bristled brute, De la Marck.'
'Strike boldly in, Crevecoeur,' said the Duke; 'win her, and since thou canst not wear her thyself, bestow her where thou wilt – on Count Stephen, your nephew, if you list.'
'Gramercy, my lord!' said Crevecoeur, 'I will do my best in the battle; and, should I be fortunate enough to be foremost, Stephen shall try his eloquence against that of the Lady Abbess.'
'I trust,' said Dunois, 'that the chivalry of France are not excluded from this fair contest?'
'Heaven forbid! brave Dunois,' answered the Duke, 'were it but for the sake of seeing you do your uttermost. But,' he added, 'though there be no fault in the Lady Isabelle wedding a Frenchman, it will be necessary that the Count of Croye must become a subject of Burgundy.'
'Enough, enough,' said Dunois, 'my bar sinister may never be surmounted by the coronet of Croye – I will live and die French. But yet, though I should lose the lands, I will strike a blow for the lady.'
Le Balafre dared not speak aloud in such a presence, but he muttered to himself –
'Now, Saunders Souplejaw, hold thine own! – thou always saidst the fortune of our house was to be won by marriage, and never had you such a chance to keep your word with us.'
'No one thinks of me,' said Le Glorieux, 'who am sure to carry off the prize from all of you.'
'Right, my sapient friend,' said Louis; 'when a woman is in the case, the greatest fool is ever the first in favour.'
While the princes and their nobles thus jested over her fate, the Abbess and the Countess of Crevecoeur endeavoured in vain to console Isabelle, who had withdrawn with them from the council-presence. The former assured her, that the Holy Virgin would frown on every attempt to withdraw a true votaress from the shrine of Saint Ursula; while the Countess of Crevecoeur whispered more temporal consolation, that no true knight, who might succeed in the emprize proposed, would avail himself, against her inclinations, of the Duke's award; and that perhaps the successful competitor might prove one who should find such favour in her eyes as to reconcile her to obedience. Love, like despair, catches at straws; and, faint and vague as was the hope which this insinuation conveyed, the tears of the Countess Isabelle flowed more placidly while she dwelt upon it.[58]
CHAPTER XIX. THE SALLY.
The wretch condemn'd with life to part,
Still still on hope relies,
And every pang that rends the heart
Bids expectation rise.
Hope, like the glimmering taper's light,
Adorns and cheers the way;
And still the darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
Few days had passed ere Louis had received, with a smile of gratified vengeance, the intelligence, that his favourite and his counsellor, the Cardinal Balue, was groaning within a cage of iron, so disposed as scarce to permit him to enjoy repose in any posture except when recumbent; and of which, be it said in passing, he remained the unpitied tenant for nearly twelve years. The auxiliary forces which the Duke had required Louis to bring up had also appeared; and he comforted himself that their numbers were sufficient to protect his person against violence, although too limited to cope, had such been his purpose, with the large army of Burgundy. He saw himself also at liberty, when time should suit, to resume his project of marriage between his daughter and the Duke of Orleans; and, although he was sensible to the indignity of serving with his noblest peers under the banners of his own vassal, and against the people whose cause he had abetted, he did not allow these circumstances to embarrass him in the meantime, trusting that a future day would bring him amends. – 'For chance,' said he to his trusty Oliver, 'may indeed gain one hit, but it is patience and wisdom which win the game at last.'
With such sentiments, upon a beautiful day in the latter end of harvest, the King mounted his horse; and, indifferent that he was looked upon rather as a part of the pageant of a victor, than in the light of an independent Sovereign surrounded by his guards and his chivalry, King Louis sallied from under the Gothic gateway of Peronne, to join the Burgundian army, which commenced at the same time its march against Liege.
Most of the ladies of distinction who were in the place, attended, dressed in their best array, upon the battlements and defences of the gate, to see the gallant show of the warriors setting forth on the expedition. Thither had the Countess Crevecoeur brought the Countess Isabelle. The latter attended very reluctantly; but the peremptory order of Charles had been, that she who was to bestow the palm in the tourney, should be visible to the knights who were about to enter the lists.
As they thronged out from under the arch, many a pennon and shield was to be seen, graced with fresh devices, expressive of the bearer's devoted resolution to become a competitor for a prize so fair. Here a charger was painted starting for the goal, – there an arrow aimed at a mark, – one knight bore a bleeding heart, indicative of his passion, – another a skull, and a coronet of laurels, showing his determination to win or die. Many others there were; and some so cunningly intricate and obscure, that they might have defied the most ingenious interpreter. Each knight, too, it may be presumed, put his courser to his mettle, and assumed his most gallant seat in the saddle, as he passed for a moment under the view of the fair bevy of dames and damsels, who encouraged their valour by their smiles, and the waving of kerchiefs and of veils. The Archer-guard, selected almost at will from the flower of the Scottish nation, drew general applause, from the gallantry and splendour of their appearance.
And there was one among these strangers, who ventured on a demonstration of acquaintance with the Lady Isabelle, which had not been attempted even by the most noble of the French nobility. It was Quentin Durward, who, as he passed the ladies in his rank, presented to the Countess of Croye, on the point of his lance, the letter of her aunt.
'Now, by my honour,' said the Count of Crevecoeur, 'that is over insolent in an unworthy adventurer!'
'Do not call him so, Crevecoeur,' said Dunois; 'I have good reason to bear testimony to his gallantry – and in behalf of that lady, too.'
'You make words of nothing,' said Isabelle, blushing with shame, and partly with resentment; 'it is a letter from my unfortunate aunt – She writes cheerfully, though her situation must be dreadful.'
'Let us hear, let us hear what says the Boar's bride,' said Crevecoeur.
The Countess Isabelle read the letter, in which her aunt seemed determined to make the best of a bad bargain, and to console herself for the haste and indecorum of her nuptials, by the happiness of being wedded to one of the bravest men of the age, who had just acquired a princedom by his valour. She implored her niece not to judge of her William (as she called him) by the report of others, but to wait till she knew him personally. He had his faults, perhaps, but they were such as belonged to characters whom she had ever venerated. William was rather addicted to wine, but so was the gallant Sir Godfrey, her grandsire; – he was something hasty and sanguinary in his temper, such had been her brother, Reinold of blessed memory; – he was blunt in speech, few Germans were otherwise; and a little wilful and peremptory, but she believed all men loved to rule. More there was to the same purpose; and the whole concluded with the hope and request, that Isabelle would, by means of the bearer, endeavour her escape from the tyrant of Burgundy, and come to her loving kinswoman's Court of Liege, where any little differences concerning their mutual rights of succession to the Earldom might be adjusted by Isabelle's marrying Earl Eberson – a bridegroom younger indeed than his bride, but that, as she (the Lady Hameline) might perhaps say from experience, was an inequality more easy to be endured than Isabelle could be aware of.[59] Here the Countess Isabelle stopped; the Abbess observing, with a prim aspect, that she had read quite enough concerning such worldly vanities, and the Count of
