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I. MEN OF THE OLD RÉGIME

“'See Naples, and then die!' That was a proud saying, Count, which we used to hear as we cruised under lateen sails about the glorious bay that reflects from its waters the fires of Vesuvius. We believed the boast then, Count. But I say now, 'See Quebec, and live forever!' Eternity would be too short to weary me of this lovely scene--this bright Canadian morning is worthy of Eden, and the glorious landscape worthy of such a sun-rising.”

Thus exclaimed a tall, fair Swedish gentleman, his blue eyes sparkling, and every feature glowing with enthusiasm, Herr Peter Kalm, to His Excellency Count de la Galissonière, Governor of New France, as they stood together on a bastion of the ramparts of Quebec, in the year of grace 1748.

A group of French and Canadian officers, in the military uniforms of Louis XV., stood leaning on their swords, as they conversed gaily together on the broad gravelled walk at the foot of the rampart. They formed the suite in attendance upon the Governor, who was out by sunrise this morning to inspect the work done during the night by the citizens of Quebec and the habitans of the surrounding country, who had been hastily summoned to labor upon the defences of the city.

A few ecclesiastics, in black cassocks, dignitaries of the Church, mingled cheerfully in the conversation of the officers. They had accompanied the Governor, both to show their respect, and to encourage, by their presence and exhortations, the zeal of the colonists in the work of fortifying the capital.

War was then raging between old England and old France, and between New England and New France. The vast region of North America, stretching far into the interior and southwest from Canada to Louisiana, had for three years past been the scene of fierce hostilities between the rival nations, while the savage Indian tribes, ranged on the one side and on the other, steeped their moccasins in the blood of French and English colonists, who, in their turn, became as fierce, and carried on the war as relentlessly, as the savages themselves.

Louisbourg, the bulwark of New France, projecting its mailed arm boldly into the Atlantic, had been cut off by the English, who now overran Acadia, and began to threaten Quebec with invasion by sea and land. Busy rumors of approaching danger were rife in the colony, and the gallant Governor issued orders, which were enthusiastically obeyed, for the people to proceed to the walls and place the city in a state of defence, to bid defiance to the enemy.

Rolland Michel Barrin, Count de la Galissonière, was remarkable no less for his philosophical attainments, that ranked him high among the savans of the French Academy, than for his political abilities and foresight as a statesman. He felt strongly the vital interests involved in the present war, and saw clearly what was the sole policy necessary for France to adopt in order to preserve her magnificent dominion in North America. His counsels were neither liked nor followed by the Court of Versailles, then sinking fast into the slough of corruption that marked the closing years of the reign of Louis XV.

Among the people who admired deeds more than words the Count was honored as a brave and skilful admiral, who had borne the flag of France triumphantly over the seas, and in the face of her most powerful enemies--the English and Dutch. His memorable repulse of Admiral Byng, eight years after the events here recorded,--which led to the death of that brave and unfortunate officer, who was shot by sentence of court martial to atone for that repulse,--was a glory to France, but to the Count brought after it a manly sorrow for the fate of his opponent, whose death he regarded as a cruel and unjust act, unworthy of the English nation, usually as generous and merciful as it is brave and considerate.

The Governor was already well-advanced in years. He had entered upon the winter of life, that sprinkles the head with snow that never melts, but he was still hale, ruddy, and active. Nature had, indeed, moulded him in an unpropitious hour for personal comeliness, but in compensation had seated a great heart and a graceful mind in a body low of stature, and marked by a slight deformity. His piercing eyes, luminous with intelligence and full of sympathy for everything noble and elevated, overpowered with their fascination the blemishes that a too curious scrutiny might discover upon his figure; while his mobile, handsome lips poured out the natural eloquence of clear thoughts and noble sentiments. The Count grew great while speaking: his listeners were carried away by the magic of his voice and the clearness of his intellect.

He was very happy this morning by the side of his old friend, Peter Kalm, who was paying him a most welcome visit in New France. They had been fellow-students, both at Upsal and at Paris, and loved each other with a cordiality that, like good wine, grew richer and more generous with age.

Herr Kalm, stretching out his arms as if to embrace the lovely landscape and clasp it to his bosom, exclaimed with fresh enthusiasm, “See Quebec, and live forever!”

“Dear Kalm,” said the Governor, catching the fervor of his friend, as he rested his hand affectionately on his shoulder, “you are as true a lover of nature as when we sat together at the feet of Linnaeus, our glorious young master, and heard him open up for us the arcana of God's works; and we used to feel like him, too, when he thanked God for permitting him to look into his treasure-house and see the precious things of creation which he had made.”

“Till men see Quebec,” replied Kalm, “they will not fully realize the meaning of the term, 'God's footstool.' It is a land worth living for!”

“Not only a land to live for, but a land to die for, and happy the man who dies for it! Confess, Kalm,--thou who hast travelled in all lands,--think'st thou not it is indeed worthy of its proud title of New France?”

“It is indeed worthy,” replied Kalm; “I see here a scion of the old oak of the Gauls, which, if let grow, will shelter the throne of France itself in an empire wider than Caesar wrested from Ambiotrix.”

“Yes,” replied the Count, kindling at the words of his friend, “it is old France transplanted, transfigured, and glorified,--where her language, religion, and laws shall be handed down to her posterity, the glory of North America as the mother-land is the glory of Europe!”

The enthusiastic Galissonière stretched out his hands and implored a blessing upon the land entrusted to his keeping.

It was a glorious morning. The sun had just risen over the hilltops of Lauzon, throwing aside his drapery of gold, purple, and crimson. The soft haze of the summer morning was floating away into nothingness, leaving every object fresh with dew and magnified in the limpid purity of the air.

The broad St. Lawrence, far beneath their feet, was still partially veiled in a thin blue mist, pierced here and there by the tall mast of a King's ship or merchantman lying unseen at anchor; or, as the fog rolled slowly off, a swift canoe might be seen shooting out into a streak of sunshine, with the first news of the morning from the south shore.

Behind the Count and his companions rose the white glistening walls of the Hôtel Dieu, and farther off the tall tower of the newly-restored Cathedral, the belfry of the Recollets, and the roofs of the ancient College of the Jesuits. An avenue of old oaks and maples shaded the walk, and in the branches of the trees a swarm of birds fluttered and sang, as if in rivalry with the gay French talk and laughter of the group of officers, who waited the return of the Governor from the bastion where he stood, showing the glories of Quebec to his friend.

The walls of the city ran along the edge of the cliff upwards as they approached the broad gallery and massive front of the Castle of St. Louis, and ascending the green slope of the broad glacis, culminated in the lofty citadel, where, streaming in the morning breeze, radiant in the sunshine, and alone in the blue sky, waved the white banner of France, the sight of which sent a thrill of joy and pride into the hearts of her faithful subjects in the New World.

The broad bay lay before them, round as a shield, and glittering like a mirror as the mist blew off its surface. Behind the sunny slopes of Orleans, which the river encircled in its arms like a giant lover his fair mistress, rose the bold, dark crests of the Laurentides, lifting their bare summits far away along the course of the ancient river, leaving imagination to wander over the wild scenery in their midst--the woods, glens, and unknown lakes and rivers that lay hid far from human ken, or known only to rude savages, wild as the beasts of chase they hunted in those strange regions.

Across the broad valley of the St. Charles, covered with green fields and ripening harvests, and dotted with quaint old homesteads, redolent with memories of Normandy and Brittany, rose a long mountain ridge covered with primeval woods, on the slope of which rose the glittering spire of Charlebourg, once a dangerous outpost of civilization. The pastoral Lairet was seen mingling its waters with the St. Charles in a little bay that preserves the name of Jacques Cartier, who with his hardy companions spent their first winter in Canada on this spot, the guests of the hospitable Donacana, lord of Quebec and of all the lands seen from its lofty cape.

Directly beneath the feet of the Governor, on a broad strip of land that lay between the beach and the precipice, stood the many-gabled Palace of the Intendant, the most magnificent structure in New France. Its long front of eight hundred feet overlooked the royal terraces and gardens, and beyond these the quays and magazines, where lay the ships of Bordeaux, St. Malo, and Havre, unloading the merchandise and luxuries of France in exchange for the more rude, but not less valuable, products of the Colony.

Between the Palace and the Basse Ville the waves at high tide washed over a shingly beach where there were already the beginnings of a street. A few rude inns displayed the sign of the fleur-de-lis or the imposing head of Louis XV. Round the doors of these inns in summer-time might always be found groups of loquacious Breton and Norman sailors in red caps and sashes, voyageurs and canoemen from the far West in half Indian costume, drinking Gascon wine and Norman cider, or the still more potent liquors filled with the fires of the Antilles. The Batture kindled into life on the arrival of the fleet from home, and in the evenings of summer, as the sun set behind the Côte à Bonhomme, the natural magnetism of companionship drew the lasses of Quebec down to the beach, where, amid old refrains of French ditties and the music of violins and tambours de Basque, they danced on the green with the jovial sailors who brought news from the old land beyond the Atlantic.

“Pardon me, gentlemen, for keeping you waiting,” said the Governor, as he descended from the bastion and rejoined his suite. “I am so proud of our beautiful Quebec that I can scarcely stop showing off its charms to my friend Herr Kalm, who knows so well how to appreciate them. But,” continued he, looking round admiringly on the bands of citizens and habitans who were at work strengthening every weak point in the fortifications, “my brave Canadians are busy as beavers on their dam. They are determined to keep the saucy English out of Quebec. They deserve to have the beaver for their crest, industrious fellows that they are! I am sorry I kept you waiting, however.”

“We can never count the moments lost which your Excellency gives to the survey of our fair land,” replied the Bishop, a grave, earnest-looking man. “Would that His Majesty himself could stand on these walls and see with his own eyes, as you do, this splendid patrimony of the crown of France. He would not dream of bartering it away in exchange for petty ends and corners of Germany and Flanders, as is rumored, my Lord.”

“True words and good, my Lord Bishop,” replied the Governor; “the retention of all Flanders now in the strong hands of the Marshal de Saxe would be a poor compensation for the surrender of a glorious land like this to the English.”

Flying rumors of some such proposal on the part of France had reached the Colony, with wild reports arising out of the endless chaffering between the negotiators for peace, who had already assembled at Aix la Chapelle. “The fate of America will one day be decided here,” continued the Governor; “I see it written upon this rock, 'Whoever rules Quebec will sway the destinies of the continent.' May our noble France be wise, and understand in time the signs of empire and of supremacy!”

The Bishop looked upwards with a sigh. “Our noble France has not yet read those tokens, or she misunderstands them. Oh, these faithful subjects of hers! Look at them, your Excellency.” The Bishop pointed toward the crowd of citizens hard at work on the walls. “There is not a man of them but is ready to risk life and fortune for the honor and dominion of France, and yet they are treated by the Court with such neglect, and burdened with exactions that take from life the sweet reward of labor! They cannot do the impossible that France requires of them--fight her battles, till her fields, and see their bread taken from them by these new ordinances of the Intendant.”

“Well, my Lord,” replied the Governor, affecting a jocularity he did not feel, for he knew how true were the words of the Bishop, “we must all do our duty, nevertheless: if France requires impossibilities of us, we must perform them! That is the old spirit! If the skies fall upon our heads, we must, like true Gauls, hold them up on the points of our lances! What say you, Rigaud de Vaudreuil? Cannot one Canadian surround ten New Englanders?” The Governor alluded to an exploit of the gallant officer whom he turned to address.

“Probatum est, your Excellency! I once with six hundred Canadians surrounded all New England. Prayers were put up in all the churches of Boston for deliverance when we swept the Connecticut from end to end with a broom of fire.”

“Brave Rigaud! France has too few like you!” remarked the Governor with a look of admiration.

Rigaud bowed, and shook his head modestly. “I trust she has ten thousand better;” but added, pointing at his fellow-officers who stood conversing at a short distance, “Marshal de Saxe has few the equals of these in his camp, my Lord Count!” And well was the compliment deserved: they were gallant men, intelligent in looks, polished in manners, and brave to a fault, and all full of that natural gaiety that sits so gracefully on a French soldier.

Most of them wore the laced coat and waistcoat, chapeau, boots, lace ruffles, sash, and rapier of the period--a martial costume befitting brave and handsome men. Their names were household words in every cottage in New France, and many of them as frequently spoken of in the English Colonies as in the streets of Quebec.

There stood the Chevalier de Beaujeu, a gentleman of Norman family, who was already famed upon the frontier, and who, seven years later, in the forests of the Monongahela, crowned a life of honor by a soldier's death on the bloody field won from the unfortunate Braddock, defeating an army ten times more numerous than his own.

Talking gayly with De Beaujeu were two gallant-looking young men of a Canadian family which, out of seven brothers, lost six slain in the service of their King--Jumonville de Villiers, who was afterwards, in defiance of a flag of truce, shot down by order of Colonel Washington, in the far-off forests of the Alleghenies, and his brother, Coulon de Villiers, who received the sword of Washington when he surrendered himself and garrison prisoners of war, at Fort Necessity, in 1754.

Coulon de Villiers imposed ignominious conditions of surrender upon Washington, but scorned to take other revenge for the death of his brother. He spared the life of Washington, who lived to become the leader and idol of his nation, which, but for the magnanimity of the noble Canadian, might have never struggled into independence.

There stood also the Sieur de Lery, the King's engineer, charged with the fortification of the Colony, a man of Vauban's genius in the art of defence. Had the schemes which he projected, and vainly urged upon the heedless Court of Versailles, been carried into effect, the conquest of New France would have been an impossibility.

Arm in arm with De Lery, in earnest conversation, walked the handsome Claude de Beauharnais,--brother of a former Governor of the Colony,--a graceful, gallant-looking soldier. De Beauharnais was the ancestor of a vigorous and beautiful race, among whose posterity was the fair Hortense de Beauharnais, who in her son, Napoleon III., seated an offshoot of Canada upon the imperial throne of France long after the abandonment of their ancient colony by the corrupt House of Bourbon.

Conspicuous among the distinguished officers by his tall, straight figure and quick movements, was the Chevalier La Corne St. Luc, supple as an Indian, and almost as dark, from exposure to the weather and incessant campaigning. He was fresh from the blood and desolation of Acadia, where France, indeed, lost her ancient colony, but St. Luc reaped a full sheaf of glory at Grand Pré, in the Bay of Minas, by the capture of an army of New Englanders. The rough old soldier was just now all smiles and gaiety, as he conversed with Monseigneur de Pontbriant, the venerable Bishop of Quebec, and Father de Berey, the Superior of the Recollets.

The Bishop, a wise ruler of his Church, was also a passionate lover of his country: the surrender of Quebec to the English broke his heart, and he died a few months after the announcement of the final cession of the Colony.

Father de Berey, a jovial monk, wearing the gray gown and sandals of the Recollets, was renowned throughout New France for his wit more than for his piety. He had once been a soldier, and he wore his gown, as he had worn his uniform, with the gallant bearing of a King's Guardsman. But the people loved him all the more for his jests, which never lacked the accompaniment of genuine charity. His sayings furnished all New France with daily food for mirth and laughter, without detracting an iota of the respect in which the Recollets were held throughout the colony.

Father Glapion, the Superior of the Jesuits, also accompanied the Bishop. His close, black soutane contrasted oddly with the gray, loose gown of the Recollet. He was a meditative, taciturn man,--seeming rather to watch the others than to join in the lively conversation that went on around him. Anything but cordiality and brotherly love reigned between the Jesuits and the Order of St. Francis, but the Superiors were too wary to manifest towards each other the mutual jealousies of their subordinates.

The long line of fortifications presented a stirring appearance that morning. The watch-fires that had illuminated the scene during the night were dying out, the red embers paling under the rays of the rising sun. From a wide circle surrounding the city the people had come in--many were accompanied by their wives and daughters--to assist in making the bulwark of the Colony impregnable against the rumored attack of the English.

The people of New France, taught by a hundred years of almost constant warfare with the English and with the savage nations on their frontiers, saw as clearly as the Governor that the key of French dominion hung inside the walls of Quebec, and that for an enemy to grasp it was to lose all they valued as subjects of the Crown of France.

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II. THE WALLS OF QUEBEC

Count de la Galissonière, accompanied by his distinguished attendants, proceeded again on their round of inspection. They were everywhere saluted with heads uncovered, and welcomed by hearty greetings. The people of New France had lost none of the natural politeness and ease of their ancestors, and, as every gentleman of the Governor's suite was at once recognized, a conversation, friendly even to familiarity, ensued between them and the citizens and habitans, who worked as if they were building their very souls into the walls of the old city.

“Good morning, Sieur de St. Denis!” gaily exclaimed the Governor to a tall, courtly gentleman, who was super-intending the labor of a body of his censitaires from Beauport. “'Many hands make light work,' says the proverb. That splendid battery you are just finishing deserves to be called Beauport. What say you, my Lord Bishop?” turning to the smiling ecclesiastic. “Is it not worthy of baptism?”

“Yes, and blessing both; I give it my episcopal benediction,” replied the Bishop, “and truly I think most of the earth of it is taken from the consecrated ground of the Hôtel Dieu--it will stand fire!”

“Many thanks, my Lord!”--the Sieur de St. Denis bowed very low--“where the Church bars the door Satan will never enter, nor the English either! Do you hear, men?” continued he, turning to his censitaires, “my Lord Bishop christens our battery Beauport, and says it will stand fire!”

“Vive le Roi!” was the response, an exclamation that came spontaneously to the lips of all Frenchmen on every emergency of danger or emotion of joy.

A sturdy habitan came forward, and doffing his red tuque or cap, addressed the Governor: “This is a good battery, my Lord Governor, but there ought to be one as good in our village. Permit us to build one and man it, and we promise your Excellency that no Englishman shall ever get into the back door of Quebec while we have lives to defend it.” The old habitan had the eye of a soldier--he had been one. The Governor knew the value of the suggestion, and at once assented to it, adding, “No better defenders of the city could be found anywhere than the brave habitans of Beauport.”

The compliment was never forgotten; and years afterwards, when Wolfe besieged the city, the batteries of Beauport repelled the assault of his bravest troops, and well-nigh broke the heart of the young hero over the threatened defeat of his great undertaking, as his brave Highlanders and grenadiers lay slain by hundreds upon the beach of Beauport.

The countenances of the hardy workers were suddenly covered with smiles of welcome recognition at the sight of the well-known Superior of the Recollets.

“Good morning!” cried out a score of voices; “good morning, Father de Berey! The good wives of Beauport send you a thousand compliments. They are dying to see the good Recollets down our way again. The Gray Brothers have forsaken our parish.”

“Ah!” replied the Superior, in a tone of mock severity, while his eyes overran with mirthfulness, “you are a crowd of miserable sinners who will die without benefit of clergy--only you don't know it! Who was it boiled the Easter eggs hard as agates, which you gave to my poor brother Recollets for the use of our convent? Tell me that, pray! All the salts and senna in Quebec have not sufficed to restore the digestion of my poor monks since you played that trick upon them down in your misnamed village of Beauport!”

“Pardon, Reverend Father de Berey!” replied a smiling habitan, “it was not we, but the sacrilegious canaille of St. Anne who boiled the Easter eggs! If you don't believe us, send some of the good Gray Friars down to try our love. See if they do not find everything soft for them at Beauport, from our hearts to our feather beds, to say nothing of our eggs and bacon. Our good wives are fairly melting with longing for a sight of the gray gowns of St. Francis once more in our village.”

“Oh! I dare be bound the canaille of St. Anne are lost dogs like yourselves--catuli catulorum.”

The habitans thought this sounded like a doxology, and some crossed themselves, amid the dubious laughter of others, who suspected Father de Berey of a clerical jest.

“Oh!” continued he, “if fat Father Ambrose, the cook of the convent, only had you, one at a time, to turn the spit for him, in place of the poor dogs of Quebec, which he has to catch as best he can, and set to work in his kitchen! but, vagabonds that you are, you are rarely set to work now on the King's corvée--all work, little play, and no pay!”

The men took his raillery in excellent part, and one, their spokesman, bowing low to the Superior, said,--“Forgive us all the same, good Father. The hard eggs of Beauport will be soft as lard compared with the iron shells we are preparing for the English breakfast when they shall appear some fine morning before Quebec.”

“Ah, well, in that case I must pardon the trick you played upon Brothers Mark and Alexis; and I give you my blessing, too, on condition you send some salt to our convent to cure our fish, and save your reputations, which are very stale just now among my good Recollets.”

A general laugh followed this sally, and the Reverend Superior went off merrily, as he hastened to catch up with the Governor, who had moved on to another point in the line of fortifications.

