancy they are just like other women when you can catch them with their armor off.”

“Yes, but women like Amélie never lay off their armor! They seem born in it, like Minerva. But your vanity will not let you believe me, Renaud! So go try her, and tell me your luck! She won’t scratch you, nor scold. Amélie is a lady, and will talk to you like a queen. But she will give you a polite reply to your proposal that will improve your opinions of our sex.”

“You are mocking me, Angélique, as you always do! One never knows when you are in jest or when in earnest. Even when you get angry, it is often unreal and for a purpose! I want you to be serious for once. The fortune of the Tillys and De Repentignys is the best in New France, and we can make it ours if you will help me.”

“I am serious enough in wishing you those chests full of gold, and those broad lands that a crow cannot fly over in a day; but I must forego my share of them, and so must you yours, brother!” Angélique leaned back in her chair, desiring to stop further discussion of a topic she did not like to hear.

“Why must you forego your share of the De Repentigny fortune, Angélique? You could call it your own any day you chose by giving your little finger to Le Gardeur! you do really puzzle me.”

The Chevalier did look perplexed at his inscrutable sister, who only smiled over the table at him, as she nonchalantly cracked nuts and sipped her wine by drops.

“Of course I puzzle you, Renaud!” said she at last. “I am a puzzle to myself sometimes. But you see there are so many men in the world,–poor ones are so plenty, rich ones so scarce, and sensible ones hardly to be found at all,–that a woman may be excused for selling herself to the highest bidder. Love is a commodity only spoken of in romances or in the patois of milkmaids now-a-days!”

“Zounds, Angélique! you would try the patience of all the saints in the calendar! I shall pity the fellow you take in! Here is the fairest fortune in the Colony about to fall into the hands of Pierre Philibert–whom Satan confound for his assurance! A fortune which I always regarded as my own!”

“It shows the folly and vanity of your sex! You never spoke a word to Amélie de Repentigny in the way of wooing in your life! Girls like her don’t drop into men’s arms just for the asking.”

“Pshaw! as if she would refuse me if you only acted a sister’s part! But you are impenetrable as a rock, and the whole of your fickle sex could not match your vanity and caprice, Angélique.”

She rose quickly with a provoked air.

“You are getting so complimentary to my poor sex, Renaud,” said she, “that I must really leave you to yourself, and I could scarcely leave you in worse company.”

“You are so bitter and sarcastic upon one!” replied he, tartly; “my only desire was to secure a good fortune for you, and another for myself. I don’t see, for my part, what women are made for, except to mar everything a man wants to do for himself and for them!”

“Certainly everything should be done for us, brother; but I have no defence to make for my sex, none! I dare say we women deserve all that men think of us, but then it is impolite to tell us so to our faces. Now, as I advised you, Renaud, I would counsel you to study gardening, and you may one day arrive at as great distinction as the Marquis de Vandriere–you may cultivate chou chou if you cannot raise a bride like Amélie de Repentigny.”

Angélique knew her brother’s genius was not penetrating, or she would scarcely have ventured this broad allusion to the brother of La Pompadour, who, by virtue of his relationship to the Court favorite, had recently been created Director of the Royal Gardens. What fancy was working in the brain of Angélique when she alluded to him may be only surmised.

The Chevalier was indignant, however, at an implied comparison between himself and the plebeian Marquis de Vandriere. He replied, with some heat,–

“The Marquis de Vandriere! How dare you mention him and me together! There’s not an officer’s mess in the army that receives the son of the fishmonger! Why do you mention him, Angélique? You are a perfect riddle!”

“I only thought something might happen, brother, if I should ever go to Paris! I was acting a charade in my fancy, and that was the solution of it!”

“What was? You would drive the whole Sorbonne mad with your charades and fancies! But I must leave you.”

“Good-by, brother,–if you will go. Think of it!–if you want to rise in the world you may yet become a royal gardener like the Marquis de Vandriere!” Her silvery laugh rang out good-humoredly as he descended the stairs and passed out of the house.

She sat down in her fauteuil. “Pity Renaud is such a fool!” said she; “yet I am not sure but he is wiser in his folly than I with all my tact and cleverness, which I suspect are going to make a greater fool of me than ever he is!”

She leaned back in her chair in a deep thinking mood. “It is growing dark,” murmured she. “Le Gardeur will assuredly be here soon, in spite of all the attractions of Belmont. How to deal with him when he comes is more than I know: he will renew his suit, I am sure.”

For a moment the heart of Angélique softened in her bosom. “Accept him I must not!” said she; “affront him I will not! cease to love him is out of my power as much as is my ability to love the Intendant, whom I cordially detest, and shall marry all the same!” She pressed her hands over her eyes, and sat silent for a few minutes. “But I am not sure of it! That woman remains still at Beaumanoir! Will my scheming to remove her be all in vain or no?” Angélique recollected with a shudder a thought that had leaped in her bosom, like a young Satan, engendered of evil desires. “I dare hardly look in the honest eyes of Le Gardeur after nursing such a monstrous fancy as that,” said she; “but my fate is fixed all the same. Le Gardeur will vainly try to undo this knot in my life, but he must leave me to my own devices.” To what devices she left him was a thought that sprang not up in her purely selfish nature.

In her perplexity Angélique tied knot upon knot hard as pebbles in her handkerchief. Those knots of her destiny, as she regarded them, she left untied, and they remain untied to this day–a memento of her character and of those knots in her life which posterity has puzzled itself over to no purpose to explain.

CHAPTER XX.

BELMONT.

A short drive from the gate of St. John stood the old mansion of Belmont, the country-seat of the Bourgeois Philibert–a stately park, the remains of the primeval forest of oak, maple, and pine; trees of gigantic growth and ample shade surrounded the high-roofed, many-gabled house that stood on the heights of St. Foye overlooking the broad valley of the St. Charles. The bright river wound like a silver serpent through the flat meadows in the bottom of the valley, while the opposite slopes of alternate field and forest stretched away to the distant range of the Laurentian hills, whose pale blue summits mingled with the blue sky at midday or, wrapped in mist at morn and eve, were hardly distinguishable from the clouds behind them.

The gardens and lawns of Belmont were stirring with gay company to- day in honor of the fête of Pierre Philibert upon his return home from the campaign in Acadia. Troops of ladies in costumes and toilettes of the latest Parisian fashion gladdened the eye with pictures of grace and beauty which Paris itself could not have surpassed. Gentlemen in full dress, in an age when dress was an essential part of a gentleman’s distinction, accompanied the ladies with the gallantry, vivacity, and politeness belonging to France, and to France alone.

