The Weird Middle Ages A Collection Of Mysterious

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Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
—A lettre de cachet. To Vincennes he went!

Mme. de Malestroit

But ah! what use of laces or fichus!

We emigrate so fast there’s none to see!

The Englishman

I quote a great man—my Lord Chesterfield:

“Exist in the unhappy land of France
All signs that history hath ever shown”—

Mme. de Pont à L’Arche

The Queen wore carnation, Madame, pale rose,

The Dauphin—

Lalain

What do I in this galley?

(To Grégoire.) I’ll walk aside!

[Exit Lalain.

Count Louis (to Grégoire)

Was that Rémond Lalain?

Grégoire

It was, Monsieur le Comte.

 Count Louis

Ah, scélérat!

The Vidame

The talked-of Deputy for Vannes?

La Fôret

Tribune
Eloquent as Antony!

Count Louis

Demagogue!

The Englishman

I heard him in the Jacobins. He spoke,

And then they went and tore a palace down!

Count Louis

Stucco!

Enter, laughing, Mlle. de Château-Gui, Melipars de

L’Orient, and Captain Fauquemont de Buc. De
L’Orient has in his hand a paper of verses.

My daughter and De L’Orient,

Captain Fauquemont de Buc!
 Mlle. de Château-Gui

Messieurs, mesdames!
The poet and his verses!

The Company

Ah, verses!

Count Louis

Who is the fair, Monsieur de L’Orient?

Lalage or Laïs or little Fleurette?
Men sang of Célestine when I was young,—
Ah, Célestine, behind thy white rose tree!

De L’Orient

I do not sing of love, Monsieur le Comte!

Mlle. de Château-Gui

He sings of this day—

De Buc

The Eve of Saint John.

De L’Orient

It is a Song of Welcome to De Vardes!

 De Buc

But yesterday poor Colonel of Hussars!

Mlle. de Château-Gui

To-day Monsieur the Baron of Morbec!

De L’Orient

Mars to Bellona leaves the tented field.

De Buc

That’s Bouillé at Metz! Kling! rang our spurs—

De Vardes’ and mine—from Verdun to Morbec!

De L’Orient

The warrior hastens to his native weald.

Count Louis

Would I might see again Henri de Vardes!

De Buc

It would affright you, sir! The man is dead.

Count Louis
Ah, while he lived it was as did become
A nobleman of France and Brittany!
He was my friend; together we were young!
From dawn to dusk, from dusk to dawn again,
We searched for pleasure as for buried gold,
And found it, too, in days when we were young!
From every flint we struck the golden sparks,
We plucked the thistle as we plucked the rose,
And battle gave for every star that shone!
O nymphs that laughing fled while we pursued!
O music that was made when we were young!
O gold we won and duels that we fought!
On guard, monsieur, on guard! Sa! sa! A touch!
What shall we drink? Where shall we dine? Ma foi!
There’s a melting eye at the Golden Crown!
The Angel pours a Burgundy divine!
Come, come, the quarrel’s o’er! So, arm in arm!
O worlds we lost and won when we were young!
O lips we kissed within the jasmine bower!
O sirens singing in the clear moonlight!—
With Bacchus we drank, with Apollo loved,
With Actæon hunted when we were young!
The wax-lights burned with softer lustre then.
The music was more rich when we were young.
Violet was the perfume for hair powder,
Ruffles were point and buckles were brilliant
And lords were lords in the old land of France!
We did what we would, and lettres de cachet,
Like cooing doves they fluttered from our hands!

De L’Orient

Our tribute take, last of a noble line!

 Count Louis

Women! There will come no more such women!

De L’Orient

The laurel and the empress rose we twine.

Count Louis

And Henri’s gone! And now his cousin reigns,—

René de Vardes that hath been years away!
The King is dead. Well, well, long live the King!
They say he’s brave as Crillon, handsome too,
With that bel air that no De Vardes’s without!

Enter Mme. de Vaucourt followed by the Abbé Jean de

Barbasan.