Near the gate of St. John they found a couple of ladies, encouraging by their presence and kind words a numerous party of habitans,--one an elderly lady of noble bearing and still beautiful, the rich and powerful feudal Lady of the Lordship, or Seigniory, of Tilly; the other her orphan niece, in the bloom of youth, and of surpassing loveliness, the fair Amélie de Repentigny, who had loyally accompanied her aunt to the capital with all the men of the Seigniory of Tilly, to assist in the completion of its defences.

To features which looked as if chiselled out of the purest Parian marble, just flushed with the glow of morn, and cut in those perfect lines of proportion which nature only bestows on a few chosen favorites at intervals to show the possibilities of feminine beauty, Amélie de Repentigny added a figure which, in its perfect symmetry, looked smaller than it really was, for she was a tall girl: it filled the eye and held fast the fancy with the charms of a thousand graces as she moved or stood, suggestive of the beauty of a tame fawn, that in all its movements preserves somewhat of the coyness and easy grace of its free life.

Her hair was very dark and thick, matching her deep liquid eyes, that lay for the most part so quietly and restfully beneath their long shading lashes,--eyes gentle, frank, and modest, looking tenderly on all things innocent, fearlessly on all things harmful; eyes that nevertheless noted every change of your countenance, and read unerringly your meaning more from your looks than from your words. Nothing seemed to hide itself from that pure, searching glance when she chose to look at you.

In their depths you might read the tokens of a rare and noble character--a capability of loving which, once enkindled by a worthy object, might make all things that are possible to devoted womanhood possible to this woman, who would not count her life anything either for the man she loved or the cause she espoused. Amélie de Repentigny will not yield her heart without her judgment; but when she does, it will be a royal gift--never to be recalled, never to be repented of, to the end of her life. Happy the man upon whom she shall bestow her affection! It will be his forever. Unhappy all others who may love her! She may pity, but she will listen to no voice but the one which rules her heart, to her life's end!

Both ladies were in mourning, yet dressed with elegant simplicity, befitting their rank and position in society. The Chevalier Le Gardeur de Tilly had fallen two years ago, fighting gallantly for his King and country, leaving a childless widow to manage his vast domain and succeed him as sole guardian of their orphan niece, Amélie de Repentigny, and her brother Le Gardeur, left in infancy to the care of their noble relatives, who in every respect treated them as their own, and who indeed were the legal inheritors of the Lordship of Tilly.

Only a year ago, Amélie had left the ancient Convent of the Ursulines, perfected in all the graces and accomplishments taught in the famous cloister founded by Mère Marie de l'Incarnation for the education of the daughters of New France, generation after generation of whom were trained, according to her precepts, in graces of manner as well as in the learning of the age--the latter might be forgotten; the former, never. As they became the wives and mothers of succeeding times, they have left upon their descendants an impress of politeness and urbanity that distinguishes the people of Canada to this day.

Of all the crowd of fair, eager aspirants contending for honors on the day of examination in the great school, crowns had only been awarded to Amélie and to Angélique des Meloises--two girls equal in beauty, grace, and accomplishments, but unlike in character and in destiny. The currents of their lives ran smoothly together at the beginning. How widely different was to be the ending of them!

The brother of Amélie, Le Gardeur de Repentigny, was her elder by a year--an officer in the King's service, handsome, brave, generous, devoted to his sister and aunt, but not free from some of the vices of the times prevalent among the young men of rank and fortune in the colony, who in dress, luxury, and immorality, strove to imitate the brilliant, dissolute Court of Louis XV.

Amélie passionately loved her brother, and endeavored--not without success, as is the way with women--to blind herself to his faults. She saw him seldom, however, and in her solitary musings in the far-off Manor House of Tilly, she invested him with all the perfections he did and did not possess; and turned a deaf, almost an angry ear, to tales whispered in his disparagement.

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III. A CHATELAINE OF NEW FRANCE

The Governor was surprised and delighted to encounter Lady de Tilly and her fair niece, both of whom were well known to and highly esteemed by him. He and the gentlemen of his suite saluted them with profound respect, not unmingled with chivalrous admiration for noble, high-spirited women.

“My honored Lady de Tilly and Mademoiselle de Repentigny,” said the Governor, hat in hand, “welcome to Quebec. It does not surprise, but it does delight me beyond measure to meet you here at the head of your loyal censitaires. But it is not the first time that the ladies of the House of Tilly have turned out to defend the King's forts against his enemies.”

This he said in allusion to the gallant defence of a fort on the wild Iroquois frontier by a former lady of her house.

“My Lord Count,” replied the lady, with quiet dignity, “'tis no special merit of the house of Tilly to be true to its ancient fame--it could not be otherwise. But your thanks are at this time more due to these loyal habitans, who have so promptly obeyed your proclamation. It is the King's corvée to restore the walls of Quebec, and no Canadian may withhold his hand from it without disgrace.”

“The Chevalier La Corne St. Luc will think us two poor women a weak accession to the garrison,” added she, turning to the Chevalier and cordially offering her hand to the brave old officer, who had been the comrade in arms of her husband and the dearest friend of her family.

“Good blood never fails, my Lady,” returned the Chevalier, warmly grasping her hand. “You out of place here? No! no! you are at home on the ramparts of Quebec, quite as much as in your own drawing-room at Tilly. The walls of Quebec without a Tilly and a Repentigny would be a bad omen indeed, worse than a year without a spring or a summer without roses. But where is my dear goddaughter Amélie?”

As he spoke the old soldier embraced Amélie and kissed her cheek with fatherly effusion. She was a prodigious favorite. “Welcome, Amélie!” said he, “the sight of you is like flowers in June. What a glorious time you have had, growing taller and prettier every day all the time I have been sleeping by camp-fires in the forests of Acadia! But you girls are all alike; why, I hardly knew my own pretty Agathe when I came home. The saucy minx almost kissed my eyes out--to dry the tears of joy in them, she said!”

Amélie blushed deeply at the praises bestowed upon her, yet felt glad to know that her godfather retained all his old affection. “Where is Le Gardeur?” asked he, as she took his arm and walked a few paces apart from the throng.

Amélie colored deeply, and hesitated a moment. “I do not know, godfather! We have not seen Le Gardeur since our arrival.” Then after a nervous silence she added, “I have been told that he is at Beaumanoir, hunting with His Excellency the Intendant.”

La Corne, seeing her embarrassment, understood the reluctance of her avowal, and sympathized with it. An angry light flashed beneath his shaggy eyelashes, but he suppressed his thoughts. He could not help remarking, however, “With the Intendant at Beaumanoir! I could have wished Le Gardeur in better company! No good can come of his intimacy with Bigot; Amélie, you must wean him from it. He should have been in the city to receive you and the Lady de Tilly.”

“So he doubtless would have been, had he known of our coming. We sent word, but he was away when our messenger reached the city.”

Amélie felt half ashamed, for she was conscious that she was offering something unreal to extenuate the fault of her brother--her hopes rather than her convictions.

“Well, well! goddaughter! we shall, at any rate, soon have the pleasure of seeing Le Gardeur. The Intendant himself has been summoned to attend a council of war today. Colonel Philibert left an hour ago for Beaumanoir.”

Amélie gave a slight start at the name; she looked inquiringly, but did not yet ask the question that trembled on her lips.

“Thanks, godfather, for the good news of Le Gardeur's speedy return.” Amélie talked on, her thoughts but little accompanying her words as she repeated to herself the name of Philibert. “Have you heard that the Intendant wishes to bestow an important and honorable post in the Palace upon Le Gardeur--my brother wrote to that effect?”

“An important and honorable post in the Palace?” The old soldier emphasized the word HONORABLE. “No, I had not heard of it,--never expect to hear of an honorable post in the company of Bigot, Cadet, Varin, De Pean, and the rest of the scoundrels of the Friponne! Pardon me, dear, I do not class Le Gardeur among them, far from it, dear deluded boy! My best hope is that Colonel Philibert will find him and bring him clean and clear out of their clutches.”

The question that had trembled on her lips came out now. For her life she could not have retained it longer.

“Who is Colonel Philibert, godfather?” asked she, surprise, curiosity, and a still deeper interest marking her voice, in spite of all she could do to appear indifferent.

“Colonel Philibert?” repeated La Corne. “Why, do not you know? Who but our young Pierre Philibert; you have not forgotten him, surely, Amélie? At any rate he has not forgotten you: in many a long night by our watch-fires in the forest has Colonel Philibert passed the hours talking of Tilly and the dear friends he left there. Your brother at any rate will gratefully remember Philibert when he sees him.”

Amélie blushed a little as she replied somewhat shyly, “Yes, godfather, I remember Pierre Philibert very well,--with gratitude I remember him,--but I never heard him called Colonel Philibert before.”

“Oh, true! He has been so long absent. He left a simple ensign en second and returns a colonel, and has the stuff in him to make a field-marshal! He gained his rank where he won his glory--in Acadia. A noble fellow, Amélie! loving as a woman to his friends, but to his foes stern as the old Bourgeois, his father, who placed that tablet of the golden dog upon the front of his house to spite the Cardinal, they say,--the act of a bold man, let what will be the true interpretation of it.”

“I hear every one speak well of the Bourgeois Philibert,” remarked Amélie. “Aunt de Tilly is ever enthusiastic in his commendation. She says he is a true gentleman, although a trader.”

“Why, he is noble by birth, if that be needed, and has got the King's license to trade in the Colony like some other gentlemen I wot of. He was Count Philibert in Normandy, although he is plain Bourgeois Philibert in Quebec; and a wise man he is too, for with his ships and his comptoirs and his ledgers he has traded himself into being the richest man in New France, while we, with our nobility and our swords, have fought ourselves poor, and receive nothing but contempt from the ungrateful courtiers of Versailles.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden rush of people, making room for the passage of the Regiment of Béarn, which composed part of the garrison of Quebec, on their march to their morning drill and guard-mounting,--bold, dashing Gascons in blue and white uniforms, tall caps, and long queues rollicking down their supple backs, seldom seen by an enemy.

Mounted officers, laced and ruffled, gaily rode in front. Subalterns with spontoons and sergeants with halberds dressed the long line of glistening bayonets. The drums and fifes made the streets ring again, while the men in full chorus, à gorge deployée, chanted the gay refrain of La Belle Canadienne in honor of the lasses of Quebec.

The Governor and his suite had already mounted their horses, and cantered off to the Esplanade to witness the review.

“Come and dine with us today,” said the Lady de Tilly to La Corne St. Luc, as he too bade the ladies a courteous adieu, and got on horseback to ride after the Governor.

“Many thanks! but I fear it will be impossible, my Lady: the council of war meets at the Castle this afternoon. The hour may be deferred, however, should Colonel Philibert not chance to find the Intendant at Beaumanoir, and then I might come; but best not expect me.”

A slight, conscious flush just touched the cheek of Amélie at the mention of Colonel Philibert.

“But come if possible, godfather,” added she; “we hope to have Le Gardeur home this afternoon. He loves you so much, and I know you have countless things to say to him.”

Amélie's trembling anxiety about her brother made her most desirous to bring the powerful influence of La Corne St. Luc to bear upon him.

Their kind old godfather was regarded with filial reverence by both. Amélie's father, dying on the battle-field, had, with his latest breath, commended the care of his children to the love and friendship of La Corne St. Luc.

“Well, Amélie, blessed are they who do not promise and still perform. I must try and meet my dear boy, so do not quite place me among the impossibles. Good-by, my Lady. Good-by, Amélie.” The old soldier gaily kissed his hand and rode away.

Amélie was thoroughly surprised and agitated out of all composure by the news of the return of Pierre Philibert. She turned aside from the busy throng that surrounded her, leaving her aunt engaged in eager conversation with the Bishop and Father de Berey. She sat down in a quiet embrasure of the wall, and with one hand resting her drooping cheek, a train of reminiscences flew across her mind like a flight of pure doves suddenly startled out of a thicket.

She remembered vividly Pierre Philibert, the friend and fellow-student of her brother: he spent so many of his holidays at the old Manor-House of Tilly, when she, a still younger girl, shared their sports, wove chaplets of flowers for them, or on her shaggy pony rode with them on many a scamper through the wild woods of the Seigniory. Those summer and winter vacations of the old Seminary of Quebec used to be looked forward to by the young, lively girl as the brightest spots in the whole year, and she grew hardly to distinguish the affection she bore her brother from the regard in which she held Pierre Philibert.

A startling incident happened one day, that filled the inmates of the Manor House with terror, followed by a great joy, and which raised Pierre Philibert to the rank of an unparalleled hero in the imagination of the young girl.

Her brother was gambolling carelessly in a canoe, while she and Pierre sat on the bank watching him. The light craft suddenly upset. Le Gardeur struggled for a few moments, and sank under the blue waves that look so beautiful and are so cruel.

Amélie shrieked in the wildest terror and in helpless agony, while Philibert rushed without hesitation into the water, swam out to the spot, and dived with the agility of a beaver. He presently reappeared, bearing the inanimate body of her brother to the shore. Help was soon obtained, and, after long efforts to restore Le Gardeur to consciousness,--efforts which seemed to last an age to the despairing girl,--they at last succeeded, and Le Gardeur was restored to the arms of his family. Amélie, in a delirium of joy and gratitude, ran to Philibert, threw her arms round him, and kissed him again and again, pledging her eternal gratitude to the preserver of her brother, and vowing that she would pray for him to her life's end.

Soon after that memorable event in her young life, Pierre Philibert was sent to the great military schools in France to study the art of war with a view to entering the King's service, while Amélie was placed in the Convent of the Ursulines to be perfected in all the knowledge and accomplishments of a lady of highest rank in the Colony.

Despite the cold shade of a cloister, where the idea of a lover is forbidden to enter, the image of Pierre Philibert did intrude, and became inseparable from the recollection of her brother in the mind of Amélie. He mingled as the fairy prince in the day-dreams and bright imaginings of the young, poetic girl. She had vowed to pray for him to her life's end, and in pursuance of her vow added a golden bead to her chaplet to remind her of her duty in praying for the safety and happiness of Pierre Philibert.

But in the quiet life of the cloister, Amélie heard little of the storms of war upon the frontier and down in the far valleys of Acadia. She had not followed the career of Pierre from the military school to the camp and the battlefield, nor knew of his rapid promotion, as one of the ablest officers in the King's service, to a high command in his native Colony.

Her surprise, therefore, was extreme when she learned that the boy companion of her brother and herself was no other than the renowned Colonel Philibert, Aide-de-Camp of His Excellency the Governor-General.

There was no cause for shame in it; but her heart was suddenly illuminated by a flash of introspection. She became painfully conscious how much Pierre Philibert had occupied her thoughts for years, and now all at once she knew he was a man, and a great and noble one. She was thoroughly perplexed and half angry. She questioned herself sharply, as if running thorns into her flesh, to inquire whether she had failed in the least point of maidenly modesty and reserve in thinking so much of him; and the more she questioned herself, the more agitated she grew under her self-accusation: her temples throbbed violently; she hardly dared lift her eyes from the ground lest some one, even a stranger, she thought, might see her confusion and read its cause. “Sancta Maria,” she murmured, pressing her bosom with both hands, “calm my soul with thy divine peace, for I know not what to do!”

So she sat alone in the embrasure, living a life of emotion in a few minutes; nor did she find any calm for her agitated spirits until the thought flashed upon her that she was distressing herself needlessly. It was most improbable that Colonel Philibert, after years of absence and active life in the world's great affairs, could retain any recollection of the schoolgirl of the Manor House of Tilly. She might meet him, nay, was certain to do so in the society in which both moved; but it would surely be as a stranger on his part, and she must make it so on her own.

With this empty piece of casuistry, Amélie, like others of her sex, placed a hand of steel, encased in a silken glove, upon her heart, and tyrannically suppressed its yearnings. She was a victim, with the outward show of conquest over her feelings. In the consciousness of Philibert's imagined indifference and utter forgetfulness, she could meet him now, she thought, with equanimity--nay, rather wished to do so, to make sure that she had not been guilty of weakness in regard to him. She looked up, but was glad to see her aunt still engaged in conversation with the Bishop on a topic which Amélie knew was dear to them both,--the care of the souls and bodies of the poor, in particular those for whom the Lady de Tilly felt herself responsible to God and the King.

While Amélie sat thinking over the strange chances of the morning, a sudden whirl of wheels drew her attention.

A gay calèche, drawn by two spirited horses en flèche, dashed through the gateway of St. John, and wheeling swiftly towards Amélie, suddenly halted. A young lady attired in the gayest fashion of the period, throwing the reins to the groom, sprang out of the calèche with the ease and elasticity of an antelope. She ran up the rampart to Amélie with a glad cry of recognition, repeating her name in a clear, musical voice, which Amélie at once knew belonged to no other than the gay, beautiful Angélique des Meloises. The newcomer embraced Amélie and kissed her, with warmest expressions of joy at meeting her thus unexpectedly in the city. She had learned that Lady de Tilly had returned to Quebec, she said, and she had, therefore, taken the earliest opportunity to find out her dear friend and school-fellow to tell her all the doings in the city.

“It is kind of you, Angélique,” replied Amélie, returning her caress warmly, but without effusion. “We have simply come with our people to assist in the King's corvée; when that is done, we shall return to Tilly. I felt sure I should meet you, and thought I should know you again easily, which I hardly do. How you are changed--for the better, I should say, since you left off conventual cap and costume!” Amélie could not but look admiringly on the beauty of the radiant girl. “How handsome you have grown! but you were always that. We both took the crown of honor together, but you would alone take the crown of beauty, Angélique.” Amélie stood off a pace or two, and looked at her friend from head to foot with honest admiration, “and would deserve to wear it too,” added she.

“I like to hear you say that, Amélie; I should prefer the crown of beauty to all other crowns! You half smile at that, but I must tell the truth, if you do. But you were always a truth-teller, you know, in the convent, and I was not so! Let us cease flatteries.”

Angélique felt highly flattered by the praise of Amélie, whom she had sometimes condescended to envy for her graceful figure and lovely, expressive features.

“Gentlemen often speak as you do, Amélie,” continued she, “but, pshaw! they cannot judge as girls do, you know. But do you really think me beautiful? and how beautiful? Compare me to some one we know.”

“I can only compare you to yourself, Angélique. You are more beautiful than any one I know,” Amélie burst out in frank enthusiasm.

“But, really and truly, do you think me beautiful, not only in your eyes, but in the judgment of the world?”

Angélique brushed back her glorious hair and stared fixedly in the face of her friend, as if seeking confirmation of something in her own thoughts.

“What a strange question, Angélique! Why do you ask me in that way?”

“Because,” replied she with bitterness, “I begin to doubt it. I have been praised for my good looks until I grow weary of the iteration; but I believed the lying flattery once,--as what woman would not, when it is repeated every day of her life?”

Amélie looked sufficiently puzzled. “What has come over you, Angélique? Why should you doubt your own charms? or really, have you found at last a case in which they fail you?”

Very unlikely, a man would say at first, second, or third sight of Angélique des Meloises. She was indeed a fair girl to look upon,--tall, and fashioned in nature's most voluptuous mould, perfect in the symmetry of every part, with an ease and beauty of movement not suggestive of spiritual graces, like Amélie's, but of terrestrial witcheries, like those great women of old who drew down the very gods from Olympus, and who in all ages have incited men to the noblest deeds, or tempted them to the greatest crimes.

She was beautiful of that rare type of beauty which is only reproduced once or twice in a century to realize the dreams of a Titian or a Giorgione. Her complexion was clear and radiant, as of a descendant of the Sun God. Her bright hair, if its golden ripples were shaken out, would reach to her knees. Her face was worthy of immortality by the pencil of a Titian. Her dark eyes drew with a magnetism which attracted men, in spite of themselves, whithersoever she would lead them. They were never so dangerous as when, in apparent repose, they sheathed their fascination for a moment, and suddenly shot a backward glance, like a Parthian arrow, from under their long eyelashes, that left a wound to be sighed over for many a day.

The spoiled and petted child of the brave, careless Renaud d'Avesne des Meloises, of an ancient family in the Nivernois, Angélique grew up a motherless girl, clever above most of her companions, conscious of superior charms, always admired and flattered, and, since she left the Convent, worshipped as the idol of the gay gallants of the city, and the despair and envy of her own sex. She was a born sovereign of men, and she felt it. It was her divine right to be preferred. She trod the earth with dainty feet, and a step aspiring as that of the fair Louise de La Vallière when she danced in the royal ballet in the forest of Fontainebleau and stole a king's heart by the flashes of her pretty feet. Angélique had been indulged by her father in every caprice, and in the gay world inhaled the incense of adulation until she regarded it as her right, and resented passionately when it was withheld.

She was not by nature bad, although vain, selfish, and aspiring. Her footstool was the hearts of men, and upon it she set hard her beautiful feet, indifferent to the anguish caused by her capricious tyranny. She was cold and calculating under the warm passions of a voluptuous nature. Although many might believe they had won the favor, none felt sure they had gained the love of this fair, capricious girl.