Communication with the mother country was precarious and uncertain by reason of the war and the blockade of the Gulf by the English cruisers. Hence the good fortune and daring of the gallant Captain Martinière in running his frigate, the Fleur-de-Lis, through the fleet of the enemy, enabling him among other things to replenish the wardrobes of the ladies of Quebec with latest Parisian fashions, made him immensely popular on this gala day. The kindness and affability of the ladies extended without diminution of graciousness to the little midshipmen even, whom the Captain conditioned to take with him wherever he and his officers were invited. Captain Martinière was happy to see the lads enjoy a few cakes on shore after the hard biscuit they had so long nibbled on shipboard. As for himself, there was no end to the gracious smiles and thanks he received from the fair ladies at Belmont.

At the great door of the Manor House, welcoming his guests as they arrived, stood the Bourgeois Philibert, dressed as a gentleman of the period, in attire rich but not ostentatious. His suit of dark velvet harmonized well with his noble manner and bearing. But no one for a moment could overlook the man in contemplating his dress. The keen, discriminating eye of woman, overlooking neither dress nor man, found both worthy of warmest commendation, and many remarks passed between the ladies on that day that a handsomer man and more ripe and perfect gentleman than the Bourgeois Philibert had never been seen in New France.

His grizzled hair grew thickly all over his head, the sign of a tenacious constitution. It was powdered and tied behind with a broad ribbon, for he hated perukes. His strong, shapely figure was handsomely conspicuous as he stood, chapeau in hand, greeting his guests as they approached. His eyes beamed with pleasure and hospitality, and his usually grave, thoughtful lips were wreathed in smiles, the sweeter because not habitually seen upon them.

The Bourgeois had this in common with all complete and earnest characters, that the people believed in him because they saw that he believed in himself. His friends loved and trusted him to the uttermost, his enemies hated and feared him in equal measure; but no one, great or small, could ignore him and not feel his presence as a solid piece of manhood.

It is not intellect, nor activity, nor wealth, that obtains most power over men; but force of character, self-control, a quiet, compressed will and patient resolve; these qualities make one man the natural ruler over others by a title they never dispute.

The party of the Honnêtes Gens, the “honest folks” as they were derisively called by their opponents, regarded the Bourgeois Philibert as their natural leader. His force of character made men willingly stand in his shadow. His clear intellect, never at fault, had extended his power and influence by means of his vast mercantile operations over half the continent. His position as the foremost merchant of New France brought him in the front of the people’s battle with the Grand Company, and in opposition to the financial policy of the Intendant and the mercantile assumption of the Friponne.

But the personal hostility between the Intendant and the Bourgeois had its root and origin in France, before either of them crossed the ocean to the hither shore of the Atlantic. The Bourgeois had been made very sensible of a fact vitally affecting him, that the decrees of the Intendant, ostensibly for the regulation of trade in New France, had been sharply pointed against himself. “They draw blood!” Bigot had boasted to his familiars as he rubbed his hands together with intense satisfaction one day, when he learned that Philibert’s large trading-post in Mackinaw had been closed in consequence of the Indians having been commanded by royal authority, exercised by the Intendant, to trade only at the comptoirs of the Grand Company. “They draw blood!” repeated he, “and will draw the life yet out of the Golden Dog.” It was plain the ancient grudge of the courtly parasite had not lost a tooth during all those years.

The Bourgeois was not a man to talk of his private griefs, or seek sympathy, or even ask counsel or help. He knew the world was engrossed with its own cares. The world cares not to look under the surface of things for sake of others, but only for its own sake, its own interests, its own pleasures.

To-day, however, cares, griefs, and resentments were cast aside, and the Bourgeois was all joy at the return of his only son, and proud of Pierre’s achievements, and still more of the honors spontaneously paid him. He stood at the door, welcoming arrival after arrival, the happiest man of all the joyous company who honored Belmont that day.

A carriage with outriders brought the Count de la Galissonière and his friend Herr Kalm and Dr. Gauthier, the last a rich old bachelor, handsome and generous, the physician and savant par excellence of Quebec. After a most cordial reception by the Bourgeois the Governor walked among the guests, who had crowded up to greet him with the respect due to the King’s representative, as well as to show their personal regard; for the Count’s popularity was unbounded in the Colony except among the partizans of the Grand Company.

Herr Kalm was presently enticed away by a bevy of young ladies, Hortense de Beauharnais leading them, to get the learned professor’s opinion on some rare specimens of botany growing in the park. Nothing loath–for he was good-natured as he was clever, and a great enthusiast withal in the study of plants–he allowed the merry, talkative girls to lead him where they would. He delighted them in turn by his agreeable, instructive conversation, which was rendered still more piquant by the odd medley of French, Latin, and Swedish in which it was expressed.

An influx of fresh arrivals next poured into the park–the Chevalier de la Corne, with his pretty daughter, Agathe La Corne St. Luc; the Lady de Tilly and Amélie de Repentigny, with the brothers de Villiers. The brothers had overtaken the Chevalier La Corne upon the road, but the custom of the highway in New France forbade any one passing another without politely asking permission to do so.

“Yes, Coulon,” replied the Chevalier; “ride on!” He winked pleasantly at his daughter as he said this. “There is, I suppose, nothing left for an old fellow who dates from the sixteen hundreds but to take the side of the road and let you pass. I should have liked, however, to stir up the fire in my gallant little Norman ponies against your big New England horses. Where did you get them? Can they run?”

“We got them in the sack of Saratoga,” replied Coulon, “and they ran well that day, but we overtook them. Would Mademoiselle La Corne care if we try them now?”

Scarcely a girl in Quebec would have declined the excitement of a race on the highroad of St. Foye, and Agathe would fain have driven herself in the race, but being in full dress to-day, she thought of her wardrobe and the company. She checked the ardor of her father, and entered the park demurely, as one of the gravest of the guests.

“Happy youths! Noble lads, Agathe!” exclaimed the Chevalier, admiringly, as the brothers rode rapidly past them. “New France will be proud of them some day!”

The rest of the company now began to arrive in quick succession. The lawn was crowded with guests. “Ten thousand thanks for coming!” exclaimed Pierre Philibert, as he assisted Amélie de Repentigny and the Lady de Tilly to alight from their carriage.