Mlle. de Château-Gui

Monsieur l’Abbé!

De Buc

Madame de Vaucourt!

Mme. de Vaucourt (with outspread hands)

You’ve heard? Last night they strove to burn Morbec!

All
What?

Mme. de Vaucourt

The peasants!

Count Louis

Again!

De Buc

Ah, I am vexed.
Messieurs, mesdames, the Baron of Morbec
Silence enjoined, or the tale I’d have told!
The abbé is so bold—

The Abbé

De Buc’s so proud!
And just because he brought us help from Vannes!
The red Hussars to hive the bees again!

The Englishman

The seigneur and his peasants are at odds?

The Abbé

Slightly!

Count Louis (complacently)

 Henri was hated! Hate descends
With the land.

De L’Orient

There is a girl of these parts—

Count Louis

Eh?

De L’Orient

She plays the firebrand.

Count Louis

Bah!

De L’Orient

She hath
The loveliest face!

Count Louis

Hm!

The Abbé
 I am unscathed.
De Vardes is slightly wounded!

All

Oh!

Count Louis

Morbleu!
And how did it happen, Monsieur l’Abbé?

The Abbé
Behold us at our ease in the great hall,
De Vardes and I, a-musing o’er piquet!
Voltaire beside us, for we read “Alzire,”
A wine as well, more suave than any verse;
A still and starlit night, soft, fair, and warm;
Wax-lights, and roses in a china bowl.
He laid aside his sword and I my cap,
All tranquilly at home, the Two Estates!
He held carte blanche, I followed with quatorze.
The roses sweetly smelled, the candles burned,
At peace we were with nature and mankind.—
A crash of painted glass! a whirling stone!
A candle out! the roses all o’erturned!
The thunder of a log against our doors!
A clattering of sabots! a sudden shout!
Morbec, Morbec, it is thy Judgment Night!
Admission, admission, Aristocrats!
Red turns the night, the servants all rush in.
Sieur! Sieur! the lackeys moan and wring their hands.
Give, give! the terrace croaks. Burn, Morbec, burn!
The great bell swings in the windy tower
Till the wolves in the forest pause to hear.
Fall, Morbec, fall! France has no need of thee!
Upsprings a rosy light! a smell of smoke!
Mischief’s afoot! The Baron of Morbec
Lays down his cards and takes his rapier up,
Hums Le Sein de sa Famille, shuts Alzire,
Resignedly rises—

Count Louis (rubbing his hands)

Expresses regret
That monsieur his guest—
 The Abbé

Should be incommoded
And turns to the door. I levy the tongs.
The seneschal Grégoire hauls from the wall
An ancient arquebus! The lackeys wail,
And nothing do, as is the lackey’s wont!
Again the peasants thunder at the door!
Open, De Vardes! Oh, hated of all names!
The new is as the old! Death to De Vardes!
The log strikes full, and now a panel breaks;
In comes a hand that brandishes a pike;
A voice behind, We’ve come to sup with thee!
For thou hast bread and we have none, De Vardes!

The Englishman

Ha, ha! ha, ha! ha, ha!

Count Louis

You laugh, monsieur?

The Abbé
I like calmness myself. Calm of the sea,
Calm skies, the calm spring, and calmness of mind!
A tempest’s plebeian! So I admired
René de Vardes when he walked to the door
And opened it! Behold the whole wolf pack,
As lean as ‘twere winter! canaille all!
Sans-culottes and tatterdemalions,
Mere dust of the field and sand of the shore;
Humanity’s shreds would follow the mode,
And burn the château of their rightful lord!
De Vardes’ peasants in fine. Mort aux tyrans!
À bas Aristocrat! Vive la patrie!
Vive la Révolution! In they pressed,
Gaunt, haggard, and shrill, and full in the front—
Young and fair, conceive! dark-eyed and red-lipped—
A fury, a mænad, a girl called—

De L’Orient

Yvette!

