“Ladies,” said the Prince de Cadignan, as the guests were about to
separate for the night, “I know that several of you propose to follow
the hounds with us to-morrow, and it becomes my duty to tell you that
if you will be Dianas you must rise, like Diana, with the dawn. The
meet is for half-past eight o’clock. I have in the course of my life
seen many women display greater courage than men, but for a few
seconds only; and you will need a strong dose of resolution to keep
you on horseback the whole day, barring a halt for breakfast, which we
shall take, like true hunters and huntresses, on the nail. Are you
still determined to show yourselves trained horse-women?”
“Prince, it is necessary for me to do so,” said Modeste, adroitly.
“I answer for myself,” said the Duchesse de Chaulieu.
“And I for my daughter Diane; she is worthy of her name,” added the
prince. “So, then, you all persist in your intentions? However, I
shall arrange, for the sake of Madame and Mademoiselle de Verneuil and
others of the party who stay at home, to drive the stag to the further
end of the pond.”
“Make yourself quite easy, mesdames,” said the Prince de Loudon, when
the Royal Huntsman had left the room; “that breakfast ‘on the nail’
will take place under a comfortable tent.”
The next day, at dawn, all signs gave promise of a glorious day. The
skies, veiled by a slight gray vapor, showed spaces of purest blue,
and would surely be swept clear before mid-day by the northwest wind,
which was already playing with the fleecy cloudlets. As the hunting
party left the chateau, the Master of the Hunt, the Duc de Rhetore,
and the Prince de Loudon, who had no ladies to escort, rode in the
advance, noticing the white masses of the chateau, with its rising
chimneys relieved against the brilliant red-brown foliage which the
trees in Normandy put on at the close of a fine autumn.
“The ladies are fortunate in their weather,” remarked the Duc de
Rhetore.
“Oh, in spite of all their boasting,” replied the Prince de Cadignan,
“I think they will let us hunt without them!”
“So they might, if each had not a squire,” said the duke.
At this moment the attention of these determined huntsmen—for the
Prince de Loudon and the Duc de Rhetore are of the race of Nimrod, and
the best shots of the faubourg Saint-Germain—was attracted by a loud
altercation; and they spurred their horses to an open space at the
entrance to the forest of Rosembray, famous for its mossy turf, which
was appointed for the meet. The cause of the quarrel was soon
apparent. The Prince de Loudon, afflicted with anglomania, had brought
out his own hunting establishment, which was exclusively Britannic,
and placed it under orders of the Master of the Hunt. Now, one of his
men, a little Englishman,—fair, pale, insolent, and phlegmatic,
scarcely able to speak a word of French, and dressed with a neatness
which distinguishes all Britons, even those of the lower classes,—had
posted himself on one side of this open space. John Barry wore a short
frock-coat, buttoned tightly at the waist, made of scarlet cloth, with
buttons bearing the De Verneuil arms, white leather breeches,
top-boots, a striped waistcoat, and a collar and cape of black velvet.
He held in his hand a small hunting-whip, and hanging to his wrist by
a silken cord was a brass horn. This man, the first whipper-in, was
accompanied by two thorough-bred dogs,—fox-hounds, white, with liver
spots, long in the leg, fine in the muzzle, with slender heads, and
little ears at their crests. The huntsman—famous in the English
county from which the Prince de Loudon had obtained him at great cost—was in charge of an establishment of fifteen horses and sixty
English hounds, which cost the Duc de Verneuil, who was nothing of a
huntsman, but chose to indulge his son in this essentially royal
taste, an enormous sum of money to keep up.
Now, when John arrived on the ground, he found himself forestalled by
three other whippers-in, in charge of two of the royal packs of hounds
which had been brought there in carts. They were the three best
huntsmen of the Prince de Cadignan, and presented, both in character
and in their distinctively French costume, a marked contrast to the
representative of insolent Albion. These favorites of the Prince, each
wearing full-brimmed, three-cornered hats, very flat and very
wide-spreading, beneath which grinned their swarthy, tanned, and
wrinkled faces, lighted by three pairs of twinkling eyes, were
noticeably lean, sinewy, and vigorous, like men in whom sport had
become a passion. All three were supplied with immense horns of
Dampierre, wound with green worsted cords, leaving only the brass
tubes visible; but they controlled their dogs by the eye and voice.
Those noble animals were far more faithful and submissive subjects
than the human lieges whom the king was at that moment addressing;
all were marked with white, black, or liver spots, each having as
distinctive a countenance as the soldiers of Napoleon, their eyes
flashing like diamonds at the slightest noise. One of them, brought
from Poitou, was short in the back, deep in the shoulder, low-jointed,
and lop-eared; the other, from England, white, fine as a greyhound
with no belly, small ears, and built for running. Both were young,
impatient, and yelping eagerly, while the old hounds, on the contrary,
covered with scars, lay quietly with their heads on their forepaws,
and their ears to the earth like savages.
As the Englishman came up, the royal dogs and huntsmen looked at each
other as though they said, “If we cannot hunt by ourselves his
Majesty’s service is insulted.”
