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THE FALSE HEIli 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
WORKS OF FICTION, 
 
 BY MR. G. P. R. JAMES. 
 I. 
 
 In post 8vo. price 21s. 
 
 THE MAN AT ARMS; 
 
 OR, HENRI DE CERONS. 
 
 A Romance. 
 
 " Since tlie days of Sir Walter Scott, Mr. James has occupied one of 
 the highest stations among the writers of Romances." — Moriiing Post. 
 
 II. 
 
 In one vol., price 6s., neatly bound, and embellished with Engravings, 
 
 DARNLEY; 
 
 OR, THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 III. 
 
 In post 8vo. price 21s. 
 
 TYRRELL. 
 
 A Romance. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In one vol., price 6s., neatly bound, and embellished with Engravings, 
 
 DE L'ORME. 
 
 V. 
 
 In one vol., price 6s., neatly bound, and embellished with Engravings, 
 
 HENRY MASTERTON. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In one vol., price 6s., neatly bound, and embellished with Engravings, 
 
 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Also by the same Author, 
 
 Second Edition, in four vols. 8vo., embelh'shed with many fine Portraits, 
 price 32s., neatly bound. 
 
 The Life and Times of 
 
 LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " DARNLEY," " THE GIPSY, 
 " FOREST DAYS," etc. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 1843. 
 
LONDON : 
 Printed by S. & J. Bentley, Wilson, and Fley, 
 Bangor House, Shoe Lane. 
 
TO 
 
 THOSE MEMBERS OF THE GOVERNMENT, 
 
 WHO, 
 
 taking into consideration the injustice of suffering 
 Foreigners to benefit by acts of piracy which the Law 
 prohibits to Englishmen, and with a view to enable 
 British Authors and Publishers to obtain a due remu- 
 neration for their labour and the employment of their 
 capital, of which they had been almost totally de- 
 prived by the introduction into this Country and the 
 Colonies of the continental Reprints of English Works, 
 
 GAVE 
 
 THE FIRST REAL PROTECTION TO OUR LITERATURE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 GREAT BRANCHES OF NATIONAL INDUSTRY CONNECTED THEREWITH, 
 
 THIS WORK IS DEDICATED 
 
 BY THEIR MOST OBEDIENT AND VERY HUMBLE SERVANT, 
 
 G. P. R. JAMES. 
 
 The Shrubbery, Walmer, 
 May 1st, 1843. 
 

 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 For a long series of years the book-trade 
 of Great Britain has been receiving daily in- 
 creasing injury from the republication of the 
 works of English writers by unauthorised per- 
 sons in foreign countries ; a system highly im- 
 moral and unjust, by which a very considerable 
 portion of the fruits of an author's labour is 
 fraudulently, and without his consent, trans- 
 ferred to person who can show no title there- 
 unto whatsoever. For many years the laxity 
 of the laws for the protection of literary pro- 
 ^^ perty permitted the importation of single copies 
 of the works thus pirated, even into England 
 £ itself, and as the person who reprinted them 
 >^ had cheaper labour, cheaper paper, and no ex- 
 \-X pense for copyright, he could naturally under- 
 
Vlll ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 sell the English publisher, and the result was, 
 that immense numbers of pirated copies were 
 introduced into Great Britain; that almost the 
 whole of the circulating libraries, and many of 
 the book clubs along the coast, were supplied 
 by this means ; that the book-trade with the 
 colonies was annihilated, and that the price of 
 books printed in England was very greatly in- 
 creased by the diminution of sale. 
 
 For several years the author of the follow- 
 ing work pressed the consideration of the facts 
 above stated upon Government, without obtain- 
 ing any attention, except from the late Lord 
 Sydenham. In the year 1842, however, her 
 Majesty's present Ministers entered fully into 
 the merits of the question, saw the just claims 
 of British authors and publishers, and prepared 
 to give them every sort of protection consistent 
 with the interests of the country. It was at 
 once conceded on all hands, that the protec- 
 tion demanded was very different from that 
 which is sometimes claimed by native producers 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. IX 
 
 against the rivalry of foreign industry, and was 
 merely protection against what must be con- 
 sidered as absolute robbery by every nation 
 which recognises the existence of property in 
 literary productions. The only cause of hesi- 
 tation in the minds of ministers seemed to 
 arise from an apprehension, that by granting 
 the restrictions required by British authors and 
 publishers the price of books in England might 
 be raised, or, at all events, kept up above a 
 legitimate point. In communicating this ap- 
 prehension to Mr. James, the Vice-President 
 of the Board of Trade observed, that though 
 he would not suffer the possibility of such a 
 result to prevent him from coinciding in that 
 which he looked upon as a mere act of jus- 
 tice, yet he would like to hear how the objec- 
 tion could be met. Mr. James then gave it 
 as his opinion, in which almost all the great 
 publishers in London concurred, that such a 
 protection as would exclude pirated works from 
 Great Britain and her colonies, must tend to 
 
X ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 reduce rather than augment the price of books 
 in this country, inasmuch as by reducing the 
 price, all those purchasers would be obtained 
 who had formerly bought the cheap editions, 
 but who could not afford to purchase exten- 
 sively while the price remained high. He also 
 pointed out that many of the principal pub- 
 lishers had become fully alive to the great 
 compensation which extended sale affords to 
 small profits, and that Mr. Murray, espe- 
 cially, had made on various occasions signal 
 efforts to diminish the price of books in Eng- 
 land, but had always been frustrated by the 
 unfair advantages possessed by foreign piratical 
 publishers. 
 
 In order to afford the Government the 
 fullest proof of his own convictions upon the 
 subject, Mr. James voluntarily offered to make 
 the experiment of a great reduction of price 
 himself, as soon as full protection against com- 
 petition with these foreign piratical publishers 
 should be obtained, and he believes that upon 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. XI 
 
 this assurance several members of the govern- 
 ment entered warmly into his views which 
 otherwise they might have regarded with some 
 distrust. 
 
 The measures of protection have not yet been 
 fully carried out in our colonies ; but seeing 
 clearly that Government is resolved to give all 
 due protection to the book-trade, and to effect 
 the necessary arrangements for that purpose as 
 soon as possible, Mr. James feels himself bound 
 as an honest man, to fulfil his part of the en- 
 gagement, and to publish this work at a great 
 reduction of price, notwithstanding the strenuous 
 and repeated remonstrances of his worthy pub- 
 lisher. 
 
 The result will now be in the hands of the 
 public. If, as Mr. James expects, the in- 
 creased sale do compensate even in a consider- 
 able degree, if not ercirely, for the diminution 
 of profit upon each copy, the experiment will 
 be successful, and it cannot be doubted that 
 other authors and other publishers will fol- 
 
xii ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 low this example. If the sale, however, be 
 not increased by the diminution of price, the 
 experiment will have failed, and the old prices 
 must be recurred to. That question the public 
 must decide, and upon its decision must very 
 greatly depend the future price of books in 
 England. 
 
 Mr. James could have wished, indeed, that 
 all the Publishers in London, taking the same 
 view that he has taken, would have agreed to 
 make a simultaneous reduction in the price of 
 all works, and he feels perfectly convinced that 
 the result would have been as beneficial to 
 themselves as to the public. A single author 
 and a single publisher stand in a much less 
 advantageous situation, and cannot hope for the 
 same success; but nevertheless the experiment 
 shall be made even under unfavourable ciuum- 
 stances, in order to give the public an oppor- 
 tunity of showing how it will regard the 
 attempt. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I TRUST it is not presumptuous to suppose, 
 that, to that Being, who has revealed Himself to 
 us as a God of mercy and of love, the sight of 
 human fate and all its vicissitudes, the wandering 
 course of each intelligent creature, the effect of 
 every man's actions upon others during his life, 
 the results that follow from generation to genera- 
 tion unto the end of time, the hopes that are 
 formed but to be disappointed, the disappoint- 
 ments which are in reality blessings, the longings 
 for that which would prove destructive, the joys 
 that kill, and the sorrows that make alive, with 
 all the infinite complications of one event with 
 another from the commencement to the close, 
 (which offer to our eyes nothing but a confused 
 inextricable maze,) must be a subject of deep 
 interest, as His allcomprehending view beholds 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 the beginning and the end, and sees creation and 
 all its results rounded in by His own glory. 
 Yes, surely it must be to Almighty love and 
 wisdom a sight of deep interest : for God, in 
 permitting free-will to man, could never leave 
 him without the protection of His tenderness 
 and mercy ; and the mere exercise of those attri- 
 butes implies a care, an interest, in his fate. 
 
 To our limited view, however, the course of 
 one human being offers matter for meditation 
 and for feeling enough ; and to trace the life of 
 a fellow-mortal from the cradle to the grave — 
 wherever we can do so with anything like a 
 knowledge of the actions, the events, the mo- 
 tives, and the thoughts — is, perhaps, the most 
 instructive study that we can pursue. In the 
 history before us, then, — a history which all who 
 are acquainted with the annals of France during 
 the last century, will know to be a true one, — 
 I shall commence with the very earliest period, 
 and begin with the events which preceded the 
 birth of him whose changeful existence I purpose 
 to depict. 
 
 In the wide green court of an old French 
 chateau, surrounded by high walls, with a tall 
 iron gate at one end, and the raised terrace on 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 3 
 
 which the mansion itself stood on the other, 
 were collected, one evening in the month of 
 June, a gay and merry group of peasantry as ever 
 danced upon the grass in that land of light and 
 thoughtless hearts. A great upturned wine- 
 barrel served as a throne for the fiddler, the 
 girls and lads were in their best, and many a 
 joke and jest, with which I will not regale the 
 reader's ears, passed gaily amongst the groups, 
 circulated chiefly, it would seem, at the expense 
 of a stout, well-looking peasant, of about thirty 
 years of age, and a neat-looking, pretty young 
 woman of two or three and twenty, habited as a 
 soubrette, or lady's maid. These two bore all 
 the shafts of wit which were aimed at them with 
 great glee and good-humour, kept fondly together 
 through the whole evening, and, by the gay attire 
 of the man, and the profuse ornaments that 
 decked the girl, it was easy to perceive that they 
 were bride and bridegroom. 
 
 It was, indeed, the marriage evening of Gerard 
 Latouches and Marguerite Lemaire, — a marriage 
 which had been brought about by the good offices 
 of Marguerite's master and mistress ; and now, 
 after carousing through the whole day in the 
 court of the castle, and the gardener's cottage 
 
 b2 
 
4 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 at the side, they were dancing the sun down to 
 the sound of the fiddle, with quite as much wine 
 in their heads as any of the party could carry 
 without approaching to inebriety. 
 
 Standing upon the terrace above were a lady 
 and gentleman, themselves in their early prime, 
 the Marquis de Langy being now in his seven 
 and twentieth year, and the marchioness several 
 years younger. A fine boy, of four years old, 
 hung at his mother's gown ; and a tall, dark man, 
 some eight or ten years older than the marquis, 
 but bearing a strong family resemblance to him, 
 stood near the lady, with the little boy between 
 them, amongst the curls of whose fair hair rested 
 his strong and sinewy hand. 
 
 " A merry scene, my sweet niece," he observed, 
 speaking to the marchioness ; " I have not seen 
 a merrier since you made Victor happy with 
 your hand some five years ago." 
 
 " Five ? " said the lady thoughtfully. "Yes, 
 indeed, it is more than five ; for this dear boy 
 was four last April. But I do love to see you in 
 a gay party, my good uncle ; for, though you are 
 so grave yourself, you seem to enjoy it as much 
 as any one." 
 