“We could not choose but come to-day, Pierre,” replied Amélie, feeling without displeasure the momentary lingering of his hand as it touched hers. “Nothing short of an earthquake would have kept aunt at home,” added she, darting a merry glance of sympathy with her aunt’s supposed feelings.

“And you, Amélie?” Pierre looked into those dark eyes which shyly turned aside from his gaze.

“I was an obedient niece, and accompanied her. It is so easy to persuade people to go where they wish to go!” She withdrew her hand gently, and took his arm as he conducted the ladies into the house. She felt a flush on her cheek, but it did not prevent her saying in her frank, kindly way,–“I was glad to come to-day, Pierre, to witness this gathering of the best and noblest in the land to honor your fête. Aunt de Tilly has always predicted greatness for you.”

“And you, Amélie, doubted, knowing me a shade better than your aunt?”

“No, I believed her; so true a prophet as aunt surely deserved one firm believer!”

Pierre felt the electric thrill run through him which a man feels at the moment he discovers a woman believes in him. “Your presence here to-day, Amélie! you cannot think how sweet it is,” said he.

Her hand trembled upon his arm. She thought nothing could be sweeter than such words from Pierre Philibert. With a charming indirectness, however, which did not escape him, she replied, “Le Gardeur is very proud of you to-day, Pierre.”

He laid his fingers upon her hand. It was a delicate little hand, but with the strength of an angel’s it had moulded his destiny and led him to the honorable position he had attained. He was profoundly conscious at this moment of what he owed to this girl’s silent influence. He contented himself, however, with saying, “I will so strive that one day Amélie de Repentigny shall not shame to say she too is proud of me.”

She did not reply for a moment. A tremor agitated her low, sweet voice. “I am proud of you now, Pierre,–more proud than words can tell to see you so honored, and proudest to think you deserve it all.”

It touched him almost to tears. “Thanks, Amélie; when you are proud of me I shall begin to feel pride of myself. Your opinion is the one thing in life I have most cared for,–your approbation is my best reward.”

Her eyes were eloquent with unspoken words, but she thought, “If that were all!” Pierre Philibert had long received the silent reward of her good opinion and approbation.

The Bourgeois at this moment came up to salute Amélie and the Lady de Tilly.

“The Bourgeois Philibert has the most perfect manner of any gentleman in New France,” was the remark of the Lady de Tilly to Amélie, as he left them again to receive other guests. “They say he can be rough and imperious sometimes to those he dislikes, but to his friends and strangers, and especially to ladies, no breath of spring can be more gentle and balmy.” Amélie assented with a mental reservation in the depths of her dark eyes, and in the dimple that flashed upon her cheek as she suppressed the utterance of a pleasant fancy in reply to her aunt.

Pierre conducted the ladies to the great drawing-room, which was already filled with company, who overwhelmed Amélie and her aunt with the vivacity of their greeting.

In a fine shady grove at a short distance from the house, a row of tables was set for the entertainment of several hundreds of the hardy dependents of the Bourgeois; for while feasting the rich the Bourgeois would not forget his poorer friends, and perhaps his most exquisite satisfaction was in the unrestrained enjoyment of his hospitality by the crowd of happy, hungry fellows and their families, who, under the direction of his chief factor, filled the tables from end to end, and made the park resound with songs and merriment–fellows of infinite gaiety, with appetites of Gargantuas and a capacity for good liquors that reminded one of the tubs of the Danaïdes. The tables groaned beneath mountains of good things, and in the centre of each, like Mont Blanc rising from the lower Alps, stood a magnificent Easter pie, the confection of which was a masterpiece of the skill of Maître Guillot Gobet, the head cook of the Bourgeois, who was rather put out, however, when Dame Rochelle decided to bestow all the Easter pies upon the hungry voyageurs, woodmen, and workmen, and banished them from the menu of the more patrician tables set for the guests of the mansion.

“Yet, after all,” exclaimed Maître Guillot, as he thrust his head out of the kitchen door to listen to the song the gay fellows were singing with all their lungs in honor of his Easter pie; “after all, the fine gentlemen and ladies would not have paid my noble pies such honor as that! and what is more the pies would not have been eaten up to the last crumb!” Maître Guillot’s face beamed like a harvest moon, as he chimed in with the well-known ditty in praise of the great pie of Rouen:

“‘C’est dans la ville de Rouen,
Ils ont fait un paté si grand,
Ils ont fait un paté si grand,
Qu’ils ont trouvê un homme dedans!'”

Maître Guillot would fain have been nearer, to share in the shouting and clapping of hands which followed the saying of grace by the good Curé of St. Foye, and to see how vigorously knives were handled, and how chins wagged in the delightful task of levelling down mountains of meat, while Gascon wine and Norman cider flowed from ever- replenished flagons.

The Bourgeois and his son, with many of his chief guests, honored for a time the merry feast out-of-doors, and were almost inundated by the flowing cups drunk to the health and happiness of the Bourgeois and of Pierre Philibert.

Maître Guillot Gobet returned to his kitchen, where he stirred up his cooks and scullions on all sides, to make up for the loss of his Easter pies on the grand tables in the hall. He capered among them like a marionette, directing here, scolding there, laughing, joking, or with uplifted hands and stamping feet despairing of his underlings’ cooking a dinner fit for the fête of Pierre Philibert.

Maître Guilot was a little, fat, red-nosed fellow, with twinkling black eyes, and a mouth irascible as that of a cake-baker of Lerna. His heart was of the right paste, however, and full as a butter-boat of the sweet sauce of good nature, which he was ready to pour over the heads of all his fellows who quietly submitted to his dictation. But woe to man or maid servant who delayed or disputed his royal orders! An Indian typhoon instantly blew. At such a time even Dame Rochelle would gather her petticoats round her and hurry out of the storm, which always subsided quickly in proportion to the violence of its rage.

Maître Guillot knew what he was about, however. He did not use, he said, to wipe his nose with a herring! and on that day he was going to cook a dinner fit for the Pope after Lent, or even for the Reverend Father De Berey himself, who was the truest gourmet and the best trencherman in New France.

Maître Guillot honored his master, but in his secret soul he did not think his taste quite worthy of his cook! But he worshipped Father De Berey, and gloried in the infallible judgment and correct taste of cookery possessed by the jolly Recollet. The single approbation of Father De Berey was worth more than the praise of a world full of ordinary eating mortals, who smacked their lips and said things were good, but who knew no more than one of the Cent Suisses why things were good, or could appreciate the talents of an artiste of the cordon bleu.