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IV. CONFIDENCES

Angélique took the arm of Amélie in her old, familiar schoolgirl way, and led her to the sunny corner of a bastion where lay a dismounted cannon.

The girls sat down upon the old gun. Angélique held Amélie by both hands, as if hesitating how to express something she wished to say. Still, when Angélique did speak, it was plain to Amélie that she had other things on her mind than what her tongue gave loose to.

“Now we are quite alone, Amélie,” said she, “we can talk as we used to do in our school-days. You have not been in the city during the whole summer, and have missed all its gaieties?”

“I was well content. How beautiful the country looks from here!” replied Amélie. “How much pleasanter to be in it, revelling among the flowers and under the trees! I like to touch the country as well as to look at it from a distance, as you do in Quebec.”

“Well, I never care for the country if I can only get enough of the city. Quebec was never so gay as it has been this year. The Royal Roussillon, and the freshly arrived regiments of Béarn and Ponthieu, have turned the heads of all Quebec,--of the girls, that is. Gallants have been plenty as bilberries in August. And you may be sure I got my share, Amélie.” Angélique laughed aloud at some secret reminiscences of her summer campaign.

“It is well that I did not come to the city, Angélique, to get my head turned like the rest; but now that I am here, suppose I should mercifully try to heal some of the hearts you have broken!”

“I hope you won't try. Those bright eyes of yours would heal too effectually the wounds made by mine, and that is not what I desire,” replied Angélique, laughing.

“No! then your heart is more cruel than your eyes. But, tell me, who have been your victims this year, Angélique?”

“Well, to be frank, Amélie, I have tried my fascinations upon the King's officers very impartially, and with fair success. There have been three duels, two deaths, and one captain of the Royal Roussillon turned cordelier for my sake. Is that not a fair return for my labor?”

“You are shocking as ever, Angélique! I do not believe you feel proud of such triumphs,” exclaimed Amélie.

“Proud, no! I am not proud of conquering men. That is easy! My triumphs are over the women! And the way to triumph over them is to subdue the men. You know my old rival at school, the haughty Françoise de Lantagnac: I owed her a grudge, and she has put on the black veil for life, instead of the white one and orange-blossoms for a day! I only meant to frighten her, however, when I stole her lover, but she took it to heart and went into the Convent. It was dangerous for her to challenge Angélique des Meloises to test the fidelity of her affianced, Julien de St. Croix.”

Amélie rose up in honest indignation, her cheek burning like a coal of fire. “I know your wild talk of old, Angélique, but I will not believe you are so wicked as to make deadly sport of our holiest affections.”

“Ah, if you knew men as I do, Amélie, you would think it no sin to punish them for their perjuries.”

“No, I don't know men,” replied Amélie, “but I think a noble man is, after God, the worthiest object of a woman's devotion. We were better dead than finding amusement in the pain of those who love us; pray what became of Julien de St. Croix after you broke up his intended marriage with poor Françoise?”

“Oh! I threw him to the fishes! What did I care for him? It was mainly to punish Françoise's presumption that I showed my power and made him fight that desperate duel with Captain Le Franc.”

“O Angélique, how could you be so unutterably wicked?”

“Wicked? It was not my fault, you know, that he was killed. He was my champion, and ought to have come off victor. I wore a black ribbon for him a full half-year, and had the credit of being devoted to his memory; I had my triumph in that if in nothing else.”

“Your triumph! for shame, Angélique! I will not listen to you: you profane the very name of love by uttering such sentiments. The gift of so much beauty was for blessing, not for pain. St. Mary pray for you, Angélique: you need her prayers!” Amélie rose up suddenly.

“Nay, do not get angry and go off that way, Amélie,” ejaculated Angélique. “I will do penance for my triumphs by relating my defeats, and my special failure of all, which I know you will rejoice to hear.”

“I, Angélique? What have your triumphs or failures to do with me? No, I care not to hear.” Angélique held her half forcibly by the scarf.

“But you will care when I tell you that I met an old and valued friend of yours last night at the Castle--the new Aide-de-Camp of the Governor, Colonel Philibert. I think I have heard you speak of Pierre Philibert in the Convent, Amélie?”

Amélie felt the net thrown over her by the skilful retiaria. She stood stock-still in mute surprise, with averted eye and deeply blushing cheek, fighting desperately with the confusion she feared to let Angélique detect. But that keen-sighted girl saw too clearly--she had caught her fast as a bird is caught by the fowler.

“Yes, I met with a double defeat last night,” continued Angélique.

“Indeed! pray, from whom?” Amélie's curiosity, though not usually a troublesome quality, was by this time fairly roused.

Angélique saw her drift, and played with her anxiety for a few moments.

“My first rebuff was from that gentlemanly philosopher from Sweden, a great friend of the Governor, you know. But, alas, I might as well have tried to fascinate an iceberg! I do not believe that he knew, after a half-hour's conversation with me, whether I was man or woman. That was defeat number one.”

“And what was number two?” Amélie was now thoroughly interested in Angélique's gossip.

“I left the dry, unappreciative philosopher, and devoted myself to charm the handsome Colonel Philibert. He was all wit and courtesy, but my failure was even more signal with him than with the cold Swede.”

Amélie's eyes gave a sparkle of joy, which did not escape Angélique, but she pretended not to see it. “How was that? Tell me, pray, how you failed with Colonel Philibert?”

“My cause of failure would not be a lesson for you, Amélie. Listen! I got a speedy introduction to Colonel Philibert, who, I confess, is one of the handsomest men I ever saw. I was bent on attracting him.”

“For shame, Angélique! How could you confess to aught so unwomanly!” There was a warmth in Amélie's tone that was less noticed by herself than by her companion.

“Well, it is my way of conquering the King's army. I shot my whole quiver of arrows at Colonel Philibert, but, to my chagrin, hit not a vital part! He parried every one, and returned them broken at my feet. His persistent questioning about yourself, as soon as he discovered we had been school companions at the Convent, quite foiled me. He was full of interest about you, and all that concerned you, but cared not a fig about me!”

“What could Colonel Philibert have to ask you about me?” Amélie unconsciously drew closer to her companion, and even clasped her arm by an involuntary movement which did not escape her friend.

“Why, he asked everything a gentleman could, with proper respect, ask about a lady.”

“And what did you say?”

“Oh, not half enough to content him. I confess I felt piqued that he only looked on me as a sort of pythoness to solve enigmas about you. I had a grim satisfaction in leaving his curiosity irritated, but not satisfied. I praised your beauty, goodness, and cleverness up to the skies, however. I was not untrue to old friendship, Amélie!” Angélique kissed her friend on the cheek, who silently allowed what, in her indignation a few moments ago, she would have refused.

“But what said Colonel Philibert of himself? Never mind about me.”

“Oh, impatient that you are! He said nothing of himself. He was absorbed in my stories concerning you. I told him as pretty a fable as La Fontaine related of the Avare qui avait perdu son trésor! I said you were a beautiful chatelaine besieged by an army of lovers, but the knight errant Fortunatus had alone won your favor, and would receive your hand! The brave Colonel! I could see he winced at this. His steel cuirass was not invulnerable. I drew blood, which is more than you would have dared to do, Amélie! But I discovered the truth hidden in his heart. He is in love with you, Amélie de Repentigny!”

“Mad girl! How could you? How dare you speak so of me? What must Colonel Philibert think?”

“Think? He thinks you must be the most perfect of your sex! Why, his mind was made up about you, Amélie, before he said a word to me. Indeed, he only just wanted to enjoy the supernal pleasure of hearing me sing the praises of Amélie De Repentigny to the tune composed by himself.”

“Which you seem to have done, Angélique!”

“As musically as Mère St. Borgia when singing vespers in the Ursulines,” was Angélique's flippant reply.

Amélie knew how useless it was to expostulate. She swallowed her mingled pleasure and vexation salt with tears she could not help. She changed the subject by a violent wrench, and asked Angélique when she had last seen Le Gardeur.

“At the Intendant's levee the other day. How like you he is, too, only less amiable!”

Angélique did not respond readily to her friend's question about her brother.

“Less amiable? that is not like my brother. Why do you think him less amiable than me?”

“Because he got angry with me at the ball given in honor of the arrival of the Intendant, and I have not been able to restore him to perfect good humor with me since.”

“Oh, then Le Gardeur completes the trio of those who are proof against your fascinations?” Amélie was secretly glad to hear of the displeasure of Le Gardeur with Angélique.

“Not at all, I hope, Amélie. I don't place Le Gardeur in the same category with my other admirers. But he got offended because I seemed to neglect him a little to cultivate this gay new Intendant. Do you know him?”

“No; nor wish to! I have heard much said to his disadvantage. The Chevalier La Corne St. Luc has openly expressed his dislike of the Intendant for something that happened in Acadia.”

“Oh, the Chevalier La Corne is always so decided in his likes and dislikes: one must either be very good or very bad to satisfy him!” replied Angélique with a scornful pout of her lips.

“Don't speak ill of my godfather, Angélique; better be profane on any other topic: you know my ideal of manly virtues is the Chevalier La Corne,” replied Amélie.

“Well, I won't pull down your idol, then! I respect the brave old soldier, too; but could wish him with the army in Flanders!”

“Thousands of estimable people augur ill from the accession of the Intendant Bigot in New France, besides the Chevalier La Corne,” Amélie said after a pause. She disliked censuring even the Intendant.

“Yes,” replied Angélique, “the Honnêtes Gens do, who think themselves bound to oppose the Intendant, because he uses the royal authority in a regal way, and makes every one, high and low, do their devoir to Church and State.”

“While he does his devoir to none! But I am no politician, Angélique. But when so many good people call the Intendant a bad man, it behooves one to be circumspect in 'cultivating him,' as you call it.”

“Well, he is rich enough to pay for all the broken pots: they say he amassed untold wealth in Acadia, Amélie!”

“And lost the province for the king!” retorted Amélie, with all the asperity her gentle but patriotic spirit was capable of. “Some say he sold the country.”

“I don't care!” replied the reckless beauty, “he is like Joseph in Egypt, next to Pharaoh in authority. He can shoe his horses with gold! I wish he would shoe me with golden slippers--I would wear them, Amélie!”

Angélique stamped her dainty foot upon the ground, as if in fancy she already had them on.

“It is shocking if you mean it!” remarked Amélie pityingly, for she felt Angélique was speaking her genuine thoughts. “But is it true that the Intendant is really as dissolute as rumor says?”

“I don't care if it be true: he is noble, gallant, polite, rich, and all-powerful at Court. He is reported to be prime favorite of the Marquise de Pompadour. What more do I want?” replied Angélique warmly.

Amélie knew enough by report of the French Court to cause her to shrink instinctively, as from a repulsive insect, at the name of the mistress of Louis XV. She trembled at the thought of Angélique's infatuation, or perversity, in suffering herself to be attracted by the glitter of the vices of the Royal Intendant.

“Angélique!” exclaimed she, “I have heard things of the Intendant that would make me tremble for you, were you in earnest.”

“But I am in earnest! I mean to win and wear the Intendant of New France, to show my superiority over the whole bevy of beauties competing for his hand. There is not a girl in Quebec but would run away with him tomorrow.”

“Fie, Angélique! such a libel upon our sex! You know better. But you cannot love him?”

“Love him? No!” Angélique repeated the denial scornfully. “Love him! I never thought of love and him together! He is not handsome, like your brother Le Gardeur, who is my beau-ideal of a man I could love; nor has the intellect and nobility of Colonel Philibert, who is my model of a heroic man. I could love such men as them. But my ambition would not be content with less than a governor or royal intendant in New France. In old France I would not put up with less than the King himself!”

Angélique laughed at her own extravagance, but she believed in it all the same. Amélie, though shocked at her wildness, could not help smiling at her folly.

“Have you done raving?” said she; “I have no right to question your selection of a lover or doubt your power, Angélique. But are you sure there exists no insurmountable obstacle to oppose these high aspirations? It is whispered that the Intendant has a wife, whom he keeps in the seclusion of Beaumanoir. Is that true?”

The words burnt like fire. Angélique's eyes flashed out daggers. She clenched her delicate hands until her nails drew blood from her velvet palms. Her frame quivered with suppressed passion. She grasped her companion fiercely by the arm, exclaiming,--“You have hit the secret now, Amélie! It was to speak of that I sought you out this morning, for I know you are wise, discreet, and every way better than I. It is all true what I have said, and more too, Amélie. Listen! The Intendant has made love to me with pointed gallantry that could have no other meaning but that he honorably sought my hand. He has made me talked of and hated by my own sex, who envied his preference of me. I was living in the most gorgeous of fool's paradises, when a bird brought to my ear the astounding news that a woman, beautiful as Diana, had been found in the forest of Beaumanoir by some Hurons of Lorette, who were out hunting with the Intendant. She was accompanied by a few Indians of a strange tribe, the Abenaquais of Acadia. The woman was utterly exhausted by fatigue, and lay asleep on a couch of dry leaves under a tree, when the astonished Hurons led the Intendant to the spot where she lay.

“Don't interrupt me, Amélie; I see you are amazed, but let me go on!” She held the hands of her companion firmly in her lap as she proceeded:

“The Intendant was startled out of all composure at the apparition of the sleeping lady. He spoke eagerly to the Abenaquais in their own tongue, which was unintelligible to the Hurons. When he had listened to a few words of their explanation, he ran hastily to the lady, kissed her, called her by name, 'Caroline!' She woke up suddenly, and recognizing the Intendant, embraced him, crying 'François! 'François!' and fainted in his arms.

“The Chevalier was profoundly agitated, blessing and banning, in the same breath, the fortune that had led her to him. He gave her wine, restored her to consciousness, talked with her long, and sometimes angrily; but to no avail, for the woman, in accents of despair, exclaimed in French, which the Hurons understood, that the Intendant might kill and bury her there, but she would never, never return home any more.”

Angélique scarcely took breath as she continued her eager recital.

“The Intendant, overpowered either by love of her or fear of her, ceased his remonstrances. He gave some pieces of gold to the Abenaquais, and dismissed them. The strange Indians kissed her on both hands as they would a queen, and with many adieus vanished into the forest. The lady, attended by Bigot, remained seated under the tree till nightfall, when he conducted her secretly to the Château, where she still remains in perfect seclusion in a secret chamber, they say, and has been seen by none save one or two of the Intendant's most intimate companions.”

“Heavens! what a tale of romance! How learned you all this, Angélique?” exclaimed Amélie, who had listened with breathless attention to the narrative.

“Oh, partly from a hint from a Huron girl, and the rest from the Intendant's Secretary. Men cannot keep secrets that women are interested in knowing! I could make De Pean talk the Intendant's head off his shoulders, if I had him an hour in my confessional. But all my ingenuity could not extract from him what he did not know--who that mysterious lady is, her name and family.”

“Could the Huron hunters give no guess?” asked Amélie, thoroughly interested in Angélique's story.

“No. They learned by signs, however, from the Abenaquais, that she was a lady of a noble family in Acadia which had mingled its patrician blood with that of the native chiefs and possessors of the soil. The Abenaquais were chary of their information, however: they would only say she was a great white lady, and as good as any saint in the calendar.”

“I would give five years of my life to know who and what that woman is!” Angélique added, as she leaned over the parapet, gazing intently at the great forest that lay beyond Charlebourg, in which was concealed the Château of Beaumanoir.

“It is a strange mystery. But I would not seek to unravel it, Angélique,” remarked Amélie, “I feel there is sin in it. Do not touch it: it will only bring mischief upon you if you do!”

“Mischief! So be it! But I will know the worst! The Intendant is deceiving me! Woe be to him and her if I am to be their intended victim! Will you not assist me, Amélie, to discover the truth of this secret?”

“I? how can I? I pity you, Angélique, but it were better to leave this Intendant to his own devices.”

“You can very easily help me if you will. Le Gardeur must know this secret. He must have seen the woman--but he is angry with me, for--for--slighting him--as he thinks--but he was wrong. I could not avow to him my jealousy in this matter. He told me just enough to madden me, and angrily refused to tell the rest when he saw me so infatuated--he called it--over other people's love affairs. Oh, Amélie, Le Gardeur will tell you all if you ask him!”

“And I repeat it to you, Angélique, I cannot question Le Gardeur on such a hateful topic. At any rate I need time to reflect, and will pray to be guided right.”

“Oh, pray not at all! If you pray you will never aid me! I know you will say the end is wicked and the means dishonorable. But find out I will--and speedily! It will only be the price of another dance with the Chevalier de Pean, to discover all I want. What fools men are when they believe we love them for their sakes and not for our own!”

Amélie, pitying the wild humors, as she regarded them, of her old school companion, took her arm to walk to and fro in the bastion, but was not sorry to see her aunt and the Bishop and Father de Berey approaching.

“Quick,” said she to Angélique, “smooth your hair, and compose your looks. Here comes my aunt and the Bishop--Father de Berey too!”

Angélique prepared at once to meet them, and with her wonderful power of adaptation transformed herself in a moment into a merry creature, all light and gaiety. She saluted the Lady de Tilly and the reverend Bishop in the frankest manner, and at once accepted an interchange of wit and laughter with Father de Berey.

“She could not remain long, however, in the Church's company,” she said, “she had her morning calls to finish.” She kissed the cheek of Amélie and the hand of the Lady de Tilly, and with a coquettish courtesy to the gentlemen, leaped nimbly into her calèche, whirled round her spirited horses like a practised charioteer, and drove with rapid pace down the crowded street of St. John, the observed of all observers, the admiration of the men and the envy of the women as she flashed by.

Amélie and the Lady de Tilly, having seen a plenteous meal distributed among their people, proceeded to their city home--their seigniorial residence, when they chose to live in the capital.

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V. THE ITINERANT NOTARY

Master Jean Le Nocher the sturdy ferryman's patience had been severely tried for a few days back, passing the troops of habitans over the St. Charles to the city of Quebec. Being on the King's corvée, they claimed the privilege of all persons in the royal service: they travelled toll-free, and paid Jean with a nod or a jest in place of the small coin which that worthy used to exact on ordinary occasions.

This morning had begun auspiciously for Jean's temper however. A King's officer, on a gray charger, had just crossed the ferry; and without claiming the exemption from toll which was the right of all wearing the King's uniform, the officer had paid Jean more than his fee in solid coin and rode on his way, after a few kind words to the ferryman and a polite salute to his wife Babet, who stood courtesying at the door of their cottage.

“A noble gentleman that, and a real one!” exclaimed Jean, to his buxom, pretty wife, “and as generous as a prince! See what he has given me.” Jean flipped up a piece of silver admiringly, and then threw it into the apron of Babet, which she spread out to catch it.

Babet rubbed the silver piece caressingly between her fingers and upon her cheek. “It is easy to see that handsome officer is from the Castle,” said Babet, “and not from the Palace--and so nice-looking he is too, with such a sparkle in his eye and a pleasant smile on his mouth. He is as good as he looks, or I am no judge of men.”

“And you are an excellent judge of men, I know, Babet,” he replied, “or you would never have taken me!” Jean chuckled richly over his own wit, which Babet nodded lively approval to. “Yes, I know a hawk from a handsaw,” replied Babet, “and a woman who is as wise as that will never mistake a gentleman, Jean! I have not seen a handsomer officer than that in seven years!”

“He is a pretty fellow enough, I dare say, Babet; who can he be? He rides like a field-marshal too, and that gray horse has ginger in his heels!” remarked Jean, as the officer was riding at a rapid gallop up the long, white road of Charlebourg. “He is going to Beaumanoir, belike, to see the Royal Intendant, who has not returned yet from his hunting party.”

“Whither they went three days ago, to enjoy themselves in the chase and drink themselves blind in the Château while everybody else is summoned to the city to work upon the walls!” replied Babet, scornfully. “I'll be bound that officer has gone to order the gay gallants of the Friponne back to the city to take their share of work with honest people.”

“Ah! the Friponne! The Friponne!” ejaculated Jean. “The foul fiend fly away with the Friponne! My ferryboat is laden every day with the curses of the habitans returning from the Friponne, where they cheat worse than a Basque pedler, and without a grain of his politeness!”

The Friponne, as it was styled in popular parlance, was the immense magazine established by the Grand Company of Traders in New France. It claimed a monopoly in the purchase and sale of all imports and exports in the Colony. Its privileges were based upon royal ordinances and decrees of the Intendant, and its rights enforced in the most arbitrary manner--and to the prejudice of every other mercantile interest in the Colony. As a natural consequence it was cordially hated, and richly deserved the maledictions which generally accompanied the mention of the Friponne--the swindle--a rough and ready epithet which sufficiently indicated the feeling of the people whom it at once cheated and oppressed.

“They say, Jean,” continued Babet, her mind running in a very practical and womanly way upon the price of commodities and good bargains, “they say, Jean, that the Bourgeois Philibert will not give in like the other merchants. He sets the Intendant at defiance, and continues to buy and sell in his own comptoir as he has always done, in spite of the Friponne.”