 " I do, Adele," he said ; " for I like to see 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 5 
 
 my fellow-beings enjoy the short life that their 
 organization allows them. With us, who think 
 that this life is all, it is pleasant to see the most 
 made of it." 
 
 " Hush, hush !" cried the lady, holding up 
 her finger with a look of playful reproach. " I 
 will not hear you upon those subjects." 
 
 " You might, safely," replied the other. 
 " Those who think as I do have none of the 
 spirit of conversion about them ; and, indeed, 
 we would rather not. We see no reason why 
 other people should not continue in their pleasant 
 delusions. Probably the finest and the most 
 beneficial of all the works of fancy is religion. 
 I would not take a particle of it from you to 
 save my life." 
 
 " Come, Victor, come ! " cried the lady ; 
 " they are all giving their little presents, and we 
 must give ours also. Let us go down. Will 
 you come, Monsieur de St. Medard ? " 
 
 " Willingly, willingly, sweet niece," replied 
 the other ; " but, as I have no present ready, 
 coming upon you all so unexpectedly, I must 
 make my purse furnish the gift." 
 
 " We all intend to do the same," rejoined the 
 Marquis de Langy. " With such prudent people 
 
6 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 as Latouches and Marguerite, money is the best 
 gift one can bestow. I give tliem a hundred and 
 fifty crowns, and Adele fifty." 
 
 '* And I have got such a pretty honhonniere r 
 said the little boy. 
 
 The Viscount de St. Medard bent down his 
 head and kissed him, saying, " I will put ten 
 louis in the inside ; and so your uncle's present 
 and your own shall go together." 
 
 The child was delighted at the idea, and held 
 out the little ornamented box which he had 
 bought to give to the new-married couple. His 
 father's uncle counted out ten golden pieces into 
 it, and the little party descended the steps of the 
 terrace towards the spot where the marquis's 
 tenantry were enjoying themselves. 
 
 Whether it depends on our insular situation, 
 or whether some drop of strange and irritable fluid 
 has mingled by chance in the mixed current of the 
 English blood, I know not ; but certain it is, that 
 there is a much greater portion of mauvaise honte, 
 — I beg the reader's pardon for using a French 
 expression — in the English character than in that 
 of any other nation upon the earth. That is to 
 say, ten men will feel it in England, where one 
 man feels it in France : which is the reason, and 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 7 
 
 perhaps the only reason, why a French peasant 
 does a thousand things with grace and ease, upon 
 which an English one spends a vast deal of awk- 
 wardness and trouble. 
 
 The good people in the court had gone on 
 dancing, sporting, and laughing, without the 
 slightest restraint, although they knew that the 
 eyes of their lord and lady were upon them ; 
 and, even while the party from the chateau was 
 approaching, they ceased not in their proceedings, 
 ■which were somewhat curious to eyes not much 
 accustomed to witness the habits and manners of 
 the lower classes. Each person had brought 
 with him to the wedding a small present of some 
 kind, as is still very customary in many parts of 
 France ; and now, two and two, — a man and a 
 woman, — they advanced to the sound of the 
 fiddle, and made their little offering to the young 
 couple ; the man giving his gift to the bride, 
 and taking a kiss for an equivalent, — the woman 
 presenting hers to the bridegroom, and receiving 
 a warm salute in return. Some of the presents 
 were of considerable value ; but, in those cases 
 where poverty did not permit of any expensive 
 purchase, the giver covered the smallness of his 
 gift by the ludicrousness of its character, and 
 
8 T-HE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 endeavoured to excite a laugh at his fun, if he 
 called forth no admiration of his generosity. 
 
 With every sense of propriety, however, the 
 peasants, as soon as the marquis and marchioness 
 were near enough to make it evident that they 
 were coming to offer their presents likewise, drew 
 back to let them advance, and the bride and bride- 
 groom rose from the chairs in which they had 
 been seated, and received them with all respect. 
 
 Marguerite was a pretty-looking girl, hiding a 
 good deal of gay and light-hearted fun under a 
 demure look : while Latouches himself was, as 
 we have said, a stout, handsome countryman ; 
 though, to speak truth, he seemed somewhat 
 more abashed by his new capacity of bridegroom 
 than Marguerite by hers of bride. 
 
 The marquis and marchioness presented their 
 gifts ; and the noble lord, though not a man to 
 carry the droits du seigneur to any unpleasant 
 extent, took a hearty taste of the fair maid's lips, 
 while the bridegroom approached his respectfully 
 to the cheek of the marchioness. The little boy 
 was fondled and caressed by both, as he held 
 out the honhonniere to his mother's former maid, 
 saying, " There, Marguerite ! my uncle's present 
 is in the inside." 
 
THE FALSE HEIRV V 
 
 The maid opened it, and instantly dropped 
 a low courtesy to Monsieur de St. Medard ; 
 while the bridegroom looked over her shoulder 
 into the box with a glistening eye at the sight 
 of the gold, and whispered to her to count it. 
 Marguerite, however, knew better, and, closing 
 the box again quietly, handed it to Latouches, 
 saying in a low tone, " Fie, you miser ! " 
 
 The noble party then withdrew to a little 
 distance, and talked to some of the elder people, 
 while the rest of the peasants brought up their 
 presents also, and shouts of laughter continued 
 till the sun went down. The merry scene then 
 closed, and Marguerite and her husband retired 
 to a cottage hard by ; while the marquis, his 
 uncle, his wife, and his little boy, re-entered the 
 chateau, and talked quietly over the event of the 
 day. 
 
 " She is a pretty girl, and I dare say a good 
 girl too," said Monsieur de St. Medard as they 
 walked into the saloon. " Do you know the 
 man well ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," replied the Marquis de Langy, 
 " he holds a little farm of mine on the edge of 
 the forest ; a stout, hard-working fellow, and will 
 make Marguerite an excellent husband." 
 
 b5 
 
10 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " Perhaps so,*" rejoined Monsieur de St. Me- 
 dard, with a thoughtful air. '' A cunning animal, 
 I should suspect." 
 
 " Oh, no," rejoined his nephew ; " he is a 
 very good creature, and an old suitor of Mar- 
 guerite's." 
 
 " Constancy is something, at least in this 
 world," said the viscount. "■ And now, my good 
 niece and nephew, have you any commands for 
 England?" 
 
 "For England!" exclaimed Monsieur de 
 Langy, starting ; " why, what are you going to 
 do in England ? " 
 
 " First, to fulfil some of the king's com- 
 mands,"answered Monsieur de St. Medard ; " and, 
 next, to see some old friends there. But the 
 truth is, I go as ambassador to see if by my 
 influence we cannot smooth down some of the 
 difficulties regarding this commercial treaty." 
 
 " They will make a heretic of you in Eng- 
 land," cried Madame de Langy. 
 
 " That would be difficult," said the viscount; 
 '' but nevertheless, Adele, you would look upon 
 that as something gained from the enemy at least, 
 would you not .'^" 
 
 '' No," cried she eagerly, " no. Better be 
 of no religion at all than a heretic." 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 11 
 
 Monsieur de St. Medard smiled and looked 
 at his nephew, and the conversation turned to 
 other subjects. 
 
 There we will leave it, in order briefly to reca- 
 pitulate the events of the ensuing year as far as 
 the family of the Marquis de Langy was con- 
 cerned. The Viscount de St. Medard returned 
 to Paris on the following day, and thence pro- 
 ceeded to England on the mission with which 
 he was charged. Not long after, the fine boy 
 of Monsieur and Madame de Langy was taken 
 ill with one of the complaints of childhood, 
 and, though he recovered, never regained alto- 
 gether his health and strength. 
 
 During the winter of the ensuing year, how- 
 ever, the fair proportions of the marchioness were 
 seen to change. The marquis seemed well satis- 
 fied that his wife's figure had lost its symmetry; 
 and, though he was always a kind and affectionate 
 husband, showed greater tenderness and care than 
 ever. As the spring was coming on, the mar- 
 chioness sent her carriage to the farm of La- 
 touches on the borders of the forest of Compiegne, 
 which was nearly a day's journey from the cha- 
 teau ; and the vehicle rolled back again, bringing 
 her former maid, Marguerite, now Madame La- 
 touches. 
 
12 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 When the marchioness beheld her, she could 
 not help laughing at the change which had taken 
 place in the poor girl's once smart figure ; and 
 she exclaimed, " Alas ! Marguerite, I wonder if 
 I look such a round, squat personage as your- 
 self?" 
 
 " Oh dear, no, Madame," replied the former 
 maid, who had not forgotten the duty of flattery. 
 " You are so much taller than I am ; one would 
 scarcely know that you were so." 
 
 " There is no doubt of that. Marguerite," 
 said the marchioness ; " and, as I promised you 
 in October, you shall nurse the baby." 
 
 " Oh dear, I am so glad ! " cried Marguerite ; 
 " I always did love children, you know, Madame, 
 and yours I shall love beyond anything." 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 13 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Oh ! when youth gasps for the object of 
 desire, how gladly would he step over the long 
 hours of expectation as easily as the teller of 
 a tale. How many would at this moment — if 
 immutable fate would let them — annihilate the 
 two or three years to come, which lie between 
 them and fruition, in order to be at once at 
 the bright goal towards which they strain their 
 eager gaze — how many, how many ! And yet 
 they all are young ; for even middle age learns 
 that half the delight is in the pursuit ; and age 
 has found, that, often, before we reach that goal, 
 the prize is gone. Happy is it for mortal man 
 that he cannot in life, as I can in this book, blot 
 out the flight of two or three years, and say, in 
 two words — They passed. 
 
 Two years and nine months had gone by since 
 the Marquise de Langy and Marguerite, her 
 former maid, spoke of events to which the hopes 
 
14 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 of both were turned ; and now I must lead the 
 reader to a small farm-house at the edge of the 
 forest of Compiegne. It was eventime in the 
 autumn ; the leaves were yellow in the deep 
 wood, and some of them already strewed the 
 ground. The gnat, the shrill trumpeter of the 
 season, whirled high in the air ; the partridge was 
 heard calling in the field ; a rosy lustre spread 
 warm over the blue sky, and caught some light 
 clouds overhead. There was a coolness in the 
 breeze which told that the breath of winter would 
 soon chill the world ; and every sign on tree, 
 on herb, on field, said that the bright time of 
 year was past, and the dark and chilly period at 
 hand. • 
 
 " Surely, nothing dies but something mourns,"*' 
 said the poet ; and the death of summer, of all 
 other losses, seems to call forth and to deserve 
 the sorrow of all the earth. Grey sadness steals 
 over everything, and the brightest autumnal day 
 has something solemn and serious in its splendour 
 which speaks of the fleeting of enjoyment and 
 points to the tomb of all dear hopes. 
 
 The farm-house was small and lowly — little 
 more than a cottage indeed — with a mud wall 
 running around the court and out-buildings ; but 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 15 
 
 it was prettily situated on a slight rise, with a 
 deep wood behind, and, in front, the undulating 
 fields of the farm, with a small but deep stream 
 flowing in the lowest part of the valley which it 
 overlooked. The face of the building turned 
 to the south-west, so as to monopolize the greater 
 part of the light of evening. On the left was a 
 little vineyard, through which the rays of the sun 
 were seen streaming in pleasant lines of yellow 
 lustre, while a small flat green offered a sort of 
 esplanade, from which an extensive and beautiful 
 view presented itself to the eye ; and on the 
 right was a little wood, detached from the forest, 
 and belonging to the Marquis de Langy. Be- 
 yond the field before the cottage, ran a road, 
 not exactly a highway indeed, but one of the 
 second class ; and from it branched off a path 
 leading to a small hamlet, above which might 
 be seen rising the spire of the parish church. 
 