The Abbé

So they named her, the peasants of Morbec,

Named and applauded the dark-eyed besom!
When, De Vardes’ drawn rapier just touching
Her breast-knot of blue as she stood in his path,
Up went her brown hand, armed with a sickle!—
De Vardes is a known fencer,—‘tis lucky!
His wound is not deep, and in the left arm!

The Vidame
She may hang for that! How high I forget
The gallows should be—

Count Louis (offering his snuff-box)

Monsieur le Vidame,
Thirty feet, I believe!

The Vidame

But not in chains—

Count Louis

No! It was the left arm.

De L’Orient

What did De Vardes?

The Abbé
De Vardes, with Liancourt and Rochefoucauld,
Holds that the peasant doth possess a soul!
I think it hurt him to the heart that he,
New come to Morbec, and unknown to these,
His vassals of the village, field, and shore,
Should be esteemed by them an enemy,
A Baron Henri come again, forsooth!
But since ‘twas so, out rapier! parry! thrust!
Diable! he’s a swordsman to my mind!
The mænad with the sickle he puts by;
Runs through the arm a clamourer of corvée,
Brings howling to his knees a sans-culotte,
And strikes a flail from out a claw-like hand!
They falter, they give way, the craven throng!
The women cry them on; they swarm again.
His bright steel flashes, rise and fall my tongs!
But the lackeys are naught, and Grégoire finds
A flaw in his musket; he will not fire!
Pardieu! the things this Revolution kills!
There is no faithfulness in service now!
Our peasants grow bold. Ma foi! we’re at bay!
De Vardes and De Barbasan, rapier, tongs!
Wild blows and wild cries, blown smoke and a glare,
And the girl Yvette with her reaping hook
Still pushed to the front by the women there!
Upon De Vardes’ white sleeve the blood is dark,
And his breath comes fast! I see the event
As ‘twill look in print in Paris next week,
In L’Ami du Peuple or Journal du Roi!
“The Vain Defence of an Ancient Château!
When we Burn so Much, why not Burn the Land?”
And I break with my tongs a young death’s-head
That’s bawling—What think you?—Vive la République.

Count Louis
Death and damnation!

The Abbé

So I said! And then,

Quite, I assure you, in time’s very nick,
The saint De Vardes prays to smiled on him!
A thunder clap!—Pas de charge! En avant!
Captain Fauquemont de Buc and his Hussars!

De Buc

Warned by the saint, we galloped from Auray!

The Abbé

Like the dead leaves borne afar on the blast,

Or like the sea mist when the sun rises,
Or like the red deer when the horn’s sounded,—
Like anything in short that’s light o’ heel,—
Vanished our peasants! The women went last;
And last of all the mænad with the eyes!
Jesu! She might have been Jeanne d’Arc, that girl!
The man who captures her has a hand full!—
To the deep woods they fled, are hunted now.—
De Vardes and I gave welcome to De Buc,
Put out the fire, attended to our wounds,
Resumed our cards, and finished our Alzire—
The Château of Morbec stands, you observe!

[The company applauds.

Mlle. de Château-Gui
But who was the saint?—

De Buc

Ah, here is De Vardes!

Enter De Vardes. He is dressed in slight mourning and

carries his arm in a sling.

The Guests

Monsieur the Baron of Morbec!

De Vardes

Welcome,
The brave and the fair, my old friends and new!
Welcome to Morbec!

Count Louis

Ah, your wounded arm!—

Our regret is profound!

De Vardes

It is nothing.
The fraternal embrace of the people!

Count Louis

Oh, the people!

 Mme. de Vaucourt

The people!

De L’Orient

The people!

Count Louis

My friend, permit us to hope you will make

Of the people a signal example!

De Vardes

They are misguided.

Count Louis

Misguided! Morbleu!

De Vardes

I will talk to them.

Count Louis

Monsieur le Baron,
Let your soldiers talk with a bayonet’s point,
Your bailiffs with a rope—

Mme. de Vaucourt
 But what good saint
Brought warning to Auray?