“Yes, Babet! that is what they say. But I would rather he stood in his own shoes than I in them if he is to fight this Intendant--who is a Tartar, they say.”

“Pshaw, Jean! you have less courage than a woman. All the women are on the side of the good Bourgeois: he is an honest merchant--sells cheap, and cheats nobody!” Babet looked down very complacently upon her new gown, which had been purchased at a great bargain at the magazine of the Bourgeois. She felt rather the more inclined to take this view of the question inasmuch as Jean had grumbled, just a little--he would not do more--at his wife's vanity in buying a gay dress of French fabric, like a city dame, while all the women of the parish were wearing homespun,--grogram, or linsey-woolsey,--whether at church or market.

Jean had not the heart to say another word to Babet about the French gown. In truth, he thought she looked very pretty in it, better than in grogram or in linsey-woolsey, although at double the cost. He only winked knowingly at Babet, and went on to speaking of the Bourgeois.

“They say the King has long hands, but this Intendant has claws longer than Satan. There will be trouble by and by at the Golden Dog--mark that, Babet! It was only the other day the Intendant was conversing with the Sieur Cadet as they crossed the ferry. They forgot me, or thought I did not hear them; but I had my ears open, as I always have. I heard something said, and I hope no harm, will come to the good Bourgeois, that is all!”

“I don't know where Christian folk would deal if anything happened him,” said Babet, reflectively. “We always get civility and good pennyworths at the Golden Dog. Some of the lying cheats of the Friponne talked in my hearing one day about his being a Huguenot. But how can that be, Jean, when he gives the best weight and the longest measure of any merchant in Quebec? Religion is a just yard wand, that is my belief, Jean!”

Jean rubbed his head with a perplexed air. “I do not know whether he be a Huguenot, nor what a Huguenot is. The Curé one day said he was a Jansenist on all fours, which I suppose is the same thing, Babet--and it does not concern either you or me. But a merchant who is a gentleman and kind to poor folk, and gives just measure and honest weight, speaks truth and harms nobody, is Christian enough for me. A bishop could not trade more honestly; and the word of the Bourgeois is as reliable as a king's.”

“The Curé may call the Bourgeois what he likes,” replied Babet, “but there is not another Christian in the city if the good Bourgeois be not one; and next the Church there is not a house in Quebec better known or better liked by all the habitans, than the Golden Dog; and such bargains too, as one gets there!”

“Ay, Babet! a good bargain settles many a knotty point with a woman.”

“And with a man too, if he is wise enough to let his wife do his marketing, as you do, Jean! But whom have we here?” Babet set her arms akimbo and gazed.

A number of hardy fellows came down towards the ferry to seek a passage.

“They are honest habitans of St. Anne,” replied Jean. “I know them; they too are on the King's corvée, and travel free, every man of them! So I must cry Vive le Roi! and pass them over to the city. It is like a holiday when one works for nothing!”

Jean stepped nimbly into his boat, followed by the rough country fellows, who amused themselves by joking at Jean Le Nocher's increasing trade and the need of putting on an extra boat these stirring times. Jean put a good face upon it, laughed, and retorted their quips, and plying his oars, stoutly performed his part in the King's corvée by safely landing them on the other shore.

Meantime the officer who had lately crossed the ferry rode rapidly up the long, straight highway that led up on the side of the mountain to a cluster of white cottages and an old church, surmounted by a belfry whose sweet bells were ringing melodiously in the fresh air of the morning.

The sun was pouring a flood of golden light over the landscape. The still glittering dewdrops hung upon the trees, shrubs, and long points of grass by the wayside. All were dressed with jewels to greet the rising king of day.

The wide, open fields of meadow, and corn-fields, ripening for harvest, stretched far away, unbroken by hedge or fence. Slight ditches or banks of turf, covered with nests of violets, ferns, and wild flowers of every hue, separated contiguous fields. No other division seemed necessary in the mutual good neighborhood that prevailed among the colonists, whose fashion of agriculture had been brought, with many hardy virtues, from the old plains of Normandy.

White-walled, red-roofed cottages, or more substantial farmhouses, stood conspicuously in the green fields, or peered out of embowering orchards. Their casements were open to catch the balmy air, while in not a few the sound of clattering hoofs on the hard road drew fair faces to the window or door, to look inquisitively after the officer wearing the white plume in his military chapeau, as he dashed by on the gallant gray.

Those who caught sight of him saw a man worth seeing--tall, deep-chested, and erect. His Norman features, without being perfect, were handsome and manly. Steel-blue eyes, solidly set under a broad forehead, looked out searchingly yet kindly, while his well-formed chin and firm lips gave an air of resolution to his whole look that accorded perfectly with the brave, loyal character of Colonel Philibert. He wore the royal uniform. His auburn hair he wore tied with a black ribbon. His good taste discarded perukes and powder, although very much in fashion in those days.

It was long since he had travelled on the highway of Charlebourg, and he thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the road he traversed. But behind him, as he knew, lay a magnificent spectacle, the sight of the great promontory of Quebec, crowned with its glorious fortifications and replete with the proudest memories of North America. More than once the young soldier turned his steed, and halted a moment or two to survey the scene with enthusiastic admiration. It was his native city, and the thought that it was threatened by the national enemy roused, like an insult offered to the mother that bore him. He rode onward, more than ever impatient of delay, and not till he passed a cluster of elm trees which reminded him of an adventure of his youth, did the sudden heat pass away, caused by the thought of the threatened invasion.

Under these trees he remembered that he and his school companion, Le Gardeur de Repentigny, had once taken refuge during a violent storm. The tree they stood under was shattered by a thunderbolt. They were both stunned for a few minutes, and knew they had had a narrow escape from death. Neither of them ever forgot it.

A train of thoughts never long absent from the mind of Philibert started up vividly at the sight of these trees. His memory flew back to Le Gardeur and the Manor House of Tilly, and the fair young girl who captivated his boyish fancy and filled his youth with dreams of glorious achievements to win her smiles and do her honor. Among a thousand pictures of her hung up in his mind and secretly worshipped he loved that which presented her likeness on that day when he saved her brother's life and she kissed him in a passion of joy and gratitude, vowing she would pray for him to the end of her life.

The imagination of Pierre Philibert had revelled in the romantic visions that haunt every boy destined to prominence, visions kindled by the eye of woman and the hope of love.

The world is ruled by such dreams, dreams of impassioned hearts, and improvisations of warm lips, not by cold words linked in chains of iron sequence,--by love, not by logic. The heart with its passions, not the understanding with its reasoning, sways, in the long run, the actions of mankind.

Pierre Philibert possessed that rich gift of nature, a creative imagination, in addition to the solid judgment of a man of sense, schooled by experience and used to the considerations and responsibilities of weighty affairs.

His love for Amélie de Repentigny had grown in secret. Its roots reached down to the very depths of his being. It mingled, consciously or unconsciously, with all his motives and plans of life, and yet his hopes were not sanguine. Years of absence, he remembered, work forgetfulness. New ties and associations might have wiped out the memory of him in the mind of a young girl fresh to society and its delights. He experienced a disappointment in not finding her in the city upon his return a few days ago, and the state of the Colony and the stress of military duty had so far prevented his renewing his acquaintance with the Manor House of Tilly.

The old-fashioned hostelry of the Couronne de France, with its high-pitched roof, pointed gables, and broad gallery, stood directly opposite the rustic church and tall belfry of Charlebourg, not as a rival, but as a sort of adjunct to the sacred edifice. The sign of the crown, bright with gilding, swung from the low, projecting arm of a maple-tree, thick with shade and rustling with the beautiful leaves of the emblem of Canada. A few rustic seats under the cool maple were usually occupied, toward the close of the day, or about the ringing of the Angelus, by a little gathering of parishioners from the village, talking over the news of the day, the progress of the war, the ordinances of the Intendant, or the exactions of the Friponne.

On Sundays, after Mass and Vespers, the habitans of all parts of the extended parish naturally met and talked over the affairs of the Fabrique--the value of tithes for the year, the abundance of Easter eggs, and the weight of the first salmon of the season, which was always presented to the Curé with the first-fruits of the field, to ensure the blessing of plenty for the rest of the year.

The Reverend Curé frequently mingled in these discussions. Seated in his accustomed armchair, under the shade of the maple in summer, and in winter by the warm fireside, he defended, ex cathedra, the rights of the Church, and good-humoredly decided all controversies. He found his parishioners more amenable to good advice over a mug of Norman cider and a pipe of native tobacco, under the sign of the Crown of France, than when he lectured them in his best and most learned style from the pulpit.

This morning, however, all was very quiet round the old inn. The birds were singing, and the bees humming in the pleasant sunshine. The house looked clean and tidy, and no one was to be seen except three persons bending over a table, with their heads close together, deeply absorbed in whatever business they were engaged in. Two of these persons were Dame Bédard, the sharp landlady of the Crown of France, and her no less sharp and pretty daughter, Zoë. The third person of the trio was an old, alert-looking little man, writing at the table as if for very life. He wore a tattered black robe, shortened at the knees to facilitate walking, a frizzled wig, looking as if it had been dressed with a currycomb, a pair of black breeches, well-patched with various colors; and gamaches of brown leather, such as the habitans wore, completed his odd attire, and formed the professional costume of Master Pothier dit Robin, the travelling notary, one of that not unuseful order of itinerants of the law which flourished under the old régime in New France.

Upon the table near him stood a black bottle, an empty trencher, and a thick scatter of crumbs, showing that the old notary had despatched a hearty breakfast before commencing his present work of the pen.

A hairy knapsack lay open upon the table near his elbow, disclosing some bundles of dirty papers tied up with red tape, a tattered volume or two of the “Coutume de Paris,” and little more than the covers of an odd tome of Pothier, his great namesake and prime authority in the law. Some linen, dirty and ragged as his law papers, was crammed into his knapsack with them. But that was neither here nor there in the estimation of the habitans, so long as his law smelt strong in the nostrils of their opponents in litigation. They rather prided themselves upon the roughness of their travelling notary.

The reputation of Master Pothier dit Robin was, of course, very great among the habitans, as he travelled from parish to parish and from seigniory to seigniory, drawing bills and hypothecations, marriage contracts and last wills and testaments, for the peasantry, who had a genuine Norman predilection for law and chicanery, and a respect amounting to veneration for written documents, red tape, and sealing-wax. Master Pothier's acuteness in picking holes in the actes of a rival notary was only surpassed by the elaborate intricacy of his own, which he boasted, not without reason, would puzzle the Parliament of Paris, and confound the ingenuity of the sharpest advocates of Rouen. Master Pothier's actes were as full of embryo disputes as a fig is full of seeds, and usually kept all parties in hot water and litigation for the rest of their days. If he did happen now and then to settle a dispute between neighbors, he made ample amends for it by setting half the rest of the parish by the ears.

Master Pothier's nose, sharp and fiery as if dipped in red ink, almost touched the sheet of paper on the table before him, as he wrote down from the dictation of Dame Bédard the articles of a marriage contract between her pretty daughter, Zoë, and Antoine La Chance, the son of a comfortable but keen widow of Beauport.

Dame Bédard had shrewdly availed herself of the presence of Master Pothier, and in payment of a night's lodging at the Crown of France, to have him write out the contract of marriage in the absence of Dame La Chance, the mother of Antoine, who would, of course, object to the insertion of certain conditions in the contract which Dame Bédard was quite determined upon as the price of Zoë's hand and fortune.

“There! Dame Bédard!” cried Master Pothier, sticking the pen behind his ear, after a magnificent flourish at the last word, “there is a marriage contract fit to espouse King Solomon to the Queen of Sheba! A dowry of a hundred livres tournoises, two cows, and a feather bed, bedstead, and chest of linen! A donation entre vifs!”

“A what? Master Pothier, now mind! are you sure that is the right word of the grimoire?” cried Dame Bédard, instinctively perceiving that here lay the very point of the contract. “You know I only give on condition, Master Pothier.”

“Oh, yes! trust me, Dame Bédard. I have made it a donation entre vifs, révocable pour cause d'ingratitude, if your future son-in-law, Antoine la Chance, should fail in his duty to you and to Zoë.”

“And he won't do his duty to Zoë, unless he does it to me, Master Pothier. But are you sure it is strong enough? Will it hold Dame La Chance by the foot, so that she cannot revoke her gifts although I may revoke mine?”

“Hold Dame La Chance by the foot? It will hold her as fast as a snapping-turtle does a frog. In proof of it, see what Ricard says, page 970; here is the book.” Master Pothier opened his tattered volume, and held it up to the dame. She shook her head.

“Thanks, I have mislaid my glasses. Do you read, please!”

“Most cheerfully, good dame! A notary must have eyes for everybody--eyes like a cat's, to see in the dark, and power to draw them in like a turtle, so that he may see nothing that he does not want to see.”

“Oh, bless the eyes of the notary!” Dame Bédard grew impatient. “Tell me what the book says about gifts revocable--that is what concerns me and Zoë.”

“Well, here it is, dame: 'Donations stipulated revocable at the pleasure of the donor are null. But this condition does not apply to donations by contract of marriage.' Bourdon also says--”

“A fig for Bourdon, and all such drones! I want my gift made revocable, and Dame La Chance's not! I know by long experience with my dear feu Bédard how necessary it is to hold the reins tight over the men. Antoine is a good boy, but he will be all the better for a careful mother-in-law's supervision.”

Master Pothier rubbed the top of his wig with his forefinger.

“Are you sure, dame, that Antoine La Chance will wear the bridle easily?”

“Assuredly! I should like to see son-in-law of mine who would not! Besides, Antoine is in the humor just now to refuse nothing for sake of Zoë. Have you mentioned the children, Master Pothier? I do not intend to let Dame La Chance control the children any more than Zoë and Antoine.”

“I have made you tutrice perpetuelle, as we say in the court, and here it is,” said he, placing the tip of his finger on a certain line in the document.

Zoë looked down and blushed to her finger-ends. She presently rallied, and said with some spirit,--“Never mind them, Master Pothier! Don't put them in the contract! Let Antoine have something to say about them. He would take me without a dower, I know, and time enough to remind him about children when they come.”

“Take you without dower! Zoë Bédard! you must be mad!” exclaimed the dame, in great heat. “No girl in New France can marry without a dower, if it be only a pot and a bedstead! You forget, too, that the dower is given, not so much for you, as to keep up the credit of the family. As well be married without a ring! Without a dower, indeed!”

“Or without a contract written by a notary, signed, sealed, and delivered!” chimed in Master Pothier.

“Yes, Master Pothier, and I have promised Zoë a three-days wedding, which will make her the envy of all the parish of Charlebourg. The seigneur has consented to give her away in place of her poor defunct father; and when he does that he is sure to stand godfather for all the children, with a present for every one of them! I shall invite you too, Master Pothier!”

Zoë affected not to hear her mother's remark, although she knew it all by heart, for it had been dinned into her ears twenty times a day for weeks, and sooth to say, she liked to hear it, and fully appreciated the honors to come from the patronage of the seigneur.

Master Pothier pricked up his ears till they fairly raised his wig, at the prospect of a three days wedding at the Crown of France. He began an elaborate reply, when a horse's tramp broke in upon them and Colonel Philibert wheeled up to the door of the hostelry.

Master Pothier, seeing an officer in the King's uniform, rose on the instant and saluted him with a profound bow, while Dame Bédard and Zoë, standing side by side, dropped their lowest courtesy to the handsome gentleman, as, with woman's glance, they saw in a moment he was.

Philibert returned their salute courteously, as he halted his horse in front of Dame Bédard. “Madame!” said he, “I thought I knew all roads about Charlebourg, but I have either forgotten or they have changed the road through the forest to Beaumanoir. It is surely altered from what it was.”

“Your Honor is right,” answered Dame Bédard, “the Intendant has opened a new road through the forest.” Zoë took the opportunity, while the officer looked at her mother, to examine his features, dress, and equipments, from head to foot, and thought him the handsomest officer she had ever seen.

“I thought it must be so,” replied Philibert; “you are the landlady of the Crown of France, I presume?” Dame Bédard carried it on her face as plainly marked as the royal emblem on the sign over her head.

“Yes, your Honor, I am Widow Bédard, at your service, and, I hope, keep as good a hostelry as your Honor will find in the Colony. Will your Honor alight and take a cup of wine, such as I keep for guests of quality?”

“Thanks, Madame Bédard, I am in haste: I must find the way to Beaumanoir. Can you not furnish me a guide, for I like not to lose time by missing my way?”

“A guide, sir! The men are all in the city on the King's corvée; Zoë could show you the way easily enough.” Zoë twitched her mother's arm nervously, as a hint not to say too much. She felt flattered and fluttered too, at the thought of guiding the strange, handsome gentleman through the forest, and already the question shot through her fancy, “What might come of it? Such things have happened in stories!” Poor Zoë! she was for a few seconds unfaithful to the memory of Antoine La Chance. But Dame Bédard settled all surmises by turning to Master Pothier, who stood stiff and upright as became a limb of the law. “Here is Master Pothier, your Honor, who knows every highway and byway in ten seigniories. He will guide your Honor to Beaumanoir.”

“As easy as take a fee or enter a process, your Honor,” remarked Master Pothier, whose odd figure had several times drawn the criticizing eye of Colonel Philibert.

“A fee! ah! you belong to the law, then, my good friend? I have known many advocates--” but Philibert stopped; he was too good-natured to finish his sentence.

“You never saw one like me, your Honor was going to say? True, you never did. I am Master Pothier dit Robin, the poor travelling notary, at your Honor's service, ready to draw you a bond, frame an acte of convention matrimoniale, or write your last will and testament, with any notary in New France. I can, moreover, guide your Honor to Beaumanoir as easy as drink your health in a cup of Cognac.”

Philibert could not but smile at the travelling notary, and thinking to himself, “too much Cognac at the end of that nose of yours, my friend!” which, indeed, looked fiery as Bardolph's, with hardly a spot for a fly to rest his foot upon without burning.

“But how will you go, friend?” asked Philibert, looking down at Master Pothier's gamaches; “you don't look like a fast walker.”

“Oh, your Honor,” interrupted Dame Bédard, impatiently, for Zoë had been twitching her hard to let her go. “Master Pothier can ride the old sorrel nag that stands in the stable eating his head off for want of hire. Of course your Honor will pay livery?”

“Why, certainly, Madame, and glad to do so! So Master Pothier make haste, get the sorrel nag, and let us be off.”

“I will be back in the snap of a pen, or in the time Dame Bédard can draw that cup of Cognac, your Honor.”

“Master Pothier is quite a personage, I see,” remarked Philibert, as the old notary shuffled off to saddle the nag.

“Oh, quite, your Honor. He is the sharpest notary, they say, that travels the road. When he gets people into law they never can get out. He is so clever, everybody says! Why, he assures me that even the Intendant consults him sometimes as they sit eating and drinking half the night together in the buttery at the Château!”

“Really! I must be careful what I say,” replied Philibert, laughing, “or I shall get into hot water! But here he comes.”

As he spoke, Master Pothier came up, mounted on a raw-boned nag, lank as the remains of a twenty-years lawsuit. Zoë, at a hint from the Colonel, handed him a cup of Cognac, which he quaffed without breathing, smacking his lips emphatically after it. He called out to the landlady,--“Take care of my knapsack, dame! You had better burn the house than lose my papers! Adieu, Zoë! study over the marriage contract till I return, and I shall be sure of a good dinner from your pretty hands.”

They set off at a round trot. Colonel Philibert, impatient to reach Beaumanoir, spurred on for a while, hardly noticing the absurd figure of his guide, whose legs stuck out like a pair of compasses beneath his tattered gown, his shaking head threatening dislodgment to hat and wig, while his elbows churned at every jolt, making play with the shuffling gait of his spavined and wall-eyed nag.

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VI. BEAUMANOIR

They rode on in silence. A little beyond the village of Charlebourg they suddenly turned into the forest of Beaumanoir, where a well-beaten track, practicable both for carriages and horses, gave indications that the resort of visitors to the Château was neither small nor seldom.

The sun's rays scarcely penetrated the sea of verdure overhead. The ground was thickly strewn with leaves, the memorials of past summers; and the dark green pines breathed out a resinous odor, fresh and invigorating to the passing rider.

Colonel Philibert, while his thoughts were for the most part fixed on the public dangers which led to this hasty visit of his to the Château of Beaumanoir, had still an eye for the beauty of the forest, and not a squirrel leaping, nor a bird fluttering among the branches, escaped his notice as he passed by. Still he rode on rapidly, and having got fairly into the road, soon outstripped his guide.

“A crooked road this to Beaumanoir,” remarked he at length, drawing bridle to allow Master Pothier to rejoin him. “It is as mazy as the law. I am fortunate, I am sure, in having a sharp notary like you to conduct me through it.”