 Long lines of light and shade, as tree or up- 
 land interposed, stretched across the whole pro- 
 spect : a troop of cattle appeared winding up 
 under the direction of a little girl ; and down a 
 distant bank a flock of sheep followed their shep- 
 herd, taking their way homeward to the fold. 
 The sound of a voice singing a merry song in 
 
16 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 the evening came, not altogether cheerfully, on 
 the ear; and the whole scene was peaceful and 
 quiet, but still grave — one might almost say me- 
 lancholy. At least, so it was felt by a gentleman 
 who walked slowly up the path from the village, 
 and approached the farm-house. 
 
 As was the case then, and is still, with most 
 buildings of the kind in France, the first room 
 that one entered was the kitchen, which is, in 
 fact, the saloon of the lower orders ; and in that 
 of the farm of Godard, for so was called the 
 house we speak of, sat Marguerite Latouches by 
 the fire, which was warming the evening soup, 
 watching the progress of the cookery. There was 
 one little boy, between two and three years old, 
 standing at her knee, and another, of the same age, 
 or very nearly so, sitting in the doorway of the 
 farm, sometimes amusing himself by scraping the 
 dust into tiny pyramids with his small hands, 
 sometimes raising his round rosy face towards 
 the sky, and looking at the glowing clouds over- 
 head. The evening was growing cold; and Mar- 
 guerite, casting some more pieces of wood upon 
 the embers, called to the little boy to come in, 
 a command which he did not seem very willing 
 to obey. She repeated the order in a sharp tone, 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 17 
 
 for Marguerite was now all the farmer's wife; 
 and, though but little more than three years had 
 passed since her marriage, you could scarcely 
 recognise the smart, slim, smooth-tongued, pretty 
 soubrette in the stout, bustling, active, quick- 
 tempered wife of Gerard Latouches. 
 
 " Come in," she cried, " come in this mi- 
 nute, or I will give you a drubbing, you little 
 rebel." 
 
 The boy looked out of the door a moment 
 longer, and then toddled up to her side, saying 
 in his childish accents, " Man coming." 
 
 " Not coming here," replied Marguerite La- 
 touches, " unless it 's papa." 
 
 " No, not papa," rejoined the boy ; and the 
 next moment, as Marguerite rose and took a step 
 towards the door to see who it was, the gentle- 
 man we have spoken of entered the farm-house, 
 and was received with a low courtesy. 
 
 He paused for a moment, gazing at Marguerite 
 as if in doubt, and then said, 
 
 " Ah ! Marguerite, you have grown so stout 
 I scarcely recollected you. Do you know me ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, sir," replied the wife of Latouches, 
 " quite well, though I did not know you were 
 come back from foreign parts," 
 
18 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 *' I have been in France three days," replied 
 the gentleman ; " and, as I passed this way 
 from Picardy, I resolved I would stop four 
 or five miles short of my proper lodging-place, 
 to see my little namesake, and bear news of him 
 to Victor and Adele. Two fine boys, upon my 
 life. Which is he. Marguerite ? " 
 
 The woman paused an instant, hesitated, and 
 coloured. What was it moved her? The 
 reader may learn hereafter. 
 
 But, in the meantime, Monsieur de Medard 
 went on, scarcely waiting for a reply. " But I 
 need not ask you, this fair-haired urchin is my 
 little Francis." 
 
 " No, sir," replied Marguerite, as the viscount 
 put his hand upon the head of the boy, who 
 had been standing at her knee; "that is my 
 sou, the other is your godson." 
 
 Monsieur de Medard gazed at the child with 
 a thoughtful look, and then called him, saying, 
 " Come hither, Francis, I am thine uncle, boy ; 
 wilt thou love me ? " 
 
 The child ran towards him without fear or 
 hesitation, and, for his only reply, held up his 
 fair round face, and gave the stranger a kiss. 
 
 " Wei], thou art a dear boy," said Monsieur 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 19 
 
 de St. Medard, holding him to his heart, " let us 
 see thy face ;" and he carried him to the door- 
 way, gazing at him intently for a moment or 
 two. " Why, thou art not like thy father or 
 mother, either,'' he continued; "more like me, I 
 should think, or my poor brother." 
 
 " Oh yes, sir, very like the marquis's father," 
 said Marguerite Latouches, approaching. 
 
 " Why, do you recollect him. Marguerite ? " 
 asked the viscount. 
 
 " Oh yes, sir, quite well," replied the farmer's 
 wife. " You know, my brother, who is now 
 the intendant of the marquis, was then a servant 
 of his father's, your brother, sir." 
 
 '' Ay," said Monsieur de St. Medard, " I 
 remember. — The boy is like him. Well, I can 
 safely tell them he is well and thriving. When 
 was his father here ? " 
 
 " Why, sir, not for this twelvemonth," answered 
 Marguerite in some surprise. " Did you not 
 know that Monsieur de Langy is with the army 
 of the Upper Rhine, and Madame is very ill at 
 Nancy ? " 
 
 " No, indeed," said Monsieur de St. Medard, 
 with a look both of sorrow and surprise ; " I 
 had not heard it. But I have been wandering 
 
20 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 far and wide, Marguerite ; I have been in 
 India." 
 
 '' In the Great Indies ! " cried Marguerite ; 
 " that is very far indeed." 
 
 As she spoke, a loud cry attracted her atten- 
 tion ; and, turning round. Monsieur de St. Me- 
 dard and herself perceived that the little boy, 
 whom he had at first mistaken for his nephew's 
 son, had fallen into the fire. With a loud shriek 
 the woman darted towards it and dragged it forth ; 
 but its clothes were in a blaze ; and, had it not 
 been for the presence of the viscount, the child 
 would have been burnt to death, and perhaps the 
 mother also ; for she held it clasped in her arms, 
 and the flame was catching her own apron. 
 That gentleman, however, who was an old 
 soldier, prompt and ready in every moment of 
 difficulty, unclasped the large blue roquelaure, 
 or coat-cloak, which he wore, and, casting it 
 over both mother and child, extinguished the 
 fire in a moment. She herself was uninjured ; 
 but the right arm of the little boy was severely 
 burnt, though apparently not so much so as to 
 place him in any danger. His cries, however, were 
 very bitter, and, after endeavouring to soothe 
 him for some time. Monsieur de St. Medard 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 21 
 
 left the cottage, saying he would send up a 
 surgeon from the village. 
 
 " There is no surgeon there, sir," said Mar- 
 guerite, " there is no surgeon there ; but the 
 cure is a great doctor. He will come up, sir ; 
 he will come up. Hush, my poor boy ! 
 hush ! " 
 
 Monsieur de St. Medard walked down towards 
 the village with a rapid step, though in a medita- 
 tive mood. So much indeed were his thoughts 
 occupied, that he scarcely saw the farmer La- 
 touches himself, who was coming up on his return 
 home, till the stout peasant bowed low and un- 
 covered his head, saying, " Bon jour, Monsieur 
 le Vicomte." 
 
 Monsieur de St. Medard looked up, and in- 
 stantly recognised Latouches, who had with him 
 a tall, stout-made, handsome-looking boy, of 
 some fourteen or fifteen years of age, with a 
 countenance expressive of talent and activity of 
 mind, yet with a somewhat shy and sidelong 
 look, which is rarely to be found even amongst 
 the bashful, except there is a consciousness of 
 some weakness, fault, or vice at the bottom of the 
 heart. 
 
 Monsieur de St. Medard was something more 
 
22 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 than a great observer of the human character ; he 
 was endowed with that sort of instinctive insight 
 into the minds of others which some men do 
 certainly possess as a gift, not an acquirement. 
 He was cautious in using it, for, sceptical in all 
 his ideas, he doubted its reality and its accuracy, 
 and never relied upon his own first impressions 
 of another till those impressions were confirmed 
 and justified by after observation. He had sel- 
 dom, if ever, found himself wrong, however ; and, 
 after telling Latouches what had happened at 
 the farm, he walked on, saying to himself, as 
 he thought of the countenance of the lad who 
 was with the farmer, '' That will be a bold and 
 powerful fellow, but I doubt that he will be a 
 very honest one." 
 
 Without farther comment he proceeded to 
 the village, found out the good cure, and sent 
 him up to the house of Madame Latouches, 
 after having conversed with him for a moment 
 or two in regard to the two children. This 
 conversation brought reflections into his mind 
 which lasted during the greater part of the even- 
 ing after he had returned to the little cabaret 
 where he had taken up his abode, and which 
 his servants had made as comfortable for him 
 as the circumstances permitted. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 23 
 
 Reflections similar to those which occupied 
 Monsieur de St. Medard, may perhaps have 
 already crossed the mind of my readers, though 
 of course his thoughts were modified by the 
 circumstances of the times and the country. 
 
 " Well,*" he said, meditating over the scene 
 in the farm, ''I cannot help thinking that this 
 custom of ours is both a barbarous and unna- 
 tural one, for a mother to give her child into 
 the hands of a comparative stranger, to educate 
 as well as to nurse during the first three years 
 of its life. To put it into a cottage, and let 
 it receive its first impressions from persons in 
 a low and ignorant condition. The practice has 
 quite gone out in England ; I wish it would go 
 out with us also. The excuse we make is, that 
 the child becomes more robust and healthy than 
 if it were subjected to all the delicate treatment 
 of a fond mother in a wealthy and luxurious 
 house. They say a child's bodily constitution 
 is fixed in the first three years of its existence : 
 they seem to forget its mental constitution al- 
 together. My belief is, that a child's education 
 begins when it is six weeks old, and that every 
 hour, after its very first ideas develope them- 
 selves, roots in its mind some principle which 
 
^^ THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 affects its whole existence, implanting tliouglits, 
 feelings, tendencies, a thousandfold more difficult 
 to eradicate than those which are received in after 
 life. Seeds planted in a virgin soil, shoot far 
 more deeply down, and produce a thousandfold 
 more fruit, than when the ground has been 
 exhausted by repeated crops. If I had a son, I 
 would not cast him on the hands of strangers — 
 For years ? — No, nor for hours." 
 
 Such reflections occupied the thoughts of Mon- 
 sieur de St. Medard, as we have already said, dur- 
 ing the greater part of the evening ; for he was one 
 of those whose minds are almost always busy with 
 things of great moment ; and, in many instances, 
 his ran before the age in which he lived. Unfor- 
 tunately indeed, in breaking away from the 
 shackles of evil custom, folly, and prejudice, it 
 overleapt all reasonable barriers, and cast away 
 not alone the chains that bound it, but the gar- 
 ments with which it was clothed. 
 
 The practice, however, upon which, he com- 
 mented was at one time almost universal through- 
 out what were called the civilised states of Eu- 
 rope ; and the first two or three years of a child's 
 life were spent in the cottage of some foster- parent, 
 very often as badly chosen as the system itself 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 25 
 
 was badly devised. Mothers, and fathers too, 
 excused to themselves the act on various pretences ; 
 but fashion, vice, vanity were in reality the only 
 foundations. Amongst a nation where the latter 
 weakness, namely vanity, has always been the pre- 
 dominant fault in the national character, — a fault 
 which, as is very often the case, may lead to some 
 of the tinseled splendours of worldly greatness, — 
 it is easy to understand that this bad custom took 
 a firmer root, and lasted longer, than with any 
 other people ; and, though it had diminished at 
 the period of the Revolution, it was in full vogue 
 not many years before that event. The eldest 
 son of the Marquis de Langy had been so brought 
 up in the house of one of his tenants ; and, when 
 a second son appeared, he, as we have seen, had 
 been immediately given over to the care of the 
 girl who had been his mother's maid. 
 