Maître Guillot’s Easter pie had been a splendid success. “It was worthy,” he said, “to be placed as a crown on top of the new Cathedral of St. Marie, and receive the consecration of the Bishop.”

Lest the composition of it should be forgotten, Maître Guillot had, with the solemnity of a deacon intoning the Litany, ravished the ear of Jules Painchaud, his future son-in-law, as he taught him the secrets of its confection.

With his white cap set rakishly on one side of his head and arms akimbo, Maître Guillot gave Jules the famous recipe:

“Inside of circular walls of pastry an inch thick, and so rich as easily to be pulled down, and roomy enough within for the Court of King Pepin, lay first a thick stratum of mince-meat of two savory hams of Westphalia, and if you cannot get them, of two hams of our habitans.”

“Of our habitans!” ejaculated Jules, with an air of consternation.

“Precisely! don’t interrupt me!” Maître Guillot grew red about the gills in an instant. Jules was silenced. “I have said it!” cried he; “two hams of our habitans! what have you to say against it– stock fish, eh?”

“Oh, nothing, sir,” replied Jules, with humility, “only I thought–” Poor Jules would have consented to eat his thought rather than fall out with the father of his Susette.

“You thought!” Maître Guillot’s face was a study for Hogarth, who alone could have painted the alto tone of voice as it proceeded from his round O of a mouth. “Susette shall remain upon my hands an old maid for the term of her natural life if you dispute the confection of Easter pie!”

“Now listen, Jules,” continued he, at once mollified by the contrite, submissive air of his future son-in-law: “Upon the foundation of the mince-meat of two hams of Westphalia,–or, if you cannot get them, of two hams of our habitans,–place scientifically the nicely-cut pieces of a fat turkey, leaving his head to stick out of the upper crust, in evidence that Master Dindon lies buried there! Add two fat capons, two plump partridges, two pigeons, and the back and thighs of a brace of juicy hares. Fill up the whole with beaten eggs, and the rich contents will resemble, as a poet might say, ‘fossils of the rock in golden yolks embedded and enjellied!’ Season as you would a saint. Cover with a slab of pastry. Bake it as you would cook an angel, and not singe a feather. Then let it cool, and eat it! And then, Jules, as the Reverend Father de Berey always says after grace over an Easter pie, ‘Dominus vobiscum!'”

CHAPTER XXI.

SIC ITUR AD ASTRA.

The old hall of Belmont had been decorated for many a feast since the times of its founder, the Intendant Talon; but it had never contained a nobler company of fair women and brave men, the pick and choice of their race, than to-day met round the hospitable and splendid table of the Bourgeois Philibert in honor of the fête of his gallant son.

Dinner was duly and decorously despatched. The social fashion of New France was not for the ladies to withdraw when the wine followed the feast, but to remain seated with the gentlemen, purifying the conversation, and by their presence restraining the coarseness which was the almost universal vice of the age.

A troop of nimble servitors carried off the carved dishes and fragments of the splended pâtisseries of Maître Guillot, in such a state of demolition as satisfied the critical eye of the chief cook that the efforts of his genius had been very successful. He inspected the dishes through his spectacles. He knew, by what was left, the ability of the guests to discriminate what they had eaten and to do justice to his skill. He considered himself a sort of pervading divinity, whose culinary ideas passing with his cookery into the bodies of the guests enabled them, on retiring from the feast, to carry away as part of themselves some of the fine essence of Maître Gobet himself.

At the head of his table, peeling oranges and slicing pineapples for the ladies in his vicinity, sat the Bourgeois himself, laughing, jesting, and telling anecdotes with a geniality that was contagious. “‘The gods are merry sometimes,’ says Homer, ‘and their laughter shakes Olympus!'” was the classical remark of Father de Berey, at the other end of the table. Jupiter did not laugh with less loss of dignity than the Bourgeois.

Few of the guests did not remember to the end of their lives the majestic and happy countenance of the Bourgeois on this memorable day.

At his right hand sat Amélie de Repentigny and the Count de la Galissonière. The Governor, charmed with the beauty and agreeableness of the young chatelaine, had led her in to dinner, and devoted himself to her and the Lady de Tilly with the perfection of gallantry of a gentleman of the politest court in Europe. On his left sat the radiant, dark-eyed Hortense de Beauharnais. With a gay assumption of independence Hortense had taken the arm of La Corne St. Luc, and declared she would eat no dinner unless he would be her cavalier and sit beside her! The gallant old soldier surrendered at discretion. He laughingly consented to be her captive, he said, for he had no power and no desire but to obey. Hortense was proud of her conquest. She seated herself by his side with an air of triumph and mock gravity, tapping him with her fan whenever she detected his eye roving round the table, compassionating, she affirmed, her rivals, who had failed where she had won in securing the youngest, the handsomest, and most gallant of all the gentlemen at Belmont.

“Not so fast, Hortense!” exclaimed the gay Chevalier; “you have captured me by mistake! The tall Swede–he is your man! The other ladies all know that, and are anxious to get me out of your toils, so that you may be free to ensnare the philosopher!”

“But you don’t wish to get away from me! I am your garland, Chevalier, and you shall wear me to-day. As for the tall Swede, he has no idea of a fair flower of our sex except to wear it in his button-hole,–this way!” added she, pulling a rose out of a vase and archly adorning the Chevalier’s vest with it.

“All pretence and jealousy, mademoiselle. The tall Swede knows how to take down your pride and bring you to a proper sense of your false conceit of the beauty and wit of the ladies of New France.”

Hortense gave two or three tosses of defiance to express her emphatic dissent from his opinions.

“I wish Herr Kalm would lend me his philosophic scales, to weigh your sex like lambs in market,” continued La Corne St. Luc; “but I fear I am too old, Hortense, to measure women except by the fathom, which is the measure of a man.”

“And the measure of a man is the measure of an angel too scriptum est, Chevalier!” replied she. Hortense had ten merry meanings in her eye, and looked as if bidding him select which he chose. “The learned Swede’s philosophy is lost upon me,” continued she, “he can neither weigh by sample nor measure by fathom the girls of New France!” She tapped him on the arm. “Listen to me, chevalier,” said she, “you are neglecting me already for sake of Cecile Tourangeau!” La Corne was exchanging some gay badinage with a graceful, pretty young lady on the other side of the table, whose snowy forehead, if you examined it closely, was marked with a red scar, in figure of a cross, which, although powdered and partially concealed by a frizz of her thick blonde hair, was sufficiently distinct to those who looked for it; and many did so, as they whispered to each other the story of how she got it.

