Solemn and slow the notes of the chant rose up as the procession swept along before the gates of the palace, and the words of the penitent King of Israel were heard ascending to the sky, and praying the God of mercy and of power to pardon and to succor. The grasp of the hand grew less firm, but the weight pressed heavier and heavier; and, turning suddenly round, Jean Charost cast his arm about the duke, from an instinctive feeling that he was falling to the ground.
The prince's face was deadly pale, and his strong limbs shook as if with an ague. Bitter tears, too, were on his cheeks, and his lips quivered. "Get me a chair," he said, faintly, grasping the pillar between the windows; "I feel ill--get me a chair."
Although almost afraid to leave him lest he should fall, Jean Charost hurried to obey, brought forward one of the large arm-chairs, and, placing his hand under the duke's arm, assisted him to seat himself in it. Then gazing anxiously in his face, he beheld an expression of deep and bitter grief, such as he had never seen before; no, not even in his mother's face when his father's dead body was brought back to his paternal hall. The young man's heart was touched; the distinction of rank and station was done away, in part; sympathy created a bond between him and one who was comparatively a stranger, and, kneeling at the prince's side, he kissed his hand, saying, "Oh, sir, be comforted. Death ever strikes the dearest and the best beloved. It is the lot of humanity to possess but for a season that which we value most. It is a trial of our faith to yield unrepining to him who lent that which he takes away. Trust--trust in God to comfort and to compensate!"
The duke shook his head sadly. "Trust in God!" he repeated, "and him have I offended. His laws have I broken. Young man, young man, you know not what it is to see the bitter consummation of what you yourself have done--to behold the wreck you have made of happiness--the complete desolation of a life once pure, and bright, and beautiful--all done by you. Yes, yes," he added, almost wildly, "I did it all--what matter the instruments--what signifies it that the dagger was not in my hand? I was the cause of all--I tore her from a peaceful home, where she had tranquillity, if not love--I blasted her fair name--I broke up her domestic peace--I took from her happiness--I gave her penitence and remorse--I armed the hand that stabbed her. Mine, mine is the whole crime, though she has shared the sorrow and endured the punishment."
"But there is mercy, sir," urged Jean Charost; "there is mercy for all repentance. Surely Christ died not in vain. Surely he suffered not for the few, but for the many. Surely his word is not false, his promises not idle! 'Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give ye rest.' He spoke of the weariness of the heart, and the burden of the spirit--He spoke to all men. He spoke to the peasant in his hut, to the king upon his throne, to the saint in his cell, to the criminal in his dungeon, to the sorrowful throughout all the earth, and throughout all time; and to you, oh prince--He spoke also unto you! Weary and heavy laden are you with your grief and your repentance; turn unto him, and he will give you rest!"
There was something in the outburst of fervid feeling with which the young man spoke, from the deep interest that had been excited in him by all he had seen and heard, which went straight home to the heart of the Duke of Orleans, and casting his arm around him, he once more leaned his head upon his shoulder, and wept profusely. But now they seemed to be somewhat calmer tears he shed--tears of grief, but not altogether of despair; and when he lifted his head again, the expression of deep, hopeless bitterness was gone from his face. The chant, too, had ceased in the street, though a faint murmur thereof was still heard in the distance.
"You have given me comfort, Jean," he said; "you have given me comfort, when none else, perhaps, could have done so. You are no courtier, dear boy. You have spoken, when others would have stood in cold and reverent silence. Oh, out upon the heartless forms that cut us off from our fellow-men, even in the moment when the intensity of our human sufferings makes us feel ourselves upon the level of the lowliest! Out upon the heartless forms that drive us to break through their barrier into the sphere of passion, as much in pursuit of human sympathies as of mere momentary pleasure! Come with me, Jean. It is over--the dreadful moment is past--I will seek him to whom thou hast pointed--I will seek comfort there. But on this earth, the hour just passed has forged a tie between thee and me which can never be broken. Now I can understand how thou hast won so much love and confidence; it is that thou hast some heart, where all, or almost all, are heartless."
Thus saying, he raised himself with the aid of the young man's arm, and walked slowly back to his own apartments by the way he had come.
When they had entered his toilet-chamber, the duke cast himself into a chair, saying, "Now leave me, De Brecy; but be not far off. I need not tell you not to speak of any thing you have seen. I know you will not. I will send for you soon; but I must have time for thought."
Jean Charost withdrew and sought his own room; but it is not to be denied that the moment was a perilous one for his favor with the Duke of Orleans. It is a very dangerous thing to witness the weaknesses of great men--or those emotions which they look upon as weaknesses. Pride, vanity, doubt, fear, suspicion, all whisper hate against those who can testify that they are not so strong as the world supposes. Alas, that it should be so! But so it is; and it was but by a happy quality in the mind of the Duke of Orleans--the native frankness and generosity of his disposition--that Jean Charost escaped the fate of so many who have witnessed the secret emotion of princes. Happily for himself, he knew not that there was any peril, and felt, though in a different sense, that, as the prince had said, there was a new tie between him and his royal master.
CHAPTER X.
At the corner of a street, on the island which formed the first nucleus round which gathered the great city of Paris, was a small booth, protruding from a little, ill-favored house, some three or four hundred yards from the church of Nôtre Dame. This booth consisted merely of a coarse wooden shed, open in front, and only covered overhead by rough, unsmoothed planks, while upon a rude table or counter, running along the front, appeared a number of articles of cutlery, knives, great rings, and other iron ware, comprising the daggers worn, and often used in a sanguinary manner, by the lower order of citizens; for, though the possessor of the stall was not a regular armorer by profession, he did not think himself prohibited from dealing in the weapons employed by his own class. Written in white chalk upon a board over the booth were the words, "Simon, dit Caboche, Maître Coutellier."
Behind the table on which his goods were displayed appeared the personage to whom the above inscription referred: a man of some forty-five or forty-six years of age, tall, brawny, and powerful, with his huge arms bare up to the elbows, notwithstanding the severity of the weather. His countenance was any thing but prepossessing, and yet there was a certain commanding energy in the broad, square forehead and massive under jaw, which spoke, truly enough, the character of the man, and obtained for him considerable influence with people of his own class. Yet he was exceedingly ugly; his cheek bones high and prominent; his eyes small, fierce, and flashing, and his nose turned up in the air, as if in contempt of every thing below it. His skin was so begrimed with dirt, that its original color could with difficulty be distinguished; but it was probably of that dark, saturnine brown, which seldom looks completely clean; for his hair was of the stiff, black, bristly nature which usually goes with that complexion.
Limping about in the shop beside him was a creature, which even youth--usually so full of its own special charms--could not render beautiful or graceful. Nature seemed to have stamped upon it, from its birth, the most repulsive marks. It was a boy of some ten or twelve years old, but still his eyes hardly reached above the table on which the cutler's goods were displayed; but, by a peculiarity not uncommon, the growth which should have been upright had, by some obstacle, been forced to spread out laterally, and the shoulders, ribs, and hips were as broad as those of a grown man. The back was humped, though not very distinctly so; the legs were both short, but one was shorter than the other; and one eye was defective, probably from his birth. So short, so stout, so squared