 Of a kind heart and a good disposition, Mar- 
 guerite had loved him nearly as well as her own 
 child ; and both the father and mother had every 
 cause to be satisfied with the treatment which their 
 offspring had received up to the period when the 
 marquis was obliged to join the army on the 
 Rhine, and his wife accompanied him into Lor- 
 raine. His prolonged absence and her own ill- 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
26 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 ness made her more than once think that it was 
 lucky her little Francis had been placed in such 
 good hands. But, alas ! Adele de Langy did 
 not know all that was taking place in the farm of 
 Godard. 
 
 Too often does it happen in all the affairs of 
 life, too often does it happen with every class of 
 men, that we content ourselves, that we congra- 
 tulate ourselves, on knowing that one part of any 
 complicated transaction is going right, without 
 thinking of all the many parts that may be wrong 
 and ruined. It is one of the great evils of the 
 one-sidedness of most men's nature that they fix 
 their whole thoughts, and direct their whole ef- 
 forts, to a very small branch of each subject pre- 
 sented to them. A statesman looks at the ope- 
 ration of the law he frames, perhaps, upon one 
 class of people only ; perhaps, upon one portion 
 of the interests of that class ; perhaps, upon one 
 portion of the interests of the world at large ; for- 
 getting altogether either the multitudes that must 
 be affected collaterally, or the manifold minor 
 necessities of the very beings whom he seeks to 
 benefit, or the innumerable results to society in 
 its moral temperament and its physical state 
 which any law affecting one of the great ques- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 27 
 
 tions of polity must touch either remotely or im- 
 mediately. 
 
 Again, a father applies himself to the intellec- 
 tual culture of his son : he loads his mind with 
 knowledge, he teaches him language after lan- 
 guage, he feeds him with the dry scrapings of 
 the rind of antiquity ; he adds mathematics to 
 arithmetic, and finishes the pile with geometry ; 
 he crushes him, in fact, under keys ; yet never 
 teaches him to open one door. Another parent 
 looks to the culture of his son's body : he is 
 taught grace and ease of carriage, skill in all 
 sports and exercises ; he can ride, he can leap, he 
 can pitch the bar ; he can fence, dance, swim 
 with the best. But the heart, reader, the heart 
 is altogether forgotten ; the spirit is without its 
 culture, the feelings without their due govern- 
 ance. Or, perhaps, the case may be reversed, 
 though, alas, that is but seldom ; for the mate- 
 rial things of life offer that which is so much 
 more tangible, that the idleness of intellect dis- 
 poses almost all men rather to deal with them 
 than with those things that are more difficult to 
 grasp. It is the one-sidedness of our general 
 nature which has retarded the progress of society 
 more than anything else on earth ; and that also 
 
 c2 
 
28 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 is the defect which in domestic life and all its re- 
 lations causes one half of the miseries that exist. 
 Thank God ! a war has, at length, commenced 
 against this great error, and men have not only 
 learned that every object has its many sides, but 
 that they themselves have each their many powers 
 for examining, considering, and appreciating the 
 Tarious qualities and relations of everything that 
 is submitted to them. Men can no longer limit 
 their views who would pretend to greatness, but, 
 in dealing with the infinite variety of other things, 
 must bring into action the infinite variety that is 
 in themselves. As under the green surface of 
 the ocean, whether it be rising into mountains of 
 foam, or calm as the face of innocent Hope, 
 there are a thousand unseen currents tending 
 different ways ; so in every affair of life are there 
 results and tendencies below the surface, and in 
 the breast of every man qualities, capabilities, 
 streams of soul, if we may so call them, w^hich 
 he must seek for, discover, and define, if he 
 w^ould shape his course aright. 
 
 To return, however, to the matter from which 
 we have strayed : the Marquise de Langy had 
 placed her son in the cottage of the peasant 
 with the purpose of ensuring to him that health 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 29 
 
 and strength which were then supposed to follow 
 a hardy education in early youth ; and she 
 , thought of nothing more. She was content to 
 know that this object was secured ; and she was 
 neither aware, nor inquired, whether his mind 
 was suiFering, — nay, nor whether any other of 
 his interests whatsoever were endangered by his 
 residence there. The reader will learn, hereafter, 
 that they were deeply affected ; but how, it is the 
 purpose of this tale to show. For the present, 
 we must return to the farm-house, and speak 
 a few words of the farther events of that night. 
 
 On the arrival of Latouches himself at the 
 cottage, Marguerite did not seem particularly 
 well pleased at the sight of his companion. Her 
 anxiety for the little boy whose arm had been 
 burnt, however, occupied her too much for many 
 comments upon the appearance of Jean Marais, 
 as she called the youth who accompanied her 
 husband. 
 
 *' Some new mischief, I suppose," she said ; 
 " I wonder if he will ever be steady ! " 
 
 " I should think not," replied Latouches ; 
 " a young good-for-nothing ! However, he must 
 sleep here. Marguerite ; for, if he goes back 
 again, his master will half-kill him." 
 
30 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " It must be in that room, then," rejoined 
 Marguerite, pointing to a small chamber off the 
 kitchen. " I won't have him up stairs again." 
 
 " I can sleep anywhere," said the boy laugh- 
 ing, with a saucy air; "in the wood, if you 
 won't take me in, Marguerite." 
 
 " Ay, and make a fine fricot for the wolves,'* 
 answered Marguerite. '* But don't talk so loud, 
 the poor little man will go to sleep if you will 
 let him." 
 
 A few minutes after, the good cure entered in 
 haste, and applied such remedies as he judged 
 necessary to soothe the child and heal the burn. 
 Latouches himself showed great anxiety ; and the 
 only one who seemed careless was the youth, 
 Jean Marais, who took the other little boy upon 
 his knee, fondled, played with, teased him, and 
 seemed delighted with the child's bold impe- 
 tuosity. The poor little sufferer was, after a 
 time, lulled into slumber ; and Marguerite then 
 put the other boy to bed also, saying to her 
 unwelcome guest, " Get you to your room, Jean, 
 and to sleep ; it 's the only way of keeping you 
 out of mischief." 
 
 The lad laughed, and withdrew into the little 
 sort of cabin which was assigned to him ; and in 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 31 
 
 a few minutes, without mucli preparation, was 
 safely ensconced under such bed-clothes as he 
 could find. 
 
 When all was quiet. Marguerite and her 
 husband looked in each other''s faces for a mo- 
 ment or two in silence, but with a meaning 
 and somewhat stern expression on both parts. 
 A long conversation ensued, in the course of 
 which Marguerite related the visit of Monsieur 
 de St. Medard ; and her husband put various 
 questions to her in an irritable and impatient 
 tone. The conference lasted for more than an 
 hour, and ended by the wife of Latouches going 
 to bed in tears ; while he remained for a moment 
 in the kitchen. Taking out four or five louis and 
 a handful of silver, which he had brought from 
 the neighbouring market, Latouches deposited the 
 whole sum safely in the drawer of a large oaken 
 table which stood in the middle of the room, 
 having first counted a small sum which was there 
 before. He then locked the drawer, and retired 
 to bed, leaving the fire smouldering on the 
 hearth. 
 
 An hour passed without any event taking 
 place in the kitchen of the farm of Godard ; 
 but, at the end of that time, the door of thin 
 
32 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 planks which led into the little room tenanted 
 by Jean Marais opened gently, and that good 
 youth himself entered, completely dressed. 
 
 " Ha, ha !" he murmured to himself, " I have 
 got hold of a secret, have I ? I will keep that 
 for service some future day. But now for my 
 present w^ants. They must be supplied. I can- 
 not stay at Marcilly, that 's clear ; and I must 
 make my way off as fast as possible. Now, 
 uncle Latouches, I must borrow a few crowns ; 
 and, if ever you ask me for payment, your secret, 
 and all you have robbed me of, will be quittance 
 enough, I think ! " 
 
 As he thus spoke, he produced half a dozen 
 keys of different forms out of his pocket, and 
 applied them to the drawer. They did not 
 succeed in opening it, however; and the youth 
 then brought forth a large knife, with which he 
 speedily contrived to press down the bolt of the 
 lock. The light of the fire was quite sufficient 
 to show him the object of his search ; and, 
 making one clear sweep of the contents of the 
 drawer, he opened the door, and in a minute 
 was walking hastily along the fields. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Once more we must pass over another lapse 
 of time, comprising three years ; and, bringing 
 before the reader again the same four persons 
 who had stood upon the terrace of the Chateau 
 de Langy on the marriage day of Gerard La- 
 touches and Marguerite Lemaire, must group 
 them in the saloon of the same chateau, as they 
 sat down to take their coffee on the evening of 
 a summer's day. 
 
 Six years had changed Adele de Langy a good 
 deal ; but she was still a pretty and interesting 
 woman, with an expression of great sweetness and 
 tenderness, perhaps heightened by being somewhat 
 paler than before. There is something in the 
 aspect of rosy health rarely combined with great 
 gentleness ; it gives the idea of the material, the 
 animal part of our being, predominating over the 
 spiritual. It is not always so, indeed ; for there 
 are some faces, full of the high life of this earth, 
 
 c 5 
 
34 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 through which the soul seems to look by the eye, 
 — ^and one who gazes at them, and sees the vary- 
 ing expressions which the heart brings over the 
 countenance, feels as if looking at some mag- 
 nificent building, and beholding beautiful forms 
 passing across the open windows. Adele de 
 Langy, however, had gained, rather than lost, by 
 her health having been slightly impaired. 
 
 Her husband, too, no longer looked the young 
 man : his face had lost its smoothness ; there 
 were the lines and stains of exposure and care 
 upon it ; and, as he moved to take his seat at the 
 table, a slight degree of lameness was perceptible 
 from a wound he had received in a skirmish 
 some months before. The beautiful little boy 
 of four years old, who at the period to which 
 we have referred, had stood at his mother's 
 knee, was now grown into the tall, pale strip- 
 ling of ten ; somewhat girlish in look and 
 manner; for the great tenderness called for by 
 delicate health had shielded him from those les- 
 sons of privation, activity, and exposure which 
 give, even to boyhood, the manly tone so desir- 
 able in every one who is to mingle, sooner or 
 later, with the world. 
 
 The person of the whole party who seemed the 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 35 
 
 least changed was the Vicomte de St. Medard ; 
 and the only thing which indicated that Tirae''s 
 hand had worked any alteration in him was, here 
 and there, a grey hair, and a slight deepening 
 of the thoughtful wrinkle between his brows. 
 Although not more than by ten years his ne- 
 phew's senior, he had looked, when we first 
 introduced him to the reader, well - nigh old 
 enough to be the marquis's father ; but, since 
 that time, Monsieur de Langy seemed to have 
 gone on in years, while he had stood still ; 
 and now one would not have said that there 
 was much more than half a lustre between them. 
 He was somewhat more richly dressed than be- 
 fore, however, though still in military costume ; 
 for he had by this time risen high in the service 
 of his country, and many circumstances had con- 
 tributed to raise his fortune as well as his sta- 
 tion. The emoluments of the various posts 
 which he had filled had been large, and his ex- 
 penses small ; and in India he had also ac- 
 quired considerable wealth, which his habits of 
 moderation and frugality had prevented him from 
 dissipating, as frequently occurred with many 
 fortunes there obtained. 
 
 Such prudent conduct was not pursued by Mon- 
 
S6 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 sieur de Langy, who, according to the extrava- 
 gant customs of the day, had greatly embarrassed 
 a splendid fortune ; nor was he in the way to re- 
 trieve his error in any great degree, for, although 
 he had taken the opportunity of quitting the army 
 to diminish an establishment far beyond his means 
 or necessities, yet his income still barely sufficed 
 to meet his expenses, so that the debts already 
 incurred remained a continual charge upon him. 
 