“Conduct you! Your Honor is leading me! But the road to Beaumanoir is as intricate as the best case ever drawn up by an itinerant notary.”

“You seldom ride, Master Pothier?” said Philibert, observing his guide jolting with an audible grunt at every step of his awkward nag.

“Ride, your Honor! N--no! Dame Bédard shall call me plaisant Robin if she ever tempts me again to mount her livery horse--'if fools only carried cruppers!' as Panurge says.”

“Why, Master Pothier?” Philibert began to be amused at his odd guide.

“Why? Then I should be able to walk to-morrow--that is all! This nag will finish me. Hunc! hanc! hoc! He is fit to be Satan's tutor at the seminary! Hoc! hanc! hunc! I have not declined my pronouns since I left my accidence at the High School of Tours--not till to-day. Hunc! hanc! hoc! I shall be jolted to jelly! Hunc! hanc! hoc!”

Philibert laughed at the classical reminiscences of his guide; but, fearing that Pothier might fall off his horse, which he straddled like a hay-fork, he stopped to allow the worthy notary to recover his breath and temper.

“I hope the world appreciates your learning and talent, and that it uses you more gently than that horse of yours,” remarked he.

“Oh, your Honor! it is kind of you to rein up by the way. I find no fault with the world if it find none with me. My philosophy is this, that the world is as men make it.”

“As the old saying is,--

“'To lend, or to spend, or to give in, 'Tis a very good world that we live in; But to borrow, or beg, or get a man's own, 'Tis the very worst world that ever was known.'

And you consider yourself in the latter category, Master Pothier?” Philibert spoke doubtingly, for a more self-complacent face than his companion's he never saw--every wrinkle trembled with mirth; eyes, cheeks, chin, and brows surrounded that jolly red nose of his like a group of gay boys round a bonfire.

“Oh, I am content, your Honor! We notaries are privileged to wear furred cloaks in the Palais de Justice, and black robes in the country when we can get them! Look here at my robe of dignity!” He held up the tattered tail of his gown with a ludicrous air. “The profession of notary is meat, drink, and lodging: every man's house is free to me--his bed and board I share, and there is neither wedding, christening, nor funeral, in ten parishes that can go on without me. Governors and intendants flourish and fall, but Jean Pothier dit Robin, the itinerant notary, lives merrily: men may do without bread, but they will not live without law--at least, in this noble, litigious New France of ours.”

“Your profession seems quite indispensable, then!” remarked Philibert.

“Indispensable! I should think so! Without proper actes the world would soon come to an end, as did Adam's happiness in Eden, for want of a notary.”

“A notary, Master Pothier?”

“Yes, your Honor. It is clear that Adam lost his first estate de usis et fructibus in the Garden of Eden, simply because there was no notary to draw up for him an indefeasable lease. Why, he had not even a bail à chaptal (a chattel mortgage) over the beasts he had himself named!”

“Ah!” replied Philibert, smiling, “I thought Adam lost his estate through a cunning notary who persuaded his wife to break the lease he held; and poor Adam lost possession because he could not find a second notary to defend his title.”

“Hum! that might be; but judgment went by default, as I have read. It would be different now; there are notaries, in New France and Old, capable of beating Lucifer himself in a process for either soul, body, or estate! But, thank fortune, we are out of this thick forest now.”

The travellers had reached the other verge of the forest of Beaumanoir. A broad plain dotted with clumps of fair trees lay spread out in a royal domain, overlooked by a steep, wooded mountain. A silvery brook crossed by a rustic bridge ran through the park. In the centre was a huge cluster of gardens and patriarchal trees, out of the midst of which rose the steep roof, chimneys, and gilded vanes, flashing in the sun, of the Château of Beaumanoir.

The Château was a long, heavy structure of stone, gabled and pointed in the style of the preceding century--strong enough for defence, and elegant enough for the abode of the Royal Intendant of New France. It had been built, some four-score years previously, by the Intendant Jean Talon, as a quiet retreat when tired with the importunities of friends or the persecution of enemies, or disgusted with the cold indifference of the Court to his statesmanlike plans for the colonization of New France.

A short distance from the Château rose a tower of rough masonry--crenellated on top, and loopholed on the sides--which had been built as a place of defence and refuge during the Indian wars of the preceding century. Often had the prowling bands of Iroquois turned away baffled and dismayed at the sight of the little fortalice surmounted by a culverin or two, which used to give the alarm of invasion to the colonists on the slopes of Bourg Royal, and to the dwellers along the wild banks of the Montmorency.

The tower was now disused and partly dilapidated, but many wonderful tales existed among the neighboring habitans of a secret passage that communicated with the vaults of the Château; but no one had ever seen the passage--still less been bold enough to explore it had they found it, for it was guarded by a loup-garou that was the terror of children, old and young, as they crowded close together round the blazing fire on winter nights, and repeated old legends of Brittany and Normandy, altered to fit the wild scenes of the New World.

Colonel Philibert and Master Pothier rode up the broad avenue that led to the Château, and halted at the main gate--set in a lofty hedge of evergreens cut into fantastic shapes, after the fashion of the Luxembourg. Within the gate a vast and glowing garden was seen--all squares, circles, and polygons. The beds were laden with flowers shedding delicious odors on the morning air as it floated by, while the ear was soothed by the hum of bees and the songs of birds revelling in the bright sunshine.

Above the hedge appeared the tops of heavily-laden fruit-trees brought from France and planted by Talon--cherries red as the lips of Breton maidens, plums of Gascony, Norman apples, with pears from the glorious valleys of the Rhone. The bending branches were just transmuting their green unripeness into scarlet, gold, and purple--the imperial colors of Nature when crowned for the festival of autumn.

A lofty dove-cote, surmounted by a glittering vane, turning and flashing with every shift of the wind, stood near the Château. It was the home of a whole colony of snow-white pigeons, which fluttered in and out of it, wheeled in circles round the tall chimney-stacks, or strutted, cooing and bowing together, on the high roof of the Château, a picture of innocence and happiness.

But neither happiness nor innocence was suggested by the look of the Château itself, as it stood bathed in bright sunshine. Its great doors were close-shut in the face of all the beauty of the world without. Its mullioned windows, that should have stood wide open to let in the radiance and freshness of morning, were closely blinded, like eyes wickedly shut against God's light that beat upon them, vainly seeking entrance.

Outside all was still: the song of birds and the rustle of leaves alone met the ear. Neither man nor beast was stirring to challenge Colonel Philibert's approach, but long ere he reached the door of the Château, a din of voices within, a wild medley of shouts, song, and laughter, a clatter of wine-cups, and pealing notes of violins struck him with amazement and disgust. He distinguished drunken voices singing snatches of bacchanalian songs, while now and then stentorian mouths called for fresh brimmers, and new toasts were drunk with uproarious applause.

The Château seemed a very pandemonium of riot and revelry, that prolonged the night into the day, and defied the very order of nature by its audacious disregard of all decency of time, place, and circumstance.

“In God's name, what means all this, Master Pothier?” exclaimed Philibert, as they hastily dismounted and, tying their horses to a tree, entered the broad walk that led to the terrace.

“That concert going on, your Honor?”--Master Pothier shook his head to express disapproval, and smiled to express his inborn sympathy with feasting and good-fellowship--“that, your Honor, is the heel of the hunt, the hanging up of the antlers of the stag by the gay chasseurs who are visiting the Intendant!”

“A hunting party, you mean? To think that men could stand such brutishness, even to please the Intendant!”

“Stand! your Honor. I wager my gown that most of the chasseurs are lying under the table by this time, although by the noise they make it must be allowed there are some burly fellows upon their legs yet, who keep the wine flowing like the cow of Montmorency.”

“'Tis horrible! 'tis damnable!” Philibert grew pale with passion and struck his thigh with his palm, as was his wont when very angry. “Rioting in drunkenness when the Colony demands the cool head, the strong arm, and the true heart of every man among us! Oh, my country! my dear country! what fate is thine to expect when men like these are thy rulers?”

“Your Honor must be a stranger in New France or you would not express such hasty, honest sentiments upon the Intendant's hospitality. It is not the fashion, except among plain-spoken habitans, who always talk downright Norman.” Master Pothier looked approvingly at Colonel Philibert, who, listening with indignant ears, scarcely heeded his guide.

“That is a jolly song, your Honor,” continued Pothier, waving one hand in cadence to a ditty in praise of wine, which a loud voice was heard singing in the Château, accompanied by a rousing chorus which startled the very pigeons on the roof and chimney-stacks. Colonel Philibert recognized the song as one he had heard in the Quartier Latin, during his student life in Paris--he fancied he recognized the voice also:

“'Pour des vins de prix Vendons tous nos livres! C'est pen d'être gris, Amis, soyons ivres! Bon. La Faridondaine! Gai. La Faridondé!'”

A roar of voices and a clash of glasses followed the refrain. Master Pothier's eyes winked and blinked in sympathy. The old notary stood on tiptoe, with outspread palms, as with ore rotundo he threw in a few notes of his own to fill up the chorus.

Philibert cast upon his guide a look of scorn, biting his lip angrily. “Go,” said he, “knock at the door--it needs God's thunder to break in upon that infamous orgie. Say that Colonel Philibert brings orders from His Excellency the Governor to the Chevalier Intendant.”

“And be served with a writ of ejectment! Pardon me! Be not angry, sir,” pleaded Pothier supplicatingly, “I dare not knock at the door when they are at the devil's mass inside. The valets! I know them all! They would duck me in the brook, or drag me into the hall to make sport for the Philistines. And I am not much of a Samson, your Honor. I could not pull the Château down upon their heads--I wish I could!”

Master Pothier's fears did not appear ill-grounded to Philibert as a fresh burst of drunken uproar assailed his ears. “Wait my return,” said he, “I will knock on the door myself.” He left his guide, ran up the broad stone steps, and knocked loudly upon the door again and again! He tried it at last, and to his surprise found it unlatched; he pushed it open, no servitor appearing to admit him. Colonel Philibert went boldly in. A blaze of light almost dazzled his eyes. The Château was lit up with lamps and candelabra in every part. The bright rays of the sun beat in vain for admittance upon the closed doors and blinded windows, but the splendor of midnight oil pervaded the interior of the stately mansion, making an artificial night that prolonged the wild orgies of the Intendant into the hours of day.

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VII. THE INTENDANT BIGOT

The Château of Beaumanoir had, since the advent of the Intendant Bigot, been the scene of many a festive revelry that matched, in bacchanalian frenzy, the wild orgies of the Regency and the present debaucheries of Croisy and the petits appartements of Versailles. Its splendor, its luxury, its riotous feasts lasting without intermission sometimes for days, were the themes of wonder and disgust to the unsophisticated people of New France, and of endless comparison between the extravagance of the Royal Intendant and the simple manners and inflexible morals of the Governor-General.

The great hall of the Château, the scene of the gorgeous feasts of the Intendant, was brilliantly illuminated with silver lamps, glowing like globes of sunlight as they hung from the lofty ceiling, upon which was painted a fresco of the apotheosis of Louis XIV., where the Grand Monarque was surrounded by a cloud of Condés, Orléanois, and Bourbons, of near and more remote consanguinity. At the head of the room hung a full-length portrait of Marquise de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV., and the friend and patroness of the Intendant Bigot; her bold, voluptuous beauty seemed well fitted to be the presiding genius of his house. The walls bore many other paintings of artistic and historic value. The King and Queen; the dark-eyed Montespan; the crafty Maintenon; and the pensive beauty of Louise de la Vallière, the only mistress of Louis XIV. who loved him for his own sake, and whose portrait, copied from this picture, may still be seen in the chapel of the Ursulines of Quebec, where the fair Louise is represented as St. Thais kneeling at prayer among the nuns.

The table in the great hall, a masterpiece of workmanship, was made of a dark Canadian wood then newly introduced, and stretched the length of the hall. A massive gold epergne of choicest Italian art, the gift of La Pompadour, stood on the centre of the table. It represented Bacchus enthroned on a tun of wine, presenting flowing cups to a dance of fauns and satyrs.

Silver cups of Venetian sculpture and goblets of Bohemian manufacture sparkled like stars upon the brilliant table, brimming over with the gold and ruby vintages of France and Spain; or lay overturned amid pools of wine that ran down upon the velvet carpet. Dishes of Parmesan cheese, caviare, and other provocatives to thirst stood upon the table, amid vases of flowers and baskets of the choicest fruits of the Antilles.

Round this magnificent table sat a score or more of revellers--in the garb of gentlemen, but all in disorder and soiled with wine; their countenances were inflamed, their eyes red and fiery, their tongues loose and loquacious. Here and there a vacant or overturned chair showed where a guest had fallen in the debauch and been carried off by the valets, who in gorgeous liveries waited on the table. A band of musicians sat up in a gallery at the end of the hall, and filled the pauses of the riotous feast with the ravishing strains of Lulli and Destouches.

At the head of the table, first in place as in rank, sat François Bigot, Intendant of New France. His low, well-set figure, dark hair, small, keen black eyes, and swarthy features full of fire and animation, bespoke his Gascon blood. His countenance was far from comely,--nay, when in repose, even ugly and repulsive,--but his eyes were magnets that drew men's looks towards him, for in them lay the force of a powerful will and a depth and subtlety of intellect that made men fear, if they could not love him. Yet when he chose--and it was his usual mood--to exercise his blandishments on men, he rarely failed to captivate them, while his pleasant wit, courtly ways, and natural gallantry towards women, exercised with the polished seductiveness he had learned in the Court of Louis XV., made François Bigot the most plausible and dangerous man in New France.

He was fond of wine and music, passionately addicted to gambling, and devoted to the pleasant vices that were rampant in the Court of France, finely educated, able in the conduct of affairs, and fertile in expedients to accomplish his ends. François Bigot might have saved New France, had he been honest as he was clever; but he was unprincipled and corrupt: no conscience checked his ambition or his love of pleasure. He ruined New France for the sake of himself and his patroness and the crowd of courtiers and frail beauties who surrounded the King, whose arts and influence kept him in his high office despite all the efforts of the Honnêtes Gens, the good and true men of the Colony, to remove him.

He had already ruined and lost the ancient Colony of Acadia, through his defrauds and malversations as Chief Commissary of the Army, and instead of trial and punishment, had lately been exalted to the higher and still more important office of Royal Intendant of New France.

On the right of the Intendant sat his bosom friend, the Sieur Cadet, a large, sensual man, with twinkling gray eyes, thick nose, and full red lips. His broad face, flushed with wine, glowed like the harvest moon rising above the horizon. Cadet had, it was said, been a butcher in Quebec. He was now, for the misfortune of his country, Chief Commissary of the Army and a close confederate of the Intendant.

On the left of the Intendant sat his Secretary, De Pean, crafty and unscrupulous, a parasite, too, who flattered his master and ministered to his pleasures. De Pean was a military man, and not a bad soldier in the field; but he loved gain better than glory, and amassed an enormous fortune out of the impoverishment of his country.

Le Mercier, too, was there, Commandant of Artillery, a brave officer, but a bad man; Varin, a proud, arrogant libertine, Commissary of Montreal, who outdid Bigot in rapine and Cadet in coarseness; De Breard, Comptroller of the Marine, a worthy associate of Penisault, whose pinched features and cunning leer were in keeping with his important office of chief manager of the Friponne. Perrault, D'Estebe, Morin, and Vergor, all creatures of the Intendant, swelled the roll of infamy, as partners of the Grand Company of Associates trading in New France, as their charter named them--the “Grand Company of Thieves,” as the people in their plain Norman called them who robbed them in the King's name and, under pretence of maintaining the war, passed the most arbitrary decrees, the only object of which was to enrich themselves and their higher patrons at the Court of Versailles.

The rest of the company seated round the table comprised a number of dissolute seigneurs and gallants of fashion about town--men of great wants and great extravagance, just the class so quaintly described by Charlevoix, a quarter of a century previous, as “gentlemen thoroughly versed in the most elegant and agreeable modes of spending money, but greatly at a loss how to obtain it.”

Among the gay young seigneurs who had been drawn into the vortex of Bigot's splendid dissipation, was the brave, handsome Le Gardeur de Repentigny--a captain of the Royal Marine, a Colonial corps recently embodied at Quebec. In general form and feature Le Gardeur was a manly reflex of his beautiful sister Amélie, but his countenance was marred with traces of debauchery. His face was inflamed, and his dark eyes, so like his sister's, by nature tender and true, were now glittering with the adder tongues of the cursed wine-serpent.

Taking the cue from Bigot, Le Gardeur responded madly to the challenges to drink from all around him. Wine was now flooding every brain, and the table was one scene of riotous debauch.

“Fill up again, Le Gardeur!” exclaimed the Intendant, with a loud and still clear voice; “the lying clock says it is day--broad day, but neither cock crows nor day dawns in the Château of Beaumanoir, save at the will of its master and his merry guests! Fill up, companions all! The lamplight in the wine-cup is brighter than the clearest sun that ever shone!”

“Bravo Bigot! name your toast, and we will pledge it till the seven stars count fourteen!” replied Le Gardeur, looking hazily at the great clock in the hall. “I see four clocks in the room, and every one of them lies if it says it is day!”

“You are mending, Le Gardeur de Repentigny! You are worthy to belong to the Grand Company! But you shall have my toast. We have drank it twenty times already, but it will stand drinking twenty times more. It is the best prologue to wine ever devised by wit of man--a woman--”

“And the best epilogue too, Bigot!” interjected Varin, visibly drunk; “but let us have the toast, my cup is waiting.”

“Well, fill up all, then; and we will drink the health, wealth, and love by stealth, of the jolliest dame in sunny France--The Marquise de Pompadour!”

“La Pompadour! La Pompadour!” Every tongue repeated the name, the goblets were drained to the bottoms, and a thunder of applause and clattering of glasses followed the toast of the mistress of Louis XV., who was the special protectress of the Grand Company,--a goodly share of whose profits in the monopoly of trade in New France was thrown into the lap of the powerful favorite.

“Come, Varin! your turn now!” cried Bigot, turning to the Commissary; “a toast for Ville Marie! Merry Montreal! where they eat like rats of Poitou, and drink till they ring the fire-bells, as the Bordelais did to welcome the collectors of the gabelle. The Montrealers have not rung the fire-bells yet against you, Varin, but they will by and by!”

Varin filled his cup with an unsteady hand until it ran over, and propping his body against the table as he stood up, replied, “A toast for Ville Marie! and our friends in need!--The blue caps of the Richelieu!” This was in allusion to a recent ordinance of the Intendant, authorizing him to seize all the corn in store at Montreal and in the surrounding country--under pretence of supplying the army, and really to secure the monopoly of it for the Grand Company.

The toast was drunk, amid rapturous applause. “Well said, Varin!” exclaimed Bigot; “that toast implied both business and pleasure: the business was to sweep out the granges of the farmers; the pleasure is to drink in honor of your success.”

“My foragers sweep clean!” said Varin, resuming his seat, and looking under his hand to steady his gaze. “Better brooms were never made in Besançon. The country is swept as clean as a ball-room. Your Excellency and the Marquise might lead the dance over it, and not a straw lie in your way!”

“And did you manage it without a fight, Varin?” asked the Sieur d'Estebe, with a half sneer.

“Fight! Why fight? The habitans will never resist the King's name. We conjure the devil down with that. When we skin our eels we don't begin at the tail! If we did, the habitans would be like the eels of Mélun--cry out before they were hurt. No! no! D'Estebe! We are more polite in Ville Marie. We tell them the King's troops need the corn. They doff their caps, and with tears in their eyes, say, 'Monsieur le Commissaire, the King can have all we possess, and ourselves too, if he will only save Canada from the Bostonnais.' This is better than stealing the honey and killing the bees that made it, D'Estebe!”

“But what became of the families of the habitans after this swoop of your foragers?” asked the Seigneur de Beauce, a country gentleman who retained a few honorable ideas floating on top of the wine he had swallowed.

“Oh! the families--that is, the women and children, for we took the men for the army. You see, De Beauce,” replied Varin, with a mocking air, as he crossed his thumbs like a peasant of Languedoc when he wishes to inspire belief in his words, “the families have to do what the gentlemen of Beauce practise in times of scarcity--breakfast by gaping! or they can eat wind, like the people of Poitou: it will make them spit clean!”

De Beauce was irritated at the mocking sign and the proverbial allusion to the gaping of the people of Beauce. He started up in wrath, and striking his fist on the table, “Monsieur Varin!” cried he, “do not cross your thumbs at me, or I will cut them off! Let me tell you the gentlemen of Beauce do not breakfast on gaping, but have plenty of corn to stuff even a Commissary of Montreal!”