Le Gardeur de Repentigny sat by Cecile, talking in a very sociable manner, which was also commented on. His conversation seemed to be very attractive to the young lady, who was visibly delighted with the attentions of her handsome gallant.

At this moment a burst of instruments from the musicians, who occupied a gallery at the end of the hall, announced a vocal response to the toast of the King’s health, proposed by the Bourgeois. “Prepare yourself for the chorus, Chevalier,” exclaimed Hortense. “Father de Berey is going to lead the royal anthem!”

“Vive le Roi!” replied La Corne. “No finer voice ever sang Mass, or chanted ‘God Save the King!’ I like to hear the royal anthem from the lips of a churchman rolling it out ore rotundo, like one of the Psalms of David. Our first duty is to love God,–our next to honor the King! and New France will never fail in either!” Loyalty was ingrained in every fibre of La Corne St. Luc.

“Never, Chevalier. Law and Gospel rule together, or fall together! But we must rise,” replied Hortense, springing up.

The whole company rose simultaneously. The rich, mellow voice of the Rev. Father de Berey, round and full as the organ of Ste. Marie, commenced the royal anthem composed by Lulli in honor of Louis Quatorze, upon an occasion of his visit to the famous Convent of St. Cyr, in company with Madame de Maintenon.

The song composed by Madame Brinon was afterwards translated into English, and words and music became, by a singular transposition, the national hymn of the English nation.

“God Save the King!” is no longer heard in France. It was buried with the people’s loyalty, fathoms deep under the ruins of the monarchy. But it flourishes still with pristine vigor in New France, that olive branch grafted on the stately tree of the British Empire. The broad chest and flexile lips of Father de Berey rang out the grand old song in tones that filled the stately old hall:

“‘Grand Dieu! Sauvez le Roi!
Grand Dieu! Sauvez le Roi!
Sauvez le Roi!
Que toujours glorieux.
Louis Victorieux,
Voye ses ennemis
Toujours soumis!'”

The company all joined in the chorus, the gentlemen raising their cups, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs, and male and female blending in a storm of applause that made the old walls ring with joy. Songs and speeches followed in quick succession, cutting as with a golden blade the hours of the dessert into quinzaines of varied pleasures.

The custom of the times had reduced speechmaking after dinner to a minimum. The ladies, as Father de Berey wittily remarked, preferred private confession to public preaching; and long speeches, without inlets for reply, were the eighth mortal sin which no lady would forgive.

The Bourgeois, however, felt it incumbent upon himself to express his deep thanks for the honor done his house on this auspicious occasion. And he remarked that the doors of Belmont, so long closed by reason of the absence of Pierre, would hereafter be ever open to welcome all his friends. He had that day made a gift of Belmont, with all its belongings, to Pierre, and he hoped,–the Bourgeois smiled as he said this, but he would not look in a quarter where his words struck home,–he hoped that some one of Quebec’s fair daughters would assist Pierre in the menage of his home and enable him to do honor to his housekeeping.

Immense was the applause that followed the short, pithy speech of the Bourgeois. The ladies blushed and praised, the gentlemen cheered and enjoyed in anticipation the renewal of the old hospitalities of Belmont.

“The skies are raining plum cakes!” exclaimed the Chevalier La Corne to his lively companion. “Joy’s golden drops are only distilled in the alembic of woman’s heart! What think you, Hortense? Which of Quebec’s fair daughters will be willing to share Belmont with Pierre?”

“Oh, any of them would!” replied she. “But why did the Bourgeois restrict his choice to the ladies of Quebec, when he knew I came from the Three Rivers?”

“Oh, he was afraid of you, Hortense; you would make Belmont too good for this world! What say you, Father de Berry? Do you ever walk on the cape?”

The friar, in a merry mood, had been edging close to Hortense. “I love, of all things, to air my gray gown on the cape of a breezy afternoon,” replied the jovial Recollet, “when the fashionables are all out, and every lady is putting her best foot foremost. It is then I feel sure that Horace is the next best thing to the Homilies:

“‘Teretesque suras laudo, et integer ego!'”

The Chevalier La Corne pinched the shrugging shoulder of Hortense as he remarked, “Don’t confess to Father de Berey that you promenade on the cape! But I hope Pierre Philibert will soon make his choice! We are impatient to visit him and give old Provençal the butler a run every day through those dark crypts of his, where lie entombed the choicest vintages of sunny France.”

The Chevalier said this waggishly, for the benefit of old Provençal, who stood behind his chair looking half alarmed at the threatened raid upon his well-filled cellars.

“But if Pierre should not commit matrimony,” replied Hortense, “what will become of him? and especially what will become of us?”

“We will drink his wine all the same, good fellow that he is! But Pierre had as lief commit suicide as not commit matrimony; and who would not? Look here, Pierre Philibert,” continued the old soldier, addressing him, with good-humored freedom. “Matrimony is clearly your duty, Pierre; but I need not tell you so: it is written on your face plain as the way betwen Peronne and St. Quintin,–a good, honest way as ever was trod by shoe leather, and as old as Chinon in Touraine! Try it soon, my boy. Quebec is a sack full of pearls!” Hortense pulled him mischievously by the coat, so he caught her hand and held it fast in his, while he proceeded: “You put your hand in the sack and take out the first that offers. It will be worth a Jew’s ransom! If you are lucky to find the fairest, trust me it will be the identical pearl of great price for which the merchant went and sold all that he had and bought it. Is not that Gospel, Father de Berey? I think I have heard something like that preached from the pulpit of the Recollets?”

“Matter of brimborion, Chevalier! not to be questioned by laymen! Words of wisdom for my poor brothers of St. Francis, who, after renouncing the world, like to know that they have renounced something worth having! But not to preach a sermon on your parable, Chevalier, I will promise Colonel Philibert that when he has found the pearl of great price,”–Father de Berey, who knew a world of secrets, glanced archly at Amélie as he said this,–“the bells of our monastery shall ring out such a merry peal as they have not rung since fat Brother Le Gros broke his wind, and short Brother Bref stretched himself out half a yard pulling the bell ropes on the wedding of the Dauphin.”

Great merriment followed the speech of Father de Berey. Hortense rallied the Chevalier, a good old widower, upon himself not travelling the plain way between Peronne and St. Quintin, and jestingly offered herself to travel with him, like a couple of gypsies carrying their budget of happiness pick-a-back through the world.