De L’Orient

I guess that saint!

[A lackey appears upon the terrace.

The Lackey

Madame la Marquise de Blanchefôret!

The Guests

Ah!
La belle marquise!

Enter The Marquise.

De Buc

The saint!

De Vardes

My neighbour fair,
And to De Barbasan and me last night
A guardian angel—

[He greets The Marquise.

Madame la Marquise!
 The Marquise

Monsieur le Baron!
(To the company.) Messieurs, mesdames!

De Vardes

From Blanchefôret to Auray through the night

This lady rode—

The Marquise (with gayety)

Ah, how I rode last night,

To Auray through the dark! This way it was:
I overheard two peasants yestereve
As in a lane I sought for eglantine.
“How long hath Morbec stood?” said one. “Too long!
But when to-morrow dawns ‘twill not be there!
And we were born, I think, to burn châteaux!—
Ten, by the village clock—forget it not!”

The Abbé

Ah, ay, the while I dealt the clock struck ten.

The Marquise
It was already dusk.—Like grey death moths
They slipped away! I knew not whom to trust,
For in these times there’s no fidelity,
No faithful groom, no steadfast messenger!
My little page brought me my Zuleika.
I knew the red Hussars were at Auray,
And that ‘twas said they loved their colonel well!
So to Auray came Zuleika and I!

De Buc

We thought it was Dian in huntress dress!

De Vardes

How deeply am I, Goddess, in thy debt!

No gold is coined wherewith I may repay!

[Music within.

The Marquise

Give me a rose from yonder tree!

[Laughing voices within.

Mlle. de Château-Gui

More guests,
They’re on the south terrace!

De L’Orient
 Violins too!
Ah, the old air—

[He sings.

There lived a king in Ys,

In Ys the city old!
Beside the sounding sea
He counted o’er his gold.

De Vardes

Let us meet them.

[He gives his hand to The Marquise. Exeunt

Count Louis, The Abbé, De Buc, De L’Orient,
etc. Grégoire approaches De Vardes.

Grégoire

Monseigneur—Monsieur the Deputy!

De Vardes

Ah!
Say to monsieur I’m not at leisure now.

[Exeunt De Vardes and The Marquise. The

terrace and garden are deserted save for Grégoire,
who seats himself in the shadow of the balustrade.

Grégoire
Humph!—Monseigneur’s not at leisure.

[He draws a Paris journal from his pocket and

reads, following the letters with his forefinger.

What news?
What says Jean Paul Marat, the People’s Friend?

[A cry from the wood and the sound of breaking

boughs. Yvette and Séraphine enter the garden.
Raôul the Huntsman’s voice within.

The Huntsman

Hilloa!—Hilloa!—Hilloa!

[Yvette and Séraphine turn towards one of the

garden alleys. Laughter and voices.

Yvette

Go not that way!

Séraphine

There is no way!

The Huntsman (within)

Hilloa!—Hilloa!

Séraphine
 We’re caught!

Yvette

The terrace there! Behind the stone woman!

[They cross the garden to the terrace.

Séraphine (She stops abruptly and points to the table)

Bread!

The Huntsman (nearer)

Hilloa!—Hilloa!

[Yvette and Séraphine turn from the table and

hide behind the tall, ivy-draped pedestal of the
statue. Grégoire looks up from his paper and sees
them.

Enter Raôul the Huntsman.

The Huntsman

This way they came!

Grégoire (jerking his thumb over his shoulder)

Down yonder path!—plump to the woods again!

The Huntsman
The Hussars from Auray have twenty rogues!

Grégoire

Indeed!

The Huntsman

These two and my bag’s full!

[Exit The Huntsman.

Grégoire

Diable!

[He reads aloud.

Weary at last of intolerable wrong,

The peasants of Goy in Normandy rose
And burned the château. Who questions their right?

[He folds his paper.

Saint Yves! this stone is much harder than Goy!

[He looks fixedly at the statue and raises his voice.