Beginning with jests, the quarrel presently grew fiercer between
Monsieur Jacquin La Roulie, the old French whipper-in, and John Barry,
the young islander. The two princes guessed from afar the subject of
the altercation, and the Master of the Hunt, setting spurs to his
horse, brought it to an end by saying, in a voice of authority:—
“Who drew the wood?”
“I, monseigneur,” said the Englishman.
“Very good,” said the Prince de Cadignan, proceeding to take Barry’s
report.
Dogs and men became silent and respectful before the Royal Huntsman,
as though each recognized his dignity as supreme. The prince laid out
the day’s work; for it is with a hunt as it is with a battle, and the
Master of Charles X.’s hounds was the Napoleon of forests. Thanks to
the admirable system which he has introduced into French venery, he
was able to turn his thoughts exclusively to the science and strategy
of it. He now quietly assigned a special duty to the Prince de
Loudon’s establishment, that of driving the stag to water, when, as he
expected, the royal hounds had sent it into the Crown forest which
outlined the horizon directly in front of the chateau. The prince knew
well how to soothe the self-love of his old huntsmen by giving them
the most arduous part of the work, and also that of the Englishman,
whom he employed at his own speciality, affording him a chance to show
the fleetness of his horses and dogs in the open. The two national
systems were thus face to face and allowed to do their best under each
other’s eyes.
“Does monseigneur wish us to wait any longer?” said La Roulie,
respectfully.
“I know what you mean, old friend,” said the prince. “It is late,
but—”
“Here come the ladies,” said the second whipper-in.
At that moment the cavalcade of sixteen riders was seen to approach at
the head of which were the green veils of the four ladies. Modeste,
accompanied by her father, the grand equerry, and La Briere, was in
the advance, beside the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse whom the Vicomte de
Serizy escorted. Behind them rode the Duchesse de Chaulieu, flanked by
Canalis, on whom she was smiling without a trace of rancor. When they
had reached the open space where the huntsmen with their red coats and
brass bugles, surrounded by the hounds, made a picture worthy of Van
der Meulen, the Duchesse de Chaulieu, who, in spite of her embonpoint,
sat her horse admirably, rode up to Modeste, finding it more for her
dignity not to avoid that young person, to whom the evening before she
had not said a single word.
When the Master of the Hunt finished his compliments to the ladies on
their amazing punctuality, Eleonore deigned to observe the magnificent
whip which sparked in Modeste’s little hand, and graciously asked
leave to look at it.
“I have never seen anything of the kind more beautiful,” she said,
showing it to Diane de Maufrigneuse. “It is in keeping with its
possessor,” she added, returning it to Modeste.
“You must admit, Madame la duchesse,” answered Mademoiselle de La
Bastie, with a tender and malicious glance at La Briere, “that it is a
rather strange gift from the hand of a future husband.”
“I should take it,” said Madame de Maufrigneuse, “as a declaration of
my rights, in remembrance of Louis XIV.”
La Briere’s eyes were suffused, and for a moment he dropped his reins;
but a second glance from Modeste ordered him not to betray his
happiness. The hunt now began.
The Duc d’Herouville took occasion to say in a low voice to his
fortunate rival; “Monsieur, I hope that you will make your wife happy;
if I can be useful to you in any way, command my services; I should be
only too glad to contribute to the happiness of so charming a pair.”
This great day, in which such vast interests of heart and fortune were
decided, caused but one anxiety to the Master of the Hunt,—namely,
whether or not the stag would cross the pond and be killed on the lawn
before the house; for huntsmen of his calibre are like great
chess-players who can predict a checkmate under certain circumstances.
The happy old man succeeded to the height of his wishes; the run was
magnificent, and the ladies released him from his attendance upon them
for the hunt of the next day but one,—which, however, turned out to
be rainy.
The Duc de Verneuil’s guests stayed five days at Rosembray. On the
last day the Gazette de France announced the appointment of Monsieur
le Baron de Canalis to the rank of commander of the Legion of honor,
and to the post of minister at Carlsruhe.
When, early in the month of December, Madame de La Bastie, operated
upon by Desplein, recovered her sight and saw Ernest de La Briere for
the first time, she pressed Modeste’s hand and whispered in her ear,
“I should have chosen him myself.”
Toward the last of February all the deeds for the estates in Provence
were signed by Latournelle, and about that time the family of La
Bastie obtained the marked honor of the king’s signature to the
marriage contract and to the ordinance transmitting their title and
arms to La Briere, who henceforth took the name of La Briere-La
Bastie. The estate of La Bastie was entailed by letters-patent issued
about the end of April. La Briere’s witnesses on the occasion of his
marriage were Canalis and the minister whom he had served for five
years as secretary. Those of the bride were the Duc d’Herouville and
Desplein, whom the Mignons long held in grateful remembrance, after
giving him magnificent and substantial proofs of their regard.
Later, in the course of this long history of our manners and customs,
we may again meet Monsieur and Madame de La Briere-La Bastie; and
those who have the eyes to see, will then behold how sweet, how easy,
is the marriage yoke with an educated and intelligent woman; for
Modeste, who had the wit to avoid the follies of pedantry, is the
pride and happiness of her husband, as she is of her family and of all
those who surround her.
Nguồn: Wikisource English — Modeste Mignon/Chapter XXIX. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.