“Better than that!” La Corne exclaimed. Hortense was worthy to ride on the baggage-wagons in his next campaign! Would she go? She gave him her hand. “I expect nothing else!” said she. “I am a soldier’s daughter, and expect to live a soldier’s wife, and die a soldier’s widow. But a truce to jest. It is harder to be witty than wise,” continued she. “What is the matter with Cousin Le Gardeur?” Her eyes were fixed upon him as he read a note just handed to him by a servant. He crushed it in his hand with a flash of anger, and made a motion as if about to tear it, but did not. He placed it in his bosom. But the hilarity of his countenance was gone.

There was another person at the table whose quick eye, drawn by sisterly affection, saw Le Gardeur’s movement before even Hortense. Amélie was impatient to leave her seat and go beside him, but she could not at the moment leave the lively circle around her. She at once conjectured that the note was from Angélique des Meloises. After drinking deeply two or three times Le Gardeur arose, and with a faint excuse that did not impose on his partner left the table. Amélie rose quickly also, excusing herself to the Bourgeois, and joined her brother in the park, where the cool night air blew fresh and inviting for a walk.

Pretty Cecile Touraugeau had caught a glimpse of the handwriting as she sat by the side of Le Gardeur, and guessed correctly whence it had come and why her partner so suddenly left the table.

She was out of humor; the red mark upon her forehead grew redder as she pouted in visible discontent. But the great world moves on, carrying alternate storms and sunshine upon its surface. The company rose from the table–some to the ball-room, some to the park and conservatories. Cecile’s was a happy disposition, easily consoled for her sorrows. Every trace of her displeasure was banished and almost forgotten from the moment the gay, handsome Jumonville de Villiers invited her out to the grand balcony, where, he said, the rarest pastime was going on.

And rare pastime it was! A group of laughing but half-serious girls were gathered round Doctor Gauthier, urging him to tell their fortunes by consulting the stars, which to-night shone out with unusual brilliancy.

At that period, as at the present, and in every age of the world, the female sex, like the Jews of old, asks signs, while the Greeks– that is, the men–seek wisdom.

The time never was, and never will be, when a woman will cease to be curious,–when her imagination will not forecast the decrees of fate in regard to the culminating event of her life and her whole nature– marriage. It was in vain Doctor Gauthier protested his inability to read the stars without his celestial eye-glasses.

The ladies would not accept his excuses: he knew the heavens by heart, they said, and could read the stars of destiny as easily as the Bishop his breviary.

In truth the worthy doctor was not only a believer but an adept in astrology. He had favored his friends with not a few horoscopes and nativities, when pressed to do so. His good nature was of the substance of butter: any one that liked could spread it over their bread. Many good men are eaten up in that way by greedy friends.

Hortense de Beauharnais urged the Doctor so merrily and so perseveringly, promising to marry him herself if the stars said so, that he laughingly gave way, but declared he would tell Hortense’s fortune first, which deserved to be good enough to make her fulfil her promise just made.

She was resigned, she said, and would accept any fate from the rank of a queen to a cell among the old maids of St. Cyr! The girls of Quebec hung all their hopes on the stars, bright and particular ones especially. They were too loving to live single, and too proud to live poor. But she was one who would not wait for ships to land that never came, and plums to drop into her mouth that never ripened. Hortense would be ruled by the stars, and wise Doctor Gauthier should to-night declare her fate.

They all laughed at this free talk of Hortense. Not a few of the ladies shrugged their shoulders and looked askance at each other, but many present wished they had courage to speak like her to Doctor Gauthier.

“Well, I see there is nothing else for it but to submit to my ruling star, and that is you, Hortense!” cried the Doctor; “so please stand up before me while I take an inventory of your looks as a preliminary to telling your fortune.”

Hortense placed herself instantly before him. “It is one of the privileges of our dry study,” remarked he, as he looked admiringly on the tall, charming figure and frank countenance of the girl before him.

“The querent,” said he gravely, “is tall, straight, slender, arms long, hands and feet of the smallest, hair just short of blackness, piercing, roving eyes, dark as night and full of fire, sight quick, and temperament alive with energy, wit, and sense.”

“Oh, tell my fortune, not my character! I shall shame of energy, wit, and sense, if I hear such flattery, Doctor!” exclaimed she, shaking herself like a young eagle preparing to fly.

“We shall see what comes of it, Hortense!” replied he gravely, as with his gold-headed cane he slowly quartered the heavens like an ancient augur, and noted the planets in their houses. The doctor was quite serious, and even Hortense, catching his looks, stood very silent as he studied the celestial aspects,

“Carrying through ether in perpetual round Decrees and resolutions of the Gods.”

“The Lord of the ascendant,” said he, “is with the Lord of the seventh in the tenth house. The querent, therefore, shall marry the man made for her, but not the man of her youthful hope and her first love.

“The stars are true,” continued he, speaking to himself rather than to her. “Jupiter in the seventh house denotes rank and dignity by marriage, and Mars in sextile foretells successful wars. It is wonderful, Hortense! The blood of Beauharnais shall sit on thrones more than one; it shall rule France, Italy, and Flanders, but not New France, for Saturn in quintile looks darkly upon the twins who rule America!”

“Come, Jumonville,” exclaimed Hortense, “congratulate Claude on the greatness awaiting the house of Beauharnais, and condole with me that I am to see none of it myself! I do not care for kings and queens in the third generation, but I do care for happy fortune in the present for those I know and love! Come, Jumonville, have your fortune told now, to keep me in countenance. If the Doctor hits the truth for you I shall believe in him for myself.”

“That is a good idea, Hortense,” replied Jumonville; “I long ago hung my hat on the stars–let the Doctor try if he can find it.”

The Doctor, in great good humor, surveyed the dark, handsome face and lithe, athletic figure of Jumonville de Villiers. He again raised his cane with the gravity of a Roman pontifex, marking off his templum in the heavens. Suddenly he stopped. He repeated more carefully his survey, and then turned his earnest eyes upon the young soldier.

“You see ill-fortune for me, Doctor!” exclaimed Jumonville, with bright, unflinching eyes, as he would look on danger of any kind.

“The Hyleg, or giver of life, is afflicted by Mars in the eighth house, and Saturn is in evil aspect in the ascendant!” said the Doctor slowly.

“That sounds warlike, and means fighting I suppose, Doctor. It is a brave fortune for a soldier. Go on!” Jumonville was in earnest now.