The Sieur Le Mercier, at a sign from Bigot, interposed to stop the rising quarrel. “Don't mind Varin,” said he, whispering to De Beauce; “he is drunk, and a row will anger the Intendant. Wait, and by and by you shall toast Varin as the chief baker of Pharoah, who got hanged because he stole the King's corn.”

“As he deserves to be, for his insult to the gentlemen of Beauce,” insinuated Bigot, leaning over to his angry guest, at the same time winking good-humoredly to Varin. “Come, now, De Beauce, friends all, amantium irae, you know--which is Latin for love--and I will sing you a stave in praise of this good wine, which is better than Bacchus ever drank.” The Intendant rose up, and holding a brimming glass in his hand, chanted in full, musical voice a favorite ditty of the day, as a ready mode of restoring harmony among the company:

“'Amis! dans ma bouteille, Voilà le vin de France! C'est le bon vin qui danse ici, C'est le bon vin qui danse. Gai lon la! Vive la lirette! Des Filettes Il y en aura!'

Vivent les Filettes! The girls of Quebec--first in beauty, last in love, and nowhere in scorn of a gallant worthy of them!” continued Bigot. “What say you, De Pean? Are you not prepared to toast the belles of Quebec?”

“That I am, your Excellency!” De Pean was unsteady upon his feet, as he rose to respond to the Intendant's challenge. He pot-valiantly drew his sword, and laid it on the table. “I will call on the honorable company to drink this toast on their knees, and there is my sword to cut the legs off any gentleman who will not kneel down and drink a full cup to the bright eyes of the belle of Quebec--The incomparable Angélique des Meloises!”

The toast suited their mood. Every one filled up his cup in honor of a beauty so universally admired.

“Kneel down, all,” cried the Intendant, “or De Pean will hamstring us!” All knelt down with a clash--some of them unable to rise again. “We will drink to the Angélique charms of the fair Des Meloises. Come now, all together!--as the jolly Dutchmen of Albany say, 'Upp seys over!'”

Such of the company as were able resumed their seats amid great laughter and confusion, when the Sieur Deschenaux, a reckless young gallant, ablaze with wine and excitement, stood up, leaning against the table. His fingers dabbled in his wine-cup as he addressed them, but he did not notice it.

“We have drunk with all the honors,” said he, “to the bright eyes of the belle of Quebec. I call on every gentleman now, to drink to the still brighter eyes of the belle of New France!”

“Who is she? Name! name!” shouted a dozen voices; “who is the belle of New France?”

“Who is she? Why, who can she be but the fair Angélique, whom we have just honored?” replied De Pean, hotly, jealous of any precedence in that quarter.

“Tut!” cried Deschenaux, “you compare glowworms with evening stars, when you pretend to match Angélique des Meloises with the lady I propose to honor! I call for full brimmers--cardinal's hats--in honor of the belle of New France--the fair Amélie de Repentigny!”

Le Gardeur de Repentigny was sitting leaning on his elbow, his face beaming with jollity, as he waited, with a full cup, for Deschenaux's toast. But no sooner did he hear the name of his sister from those lips than he sprang up as though a serpent had bit him. He hurled his goblet at the head of Deschenaux with a fierce imprecation, and drew his sword as he rushed towards him.

“A thousand lightnings strike you! How dare you pollute that holy name, Deschenaux? Retract that toast instantly, or you shall drink it in blood--retract, I say!”

The guests rose to their feet in terrible uproar. Le Gardeur struggled violently to break through a number of those who interposed between him and Deschenaux, who, roused to frenzy by the insult from Le Gardeur, had also drawn his sword, and stood ready to receive the assault of his antagonist.

The Intendant, whose courage and presence of mind never forsook him, pulled Deschenaux down upon his seat and held fast his sword arm, shouting in his ear,--

“Are you mad, Deschenaux? You knew she was his sister, and how he worships her! Retract the toast--it was inopportune! Besides, recollect we want to win over De Repentigny to the Grand Company!”

Deschenaux struggled for a minute, but the influence of the Intendant was all-powerful over him. He gave way. “Damn De Repentigny,” said he, “I only meant to do honor to the pretty witch. Who would have expected him to take it up in that manner?”

“Any one who knows him; besides,” continued the Intendant, “if you must toast his sister, wait till we get him body and soul made over to the Grand Company, and then he will care no more for his sister's fame than you do for yours.”

“But the insult! He has drawn blood with the goblet,” said Deschenaux, wiping his forehead with his fingers; “I cannot pardon that!”

“Tut, tut; fight him another day. But you shall not fight here! Cadet and Le Mercier have pinned the young Bayard, I see; so you have a chance to do the honorable; Deschenaux; go to him, retract the toast, and say you had forgotten the fair lady was his sister.”

Deschenaux swallowed his wrath, rose up, and sheathed his sword. Taking the Intendant by the arm, he went up to Le Gardeur, who was still trying to advance. Deschenaux held up his hand deprecatingly. “Le Gardeur,” said he, with an air of apparent contrition, “I was wrong to offer that toast. I had forgotten the fair lady was your sister. I retract the toast, since it is disagreeable to you, although all would have been proud to drink it.”

Le Gardeur was as hard to appease as he was easy to excite to anger. He still held his drawn sword in his hand.

“Come!” cried Bigot, “you are as hard to please as Villiers Vendôme, whom the King himself could not satisfy. Deschenaux says he is sorry. A gentleman cannot say more; so shake hands and be friends, De Repentigny.”

Impervious to threats, and often to reason, Le Gardeur could not resist an appeal to his generosity.

He sheathed his sword, and held out his hand with frank forgiveness. “Your apology is ample, Sieur Deschenaux. I am satisfied you meant no affront to my sister! It is my weak point, messieurs,” continued he, looking firmly at the company, ready to break out had he detected the shadow of a sneer upon any one's countenance. “I honor her as I do the queen of heaven. Neither of their names ought to be spoken here.”

“Well said! Le Gardeur,” exclaimed the Intendant. “That's right, shake hands, and be friends again. Blessed are quarrels that lead to reconciliation and the washing out of feuds in wine. Take your seats, gentlemen.”

There was a general scramble back to the table. Bigot stood up in renewed force.

“Valets!” cried he, “bring in now the largest cups! We will drink a toast five fathoms deep, in water of life strong enough to melt Cleopatra's pearls, and to a jollier dame than Egypt's queen. But first we will make Le Gardeur de Repentigny free of the guild of noble partners of the company of adventurers trading in New France.”

The valets flew in and out. In a few moments the table was replenished with huge drinking-cups, silver flagons, and all the heavy impedimenta of the army of Bacchus.

“You are willing to become one of us, and enter the jolly guild of the Grand Company?” exclaimed the Intendant, taking Le Gardeur by the hand.

“Yes, I am a stranger, and you may take me in. I claim admission,” replied Le Gardeur with drunken gravity, “and by St. Pigot! I will be true to the guild!”

Bigot kissed him on both cheeks. “By the boot of St. Benoit! you speak like the King of Yvetot. Le Gardeur de Repentigny, you are fit to wear fur in the Court of Burgundy.”

“You can measure my foot, Bigot,” replied Le Gardeur, “and satisfy the company that I am able to wear the boot of St. Benoit.”

“By jolly St. Chinon! and you shall wear it, Le Gardeur,” exclaimed Bigot, handing him a quart flagon of wine, which Le Gardeur drank without drawing breath. “That boot fits,” shouted the Intendant exultingly; “now for the chant! I will lead. Stop the breath of any one who will not join in the chorus.”

The Intendant in great voice led off a macaronic verse of Molière, that had often made merry the orgies of Versailles:

“'Bene, bene, bene, respondere! Dignus, dignus es, entrare In nostro laeto corpore!'”

A tintamarre of voices and a jingle of glasses accompanied the violins and tambours de Basque as the company stood up and sang the song, winding up with a grand burst at the chorus:

“'Vivat! vivat! vivat! cent fois vivat! Novus socius qui tam bene parlat! Mille mille annis et manget et bibat, Fripet et friponnat!'”

Hands were shaken all round, congratulations, embracings, and filthy kisses showered upon Le Gardeur to honor his admission as a partner of the Grand Company.

“And now,” continued Bigot, “we will drink a draught long as the bell rope of Notre Dame. Fill up brimmers of the quintessence of the grape, and drain them dry in honor of the Friponne!”

The name was electric. It was, in the country, a word of opprobrium, but at Beaumanoir it was laughed at with true Gallic nonchalance. Indeed, to show their scorn of public opinion, the Grand Company had lately launched a new ship upon the Great Lakes to carry on the fur trade, and had appropriately and mockingly named her, “La Friponne.”

The toast of La Friponne was drunk with applause, followed by a wild bacchanalian song.

The Sieur Morin had been a merchant in Bordeaux whose bond was held in as little value as his word. He had lately removed to New France, transferred the bulk of his merchandise to the Friponne, and become an active agent of the Grand Company.

“La Friponne!” cried he; “I have drunk success to her with all my heart and throat; but I say she will never wear a night-cap and sleep quietly in our arms until we muzzle the Golden Dog that barks by night and by day in the Rue Buade.”

“That is true, Morin!”, interrupted Varin. “The Grand Company will never know peace until we send the Bourgeois, his master, back to the Bastille. The Golden Dog is--”

“Damn the Golden Dog!” exclaimed Bigot, passionately. “Why do you utter his name, Varin, to sour our wine? I hope one day to pull down the Dog, as well as the whole kennel of the insolent Bourgeois.” Then, as was his wont, concealing his feelings under a mocking gibe, “Varin,” said he, “they say that it is your marrow bone the Golden Dog is gnawing--ha! ha! ha!”

“More people believe it is your Excellency's!” Varin knew he was right, but aware of Bigot's touchiness on that point, added, as is the wont of panders to great men, “It is either yours or the Cardinal's.”

“Let it be the Cardinal's, then! He is still in purgatory, and there will wait the arrival of the Bourgeois, to balance accounts with him.”

Bigot hated the Bourgeois Philibert as one hates the man he has injured. Bigot had been instrumental in his banishment years ago from France, when the bold Norman count defended the persecuted Jansenists in the Parliament of Rouen. The Intendant hated him now for his wealth and prosperity in New France. But his wrath turned to fury when he saw the tablet of the Golden Dog, with its taunting inscription, glaring upon the front of the magazine in the Rue Buade. Bigot felt the full meaning and significance of the words that burned into his soul, and for which he hoped one day to be revenged.

“Confusion to the whole litter of the Golden Dog, and that is the party of the Honnêtes Gens!” cried he. “But for that canting savant who plays the Governor here, I would pull down the sign and hang its master up in its stead to-morrow!”

The company now grew still more hilarious and noisy in their cups. Few paid attention to what the Intendant was saying. But De Repentigny heard him utter the words, “Oh, for men who dare do men's deeds!” He caught the eye of De Repentigny, and added, “But we are all cowards in the Grand Company, and are afraid of the Bourgeois.”

The wine was bubbling in the brain of Le Gardeur. He scarcely knew what the Intendant said, but he caught the last words.

“Whom do you call cowards, Chevalier? I have joined the Grand Company. If the rest are cowards, I am not: I stand ready to pluck the peruke off the head of any man in New France, and carry it on my sword to the Place d' Armes, where I will challenge all the world to come and take it!”

“Pish! that is nothing! give me man's work. I want to see the partner in the Grand Company who dare pull down the Golden Dog.”

“I dare! and I dare!” exclaimed a dozen voices at once in response to the appeal of the Intendant, who craftily meant his challenge to ensnare only Le Gardeur.

“And I dare; and I will, too, if you wish it, Chevalier!” shouted Le Gardeur, mad with wine, and quite oblivious of the thousand claims of the father of his friend, Pierre Philibert, upon him.

“I take you at your word, Le Gardeur! and bind your honor to it in the presence of all these gentlemen,” said Bigot with a look of intense satisfaction.

“When shall it be done--to-day?” Le Gardeur seemed ready to pluck the moon from the sky in his present state of ecstasy.

“Why, no, not to-day; not before the pear is ripe will we pluck it! Your word of honor will keep till then?”

Bigot was in great glee over the success of his stratagem to entrap De Repentigny.

“It will keep a thousand years!” replied Le Gardeur, amid a fresh outburst of merriment round the board which culminated in a shameless song, fit only for a revel of satyrs.

The Sieur Cadet lolled lazily in his chair, his eyes blinking with a sleepy leer. “We are getting stupidly drunk. Bigot,” said he; “we want something new to rouse us all to fresh life. Will you let me offer a toast?”

“Go on, Cadet! offer what toast you please. There is nothing in heaven, hell, or upon earth that I won't drink to for your sake.”

“I want you to drink it on your knees, Bigot! pledge me that, and fill your biggest cup.”

“We will drink it on all fours if you like! come, out with your toast, Cadet; you are as long over it as Father Glapion's sermon in Lent! and it will be as interesting, I dare say!”

“Well, Chevalier, the Grand Company, after toasting all the beauties of Quebec, desire to drink the health of the fair mistress of Beaumanoir, and in her presence too!” said Cadet with owlish gravity.

Bigot started; drunk and reckless as he was, he did not like his secret to be divulged. He was angry with Cadet for referring to it in the presence of so many who knew not that a strange lady was residing at Beaumanoir. He was too thoroughly a libertine of the period to feel any moral compunction for any excess he committed. He was habitually more ready to glory over his conquests, than to deny or extenuate them. But in this case he had, to the surprise of Cadet, been very reticent, and shy of speaking of this lady even to him.

“They say she is a miracle of beauty, Bigot!” continued Cadet, “and that you are so jealous of the charms of your belle Gabrielle that you are afraid to show her to your best friends.”

“My belle Gabrielle is at liberty to go where she pleases, Cadet!” Bigot saw the absurdity of anger, but he felt it, nevertheless. “She chooses not to leave her bower, to look even on you, Cadet! I warrant you she has not slept all night, listening to your infernal din.”

“Then, I hope you will allow us to go and beg pardon on our knees for disturbing her rest. What say the good company?”

“Agreed, agreed!” was the general response, and all pressed the Intendant vociferously to allow them to see the fair mistress of Beaumanoir.

Varin, however, proposed that she should be brought into the hall. “Send her to us, O King,” cried he; “we are nobles of Persia, and this is Shushan the palace, where we carouse according to the law of the Medes, seven days at a stretch. Let the King bring in Queen Vashti, to show her beauty to the princes and nobles of his court!”

Bigot, too full of wine to weigh scruples, yielded to the wish of his boon companions. He rose from his chair, which in his absence was taken by Cadet. “Mind!” said he, “if I bring her in, you shall show her every respect.”

“We will kiss the dust of her feet,” answered Cadet, “and consider you the greatest king of a feast in New France or Old.”

Bigot, without further parley, passed out of the hall, traversed a long corridor and entered an anteroom, where he found Dame Tremblay, the old housekeeper, dozing on her chair. He roused her up, and bade her go to the inner chamber to summon her mistress.

The housekeeper rose in a moment at the voice of the Intendant. She was a comely dame, with a ruddy cheek, and an eye in her head that looked inquisitively at her master as she arranged her cap and threw back her rather gay ribbons.

“I want your mistress up in the great hall! Go summon her at once,” repeated the Intendant.

The housekeeper courtesied, but pressed her lips together as if to prevent them from speaking in remonstrance. She went at once on her ungracious errand.

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VIII. CAROLINE DE ST. CASTIN

Dame Tremblay entered the suite of apartments and returned in a few moments, saying that her lady was not there, but had gone down to the secret chamber, to be, she supposed, more out of hearing of the noise, which had disturbed her so much.

“I will go find her then,” replied the Intendant; “you may return to your own room, dame.”

He walked across the drawing-room to one of the gorgeous panels that decorated the wall, and touched a hidden spring. A door flew open, disclosing a stair heavily carpeted that led down to the huge vaulted foundations of the Château.

He descended the stair with hasty though unsteady steps. It led to a spacious room, lighted with a gorgeous lamp that hung pendant in silver chains from the frescoed ceiling. The walls were richly tapestried with products of the looms of the Gobelins, representing the plains of Italy filled with sunshine, where groves, temples, and colonnades were pictured in endless vistas of beauty. The furniture of the chamber was of regal magnificence. Nothing that luxury could desire, or art furnish, had been spared in its adornment. On a sofa lay a guitar, and beside it a scarf and a dainty glove fit for the hand of the fairy queen.

The Intendant looked eagerly round, as he entered this bright chamber of his fancy, but saw not its expected occupant. A recess in the deep wall at the farthest side of the room contained an oratory with an altar and a crucifix upon it. The recess was partly in the shade. But the eyes of the Intendant discerned clearly enough the kneeling, or rather the prostrate, figure of Caroline de St. Castin. Her hands were clasped beneath her head, which was bowed to the ground. Her long, black hair lay dishevelled over her back, as she lay in her white robe like the Angel of Sorrow, weeping and crying from the depths of her broken heart, “Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me!” She was so absorbed in her grief that she did not notice the entrance of the Intendant.

Bigot stood still for a moment, stricken with awe at the spectacle of this lovely woman weeping by herself in the secret chamber. A look of something like pity stole into his eyes; he called her by name, ran to her, assisted her to rise, which she did, slowly turning towards him that weeping, Madonna-like face which haunts the ruins of Beaumanoir to this day.

She was of medium stature, slender and lissome, looking taller than she really was. Her features were chiselled with exquisite delicacy; her hair of a raven blackness, and eyes of that dark lustre which reappears for generations in the descendants of Europeans who have mingled their blood with that of the aborigines of the forest. The Indian eye is preserved as an heirloom, long after all memory of the red stain has vanished from the traditions of the family. Her complexion was pale, naturally of a rich olive, but now, through sorrow, of a wan and bloodless hue--still very beautiful, and more appealing than the rosiest complexion.

Caroline de St. Castin was an Acadienne of ancient and noble family, whose head and founder, the Baron de St. Castin, had married the beautiful daughter of the high chief of the Abenaquais.

Her father's house, one of the most considerable in the Colony, had been the resort of the royal officers, civil and military, serving in Acadia. Caroline, the only daughter of the noble house, had been reared in all the refinements and luxuries of the period, as became her rank and position both in France and her native Province.

In an evil hour for her happiness this beautiful and accomplished girl met the Chevalier Bigot, who as Chief Commissary of the Army, was one of the foremost of the royal officers in Acadia.

His ready wit and graceful manners pleased and flattered the susceptible girl, not used to the seductions of the polished courtesies of the mother-land of France. She was of a joyous temper--gay, frank, and confiding. Her father, immersed in public affairs, left her much to herself, nor, had he known it, would he have disapproved of the gallant courtesies of the Chevalier Bigot. For the Baron had the soul of honor, and dreamt every gentleman as well as himself possessed it.

Bigot, to do him justice, felt as sincere a regard for this beautiful, amiable girl as his nature was capable of entertaining. In rank and fortune she was more than his equal, and left to himself, he would willingly have married her. Before he learned that his project of a marriage in the Colony was scouted at Court he had already offered his love to Caroline de St. Castin, and won easily the gentle heart that was but too well disposed to receive his homage.

Her trust went with her love. Earth was never so green, nor air so sweet, nor skies so bright and azure, as those of Caroline's wooing, on the shores of the beautiful Bay of Minas. She loved this man with a passion that filled with ecstasy her whole being. She trusted his promises as she would have trusted God's. She loved him better than she loved herself--better than she loved God, or God's law; and counted as a gain every loss she suffered for his sake, and for the affection she bore him.

After some months spent in her charming society, a change came over Bigot. He received formidable missives from his great patroness at Versailles, the Marquise de Pompadour, who had other matrimonial designs for him. Bigot was too slavish a courtier to resent her interference, nor was he honest enough to explain his position to his betrothed. He deferred his marriage. The exigencies of the war called him away. He had triumphed over a fond, confiding woman; but he had been trained among the dissolute spirits of the Regency too thoroughly to feel more than a passing regret for a woman whom, probably, he loved better than any other of the victims of his licentious life.

When he finally left Acadia a conquered province in the hands of the English, he also left behind him the one true, loving heart that believed in his honor and still prayed for his happiness.

The days of Caroline's disillusion soon came; she could not conceal from herself that she had been basely deceived and abandoned by the man she loved so ardently. She learned that Bigot had been elevated to the high office of Intendant of New France, but felt herself as utterly forgotten by him as the rose that had bloomed and withered in her garden two summers ago.

Her father had been summoned to France on the loss of the Colony; and fearing to face him on his return, Caroline suddenly left her home and sought refuge in the forest among her far-off kindred, the red Abenaquais.

The Indians welcomed her with joy and unbounded respect, recognizing her right to their devotion and obedience. They put upon her feet the moccasins of their tribe, and sent her, with a trusty escort, through the wilderness to Quebec, where she hoped to find the Intendant, not to reproach him for his perfidy,--her gentle heart was too much subdued for that,--but to claim his protection, and if refused, to die at his door.