 It has been necessary to say thus much, in 
 order to show that the wealthy uncle was, natu- 
 rally enough, an object of great deference to the 
 family of De Langy. I do not mean to say, 
 indeed, that there was anything like servility, for 
 Monsieur de St. Medard exacted nothing of the 
 kind, nor would either the marquis or his wife 
 have been inclined to show it ; but, in such cir- 
 cumstances, our wishes and our hopes, without 
 our knowing or feeling their operation, too often 
 affect our demeanour and our tone — ay, even our 
 thoughts and our actions — towards those upon 
 whom our fortunes depend. 
 
 The whole party in the Chateau de Langy, 
 then, had seated themselves round the table, 
 while several servants in gorgeous liveries stood 
 ready to pour out the fragrant coffee into 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 37 
 
 cups of that beautiful porcelain for which 
 France was at that time even more famous than 
 now. Monsieur de St. Medard, whose Eastern 
 travels had rendered him a connoisseur in the 
 juice of the berry, was dictating to every one 
 in a half-laughing tone the exact proportion of 
 cream and sugar ; and the servants, taking their 
 tone from the master and mistress of the house, 
 were listening with profound respect to his criti- 
 cal dictum ; when the door of the saloon burst 
 open, and in rushed, with the overflowing joy 
 of youth in his countenance and a thousand 
 graces and beauties, which, like the flowers of 
 spring, fade away one by one as life's year ad- 
 vances, as lovely a boy as ever was seen, ex- 
 claiming, " Oh ! my uncle, my uncle, my dear 
 uncle, come hither into the park ; there is such 
 a beautiful bird ! you must come and see it, and 
 tell me what it is ; *" and, catching Monsieur de 
 St. Medard by the arm, he well-nigh pulled 
 him off his chair. 
 
 " Hush, Francois," said his mother ; " do 
 not tease your uncle in that manner. He can- 
 not come, he is taking his coffee." 
 
 " Oh! but he must come," cried the boy, still 
 pulling him by the arm, " or the bird will be 
 
38 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 gone. He will come, I know ; he always does 
 what I ask him." 
 
 The viscount bent down his head and kissed 
 the boy''s fair forehead ; and then looking round 
 with a somewhat rueful smile, as much as to 
 say, " My young tyrant will spoil my coffee,"''' 
 he rose, and, half-led and half-dragged by the 
 child, went out by a glass-door into the park. 
 
 What the bird was, or whether they found it 
 at all, I know not ; but in a few minutes little 
 Francis de Langy returned, holding the flap of 
 his uncle's coat, and laughing with the joyous 
 peal of five years old. 
 
 " My dear uncle," said the marchioness, as 
 they came in, " you spoil that boy. I must 
 really interfere." 
 
 " Nay, Adele," replied Monsieur de St. Me- 
 dard, " I only spoil him because I have him 
 but seldom with me. Give him to me altoge- 
 ther, and I will not spoil him. Will you go 
 with me, Francis, and be my boy ? " 
 
 " That I will," cried the boy, springing at a 
 bound on his knee, and casting his arms round 
 his neck ; " that I will, and then Victor won't 
 tease me." 
 
 The next moment, however, he turned his 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 39 
 
 eyes to his mother's face, and saw a tear upon 
 her cheek. 
 
 " But I won'*t leave mamma ! '"* he exclaimed ; 
 " I -will be her boy too, and papa's, and yours, 
 and everybody''s but Victor's, for he teases me."*' 
 
 " But you shall come and see mamma very 
 often," said Monsieur de St. Medard. 
 
 " Every day ? " asked the boy. 
 
 '' Perhaps so," answered his uncle. " Will you 
 give him to me, Adele.'' — Victor, what say you?" 
 
 " We will talk of it by-and-by," said Mon- 
 sieur de Langy, looking first towards his wife, 
 and then towards his eldest son. " ^ay, Adele, 
 do not weep ; my uncle does not want to separate 
 Francis from us. St. Medard is not so far off 
 but that you may see him every day, as he says. 
 — But we will talk of it by-and-by. There, 
 Victor, drink out your coffee, and go and play 
 in the park : take Francis with you." 
 
 The two brothers went forth together, though, 
 it must be owned, unwillingly ; and, after they 
 were gone, the coffee and the servants were sent 
 away, so that the marquis and his uncle were 
 left with the marchioness, who by this time had 
 wiped away her tears, and remained silent and 
 grave, but not altogether sorrowful. A mo- 
 
40 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 mentary pause ensued, as if nobody exactly liked 
 to renew the subject; but it was Madame de 
 Langy who spoke first. 
 
 " I have but one fear, my dear uncle," she 
 said, giving Monsieur de St. Medard her hand ; 
 " perhaps you divine what it is ? " 
 
 " But you are wrong, Adele," replied 
 Monsieur de St. Medard; " I told you long 
 ago, people who think as I do, seek not to 
 make converts. A fool named Vanina once did 
 so, and they burnt him for his pains, as he well 
 deserved. But it is clearly shown that he had 
 no fixed opinions of any kind. He was a weak, 
 vain, foolish man. With myself, and I sup- 
 pose it is the case with others, my convictions 
 are unwilling and not pleasant to myself; so, 
 depend upon it that I shall not force them 
 upon another. But, my dear Adele, I am 
 ready and willing to promise you that he shall 
 have every instruction you may think fit in 
 your own particular doctrines and notions. He 
 will be still your son, though he may be my 
 heir; and I take him but as a loan to cheer 
 my solitude, to enliven my leisure hours, to 
 give me an object and an end in life. I cut 
 him not off from the parent stem, I only seek 
 to bend the young tree over a spot that has 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 41 
 
 been too long scorched by the rays of the 
 sun — my own heart, I mean, Adele. You will 
 not make him a bigot, of course, — I know you 
 will not ; that were a folly that I could not 
 consent to ; but make him, if you will, a sin- 
 cerely religious man. I can desire nothing bet- 
 ter. It is a highly enviable state. I look upon 
 religion — I do not mean bigotry, — I look upon 
 religion as one of the most beneficial things 
 that the mind of man ever discovered ; it in 
 fact supplies the place of those moral laws, 
 which, though immutable and severe in their 
 nature, would be effectual upon very few unless 
 enforced by the despotic voice of religion. I 
 therefore think it but right and just, in the 
 absence of all knowledge as to how the mind of 
 any child wdll turn out, to give him a sound and 
 calm religious education, in order to ensure that 
 he shall have some principles which will guide 
 him aright, if simple ethics can gain no hold upon 
 him. You shall take every care of his religious 
 education yourself, Adele ; and I will interpose 
 neither barrier nor objection. Now are you 
 satisfied ? " 
 
 " Oh yes/' replied the marchioness ; " I am 
 sure you would not pervert him." 
 
 Monsieur de St. Medard turned to his nephew 
 
42 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 with a laugli, and a shrug of the shoulders. 
 " You see how she treats me, Victor," he said ; 
 " the very best that she can say for me is, that 
 I will not pervert your son. Will you consent 
 to my adopting him ? " 
 
 " Right gladly, my good uncle," answered the 
 marquis ; " I told you so this morning. Only 
 settle upon him a sufficient sura to make him 
 independent under all circumstances ; and of 
 course let it be understood, that, in case of any- 
 thing happening to our poor boy Victor before 
 he marries or comes into his succession, Fran- 
 cis shall be restored to us as the heir of Langy, 
 and I will yield him with pleasure and with gra- 
 titude. You will make him a good soldier, I 
 know, and an honest man likewise. One cannot 
 well desire more." 
 
 " I will try to make him," said the viscount, 
 with a look of conscious integrity, though not 
 exactly of what is called self-satisfaction ; "I 
 will try to make him what 1 am myself, Victor, 
 in every point but one. I cannot say more ; 
 for a man can but endeavour to do those things 
 which he thinks right, and the moral sense with 
 which every man is endowed tells me that I 
 have so acted for some years. My views may 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 43 
 
 be wrong in morals as well as religion ; but I do 
 not think they are, and I have acted up to them. 
 I will endeavour to teach him to do the same ; 
 for, depend upon it, the man who seeks in all 
 things to do that which is right, is seldom with- 
 out discovering in the end what really is right, 
 even by the very act of seeking it." 
 
 The matter was thus settled, and, a few days 
 after, Francis de Langy accompanied the viscount 
 to his estate of St. Medard. He was not told 
 that he was thenceforth to be comparatively a 
 stranger to his father's house. Had he been so, 
 perhaps his boyish imagination even might have 
 taken fright at the severing of all those sweet ties 
 with which the kind hand of Nature has attached 
 us to the bosom of paternal love. He might 
 have felt — early as were his years — that there 
 is no tenderness like that which God himself 
 ordained to be the soft resting-place of infancy ; 
 that the cradle of our best affections is a mother's 
 heart ; that the most impenetrable shelter against 
 the storms of the world are a father's arms. 
 He might have felt it, though not known it ; for 
 feeling goes before experience, and outstrips 
 reason. It is the instinct of man, given him 
 as a safeguard for those early years, before the 
 
44 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 gifts which are bestowed upon liim to direct 
 his manhood can be brought into operation ; 
 before intellect, from the materials furnished by 
 memory out of the past, forges an segis to 
 guard his breast against the future. 
 
 They told him not, then ; and he went joyfully, 
 as if for a visit for a few days. All was new to 
 him, all was happy, and, ere he felt the change, 
 the change was effected. His uncle was all kind- 
 ness, and the hours passed pleasantly away. Mon- 
 sieur de St. Medard, with a lively recollection 
 of all that had been imperfect, and all that had 
 been painful in his own education, took care 
 that nothing of the kind should be felt by the 
 beautiful boy whom he had adopted ; and study- 
 ing his character with an anxious eye, and a keen 
 and discriminating mind, he prepared to repress 
 all that promised dangerous fruit, and to cul- 
 tivate the many fine and hopeful qualities which 
 were apparent in his disposition. 
 
 During the first three or four months, Madame 
 de Langy visited her son almost every day ; but, 
 at the end of that time, the season of the capital 
 returned, and, though she and her husband both 
 might have been better pleased to stay at their 
 chateau, custom, the great god of France, car- 
 ried them unwillingly to Paris. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 45 
 
 Purposely the Viscount de St. Medard re- 
 mained in the country ; for he was anxious to 
 wean Madame de Langy, as he expressed it, 
 from her child. Two months effected the object 
 that he wished ; that is to say, the lapse of time 
 did not diminish her love or her tenderness in 
 the least, but it broke through the habit of seeing 
 him frequently : and when, at length, her uncle 
 and his adopted son followed to Versailles, 
 where the court then was, she herself abstained 
 from that daily intercourse with the boy, which 
 she knew could not always go on, and which 
 she had found it so painful to interrupt. The 
 little Francis himself had readily become reconciled 
 to his situation, for his uncle had always been 
 the object of his warmest love ; nor was his 
 affection diminished, even in the least degree, 
 by finding that Monsieur de St. Medard, though 
 kind and indulgent, would not, to use the ordinary 
 term, spoil him in the least. The viscount never 
 harassed him by manifold exactions, there were 
 few things that were prohibited to him, there 
 were few things that were required of him : but 
 the directions which he had once received, he 
 soon learned, must be obeyed to the letter ; and 
 though his nature was impetuous, and his heart 
 
46 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 full of ardent feelings, yet those feelings were, 
 if I may so express it, thoughtful in their cha- 
 racter, and, even as a boy, he would say to him- 
 self, " I will do as my uncle bids me, because 
 he is so kind."" 
 