“The pars fortunae,” continued the Doctor, gazing upward, “rejoices in a benign aspect with Venus. Fame, true love, and immortality will be yours, Jumonville de Villiers; but you will die young under the flag of your country and for sake of your King! You will not marry, but all the maids and matrons of New France will lament your fate with tears, and from your death shall spring up the salvation of your native land–how, I see not; but decretum est, Jumonville, ask me no more!”

A thrill like a stream of electricity passed through the company. Their mirth was extinguished, for none could wholly free their minds from the superstition of their age. The good Doctor sat down, and wiped his moistened eye-glasses. He would tell no more to-night, he said. He had really gone too far, making jest of earnest and earnest of jest, and begged pardon of Jumonville for complying with his humor.

The young soldier laughed merrily. “If fame, immortality, and true love are to be mine, what care I for death? It will be worth giving up life for, to have the tears of the maids and matrons of New France to lament your fate. What could the most ambitious soldier desire more?”

The words of Jumonville struck a kindred chord in the bosom of Hortense de Beauharnais. They were stamped upon her heart forever. A few years after this prediction, Jumonville de Villiers lay slain under a flag of truce on the bank of the Monongahela, and of all the maids and matrons of New France who wept over his fate, none shed more and bitterer tears than his fair betrothed bride, Hortense de Beauharnais.

The prediction of the Sieur Gauthier was repeated and retold as a strangely true tale; it passed into the traditions of the people, and lingered in their memory generations after the festival of Belmont was utterly forgotten.

When the great revolt took place in the English Colonies, the death of the gallant Jumonville de Villiers was neither forgotten nor forgiven by New France. Congress appealed in vain for union and help from Canadians. Washington’s proclamations were trodden under foot, and his troops driven back or captured. If Canada was lost to France partly through the death of Jumonville, it may also be said that his blood helped to save it to England. The ways of Providence are so mysterious in working out the problems of national existence that the life or death of a single individual may turn the scales of destiny over half a continent.

But all these events lay as yet darkly in the womb of the future. The gallant Jumonville who fell, and his brother Coulon who took his “noble revenge” upon Washington by sparing his life, were to-day the gayest of the gay throng who had assembled to do honor to Pierre Philibert.

While this group of merry guests, half in jest, half in earnest, were trying to discover in the stars the “far-reaching concords” that moulded the life of each, Amélie led her brother away from the busy grounds near the mansion, and took a quiet path that led into the great park which they entered.

A cool salt-water breeze, following the flood tide that was coming up the broad St. Lawrence, swept their faces as Amélie walked by the side of Le Gardeur, talking in her quiet way of things familiar, and of home interests until she saw the fever of his blood abate and his thoughts return into calmer channels. Her gentle craft subdued his impetuous mood–if craft it might be called–for more wisely cunning than all craft is the prompting of true affection, where reason responds like instinct to the wants of the heart.

They sat down upon a garden seat overlooking the great valley. None of the guests had sauntered out so far, but Amélie’s heart was full; she had much to say, and wished no interruption.

“I am glad to sit in this pretty spot, Amélie,” said he, at last, for he had listened in silence to the sweet, low voice of his sister as she kept up her half sad, half glad monologue, because she saw it pleased him. It brought him into a mood in which she might venture to talk of the matter that pressed sorely upon her heart.

“A little while ago, I feared I might offend you, Le Gardeur,” said she, taking his hand tenderly in hers, “if I spoke all I wished. I never did offend you that I remember, brother, did I?”

“Never, my incomparable sister; you never did, and never could. Say what you will, ask me what you like; but I fear I am unworthy of your affection, sister.”

“You are not unworthy; God gave you as my only brother, you will never be unworthy in my eyes. But it touches me to the quick to suspect others may think lightly of you, Le Gardeur.”

He flinched, for his pride was touched, but he knew Amélie was right. “It was weakness in me,” said he, “I confess it, sister. To pour wine upon my vexation in hope to cure it, is to feed a fire with oil. To throw fire into a powder magazine were wisdom compared with my folly, Amélie: I was angry at the message I got at such a time. Angélique des Meloises has no mercy upon her lovers!”

“Oh, my prophetic heart! I thought as much! It was Angélique, then, sent you the letter you read at table?”

“Yes, who else could have moved me so? The time was ill-chosen, but I suspect, hating the Bourgeois as she does, Angélique intended to call me from Pierre’s fête. I shall obey her now, but tonight she shall obey me, decide to make or mar me, one way or other! You may read the letter, Amélie, if you will.”

“I care not to read it, brother; I know Angélique too well not to fear her influence over you. Her craft and boldness were always a terror to her companions. But you will not leave Pierre’s fête tonight?” added she, half imploringly; for she felt keenly the discourtesy to Pierre Philibert.

“I must do even that, sister! Were Angélique as faulty as she is fair, I should only love her the more for her faults, and make them my own. Were she to come to me like Herodias with the Baptist’s head in a charger, I should outdo Herod in keeping my pledge to her.”

Amélie uttered a low, moaning cry. “O my dear infatuated brother, it is not in nature for a De Repentigny to love irrationally like that! What maddening philtre have you drank, to intoxicate you with a woman who uses you so imperiously? But you will not go, Le Gardeur!” added she, clinging to his arm. “You are safe so long as you are with your sister,–you will be safe no longer if you go to the Maison des Meloises tonight!”

“Go I must and shall, Amélie! I have drank the maddening philtre,– I know that, Amélie, and would not take an antidote if I had one! The world has no antidote to cure me. I have no wish to be cured of love for Angélique, and in fine I cannot be, so let me go and receive the rod for coming to Belmont and the reward for leaving it at her summons!” He affected a tone of levity, but Amélie’s ear easily detected the false ring of it.

“Dearest brother!” said she, “are you sure Angélique returns, or is capable of returning, love like yours? She is like the rest of us, weak and fickle, merely human, and not at all the divinity a man in his fancy worships when in love with a woman.” It was in vain, however, for Amélie to try to persuade her brother of that.

“What care I, Amélie, so long as Angélique is not weak and fickle to me?” answered he; “but she will think her tardy lover is both weak and fickle unless I put in a speedy appearance at the Maison des Meloises!” He rose up as if to depart, still holding his sister by the hand.

Amélie’s tears flowed silently in the darkness. She was not willing to plant a seed of distrust in the bosom of her brother, yet she remembered bitterly and indignantly what Angélique had said of her intentions towards the Intendant. Was she using Le Gardeur as a foil to set off her attractions in the eyes of Bigot?