It was under such circumstances that the beautiful, highborn Caroline de St. Castin became an inmate of Beaumanoir. She had passed the night of this wild debauch in a vigil of prayers, tears, and lamentations over her sad lot and over the degradation of Bigot by the life which she now knew he led. Sometimes her maddened fancy was ready to accuse Providence itself of cruelty and injustice; sometimes, magnifying her own sin, she was ready to think all earthly punishment upon herself as too light, and invoked death and judgment as alone adequate to her fault. All night she had knelt before the altar, asking for mercy and forgiveness,--sometimes starting to her feet in terror, as a fresh burst of revelry came rushing from the great hall above, and shook the door of her secret chamber. But no one came to her help, no one looked in upon her desolation. She deemed herself utterly forgotten and forsaken of God and man.

Occasionally she fancied she could distinguish the voice of the Intendant amid the drunken uproar, and she shuddered at the infatuation which bound her very soul to this man; and yet when she questioned her heart, she knew that, base as he was, all she had done and suffered for him she would infallibly do again. Were her life to live over, she would repeat the fault of loving this false, ungrateful man. The promise of marriage had been equivalent to marriage in her trust of him, and nothing but death could now divorce her from him.

Hour after hour passed by, each seeming an age of suffering. Her feelings were worked up to frenzy: she fancied she heard her father's angry voice calling her by name, or she heard accusing angels jeering at her fall. She sank prostrate at last, in the abandonment of despair, calling upon God to put an end to her miserable life.

Bigot raised her from the floor, with words of pity and sympathy. She turned on him a look of gratitude which, had he been of stone, he must have felt. But Bigot's words meant less than she fancied. He was still too intoxicated to reflect, or to feel shame of his present errand.

“Caroline!” said he, “what do you here? This is the time to make merry--not to pray! The honorable company in the great hall desire to pay their respects to the lady of Beaumanoir--come with me!”

He drew her hand through his arm with a courtly grace that seldom forsook him, even in his worst moments. Caroline looked at him in a dazed manner, not comprehending his request. “Go with you, François? You know I will, but where?”

“To the great hall,” repeated he; “my worthy guests desire to see you, and to pay their respects to the fair lady of Beaumanoir.”

It flashed upon her mind what he wanted. Her womanly pride was outraged as it had never been before; she withdrew her hand from his arm with shame and terror stamped on every feature.

“Go up there! Go to show myself to your guests!” exclaimed she, with choking accents, as she stepped back a pace from him. “Oh, François Bigot, spare me that shame and humiliation! I am, I know, contemptible beyond human respect, but still--God help me!--I am not so vile as to be made a spectacle of infamy to those drunken men whom I hear clamoring for me, even now.”

“Pshaw! You think too much of the proprieties, Caroline!” Bigot felt sensibly perplexed at the attitude she assumed. “Why! The fairest dames of Paris, dressed as Hebes and Ganymedes, thought it a fine jest to wait on the Regent Duke of Orleans and the Cardinal du Bois in the gay days of the King's bachelorhood, and they do the same now when the King gets up one of his great feasts at Choisy; so come, sweetheart--come!” He drew her towards the door.

“Spare me, François!” Caroline knelt at his feet, clasping his hand, and bathing it in tears--“Spare me!” cried she. “Oh, would to God I had died ere you came to command me to do what I cannot and will not do, François!” added she, clasping hard the hand of the Intendant, which she fancied relaxed somewhat of its iron hardness.

“I did not come to command you, Caroline, but to bear the request of my guests. No, I do not even ask you on my account to go up to the great hall: it is to please my guests only.” Her tears and heartrending appeal began to sober him. Bigot had not counted on such a scene as this.

“Oh, thanks, François, for that word! You did not come to command my obedience in such a shameful thing: you had some small regard left for the unfortunate Caroline. Say you will not command me to go up there,” added she, looking at him with eyes of pitiful pleading, such as no Italian art ever portrayed on the face of the sorrowing Madonna.

“No,” he replied, impatiently. “It was not I proposed it: it was Cadet. He is always a fool when the wine overflows, as I am too, or I would not have hearkened to him! Still, Caroline, I have promised, and my guests will jeer me finely if I return without you.” He thought she hesitated a moment in her resolve at this suggestion. “Come, for my sake, Caroline! Do up that disordered hair; I shall be proud of you, my Caroline; there is not a lady in New France can match you when you look yourself, my pretty Caroline!”

“François,” said she, with a sad smile, “it is long since you flattered me thus! But I will arrange my hair for you alone,” added she, blushing, as with deft fingers she twisted her raven locks into a coronal about her head. “I would once have gone with you to the end of the world to hear you say you were proud of me. Alas! you can never be proud of me any more, as in the old happy days at Grand Pré. Those few brief days of love and joy can never return--never, never!”

Bigot stood silent, not knowing what to say or do. The change from the bacchanalian riot in the great hall to the solemn pathos and woe of the secret chamber sobered him rapidly. Even his obduracy gave way at last. “Caroline,” said he, taking both her hands in his, “I will not urge you longer. I am called bad, and you think me so; but I am not brutal. It was a promise made over the wine. Varin, the drunken beast, called you Queen Vashti, and challenged me to show your beauty to them; and I swore not one of their toasted beauties could match my fair Acadienne.”

“Did the Sieur Varin call me Queen Vashti? Alas! he was a truer prophet than he knew,” replied she, with ineffable sadness. “Queen Vashti refused to obey even her king, when commanded to unveil her face to the drunken nobles. She was deposed, and another raised to her place. Such may be my fate, François.”

“Then you will not go, Caroline?”

“No; kill me if you like, and bear my dead body into the hall, but living, I can never show my face again before men--hardly before you, François,” added she, blushing, as she hid her tearful eyes on his shoulder.

“Well then, Caroline,” replied, he, really admiring her spirit and resolution, “they shall finish their carouse without seeing you. The wine has flowed to-night in rivers, but they shall swim in it without you.”

“And tears have flowed down here,” said she, sadly,--“oh, so bitter! May you never taste their bitterness, François!”

Bigot paced the chamber with steadier steps than he had entered it. The fumes were clearing from his brain; the song that had caught the ear of Colonel Philibert as he approached the Château was resounding at this moment. As it ceased Bigot heard the loud impatient knocking of Philibert at the outer door.

“Darling!” said he, “lie down now, and compose yourself. François Bigot is not unmindful of your sacrifices for his sake. I must return to my guests, who are clamoring for me, or rather for you, Caroline!”

He kissed her cheek and turned to leave her, but she clung to his hand as if wanting to say something more ere he went. She trembled visibly as her low plaintive tones struck his ear.

“François! if you would forsake the companionship of those men and purify your table of such excess, God's blessing would yet descend upon you, and the people's love follow you! It is in your power to be as good as you are great! I have many days wished to say this to you, but alas, I feared you too much. I do not fear you to-day, François, after your kind words to me.”

Bigot was not impenetrable to that low voice so full of pathos and love. But he was at a loss what to reply: strange influences were flowing round him, carrying him out of himself. He kissed the gentle head that reclined on his bosom. “Caroline,” said he, “your advice is wise and good as yourself. I will think of it for your sake, if not for my own. Adieu, darling! Go, and take rest: these cruel vigils are killing you, and I want you to live in hope of brighter days.”

“I will,” replied she, looking up with ineffable tenderness. “I am sure I shall rest after your kind words, François. No dew of Heaven was ever more refreshing than the balm they bring to my weary soul. Thanks, O my François, for them!” She kissed his lips, and Bigot left the secret chamber a sadder and for the moment a better man than he had ever been before.

Caroline, overcome by her emotions, threw herself on a couch, invoking blessings upon the head of the man by whom she had been so cruelly betrayed. But such is woman's heart--full of mercy, compassion, and pardon for every wrong, when love pleads for forgiveness.

“Ha! ha!” said Cadet, as the Intendant re-entered the great hall, which was filled with bacchanalian frenzy. “Ha! ha! His Excellency has proposed and been rejected! The fair lady has a will of her own and won't obey! Why, the Intendant looks as if he had come from Quintin Corentin, where nobody gets anything he wants!”

“Silence, Cadet! don't be a fool!” replied Bigot, impatiently, although in the Intendant's usual mood nothing too gross or too bad could be said in his presence but he could cap it with something worse.

“Fool, Bigot! It is you who have been the fool of a woman!” Cadet was privileged to say anything, and he never stinted his speech. “Confess, your Excellency! she is splay-footed as St. Pedauque of Dijon! She dare not trip over our carpet for fear of showing her big feet!”

Cadet's coarse remark excited the mirth of the Intendant. The influences of the great hall were more powerful than those of the secret chamber. He replied curtly, however,--“I have excused the lady from coming, Cadet. She is ill, or she does not please to come, or she has a private fancy of her own to nurse--any reason is enough to excuse a lady, or for a gentleman to cease pressing her.”

“Dear me!” muttered Cadet, “the wind blows fresh from a new quarter! It is easterly, and betokens a storm!” and with drunken gravity he commenced singing a hunting refrain of Louis XIV.:

“'Sitot qu'il voit sa Chienne Il quitte tout pour elle.”'

Bigot burst out into immoderate laughter. “Cadet,” said he, “you are, when drunk, the greatest ruffian in Christendom, and the biggest knave when sober. Let the lady sleep in peace, while we drink ourselves blind in her honor. Bring in brandy, valets, and we will not look for day until midnight booms on the old clock of the Château.”

The loud knocking of Philibert in the great hall reverberated again and again through the house. Bigot bade the valets go see who disturbed the Château in that bold style.

“Let no one in!” added he “'tis against the rule to open the doors when the Grand Company are met for business! Take whips, valets, and scourge the insolent beggars away. Some miserable habitans, I warrant, whining for the loss of their eggs and bacon taken by the King's purveyors!”

A servant returned with a card on a silver salver. “An officer in uniform waits to see your Excellency: he brings orders from the Governor,” said he to the Intendant.

Bigot looked at the card with knitted brows; fire sparkled in his eyes as he read the name.

“Colonel Philibert!” exclaimed he, “Aide-de-Camp of the Governor! What the fiend brings HIM at such a time? Do you hear?” continued he, turning to Varin. “It is your friend from Louisbourg, who was going to put you in irons, and send you to France for trial when the mutinous garrison threatened to surrender the place if we did not pay them.”

Varin was not so intoxicated but the name of Philibert roused his anger. He set his cup down with a bang upon the table. “I will not taste a drop more till he is gone,” said he; “curse Galissonière's crooked neck--could he not have selected a more welcome messenger to send to Beaumanoir? But I have got his name in my list of debtors, and he shall pay up one day for his insolence at Louisbourg.”

“Tut, tut, shut up your books! you are too mercantile for gentlemen,” replied Bigot. “The question is, shall we allow Colonel Philibert to bring his orders into the hall? Par Dieu! we are scarcely presentable!”

But whether presentable or no, the words were scarcely spoken, when, impatient at the delay, Philibert took advantage of the open door and entered the great hall. He stood in utter amazement for a moment at the scene of drunken riot which he beheld. The inflamed faces, the confusion of tongues, the disorder, filth, and stench of the prolonged debauch sickened him, while the sight of so many men of rank and high office revelling at such an hour raised a feeling of indignation which he had difficulty in keeping down while he delivered his message to the Intendant.

Bigot, however, was too shrewd to be wanting in politeness. “Welcome, Colonel Philibert,” said he; “you are an unexpected guest, but a welcome one! Come and taste the hospitality of Beaumanoir before you deliver your message. Bustle, valets, bring fresh cups and the fullest carafes for Colonel Philibert.”

“Thanks for your politeness, Chevalier! Your Excellency will please excuse me if I deliver my message at once. My time is not my own to-day, so I will not sit down. His Excellency the Governor desires your presence and that of the Royal Commissaries at the council of war this afternoon. Despatches have just arrived by the Fleur-de-Lis from home, and the council must assemble at once.”

A red flush rested upon the brow of Philibert as in his mind he measured the important business of the council with the fitness of the men whom he summoned to attend it. He declined the offer of wine, and stepped backward from the table, with a bow to the Intendant and the company, and was about to depart, when a loud voice on the further side of the table cried out,--

“It is he, by all that is sacred! Pierre Philibert! wait!” Le Gardeur de Repentigny rushed like a storm through the hall, upsetting chairs and guests in his advance. He ran towards Colonel Philibert, who, not recognizing the flushed face and disordered figure that greeted him, shrank back from his embrace.

“My God! do you not know me, Pierre?” exclaimed Le Gardeur, wounded to the quick by the astonished look of his friend. “I am Le Gardeur de Repentigny! O dear friend, look and recognize me!”

Philibert stood transfixed with surprise and pain, as if an arrow had stricken his eyes. “You! you Le Gardeur de Repentigny? It is impossible! Le Gardeur never looked like you--much less, was ever found among people like these!” The last words were rashly spoken, but fortunately not heard amid the hubbub in the hall, or Philibert's life might have paid the penalty from the excited guests.

“And yet it is true; Pierre, look at me again. I am no other than he whom you drew out of the St. Lawrence, the only brother of Amélie!”

Philibert looked hard in the eyes of Le Gardeur, and doubted no longer. He pressed his old friend to his heart, saying, in a voice full of pathos,--

“O Le Gardeur! I recognize you now, but under what change of look and place! Often have I forecast our meeting again, but it was in your pure, virtuous home of Tilly, not in this place. What do you here, Le Gardeur?”

“Forgive me, Pierre, for the shame of meeting me here.” Le Gardeur stood up like a new man in the glance of his friend; the shock seemed to have sobered him at once. “'What do I do here?' say you, O dear friend!” said he, glancing round the hall, “it is easier seen than told what I do here. But by all the saints, I have finished here for to-day! You return to the city at once, Pierre?”

“At once, Le Gardeur. The Governor awaits my return.”

“Then I will return with you. My dear aunt and sister are in the city. News of their arrival reached me here; my duty was to return at once, but the Intendant's wine-cups were too potent for me--curse them, for they have disgraced me in your eyes, Pierre, as well as my own!”

Philibert started at the information that Amélie was in the city. “Amélie in the city?” repeated he, with glad surprise, “I did not expect to be able to salute her and the noble Lady de Tilly so soon.” His heart bounded in secret at the prospect of again seeing this fair girl, who had filled his thoughts for so many years and been the secret spring of so much that was noble and manly in his character.

“Come, Le Gardeur, let us take leave of the Intendant, and return at once to the city, but not in that plight!” added he, smiling, as Le Gardeur, oblivious of all but the pleasure of accompanying him, grasped his arm to leave the great hall. “Not in that garb, Le Gardeur! Bathe, purify, and clean yourself; I will wait outside in the fresh air. The odor of this room stifles me!”

“You are not going to leave us, Le Gardeur!” Varin called, across the table, “and break up good company? Wait till we finish a few more rounds, and we will all go together.”

“I have finished all the rounds for to-day, Varin, may be forever! Colonel Philibert is my dearest friend in life; I must leave even you to go with him, so pray excuse me.”

“You are excused, Le Gardeur.” Bigot spoke very courteously to him, much as he disliked the idea of his companionship with Philibert. “We must all return by the time the Cathedral bells chime noon. Take one parting cup before you go, Le Gardeur, and prevail on Colonel Philibert to do the same, or he will not praise our hospitality, I fear.”

“Not one drop more this day, were it from Jove's own poculum!” Le Gardeur repelled the temptation more readily as he felt a twitch on his sleeve from the hand of Philibert.

“Well, as you will, Le Gardeur; we have all had enough and over, I dare say. Ha! ha! Colonel Philibert rather puts us to the blush, or would were not our cheeks so well-painted in the hues of rosy Bacchus.”

Philibert, with official courtesy, bade adieu to the Intendant and the company. A couple of valets waited upon Le Gardeur, whom they assisted to bathe and dress. In a short time he left the Château almost sobered, and wholly metamorphosed into a handsome, fresh chevalier. A perverse redness about the eyes alone remained, to tell the tale of the last night's debauch.

Master Pothier sat on a horse-block at the door with all the gravity of a judge, while he waited for the return of Colonel Philibert and listened to the lively noise in the Château, the music, song, and jingle of glass forming a sweet concert in the ears of the jolly old notary.

“I shall not need you to guide me back, Master Pothier,” said Philibert, as he put some silver pieces in his hollow palm; “take your fee. The cause is gained, is it not, Le Gardeur?” He glanced triumphantly at his friend.

“Good-by, Master Pothier,” said he, as he rode off with Le Gardeur. The old notary could not keep up with them, but came jolting on behind, well pleased to have leisure to count and jingle his coins. Master Pothier was in that state of joyful anticipation when hope outruns realization. He already saw himself seated in the old armchair in the snug parlor of Dame Bédard's inn, his back to the fire, his belly to the table, a smoking dish of roast in the middle, an ample trencher before him with a bottle of Cognac on one flank and a jug of Norman cider on the other, an old crony or two to eat and drink with him, and the light foot and deft hand of pretty Zoë Bédard to wait upon them.

This picture of perfect bliss floated before the winking eyes of Master Pothier, and his mouth watered in anticipation of his Eden, not of flowers and trees, but of tables, cups, and platters, with plenty to fill them, and to empty them as well.

“A worthy gentleman and a brave officer, I warrant!” said Pothier, as he jogged along. “He is generous as a prince, and considerate as a bishop, fit for a judge, nay, for a chief justice! What would you do for him, Master Pothier?” the old notary asked himself. “I answer the interrogatory of the Court: I would draw up his marriage contract, write his last will and testament with the greatest of pleasure and without a fee!--and no notary in New France could do more for him!” Pothier's imagination fell into a vision over a consideration of his favorite text--that of the great sheet, wherein was all manner of flesh and fowl good for food, but the tongue of the old notary would trip at the name of Peter, and perversely say, “Rise, Pothier; kill, and eat.”

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IX. PIERRE PHILIBERT

Colonel Philibert and Le Gardeur rode rapidly through the forest of Beaumanoir, pulling up occasionally in an eager and sympathetic exchange of questions and replies, as they recounted the events of their lives since their separation, or recalled their school-days and glorious holidays and rambles in the woods of Tilly--with frequent mention of their gentle, fair companion, Amélie de Repentigny, whose name on the lips of her brother sounded sweeter than the chime of the bells of Charlebourg to the ear of Pierre Philibert.

The bravest man in New France felt a tremor in his breast as he asked Le Gardeur a seemingly careless question--seemingly, for, in truth, it was vital in the last degree to his happiness, and he knew it. He expressed a fear that Amélie would have wholly forgotten him after so long an absence from New France.

His heart almost ceased beating as he waited the reply of Le Gardeur, which came impetuously: “Forgotten you, Pierre Philibert? She would forget me as soon! But for you she would have had no brother to-day, and in her prayers she ever remembers both of us--you by right of a sister's gratitude, me because I am unworthy of her saintly prayers and need them all the more! O Pierre Philibert, you do not know Amélie if you think she is one ever to forget a friend like you!”

The heart of Philibert gave a great leap for joy. Too happy for speech, he rode on a while in silence.

“Amélie will have changed much in appearance?” he asked, at last. A thousand questions were crowding upon his lips.

“Changed? Oh, yes!” replied Le Gardeur, gaily. “I scarcely recognize my little bright-eyed sister in the tall, perfect young lady that has taken her place. But the loving heart, the pure mind, the gentle ways, and winning smiles are the same as ever. She is somewhat more still and thoughtful, perhaps--more strict in the observances of religion. You will remember, I used to call her in jest our St. Amélie: I might call her that in earnest now, Pierre, and she would be worthy of the name!”

“God bless you, Le Gardeur!” burst out Colonel Philibert,--his voice could not repress the emotion he felt,--“and God bless Amélie! Think you she would care to see me to-day, Le Gardeur?” Philibert's thoughts flew far and fast, and his desire to know more of Amélie was a rack of suspense to him. She might, indeed, recollect the youth Pierre Philibert, thought he, as she did a sunbeam that gladdened long-past summers; but how could he expect her to regard him--the full-grown man--as the same? Nay, was he not nursing a fatal fancy in his breast that would sting him to death? for among the gay and gallant throng about the capital was it not more than possible that so lovely and amiable a woman had already been wooed, and given the priceless treasure of her love to another? It was, therefore, with no common feeling that Philibert said, “Think you she will care to see me to-day, Le Gardeur?”

“Care to see you, Pierre Philibert? What a question! She and Aunt de Tilly take every occasion to remind me of you, by way of example, to shame me of my faults--and they succeed, too! I could cut off my right hand this moment, Pierre, that it should never lift wine again to my lips--and to have been seen by you in such company! What must you think of me?”

“I think your regret could not surpass mine; but tell me how you have been drawn into these rapids and taken the wrong turn, Le Gardeur?”