 Ere I close this chapter, to turn to another 
 page in the history of this boy's life, I must 
 pause for a moment to give a picture of a person, 
 who, though not one of the principal characters 
 in this book, had a great influence on the fate 
 of Francis de Langy. I do not mean merely 
 his material fate, I mean the fate of his mind ; 
 and, though readers in general are not fond of 
 this sort of portrait-painting, yet I must beg 
 them to pause with me for a moment, assuring 
 them, that, however unskilfully the sketch may 
 be executed, it is from nature ; and I give it as 
 much in justice to a particular class from which 
 we do not in general expect much good, as to a 
 nation from which we do not expect much sin- 
 cere feeling. I speak of a French bonne, or 
 nursery -maid. 
 
 Louise Pelet had been engaged by Madame 
 de Langy to take charge of her youngest son 
 on his return to his home from the Ferme 
 Godard. She came from the house of a re- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 47 
 
 lation of the marquis, with whom she could never 
 agree ; but who gave her a character for perfect 
 honesty, sobriety, and another virtue for which 
 her class are not in general very conspicuous. 
 The lady acknowledged, however, in recommend- 
 ing her to Madame de Langy, that Louise had 
 " a desperate temper.'' 
 
 But Madame de Langy knew that her fair cou- 
 sin was excessively weak, excessively vain, and ex- 
 cessively capricious. It was admitted that Louise 
 was extremely fond of children, and did not 
 show her bad temper with them ; and conse- 
 quently Adele imagined that a more reasonable 
 mistress might make a more reasonable maid. 
 She was not mistaken : Louise became devotedly 
 attached to the boy ; and though she was what is 
 usually termed free spoken to her mistress, 
 expressing her opinion in the very plainest terms 
 when it was sought for, and sometimes when 
 it was not, she was nevertheless perfectly re- 
 spectful and obedient. She was not fond of her 
 fellow-servants, it is true, and got out of their 
 way with great perseverance and success ; but 
 she was neither a tale-bearer nor a slanderer of 
 others, holding her tongue very discreetly when 
 they were absent, though occasionally expressing 
 
48 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 not very favourable views of their conduct to 
 their face. She was, moreover, activity itself, 
 always employed, never idle, and doing every- 
 thing with a rapidity and promptitude which 
 did not in the least interfere with neatness of 
 execution. Blithe and cheerful was she always, 
 too, which is one of the best and most neces- 
 sary qualifications in a person employed about 
 children ; for the heart of man in his early years 
 is like one of those prepared plates, invented in 
 our own days, which take a permanent print 
 of the objects placed before them without any 
 operation of man's hands to draw the outline 
 or induce the light and shade. If our minds are, 
 as we are told by great philosophers, but bundles 
 of ideas, the objects that surround us in infancy 
 — when our first impressions, which form the 
 foundation of all the after structure, are acquired, 
 — can be of no slight importance, and the cheer- 
 fulness and contented character of the persons 
 placed about a child, have undoubtedly a pow- 
 erful influence in giving the same happy tone 
 to his after disposition. 
 
 But the most remarkable point in the character 
 of Louise Pelet remains yet to be told. As one 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 49 
 
 of her fellow-servants said of her, " she was desti- 
 tute of amiable weaknesses." It was very generally 
 admitted by her companions that she had never 
 had afoiblesse for any one ; and it seemed, more- 
 over, that she was resolved never to have a 
 tendresse either; so that grooms and coachmen, 
 footmen and valets, nay, butlers and cooks them- 
 selves, assaulted her heart in vain. At the 
 greater part she laughed, which is undoubtedly 
 the best manner of extinguishing unwished-for 
 love ; but at the rest, if they persisted, she grew 
 angry and impatient, and indeed showed very 
 little compassion for the sufferers from the tender 
 passion. Her indifference towards mankind pro- 
 ceeded from no neglect which she had met 
 with from the other sex, for she certainly had 
 been a very attractive personage, with a neat 
 figure, a pretty foot and ancle, and good eyes 
 and teeth ; and even at the time that she en- 
 tered the household of Madame de Langy, in 
 her smart lace-cap, her little characteristic jacket 
 and her red petticoat, she was still pleasant 
 to look on, although she had passed her thir- 
 tieth year. Louise was, moreover, a sincere 
 and devout Roman Catholic ; that is to say, 
 
 VOL. I, D 
 
50 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 she had a strong sense of religion, and of course 
 adhered to the doctrines in which she had been 
 brought up. She heard mass whenever she had 
 an opportunity, she fasted sturdily upon all days 
 appointed for that purpose ; and, although she 
 had great powers of abstinence, she got thin 
 upon the rigid observance of Lent, and some- 
 what pale before Easter-day. She confessed at 
 the regular times and seasons ; but it was always 
 remarked that after confession she was more 
 placable and less sharp in her replies than usual ; 
 and consequently Madame de Langy imagined 
 that errors in temper formed the gTcat bulk of 
 her sins, and w^ere the especial faults which the 
 worthy priest thought fit to point out for amend- 
 ment. Louise was a very sensible as well as 
 a very conscientious person, and, having a clear 
 insight into her own little weaknesses, she was 
 always anxious to conquer them. Nevertheless 
 she was not a bigot, hated hypocrisy, in mat- 
 ters of religion endeavoured to prevent her left 
 hand from knowing what her right did, made 
 her fasting and her prayer both in secret, would 
 hear even a priest blamed with perfect composure, 
 and tolerated a jest at any of the many absurdities 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 51 
 
 with which the folly of men had overloaded her 
 church. 
 
 Such was the personage to whom Madame de 
 Langy had confided the care of her younger 
 son ; and, when the little boy was adopted by 
 Monsieur de St. Medard, she stipulated that 
 Louise Pelet should accompany him. The 
 viscount consented willingly enough, as the pre- 
 sence of Louise relieved his mind of the only 
 embarrassment which he anticipated ; and, after 
 she had been with him a short time, the esteem 
 he felt for her was so great, that he resolved, if 
 willing to stay, she should never quit his house, 
 even after her charge of the boy was over. 
 
 For her part, Louise loved and respected 
 her new master ; and the only observation which 
 she was ever known to make in his dispraise, 
 was, " It is a pity that he is such a fool as to 
 have no religion, when so good a thing is to be 
 got at every corner." 
 
 D 2 
 
 y. ^f lu: ua 
 
52 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Years passed witli Francis de Langy : the 
 bark of life floated along the stream of time, 
 filled with all the merry crew of boyhood, shout- 
 ing on their way at every rock and angle that 
 they turned, singing gay songs to the ripple of 
 the waves, laughing at those whom they left be- 
 hind upon the bank, though opening their eyes 
 with astonishment, here and there, at the wrecks 
 which they beheld even in those seemingly quiet 
 waters. 
 
 Years passed by, and Monsieur de St. Me- 
 dard's hair grew greyer. Victor and Adele de 
 Langy fell into the slough of middle life. Their 
 son, the young count, became a youth, imitating 
 the faults and follies of men, tasting the first 
 intoxicating drops of vice, and promising to 
 pain his parents' heart with more than an or- 
 dinary share of errors and weaknesses. Their 
 eyes often turned with longing and affection to- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 53 
 
 wards their second son, Francis, now somewhat 
 past fourteen years of age, and unusually tall, 
 strong, and powerful for his period of life. He 
 was strikingly handsome in person too ; and the 
 eyes of Adele saw in his noble features, and 
 still more noble expression, a promise that he 
 would grow up with higher objects and pursuits 
 than his brother, and make up, in pride and 
 satisfaction to his father and herself, for the 
 sorrows and anxieties which Victor was brindnff 
 upon them. 
 
 The character of the boy seemed fully to 
 justify her in such hopes. The bold, frank 
 openness of his disposition, which was the first 
 thing that had won the love of his father's un- 
 cle, had never left him. He was fearless in all 
 things, candid in all things ; he knew not what 
 a falsehood is, he scarcely conceived it possible 
 to tell one. With nothing to conceal, and with 
 nothing to dread, truth was the first habit of 
 his mind ; and with truth there was, of course, 
 cheerfulness. What is there that should pre- 
 vent the heart from beating free when there 
 is not a fetter upon it ? But although he was 
 perfectly gay, happy, and contented, the con- 
 tinual society of Monsieur de St. Medard had. 
 
54f THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 of course, produced its effect upon the young 
 Francis de Langy. It gave him a thoughtful 
 turn even in his gaiety. His light-heartedness 
 was not without reflection ; his very cheerful- 
 ness proceeded from the pleasantness of his 
 thoughts, not from the absence of them ; so 
 that he was, in fact, in mind, as well as in 
 body, more advanced than his years. It might 
 be, that the course of education which Monsieur 
 de St. Medard pursued with him had produced 
 the same effect upon his corporeal and his 
 mental powers, for the viscount had taught him 
 to examine the opinions he received, to inves- 
 tigate, to analyze, to combine ; and at the same 
 time that he had given him these exercises for 
 the mind, he had instructed, or caused him 
 to be instructed, in all those bodily exercises 
 which strengthen the muscles and develope the 
 powers of the human frame. At fourteen he 
 was master of almost all weapons, an excellent 
 swimmer, a good horseman, an unerring shot ; 
 and, as grace is the child of strength married 
 to activity, there were few persons in whom 
 that quality was more remarkable than in the 
 boy whose course we have been tracing. 
 
 There was but one subject of daily interest on 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 55 
 
 which Monsieur de St. Medard never spoke with 
 his adopted son, and that was religion. With 
 conscientious adherence to his word, he not only 
 avoided throwing any doubts as stumbling-blocks 
 in the young man's way, but he himself engaged 
 a clergyman of irreproachable character, a man 
 of sense, of learning, and of firmness, to act as 
 his constant instructor, and to stay with him 
 in the house. The Abbe Arnoux had travel- 
 led far, had seen many nations, had mingled 
 with philosophers as well as ecclesiastics, had 
 heard many opinions discussed, combated, and 
 defended, and, remaining calmly firm in those 
 which he had first received, was fully prepared 
 to support them at all times against attack, 
 whatever form it might assume. The viscount, 
 in short, could not have chosen any one so 
 capable of guarding his adopted son against 
 his own peculiar notions as the person he gave 
 him for a tutor; and, at the same time that 
 he did so, he himself obtained for a compa- 
 nion one of the few men, as he expressed it, 
 with whom he could converse reasonably. With 
 the abbe, however, from delicacy of feeling, he 
 abstained from all conversation on religion, as 
 he did with his nephew from respect to his 
 
56 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 word ; and but for the fact of his never set- 
 ting his foot within the doors of a church, or 
 attending upon any of the ordinances of reli- 
 gion, the boy would not have discovered that 
 his kind relation differed from the rest of the 
 world in his religious views. True it is, he 
 took no great notice of the matter, and the 
 Abbe Arnoux was a great deal too wise and 
 too virtuous to call the attention of his pupil 
 to what he looked upon as a lamentable error 
 in the mind of their mutual benefactor. 
 
 Thus had proceeded the course of Francis 
 de Langy's life up to the period when, having 
 passed the age of sixteen, it seemed necessary 
 to Monsieur de St. Medard to give him a more 
 general knowledge of the world ; for, alas ! that 
 is a book which every man must study sooner 
 or later, and he who has not some knowledge 
 of it can never take a first place in the class 
 into which he has been put. The viscount 
 having now formally adopted his nephew, — a 
 proceeding surrounded with more legal securi- 
 ties in France, at least at that time, than is 
 admissible in England, — the king bestowed upon 
 him the title of Baron de St. Medard, which he 
 would have borne had he been actually the son of 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 57 
 
 his father by adoption ; and accompanied by the 
 Abbe Arnoux, with two servants, Monsieur de 
 St. Medard and Francis de Langy set out on a 
 tour through their native land. 
 