Ma’m’selle who would smile at the trump of doom,

I think that all the village will be hanged!
And at its head that brown young witch they call
Yvette—

Reënter De Vardes and The Marquise.

 De Vardes (to Grégoire)

Begone!

[Exit Grégoire. De Vardes and The Marquise

rest beside the statue, Yvette listening.

Why, what’s a soldier for?

But pity me, pity me, belle Marquise!
Since pity is so sweet!

The Marquise

I’m sure it is
A fearful wound!

De Vardes

A fearful wound indeed!

But ‘tis not in the arm!

The Marquise

No, monsieur?

De Vardes

No!
The heart! I swear that it is bleeding fast!
And I have naught wherewith to stanch the wound.
Your kerchief—

The Marquise
 Just a piece of lace!

De Vardes

‘Twill serve.

The Marquise (giving her handkerchief)

Well, there!—Now tell me of last night.

De Vardes

Last night!
Why, all this tintamarre was but a dream,
Fanfare of fairy trumpets while we slept.
A night it was for love-in-idleness,
And fragrant thoughts and airy phantasy!
There was no moon, but Venus shone as bright;
The honeysuckle blew its tiny horn
To tell the rose a moth was coming by.
Clarice-Marie! sang all the nightingales,
Or would have sung were nightingales abroad!
Hush, hush! the little waves kept whispering.
The ivy at your window still was peeping;
You lay in dreams, that gold curl on your breast!

The Marquise

No, no! You cheat me not, monsieur! Last night

I did not sleep!

De Vardes
 Nor I!

The Marquise

Miserable brigands!

De Vardes

No, not brigands! Just wretched flesh and blood.

The Marquise

You pity them?

De Vardes

Ay.

The Marquise

Were I a seigneur,
Lord of Morbec—

De Vardes
 Were I a poor fisher,
Sailing at sunrise home from the islands,
Over the sea, and all my heart singing!
And you were a herd girl slender and sweet,
With the gold of your hair beneath your cap,
And you kept the cows and you were my douce,
And you waved your hand from the green cliff head
When the sun and I came up from the sea!—
And there was a seigneur so great and grim
Who walked in his garden and said aloud,
“How many fish has he taken for me?
Which of her cows shall I keep for myself?
I leave him enough to pay for the Mass
The day he is drowned, and the girl shall have
The range of the hills for her one poor cow!
Why should the fisher fret, the herd girl weep?
There is no reason in a serf’s dull heart!
I might have taken all. It is my right!”
La belle Marquise, what would the herd girl do?
And should the fisher suffer and say naught?

The Marquise

There is no fisher nor no herd girl here.

How fair the roses of Morbec, monsieur!

De Vardes

Ay, they are lovely queens. They know it too!

I better like the heartsease at your feet.

The Marquise
It is a peasant flower!—Sieur de Morbec,
Have you never loved?

De Vardes

How fair is the day!

For loving how fit! ‘Tis the Eve of Saint John.

The Marquise

Yes.

De Vardes

Last year I loved on this very day.

Take the omen, madame!

The Marquise

We had not met,

You and I!

De Vardes

Ah, ‘tis true! We had not met!—

And so, fair as you are, you were not there,
In Paimpont Wood, on the Eve of Saint John?

The Marquise

No!
 De Vardes

I wonder who was!

The Marquise

In Paimpont Wood!
It is haunted!

