His own attendants had congregated immediately behind him; on his right hand stood his friend the Chevalier; on his left, about half a step behind, so as to be near the Count, but not to appear obtrusive, was a personage of considerable importance in the little town of Morseiul, though he exercised a handicraft employment, and worked daily with his own hands, even while he directed others. This was Paul Virlay, the principal blacksmith of the place. He was at this time a man of about fifty years of age, tall, and herculean in all his proportions. The small head, the broad muscular chest and shoulders, the brawny arms, the immense thick hands, the thin flanks, and the stout legs and thighs, all bespoke extraordinary strength. He was very dark in complexion, with short-cut curly black hair, grizzled with grey; and the features of his face, though short, and by no means handsome, had a good and a frank expression, but at all times somewhat stern.
At the present moment his brow was more contracted than usual; not that there was any other particular mark of very strongly excited passions upon his countenance; and the attitude he had assumed was one of calm and reposing strength, resting with his right hand supported by one of the common quarter-staffs of the country, a full inch and a half thick, much in the same position which he frequently assumed when, pausing in his toil, he talked with his workmen, leaving the sledge hammer, that usually descended with such awful strength, to support the hand which wielded it at other times like a feather.
Behind him again, was a great multitude of the town's people of different classes, though the mayor and the municipal officers had thought fit to absent themselves carefully from the scene of probable strife. But the eyes of the Count fell, as we have said, upon Paul Virlay; and knowing him to be a man both highly respected in his own class, and of considerable wealth and importance in the city, he addressed him in the first instance, saying,--
"Good morrow, Virlay, it is long since I have seen you all. What is all this about?"
"You don't forget us, Count Albert, even when you are away," replied the blacksmith, with his brow unbending. "We know that very well, and have proofs of it too, when any thing good is to be done; but this seems to me to be a bad business. We hear that the king has suppressed the chamber of the edict, which was our greatest safeguard; and now my boy tells me, for I sent him down to see when they first came to the bottom of the hill, that this is a proclamation forbidding us from holding synods; and be you sure, sir, that the time is not far distant when they will try to stop us altogether from worshipping God in our own way. What think you, my lord?" he said, in a lower tone, "Were it not better to show them at once that they cannot go on?" and his looks spoke much more than even his words.
"No, Virlay," replied the Count; "no, by no means. You see the people are in tumult below evidently. Any unadvised and illegal resistance to the royal authority will immediately call upon us harsh measures, and be made the pretext by any bad advisers who may surround the king for irritating his royal mind against us. Let us hear what the proclamation really is; even should it be harsh and unjust, which from the king's merciful nature we will hope is not the case: let us listen to it calmly and peaceably, and after having considered well, and taken the advice and opinion of wise and experienced men, let us then make what representations to the king we may think fit, and petition him in his clemency to do us right."
"Clemency!" said the blacksmith. "However, my lord, you know better than I, but I hope they will not say any thing to make our blood boil, that's all."
"Even if they should," replied the Count, "we must prevent it from boiling over. Virlay, I rely upon you, as one of the most sensible men in the place, not only to restrain yourself, but to aid me in restraining others. The king has every right to send his own officers to make his will known to his people."
"But the dragoons," said Virlay, fixing his eyes upon the soldiers; "what business have they here? Why they might, Count Albert----"
The Count stopped him.
"They are yet without the real bounds of the town, Virlay," he said; "and they do not enter into it! Send some one you can trust for the mayor with all speed; unhook the gates from the bars that keep them back; place a couple of men behind each; I will prevent the military from entering into the town: but I trust to you, and the other men of good sense who surround me, to guard the king's officers and the king's authority from any insult, and to suffer the proclamation of his will to take place in the market-place without any opposition or tumult whatsoever."
"I will do my best, Count," replied the blacksmith, "for I am sure you are a true friend to us--and we may well trust in you."
The crowd from below had in the meantime advanced steadily up the hill, surrounding the officers of the crown and the soldiery; and by this time the whole mass was within a hundred and fifty yards of the spot where the Count and his companions stood. Their progress had been without violence, indeed, but not without hootings and outcry, which seemed greatly to annoy the officer in command of the soldiers, he having been accustomed alone to the court of the grand monarch, and to the scenes in the neighbourhood of the capital, where the people might well be said to lick the dust beneath the feet of their pageant-loving king. It seemed, then, something so strange and monstrous to his ears, that any expression of the royal will should be received otherwise than with the most deep and devoted submission, that he was more than once tempted to turn and charge the multitude. A prudent consideration, however, of the numbers by which he was surrounded, and the scantiness of his own band, overcame all such purposes; and, though foaming with indignation, he continued to advance, without noticing the shouts that assailed him, and playing with the manifold ribands and pieces of silk that decorated his buff coat and his sword knot, to conceal his vexation and annoyance.
"Who have we here at the head of them?" demanded the Count, turning to the Chevalier. "His face is not unknown to me."
"As far as I can see," replied his companion, "it is young Hericourt, a nephew of Le Tellier's--do you not remember? as brave as a lion, but moreover a young coxcomb, who thinks that he can do every thing, and that nothing can be done without him; as stupid as an owl too. I wonder you do not recollect his getting great credit for taking the little fort of the bec de l'oie by a sheer act of stupidity,--getting himself and his party entangled between the two forts, and while Lamets was advancing to extricate him, forcing his way in, from not knowing what else to do."
"I remember, I remember," said the Count, with a smile; "he was well rewarded for his fortunate mistake. But what does he here, I wonder? I thought he never quitted the precincts of Versailles, but to follow the King to the camp."
"He is the worst person who could have been sent upon this errand," replied the Chevalier; "for he is certain to make mischief wherever he goes. He has attached himself much to the Rouvrés, however, of late, and I suppose Le Tellier has given him some post about the new governor, in order that his rule may not be the most tranquil in the world."
While they were speaking, the eyes of the people who were coming up the hill fell upon the group that