 It was in the spring of the year; but the 
 spring far advanced and touching upon sum- 
 mer ; a season which in Paris and its neigh- 
 bourhood is, perhaps, the most disagreeable, 
 on account of the cloud of dust which hangs 
 constantly in the air. The steps of the tra- 
 vellers were directed, in the first place, towards 
 the celebrated baths of the Mont d'Or, in order 
 to reach which — as they varied their course ac- 
 cording to the objects that they desired to see — 
 they passed through a very interesting portion of 
 the kingdom. But as this work is neither in- 
 
 o 
 
 tended for a descriptive tour, nor an account 
 of the principal manufactures of the eastern 
 provinces of France, I shall hurry on with them 
 towards Auvergne, which they approached in the 
 beginning of the month of June. 
 
 Monsieur de St. Medard, although he had not 
 prevented his adopted son from visiting any town 
 which was worth his notice in the neighbour- 
 hood of their direct road, had nevertheless lost 
 but little time by the way ; for a latent desire 
 
58 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 of seeing some old and well-loved friends had, 
 perhaps, directed his journey to Auvergne in 
 the first place, and now somewhat quickened 
 his movements, without his being aware that 
 such was the case. It were trite to tell the 
 reader that the causes of one-half of our actions 
 are unknown to us ; for every man, who has at 
 all examined his own mind, must have discovered 
 that very often the motive most apparent tp 
 himself at the time was not the real one. But 
 we may go a little farther and say, that, even 
 when we do discover the principal motive, we 
 seldom, if ever, perceive all those accessory 
 causes which modify it in its course between con- 
 ception and execution. The heart of man is a 
 well of secrets, from which we bring up but one 
 bucketful at a time ; and truth — that is, the 
 whole truth — still lies at the bottom. 
 
 Francis de Langy had hitherto been busy with 
 the most material things of life, for there are 
 various shades of substantiality in all that we 
 deal with. First, there is the actual matter of 
 the world, and the mere physical actions and 
 enjoyments which spring from the exercises of 
 our corporeal frame, from the indulgence of any 
 of our animal appetites, — the operation of matter 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 59 
 
 upon matter. Then come, as another grand 
 class of human objects and pursuits, those move- 
 ments of the mind, and their subjects, which, 
 though not actually dealing with corporeal sub- 
 stances, nevertheless are not independent of them, 
 taking from them their indications and their 
 terms. This comprises all the sciences, and 
 many of the arts. A third class is still more 
 refined and subtle in its nature and its objects. 
 Though matter must always mingle, more or less, 
 while we hold this mixed being, with all our 
 thoughts and feelings, yet the imaginative 
 powers of the mind are certainly those which 
 receive less aid from the material world in which 
 we live, and have more of the operations of the 
 spirit in them than any other of our faculties. 
 The most abstract workings of the intellect — 
 those, for instance, which have for their object 
 the eternal truths of the mathematics, which 
 would be if the worlds were not, — still are forced 
 to have recourse to material forms, and ideas bor- 
 rowed from them, for the mind of man to be able 
 to conceive them at all. But the thrilling sen- 
 sations of the soul, — the thoughts of the spirit, 
 which are feelings, — when awakened by fine 
 music or called forth by some wide and magni- 
 
60 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 ficent scene, deal not at all with the mere mate- 
 rial objects presented to our corporeal senses, but 
 receive, as it were, an answer — a message from 
 Heaven. Rightly directed, wisely used, imagi- 
 nation is the greatest gift and blessing of in- 
 tellectual man. Whether he will or not, it 
 mingles, more or less, with almost all his acts 
 and almost all his pleasures. But how it may 
 be taught to elevate and purify all those en- 
 joyments, would man but give the due ascen- 
 dancy to the finer essence, and suffer it to direct 
 his corporeal energies ! How it might raise his 
 tastes ! how it might soften his feelings ! how it 
 might purify his desires ! how it might ennoble 
 his nature ! how it might dignify his life ! how 
 it might tranquillize his death ! — for imagination 
 must ever be an ingredient in that power by 
 which we realise to ourselves " the substance 
 of things not seen." To him who has imagina- 
 tion wtII directed, the whole universe and all its 
 vicissitudes are but an instrument of eternal 
 music, and the hand of God producing infinite 
 harmony at every touch. 
 
 Francis de Langy had, as I have said, dealt 
 hitherto with the more material things of life. 
 Sciences he had studied, arts he had learned, 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 61 
 
 athletic sports and vigorous exercises he had en- 
 joyed ; but imagination had received but little 
 culture and a small supply of food. A new 
 "world of sensations was about to be presented to 
 him ; a spirit that slumbered in his bosom was 
 about to be roused ; and the touch that woke her 
 from her sleep was from the hand of Nature. 
 
 The three travellers had passed the night at a 
 small and uncomfortable inn, dirty, neglected, 
 and ill-furnished ; and, rising early from beds 
 which offered no inducement to remain longer 
 in them than was absolutely necessary, they set 
 out about five o'*clock in the morning, intending 
 to go on foot to Clermont, and thence to the 
 Monts d'Or. A thick fog hung over the whole 
 scene for the first two hours of their journey ; 
 but at length, after having changed horses in the 
 small town of Aigueperse, they climbed on foot 
 the high hill just beyond that place, while the 
 carriage followed, and some signs of the mist dis- 
 persing began to appear ere they reached the top. 
 The Abbe Arnoux was expressing his regret that 
 they should be cut off from the beautiful view of 
 Limagne which the top of the mountain displays, 
 and cited some lines from Gregory of Tours, 
 which afford perhaps the first record of a strong 
 
62 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 sense of picturesque beauty in one of the 
 barbarous kings of tlie middle ages that we 
 possess. 
 
 " Just such a misfortune as that which has be- 
 fallen us to-day," said the abbe, " befel Childibert 
 more than a thousand years ago. That was very 
 natural ; but what was not quite so much to be 
 expected, is the fact, that poor Childibert felt 
 the disappointment as much as we can do, though 
 he had no Claude Lorraine to instruct his eyes 
 in the details of picturesque beauty." 
 
 " I think we shall be more fortunate than the 
 king, abbe," said the viscount ; " for, if I mistake 
 not, the mist does not go be3^ond this side of the 
 mountain. Do you not see the yellow sunshine 
 there, appearing in a long line upon the edge of 
 the sky, like the golden fringe upon the hangings 
 of a throne ? The wind sets from that quarter, 
 too ; so, take my word for it, we shall have it 
 fine." 
 
 " If we were to stop for a minute," said the 
 abbe, " we might, perhaps, have the view from 
 the top ; and, in the mean time, look here at this 
 large square stone, one of the traces of a civiliza- 
 tion passed away, as great, or, perhaps, greater 
 than our own. We think that the art of print- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 63 
 
 ing will prove the elixir of life to our state of 
 being, and render all our inventions, discoveries, 
 and improvements immortal. A thousand to 
 one the hands which erected these milestones so 
 many centuries ago, thought that the glories of 
 the Roman name had in it as strong a principle 
 of immortality, and that, embalmed in that mighty 
 preservative, all her arts would be transmitted to 
 every after age without decay or loss. ' Tibe- 
 rius Claudius, Drusi filius, Caesar, Augustus, 
 Germanicus, Tribunitia potestate quinquies, Im- 
 perator undecies. Pater patrise, Consul tertium, 
 Consul designatus quartum, &c., &c., &C.,"'" con- 
 tinued the abbe, reading with antiquarian ease 
 the letters on the old Roman milestone. " The 
 possessor of all these pompous titles, depend upon 
 it, little thought that the pride of Rome would 
 one day be but a page out of a half-forgotten 
 history." 
 
 " But at all events," said the viscount, " you 
 will allow, my good friend, that the art of printing 
 is a vast safeguard to all our present discoveries 
 and arts ? " 
 
 " I really do not know," replied the abbe ; 
 " I believe the copies made by hand of many of 
 the celebrated works now utterly lost were as 
 
64 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 numerous in proportion to the population as 
 those produced by printing ; and, if we look into 
 any catalogue of boohs, we shall find many of 
 them — though printed within a very few years of 
 the present time — which are now scarcely to be 
 procured ; some of which there is only one copy 
 known to exist ; others, printed less than two 
 hundred years ago, famous in their day and eagerly 
 sought for now, of which only the title has de- 
 scended to us. No, no ; we can perpetuate no- 
 thing : there is no such thing as immortality on 
 this side the grave. " 
 
 "Or on the other," said the viscount in a low 
 tone, as if speaking to himself. 
 
 But, nevertheless, Francis de Langy caught 
 the words, and turned round with a sudden start. 
 Monsieur de St. Medard perceived his surprise, 
 and, vexed with himself for having been betrayed 
 into such a speech, walked on, saying, " Come, 
 Francis ! Come, Monsieur Arnoux : the car- 
 riage will be at the top of the hill long before 
 us, if we stay here discussing old monuments. — 
 But you see I was right ; the mists have nearly 
 cleared away." 
 
 "Would to God they had ! " thought the abbe; 
 but he was more careful than Monsieur de St. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 65 
 
 Medard had been, and uttered not aloud even a 
 word that might shake the respect of Francis de 
 Langy towards the viscount. 
 
 He followed slowly, however; while the youth, 
 with his light active limbs, hurried on before. 
 The abbe's eyes were bent upon the ground, 
 his whole look grave and thoughtful ; and Mon- 
 sieur de St. Medard, pausing for an instant, laid 
 his hand upon his arm, saying, " I forgot my- 
 self, Arnoux ; but I trust it has done no harm. 
 You know that I would not counteract your 
 efforts by a word." 
 
 " I am sure you would not," replied the 
 abbe ; " but let me ask once, and only once, 
 my dear sir, whether, feeling, as you do, that 
 such tenets are in themselves an evil you would 
 not inflict on one you love, — whether, I say, 
 it would not be better to endeavour to free your 
 own mind from them ? " 
 
 The viscount smiled. " It would take a long 
 while, my dear abbe, to give you my reasons," 
 he answered ; " but first let me point to you 
 an objection which is unanswerable, that, having 
 discovered the truth, a sane man can never 
 abandon it. His convictions must remain the 
 same, whatever be his inclinations." 
 
bb THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " Can truth, then," said the abbe, " ever 
 be so evil a thing, that he, who is perfectly sure 
 of possessing it, withholds it as a poison from 
 those he loves ? My friend, I should doubt 
 the genuineness of the drug. I should think 
 that it was some noxious composition, decorated 
 with the title of a precious balm." 
 
 *' It is the state of society," replied the 
 viscount, '' which renders that dangerous which 
 is in itself good ; as wholesome food and ge- 
 nerous wine are death to a man in a fever." 
 
 " Nay, Monsieur de St. Medard," said the 
 abbe, '' I have heard you yourself own that 
 there is more happiness, in life and in death, 
 to be derived, from what you call the dreams 
 of religion, than from the most calm state of 
 philosophical atheism." 
 
 The viscount nodded his head. 
 
 " Well, then," continued the abbe, " I will 
 quote the words of one whom you allow to be the 
 wisest man that ever lived, and whom I think 
 wiser than any man that ever lived. He told 
 us that you should know a tree by its fruit ; 
 and I contend, with him, that a good tree 
 will bring forth good fruit. It is worth 
 some thought, my friend and benefactor, for 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 67 
 
 every man to ask himself, with Pilate, ' What 
 is truth ? ' for it is upon that which depends 
 eternity." 
 