Le Gardeur winced as he replied,--“Oh, I do not know. I found myself there before I thought. It was the wit, wine, and enchantments of Bigot, I suppose,--and the greatest temptation of all, a woman's smiles,--that led me to take the wrong turn, as you call it. There, you have my confession!--and I would put my sword through any man but you, Pierre, who dared ask me to give such an account of myself. I am ashamed of it all, Pierre Philibert!”

“Thanks, Le Gardeur, for your confidence. I hope you will outride this storm!” He held out his hand, nervous and sinewy as that of Mars. Le Gardeur seized it, and pressed it hard in his. “Don't you think it is still able to rescue a friend from peril?” added Philibert smiling.

Le Gardeur caught his meaning, and gave him a look of unutterable gratitude. “Besides this hand of mine, are there not the gentler hands of Amélie to intercede for you with your better self?” said Philibert.

“My dear sister!” interjected Le Gardeur. “I am a coward when I think of her, and I shame to come into her pure presence.”

“Take courage, Le Gardeur! There is hope where there is shame of our faults. Be equally frank with your sister as with me, and she will win you, in spite of yourself, from the enchantments of Bigot, Cadet, and the still more potent smiles you speak of that led you to take the wrong turn in life.”

“I doubt it is too late, Pierre! although I know that, were every other friend in the world to forsake me, Amélie would not! She would not even reproach me, except by excess of affection.”

Philibert looked on his friend admiringly, at this panegyric of the woman he loved. Le Gardeur was in feature so like his sister that Philibert at the moment caught the very face of Amélie, as it were, looking at him through the face of her brother. “You will not resist her pleadings, Le Gardeur,”--Philibert thought it an impossible thing. “No guardian angel ever clung to the skirts of a sinner as Amélie will cling to you,” said he; “therefore I have every hope of my dear friend Le Gardeur Repentigny.”

The two riders emerged from the forest, and drew up for a minute in front of the hostelry of the Crown of France, to water their horses at the long trough before the door and inform Dame Bédard, who ran out to greet them, that Master Pothier was following with his ambling nag at a gentle pace, as befitted the gravity of his profession.

“Oh! Master Pothier never fails to find his way to the Crown of France; but won't your Honors take a cup of wine? The day is hot and the road dusty. 'A dry rider makes a wet nag,'” added the Dame, with a smile, as she repeated an old saying, brought over with the rest of the butin in the ships of Cartier and Champlain.

The gentlemen bowed their thanks, and as Philibert looked up, he saw pretty Zoë Bédard poring over a sheet of paper bearing a red seal, and spelling out the crabbed law text of Master Pothier. Zoë, like other girls of her class, had received a tincture of learning in the day schools of the nuns; but, although the paper was her marriage contract, it puzzled her greatly to pick out the few chips of plain sense that floated in the sea of legal verbiage it contained. Zoë, with a perfect comprehension of the claims of meum and tuum, was at no loss, however, in arriving at a satisfactory solution of the true merits of her matrimonial contract with honest Antoine La Chance.

She caught the eye of Philibert, and blushed to the very chin as she huddled away the paper and returned the salute of the two handsome gentlemen, who, having refreshed their horses, rode off at a rapid trot down the great highway that led to the city.

Babet Le Nocher, in a new gown, short enough to reveal a pair of shapely ankles in clocked stockings and well-clad feet that would have been the envy of many a duchess, sat on the thwart of the boat knitting. Her black hair was in the fashion recorded by the grave Peter Kalm, who, in his account of New France, says, “The peasant women all wear their hair in ringlets, and nice they look!”

“As I live!” exclaimed she to Jean, who was enjoying a pipe of native tobacco, “here comes that handsome officer back again, and in as great a hurry to return as he was to go up the highway!”

“Ay, ay, Babet! It is plain to see he is either on the King's errand or his own. A fair lady awaits his return in the city, or one has just dismissed him where he has been! Nothing like a woman to put quicksilver in a man's shoes--eh! Babet?”

“Or foolish thoughts into their hearts, Jean!” replied she, laughing.

“And nothing more natural, Babet, if women's hearts are wise enough in their folly to like our foolish thoughts of them. But there are two! Who is that riding with the gentleman? Your eyes are better than mine, Babet!”

“Of course, Jean! that is what I always tell you, but you won't believe me--trust my eyes, and doubt your own! The other gentleman,” said she, looking fixedly, while her knitting lay still in her lap, “the other is the young Chevalier de Repentigny. What brings him back before the rest of the hunting party, I wonder?”

“That officer must have been to Beaumanoir, and is bringing the young seigneur back to town,” remarked Jean, puffing out a long thread of smoke from his lips.

“Well, it must be something better than smoke, Jean!”--Babet coughed: she never liked the pipe--“The young chevalier is always one of the last to give up when they have one of their three days drinking bouts up at the Château. He is going to the bad, I fear--more's the pity! such a nice, handsome fellow, too!”

“All lies and calumny!” replied Jean, in a heat. “Le Gardeur de Repentigny is the son of my dear old seigneur. He may get drunk, but it will be like a gentleman if he does, and not like a carter, Babet, or like a--”

“Boatman! Jean; but I don't include you--you have never been the worse for drinking water since I took care of your liquor, Jean!”

“Ay, you are intoxication enough of yourself for me, Babet! Two bright eyes like yours, a pipe and bitters, with grace before meat, would save any Christian man in this world.” Jean stood up, politely doffing his red tuque to the gentlemen. Le Gardeur stooped from his horse to grasp his hand, for Jean had been an old servitor at Tilly, and the young seigneur was too noble-minded and polite to omit a kindly notice of even the humblest of his acquaintance.

“Had a busy day, Jean, with the old ferry?” asked Le Gardeur, cheerily.

“No, your Honor, but yesterday I think half the country-side crossed over to the city on the King's corvée. The men went to work, and the women followed to look after them, ha! ha!” Jean winked provokingly at Babet, who took him up sharply.

“And why should not the women go after the men? I trow men are not so plentiful in New France as they used to be before this weary war began. It well behooves the women to take good care of all that are left.”

“That is true as the Sunday sermon,” remarked Jean. “Why, it was only the other day I heard that great foreign gentleman, who is the guest of His Excellency the Governor, say, sitting in this very boat, that 'there are at this time four women to every man in New France!' If that is true, Babet,--and you know he said it, for you were angry enough,--a man is a prize indeed, in New France, and women are plenty as eggs at Easter!”

“The foreign gentleman had much assurance to say it, even if it were true: he were much better employed picking up weeds and putting them in his book!” exclaimed Babet, hotly.

“Come! come!” cried Le Gardeur, interrupting this debate on the population; “Providence knows the worth of Canadian women, and cannot give us too many of them. We are in a hurry to get to the city, Jean, so let us embark. My aunt and Amélie are in the old home in the city; they will be glad to see you and Babet,” added he, kindly, as he got into the boat.

Babet dropped her neatest courtesy, and Jean, all alive to his duty, pushed off his boat, bearing the two gentlemen and their horses across the broad St. Charles to the King's Quay, where they remounted, and riding past the huge palace of the Intendant, dashed up the steep Côte au Chien and through the city gate, disappearing from the eyes of Babet, who looked very admiringly after them. Her thoughts were especially commendatory of the handsome officer in full uniform who had been so polite and generous in the morning.

“I was afraid, Jean, you were going to blurt out about Mademoiselle des Meloises,” remarked Babet to Jean on his return; “men are so indiscreet always!”

“Leaky boats! leaky boats! Babet! no rowing them with a woman aboard! sure to run on the bank. But what about Mademoiselle des Meloises?” Honest Jean had passed her over the ferry an hour ago, and been sorely tempted to inform Le Gardeur of the interesting fact.

“What about Mademoiselle des Meloises?” Babet spoke rather sharply. “Why, all Quebec knows that the Seigneur de Repentigny is mad in love with her.”

“And why should he not be mad in love with her if he likes?” replied Jean; “she is a morsel fit for a king, and if Le Gardeur should lose both his heart and his wits on her account, it is only what half the gallants of Quebec have done.”

“Oh, Jean, Jean! it is plain to see you have an eye in your head as well as a soft place!” ejaculated Babet, recommencing her knitting with fresh vigor, and working off the electricity that was stirring in her.

“I had two eyes in my head when I chose you, Babet, and the soft place was in my heart!” replied Jean, heartily. The compliment was taken with a smile, as it deserved to be. “Look you, Babet, I would not give this pinch of snuff,” said Jean, raising his thumb and two fingers holding a good dose of the pungent dust,--“I would not give this pinch of snuff for any young fellow who could be indifferent to the charms of such a pretty lass as Angélique des Meloises!”

“Well, I am glad you did not tell the Seigneur de Repentigny that she had crossed the ferry and gone--not to look for him, I'll be bound! I will tell you something by and by, Jean, if you will come in and eat your dinner; I have something you like.”

“What is it, Babet?” Jean was, after all, more curious about his dinner than about the fair lady.

“Oh, something you like--that is a wife's secret: keep the stomach of a man warm, and his heart will never grow cold. What say you to fried eels?”

“Bravo!” cried the gay old boatman, as he sang,

“'Ah! ah! ah! frit à l'huile, Frit au beurre et à l'ognon!'”

and the jolly couple danced into their little cottage--no king and queen in Christendom half so happy as they.

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X. AMÉLIE DE REPENTIGNY

The town house of the Lady de Tilly stood on the upper part of the Place d'Armes, a broad, roughly-paved square. The Château of St. Louis, with its massive buildings and high, peaked roofs, filled one side of the square. On the other side, embowered in ancient trees that had escaped the axe of Champlain's hardy followers, stood the old-fashioned Monastery of the Recollets, with its high belfry and broad shady porch, where the monks in gray gowns and sandals sat in summer, reading their breviaries or exchanging salutations with the passers-by, who always had a kind greeting for the brothers of St. Francis.

The mansion of the Lady de Tilly was of stone, spacious and ornate, as became the rank and wealth of the Seigneurs de Tilly. It overlooked the Place d'Armes and the noble gardens of the Château of St. Louis, with a magnificent sweep of the St. Lawrence, flowing majestically under the fortress-crowned cape and the high, wooded hills of Lauzon, the farther side of the river closing the view.

In the recess of an ornate mullioned window, half concealed by the rich, heavy curtains of a noble room, Amélie de Repentigny sat alone--very quiet in look and demeanor, but no little agitated in mind, as might be noticed in the nervous contact of her hands, which lay in her lap clasping each other very hard, as if trying to steady her thoughts.

Her aunt was receiving some lady visitors in the great drawing-room. The hum of loud feminine voices reached the ear of Amélie, but she paid no attention, so absorbed was she in the new and strange thoughts that had stirred in her mind since morning, when she had learned from the Chevalier La Corne of the return to New France of Pierre Philibert. The news had surprised her to a degree she could not account for. Her first thought was, how fortunate for her brother that Pierre had returned; her second, how agreeable to herself. Why? She could not think why: she wilfully drew an inference away from the truth that lay in her heart--it was wholly for the sake of her brother she rejoiced in the return of his friend and preserver. Her heart beat a little faster than usual--that was the result of her long walk and disappointment at not meeting Le Gardeur on her arrival yesterday. But she feared to explore her thoughts: a rigid self-examination might discover what she instinctively felt was deeply concealed there.

A subtile, indefinable prevision had suggested to her that Colonel Philibert would not have failed to meet Le Gardeur at Beaumanoir, and that he would undoubtedly accompany her brother on his return and call to pay his respects to the Lady de Tilly and--to herself. She felt her cheek glow at the thought, yet she was half vexed at her own foolish fancy, as she called it. She tried to call upon her pride, but that came very laggardly to the relief of her discomposure.

Her interview, too, with Angélique des Meloises had caused her no little disquiet. The bold avowals of Angélique with reference to the Intendant had shocked Amélie. She knew that her brother had given more of his thoughts to this beautiful, reckless girl than was good for his peace, should her ambition ever run counter to his love.

The fond sister sighed deeply when she reflected that the woman who had power to make prize of Le Gardeur's love was not worthy of him.

It is no rare thing for loving sisters who have to resign their brothers to others' keeping to think so. But Amélie knew that Angélique des Meloises was incapable of that true love which only finds its own in the happiness of another. She was vain, selfish, ambitious, and--what Amélie did not yet know--possessed of neither scruple nor delicacy in attaining her objects.

It had chimed the hour of noon upon the old clock of the Recollets, and Amélie still sat looking wistfully over the great square of the Place d'Armes, and curiously scanning every horseman that rode across it. A throng of people moved about the square, or passed in and out of the great arched gateway of the Castle of St. Louis. A bright shield, bearing the crown and fleur-de-lis, surmounted the gate, and under it walked, with military pace, a couple of sentries, their muskets and bayonets flashing out in the sun every time they wheeled to return on their beat. Occasionally there was a ruffle of drums: the whole guard turned out and presented arms, as some officer of high rank, or ecclesiastical dignitary, passed through to pay his respects to the Governor, or transact business at the vice-regal court. Gentlemen on foot, with chapeaux and swords, carrying a cloak on their shoulders; ladies in visiting dress; habitans and their wives in unchanging costume; soldiers in uniform, and black-gowned clergy, mingled in a moving picture of city life, which, had not Amélie's thoughts been so preoccupied to-day, would have afforded her great delight to look out upon.

The Lady de Tilly had rather wearied of the visit of the two ladies of the city, Madame de Grandmaison and Madame Couillard, who had bored her with all the current gossip of the day. They were rich and fashionable, perfect in etiquette, costume, and most particular in their society; but the rank and position of the noble Lady de Tilly made her friendship most desirable, as it conferred in the eyes of the world a patent of gentility which held good against every pretension to overtop it.

The stream of city talk from the lips of the two ladies had the merit of being perfect of its kind--softly insinuating and sweetly censorious, superlative in eulogy and infallible in opinion. The good visitors most conscientiously discharged what they deemed a great moral and social duty by enlightening the Lady de Tilly on all the recent lapses and secrets of the capital. They slid over slippery topics like skaters on thin ice, filling their listener with anxiety lest they should break through. But Madame de Grandmaison and her companion were too well exercised in the gymnastics of gossip to overbalance themselves. Half Quebec was run over and run down in the course of an hour.

Lady de Tilly listened with growing impatience to their frivolities, but she knew society too well to quarrel with its follies when it was of no service to do so: she contented herself with hoping it was not so bad. The Pope was not Catholic enough to suit some people, but, for her part, she had generally found people better than they were called.

A rather loud but well-bred exclamation of Madame de Grandmaison roused Amélie from her day-dream.

“Not going to the Intendant's ball at the Palace, my Lady de Tilly! neither you nor Mademoiselle de Repentigny, whom we are so sorry not to have seen to-day? Why, it is to be the most magnificent affair ever got up in New France. All Quebec has rung with nothing else for a fortnight, and every milliner and modiste in the city has gone almost insane over the superlative costumes to be worn there.”

“And it is to be the most select in its character,” chimed in Madame Couillard; “all gentry and noblesse, not one of the bourgeois to be invited. That class, especially the female portion of them, give themselves such airs nowadays! As if their money made them company for people of quality! They must be kept down, I say, or--”

“And the Royal Intendant quite agrees with the general sentiment of the higher circles,” responded Madame de Grandmaison. “He is for keeping down--”

“Noblesse! Noblesse!” The Lady de Tilly spoke with visible impatience. “Who is this Royal Intendant who dares cast a slight upon the worthy, honest bourgeoisie of this city? Is he noble himself? Not that I would think worse of him were he not, but I have heard it disputed. He is the last one who should venture to scorn the bourgeoisie.”

Madame de Grandmaison fanned herself in a very stately manner. “Oh, my Lady, you surely forget! The Chevalier Bigot is a distant relative of the Count de Marville, and the Chevalier de Grandmaison is a constant visitor at the Intendant's! But he would not have sat at his table an hour had he not known that he was connected with the nobility. The Count de Marville--”

“The Count de Marville!” interrupted the Lady de Tilly, whose politeness almost gave way. “Truly, a man is known by the company he keeps. No credit to any one to be connected with the Count de Marville.”

Madame de Grandmaison felt rather subdued. She perceived that the Lady de Tilly was not favorably impressed towards the Intendant. But she tried again: “And then, my Lady, the Intendant is so powerful at Court. He was a particular friend of Madame d'Étioles before she was known at Court, and they say he managed her introduction to the King at the famous masked ball at the Hôtel de Ville, when His Majesty threw his handkerchief at her, and she became first dame du palais and the Marquise de Pompadour. She has ever remained his firm friend, and in spite of all his enemies could do to prevent it His Majesty made him Intendant of New France.”

“In spite of all the King's friends could do, you mean,” replied the Lady de Tilly, in a tone the sound of which caught the ear of Amélie, and she knew her aunt was losing patience with her visitors. Lady de Tilly heard the name of the royal mistress with intense disgust, but her innate loyalty prevented her speaking disparagingly of the King. “We will not discuss the Court,” said she, “nor the friendships of this Intendant. I can only pray his future may make amends for his past. I trust New France may not have as much reason as poor lost Acadia to lament the day of his coming to the Colonies.”

The two lady visitors were not obtuse. They saw they had roused the susceptibilities--prejudices, they called them--of the Lady de Tilly. They rose, and smothering their disappointment under well-bred phrases, took most polite leave of the dignified old lady, who was heartily glad to be rid of them.

“The disagreeable old thing--to talk so of the Intendant!” exclaimed Madame Couillard, spitefully, “when her own nephew, and heir in the Seigniory of Tilly, is the Intendant's firmest friend and closest companion.”

“Yes, she forgot about her own house; people always forget to look at home when they pass judgment upon their neighbors,” replied Madame de Grandmaison. “But I am mistaken if she will be able to impress Le Gardeur de Repentigny with her uncharitable and unfashionable opinions of the Intendant. I hope the ball will be the greatest social success ever seen in the city, just to vex her and her niece, who is as proud and particular as she is herself.”

Amélie de Repentigny had dressed herself to-day in a robe of soft muslin of Deccan, the gift of a relative in Pondicherry. It enveloped her exquisite form, without concealing the grace and lissomeness of her movements. A broad blue ribbon round her waist, and in her dark hair a blue flower, were all her adornments, except a chain and cross of gold, which lay upon her bosom, the rich gift of her brother, and often kissed with a silent prayer for his welfare and happiness. More than once, under the influence of some indefinable impulse, she rose and went to the mirror, comparing her features now with a portrait of herself taken as a young girl in the garb of a shepherdess of Provence. Her father used to like that picture of her, and to please him she often wore her hair in the fashion of Provence. She did so to-day. Why? The subtile thought in many Protean shapes played before her fancy, but she would not try to catch it--no! rather shyly avoided its examination.

She was quite restless, and sat down again in the deep recess of the window, watching the Place d'Armes for the appearance of her brother.

She gave a sudden start at last, as a couple of officers galloped in to the square and rode towards the great gate of the Château; one of them she instantly recognized as her brother, the other, a tall martial figure in full uniform, upon a fiery gray, she did not recognize, but she knew in her heart it could be no other than Colonel Philibert.

Amélie felt a thrill, almost painful in its pleasure, agitating her bosom, as she sat watching the gateway they had entered. It was even a momentary relief to her that they had turned in there instead of riding directly to the house. It gave her time to collect her thoughts and summon all her fortitude for the coming interview. Her fingers wandered down to the rosary in the folds of her dress, and the golden bead, which had so often prompted her prayer for the happiness of Pierre Philibert, seemed to burn to the touch. Her cheek crimsoned, for a strange thought suddenly intruded--the boy Pierre Philibert, whose image and memory she had so long and innocently cherished, was now a man, a soldier, a councillor, trained in courts and camps! How unmaidenly she had acted, forgetting all this in her childish prayers until this moment! “I mean no harm,” was all the defence she could think of. Nor had she time to think more of herself, for, after remaining ten minutes in the Château, just long enough to see the Governor and deliver the answer of the Intendant to his message, the gray charger emerged from the gate. His rider was accompanied by her brother and the well-known figure of her godfather, La Corne St. Luc, who rode up the hill and in a minute or two dismounted at the door of the mansion of the Lady de Tilly.

The fabled lynx, whose eye penetrates the very earth to discover hidden treasure, did not cast a keener and more inquisitive glance than that which Amélie, shrouded behind the thick curtains, directed from the window at the tall, manly figure and handsome countenance of him whom she knew to be Pierre Philibert. Let it not detract from her that she gave way to an irresistible impulse of womanly curiosity. The Queen of France would, under the same temptation, have done the same thing, and perhaps without feeling half the modest shame of it that Amélie did. A glance sufficed--but a glance that impressed upon her mind forever the ineffaceable and perfect image of Pierre Philibert the man, who came in place of Pierre Philibert the boy friend of Le Gardeur and of herself.

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