De Vardes
 On the Eve of Saint John
I rode from Morbec here to Chatillon,
And through the wood of Paimpont fared alone.
It is a forest where enchantments thrive,
And a fair dream doth drop from every tree!
The old, old world of bitterness and strife
Is remote as winter, remote as death.
It was high noon in the turbulent town;
But clocks never strike in the elfin wood,
And the sun’s ruddy gold is elsewhere spent.
The light was dim in the depths of Paimpont,
Green, reverend, and dim as the light may be
In a sea king’s palace under the sea.
The wind did not blow; the flowering bough
Was still as the rose on a dead man’s breast.
On velvet hoof the doe and fawn went by;
In other woods the lark and linnet sang;
A stealthy way was taken by the fox;
The badger trod upon the softest moss;
And like a shadow flitted past the hare.
Without a sound the haunted fountain played.
The oak boughs dreamed; the pine was motionless;
Its silver arms the beech in silence spread;
The poplar had forgot its lullaby.
It was as still as cloudland in the wood,
For in a hawthorn brake old Merlin sleeps,
And every leaf is hushed for love of him.
There through the years they sleep and listless dream,
The wood of Paimpont and the wizard old.
They dream of valleys where the lilies blow;
They dream of woodland gods and castles high,
Of faun and Pan and of the Table Round,
Of dryad trees and of a maiden dark—
That Vivien whom old Merlin once did love,
Vivien le Gai whose love was poisonous!
 The Marquise

I’ve heard it said by women spinning flax,

“Who wanders in Paimpont wanders in love;
Let him who loves in Paimpont Wood beware!”

De Vardes

Ah, idle word! Oh, many silver bells

Since Vivien’s day have rung, Beware, beware!
And rung in vain, for in every clime
Lies Paimpont Wood, dawns the Eve of Saint John!

The Marquise

And in the forest there whom did you love?

De Vardes

I do not know. I have not seen her since,

Unless—unless I saw her face last night!

Yvette (behind the base of the statue)

Oh!—

De Vardes

Did you not hear a voice?

The Marquise
 ‘Tis the wind.—
You’re riding through the wood to Chatillon.

De Vardes

It was a lonely forest, deep and vast,

A secret and a soundless trysting-place,
Where one might meet, nor be surprised to meet,
From out his past, or from his life to come,
A veilèd shape, a presence bitter-sweet,
A thing that was, a thing was yet to be!
It seemed a fatal place, a destined day.
Down a long aisle of beechen trees I rode,
And came upon a small and sunny vale,
And there I met a face from out a dream,
An ancient dream, a dark and lovely face.—
Give me your fan of pearl and ivory!

[He takes the fan from The Marquise.

I’ll turn enchanter, use it for my rod,

And make you see, Marquise, the very place!

[He points with the fan.

Here sprang the silver column of a beech;
There, mossy knees of a most ancient oak;
Yonder a wall of thickest foliage rose;
And here a misty streamlet flowed
With a voice more low than the dying fall
Of a trouvère’s lute in Languedoc,
And on its shore the slender flowers grew;
Upon a foxglove bell hung papillon;
And all around the grass was long and fine.
Within this sylvan space, ah, ages since!
The white-robed Druids in the cold moonlight
Had reared an altar stone of wondrous height;
The fane was there, the Druids were away.
All fragrant was the air, and sunny still,—
On the Eve of Saint John ‘tis ever so!
Above, the sky was blue without a cloud;
The sun stood sentinel o’er the haunted wood.
And there she lay, the woman of a dream,
Against the Druid Stone, amid the bloom;
Her eyes were on the stream; she leaned her ear;
From far away the trouvère played to her;
In flakes of gold the sunlight blessed her hair;
Her lips were red; she seemed a princess old;
Mid purple bloom she lay and gazed afar,
In the magic wood on a magic day,
Listening to hear the mighty trouvère play.
Was she a princess or a peasant maid?
I do not know, pardie! She may have been
That Vivien who wrought old Merlin wrong.
I cannot tell if she were rich or poor;
I only saw her face; I only know
I loved the dream I met in Paimpont Wood
As I did ride last year to Chatillon
On Saint John’s Eve.—
 [He lays the fan upon the table.

So I have loved, Marquise!

The Marquise

What did your pretty dream?

De Vardes

As other dreams;
She fled!

The Marquise

And you pursued?

De Vardes

Yes, but in vain!

Trouble no dream that is dreamed in Paimpont!
The wood closed around her; she vanished quite.
It must have been that evil Vivien,
Since you, Marquise, have never trod the wood!

The Marquise

Would I have fled?

De Vardes
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