“Brother!” said Amélie, “I am a woman, and comprehend my sex better than you. I know Angélique’s far-reaching ambition and crafty ways. Are you sure, not in outward persuasion but in inward conviction, that she loves you as a woman should love the man she means to marry?”

Le Gardeur felt her words like a silver probe that searched his heart. With all his unbounded devotion, he knew Angélique too well not to feel a pang of distrust sometimes, as she showered her coquetries upon every side of her. It was the overabundance of her love, he said, but he thought it often fell like the dew round Gideon’s fleece, refreshing all the earth about it, but leaving the fleece dry. “Amélie!” said he, “you try me hard, and tempt me too, my sister, but it is useless. Angélique may be false as Cressida to other men, she will not be false to me! She has sworn it, with her hand in mine, before the altar of Notre Dame. I would go down to perdition with her in my arms rather than be a crowned king with all the world of women to choose from and not get her.”

Amélie shuddered at his vehemence, but she knew how useless was expostulation. She wisely refrained, deeming it her duty, like a good sister, to make the best of what she could not hinder. Some jasmines overhung the seat; she plucked a handful, and gave them to him as they rose to return to the house.

“Take them with you, Le Gardeur,” said she, giving him the flowers, which she tied into a wreath; “they will remind Angélique that she has a powerful rival in your sister’s love.”

He took them as they walked slowly back. “Would she were like you, Amélie, in all things!” said he. “I will put some of your flowers in her hair to-night for your sake, sister.”

“And for her own! May they be for you both an augury of good! Mind and return home, Le Gardeur, after your visit. I shall sit up to await your arrival, to congratulate you;” and, after a pause, she added, “or to console you, brother!”

“Oh, no fear, sister!” replied he, cheeringly. “Angélique is true as steel to me. You shall call her my betrothed tomorrow! Good-by! And now go dance with all delight till morning.” He kissed her and departed for the city, leaving her in the ball-room by the side of the Lady de Tilly.

Amélie related to her aunt the result of her conversation with Le Gardeur, and the cause of his leaving the fête so abruptly. The Lady de Tilly listened with surprise and distress. “To think,” said she, “of Le Gardeur asking that terrible girl to marry him! My only hope is, she will refuse him. And if it be as I hear, I think she will!”

“It would be the ruin of Le Gardeur if she did, aunt! You cannot think how determined he is on this marriage.”

“It would be his ruin if she accepted him!” replied the Lady de Tilly. “With any other woman Le Gardeur might have a fair chance of happiness; but none with her! More than one of her lovers lies in a bloody grave by reason of her coquetries. She has ruined every man whom she has flattered into loving her. She is without affection. Her thoughts are covered with a veil of deceit impenetrable. She would sacrifice the whole world to her vanity. I fear, Amélie, she will sacrifice Le Gardeur as ruthlessly as the most worthless of her admirers.”

“We can only hope for the best, aunt; and I do think Angélique loves Le Gardeur as she never loved any other.”

They were presently rejoined by Pierre Philibert. The Lady de Tilly and Amélie apologized for Le Gardeur’s departure,–he had been compelled to go to the city on an affair of urgency, and had left them to make his excuses. Pierre Philibert was not without a shrewd perception of the state of affairs. He pitied Le Gardeur, and excused him, speaking most kindly of him in a way that touched the heart of Amélie. The ball went on with unflagging spirit and enjoyment. The old walls fairly vibrated with the music and dancing of the gay company.

The music, like the tide in the great river that night, reached its flood only after the small hours had set in. Amélie had given her hand to Pierre for one or two dances, and many a friendly, many a half envious guess was made as to the probable Chatelaine of Belmont.

CHAPTER XXII.

SO GLOZED THE TEMPTER.

The lamps burned brightly in the boudoir of Angélique des Meloises on the night of the fête of Pierre Philibert. Masses of fresh flowers filled the antique Sèvres vases, sending delicious odors through the apartment, which was furnished in a style of almost royal splendor. Upon the white hearth a few billets of wood blazed cheerfully, for, after a hot day, as was not uncommon in New France, a cool salt-water breeze came up the great river, bringing reminders of cold sea-washed rocks and snowy crevices still lingering upon the mountainous shores of the St. Lawrence.

Angélique sat idly watching the wreaths of smoke as they rose in shapes fantastic as her own thoughts.

By that subtle instinct which is a sixth sense in woman, she knew that Le Gardeur de Repentigny would visit her to-night and renew his offer of marriage. She meant to retain his love and evade his proposals, and she never for a moment doubted her ability to accomplish her ends. Men’s hearts had hitherto been but potter’s clay in her hands, and she had no misgivings now; but she felt that the love of Le Gardeur was a thing she could not tread on without a shock to herself like the counter-stroke of a torpedo to the naked foot of an Indian who rashly steps upon it as it basks in a sunny pool.

She was agitated beyond her wont, for she loved Le Gardeur with a strange, selfish passion, for her own sake, not for his,–a sort of love not uncommon with either sex. She had the frankness to be half ashamed of it, for she knew the wrong she was doing to one of the most noble and faithful hearts in the world. But the arrival of the Intendant had unsettled every good resolution she had once made to marry Le Gardeur de Repentigny and become a reputable matron in society. Her ambitious fantasies dimmed every perception of duty to her own heart as well as his; and she had worked herself into that unenviable frame of mind which possesses a woman who cannot resolve either to consent or deny, to accept her lover or to let him go.

The solitude of her apartment became insupportable to her. She sprang up, opened the window, and sat down in the balcony outside, trying to find composure by looking down into the dark, still street. The voices of two men engaged in eager conversation reached her ear. They sat upon the broad steps of the house, so that every word they spoke reached her ear, although she could scarcely distinguish them in the darkness. These were no other than Max Grimeau and Blind Bartemy, the brace of beggars whose post was at the gate of the Basse Ville. They seemed to be comparing the amount of alms each had received during the day, and were arranging for a supper at some obscure haunt they frequented in the purlieus of the lower town, when another figure came up, short, dapper, and carrying a knapsack, as Angélique could detect by the glimmer of a lantern that hung on a rope stretched across the street. He was greeted warmly by the old mendicants.

“Sure as my old musket it is Master Pothier, and nobody else!” exclaimed Max Grimeau rising, and giving the newcomer a hearty embrace. “Don’t you see, Bartemy? He has been foraging among the fat wives of the south shore. What a cheek he blows–red as a peony, and fat as a Dutch Burgomaster!” Max had seen plenty of the world when he marched under Marshal de Belleisle, so he was at no loss for apt comparisons.