 The viscount made no answer, but walked 
 on musing, and at the top of the hill they found 
 Francis de Langy gazing with a look of wild 
 enthusiasm upon the magnificent scene that lay 
 spread out before him. His whole features 
 seemed lighted up, his quivering lips were apart, 
 the glow in his cheek was heightened, his very 
 breath withheld. It was the first time in his 
 young life that he had been strongly affected 
 by the beauty of the earth he dwelt in; and 
 now it seemed to come upon him all at once : 
 the impression of a mighty power in nature 
 which he had never known before, but which 
 instantly found a responsive spirit in his own 
 heart, and roused imagination within him never 
 to sleep again. 
 
 The landscape he looked upon was indeed 
 most beautiful. The mist, rising like a curtain, 
 hid the tops of the hills ; but the sun, not yet 
 half-way up to the highest point of his course, 
 poured a flood of radiance over the plain, or 
 rather valley, of Limagne, which lay enchased 
 like a rich jewel, reflecting the morning light 
 
68 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 with a thousand hues, in the midst of the golden 
 mountains of Auvergne. 
 
 Who can describe the first sight of that fair 
 land in the early day, with its innumerable un- 
 dulations, its banks, its rocks, its soft green 
 pastures, its woods, its dells, its castles, and 
 its thousand streams ? At that moment, too, 
 it was perhaps as lovely as ever it was seen : 
 various things have since made changes greatly 
 to the diminution of its beauty ; many of the 
 chateaux are gone which once topped the hills, 
 many • of the old castles have fallen to the 
 ground, the dull straight walls of manufactories 
 have here and there disfigured the sweetest parts 
 of the valley, and the progress of a destructive 
 revolution, as well as the advance of arts, and 
 the increase of population, have changed its 
 aspect for the worse. Then nature was su- 
 preme : and if man's works were there, if the 
 towers of a distant town met the eye in one 
 direction, or the pinnacles of an old country- 
 house were seen in another, they were but as 
 children nestling in a mother's breast ; while 
 the decaying walls of feudal buildings on the 
 rocks and mountains, from which their grey and 
 moss-covered stones could with difficulty be dis- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 69 
 
 tinguished, seemed to blend both nature and 
 art and past and present, together in one sweet 
 harmony. At that moment, too, the dewy 
 mist, from out her jewelled treasury, had scat- 
 tered living diamonds over the whole plain, and 
 the bright sun, triumphing over the retiring va- 
 pours, gathered them as spoils while they glit- 
 tered in his beams. 
 
 Light and loveliness were before the young 
 man's eyes ; and, as he gazed, a spring bird 
 in its full song of love burst forth from a tree 
 that overhung the road, and added another voice 
 to the grand music of the whole. 
 
 The viscount and Arnoux paused by his 
 side ; neither spoke for a moment, for to them 
 the wonder and enjoyment of the young bright 
 being before them were as beautiful as the scene, 
 and indeed its climax. It wanted but the sight 
 of such high pure delight to make it perfect. 
 
70 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A FEW miles beyond Riom the travellers 
 once more descended from the carriage, though 
 at this time there was no picturesque beauty of 
 any peculiar character to attract them. The sole 
 inducements to travel on foot were a steep hill, 
 (which the new road avoids,) and the relief given 
 by a change of position. The scenery, indeed, 
 was pleasant enough in its way, as the carriage 
 was at the time passing through one of those 
 large woods, so common in France, which, though 
 principally planted for the sake of profit, add not 
 a little to the beauty of the country and the com- 
 fort of the traveller. The trees were old and 
 fine ; the frequent streamlets of Auvergne ren- 
 dered the shades musical with the voice of fall- 
 ing waters ; and all the little accidents of rock, 
 and broken bank, and rustic chapel, and green- 
 sward brake were there, to please the eye as the 
 party walked along. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 71 
 
 " That path cuts off half the hill," said one 
 of the postillions, pointing with his whip, and 
 speaking in the patois of his country ; "it takes 
 you, too, by St. Mary's chapel and fountain, 
 which so many people go to see." 
 
 " Well, then, I think we will go too," replied 
 the viscount. " We are for seeing all sights ; 
 are we not, Francis ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, let us see everything that can be 
 seen," cried the eager youth; and on he went at 
 a rapid pace along the path to which the man 
 pointed, and upon which the viscount and the 
 abbe followed him more slowly. It was one of 
 those small narrow paths through a wood, which, 
 to me at least, are so full of temptation that I 
 can scarcely pass by the end of one of them, and 
 gaze down into the green light and shade that it 
 displays, without being seduced to quit the plain 
 highway, and track its winding course at any risk. 
 Alas, reader ! they are, too, like the sweet by- 
 ways that branch off at every step from the com- 
 mon road of life ; very, very pleasant at their 
 commencement, but too often rough and danger- 
 ous before they close, and leading us to things 
 we never dreamt of, and from which it is very 
 difficult to return. 
 
72 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 Such, however, was not the case in the present 
 instance. The path continued even and good ; 
 a great part of the steep ascent of hill was saved, 
 and the walk was shady and cool, with the trees 
 close enough to hide the traveller from the sun, 
 but not to impede the free air from refreshing 
 his cheek as he walked along. The ground all 
 round, too, was covered with forest flowers, which 
 are so very much more beautiful in France than 
 in this country ; and with the strong impetuous 
 step of youth, which still hurries forward to the 
 exhaustion of all joys, Francis de Langy sped 
 on before his two more aged companions, and 
 was ere long lost to their sight in the turnings 
 of the wood. They could hear his steps, how- 
 ever, for the hard ground echoed the tread ; 
 but in a minute or two the sound of his foot- 
 fall suddenly ceased, and the next instant a 
 loud shout from his well-known voice met their 
 ear. 
 
 *' Quick, quick ! come hither ! '* he cried, 
 " come hither !" and, hastening forward, they 
 found him kneeling down beside the inanimate 
 form of a girl apparently about his own age. 
 
 She was evidently of the higher ranks of 
 society ; and though as pale as death, and in 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. id 
 
 fact to all appearance dead, yet as her head 
 rested upon the arm of the young Baron de St. 
 Medard, with her eyes closed, and the long black 
 lashes resting on her cheek, the beautiful line of 
 the eyebrow clear and defined on the pale marble 
 skin, the rich brown hair falling back from the 
 forehead, the delicate mouth with the bloodless 
 lips apart, and the brilliant white teeth glisten- 
 ing below^ a more lovely and interesting coun- 
 tenance was never beheld, even amongst the an- 
 cient statues which she looked so like. Her 
 dress was fine, though simple : a golden cross 
 and chain were round her neck ; her bonnet, 
 which she seemed to have been carrying in her 
 hand, had dropped beside her ; and her garments 
 were only so far discomposed by her fall as to 
 display one small foot and beautiful ancle. She 
 seemed to have received no injury of any kind, 
 but appeared to have fallen down suddenly, either 
 dead or fainting. 
 
 Francis de Langy was but little familiar 
 with death, and, as he saw her lie so still, he 
 thought that the spirit was gone for ever; but 
 the Abbe Arnoux and the viscount were more 
 acquainted with such things, and the former, 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
74 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 kneeling down beside her, soon pronounced that 
 she had merely fainted. 
 
 " They talked of a fountain," he said ; "let 
 us carry her thither:" and, the moment he had 
 spoken the words, his pupil, without waiting for 
 any assistance, caught her up in his strong young 
 arms, and ran on with her along the path. 
 
 At the distance of less than a couple of hun- 
 dred yards there was a little opening in the 
 wood, with a small shrine of an antique date, in a 
 chaste and simple style of Gothic architecture, 
 displaying a figure of St. Mary Magdalen behind 
 an iron grating. At the foot of the shrine, and 
 only separated from it by a sufficient space for 
 two or three votaries to kneel, was a basin of 
 stone, which seemed as if it had once been the 
 upper part of a font in some church of the mid- 
 dle ages ; but now, pierced at the bottom to 
 receive the water from below, it formed a beauti- 
 ful little well, over the edge of which a small 
 perfectly limpid stream flowed away down the 
 rock, and lost itself in the wood. 
 
 It was by the side of this fountain that Fran- 
 cis de Langy stopped ; and, laying his fair bur- 
 den down upon the grass, he had sprinkled her 
 face with water before the viscount and the abbe 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 75 
 
 came up. She did not revive indeed, but a 
 slight movement of the features filled the boy's 
 heart with joy, by convincing him that she still 
 breathed ; and when the abbe joined him he 
 exclaimed, " She is living ! Oh yes, she is 
 living indeed !" 
 
 The good man smiled. " I never doubted 
 it, Francis/' he said. " She will come to her- 
 self soon. Do not raise her head, she will be 
 better as she is. We must sprinkle her face 
 again with the tears of St. Magdalen, as the 
 people call this water. You rub her hands, 
 Francis ;" and, filling his hollowed palm out of 
 the fountain, the abbe cast the cold liquid sud- 
 denly on her face and bosom. 
 
 A gasp, as for breath, succeeded ; and the 
 youth, taking one of the fair small hands in his, 
 chafed it gently, but anxiously, with somewhat 
 new sensations, as he felt that smooth marble- 
 like touch, and gazed upon those beautiful 
 features. They were strange sensations, inno- 
 cent, and pure, and guileless — calm and cold 
 indeed as that soft hand itself, but different from 
 anything that he had ever known before. He 
 had loved his father, his mother, and him who 
 had adopted him ; he had felt deep interests 
 
 e2 
 
tb THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 towards tliem, — affection, tenderness, gratitude : 
 but it had always been with a looking up, 
 with a reverence for, with a dependence upon 
 them ; and, with the heart of man, it is not for 
 those to whom we lift our eyes that we experience 
 the deepest tenderness, it is for those placed a 
 step below us. The sensations of pity, the power 
 of aiding, protecting, defending, supporting, were 
 all new to the bosom of Francis de Langy ; and 
 he now felt the thrill of them for the first time. 
 It was as a supplement to the new spirit which 
 had been aroused within him that day by the 
 first sight of Limagne. Imagination ! — tender- 
 ness ! — what wanted he more of manhood ? — 
 Love ! and that was to come ere long. 
 
 Their care was not long in producing its effect. 
 Two or three long-drawn sighs, and a slight 
 shudder, soon showed that sensation was return- 
 ing to the fair object of their solicitude ; and, in 
 about five minutes more, she opened her eyes still 
 faintly, and turned them from the one to the 
 other. The first thing they rested on was the 
 soft and ruddy face of youth ; the next was the 
 fine countenance of Monsieur de St. Medard, full 
 of calm, grave thought ; the next was the mild, 
 benevolent aspect of the Abbe Arnoux ; and the 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 77 
 
 poor girl seemed to receive from each some es- 
 pecial comfort and assurance, for a gentle smile 
 came upon lier lip as she raised herself slightly 
 upon her arm. 
 
 *' Lie still, my dear young lady, lie still," 
 said the ecclesiastic ; " you will soon be better. 
 You are amongst friends." 
 
 She suffered her head to droop back again upon 
 the grass, and once more closed her eyes, which 
 were of a deep, deep blue ; but the increasing 
 colour in her lips, and the faint rose that began 
 to spread over her cheek, like the first blush of 
 dawn in the pale morning sky, showed that the 
 heart was beating more freely, and sending the 
 warm current of life through the veins from 
 which it had been withdrawn. 
 
 Oh ! how beautiful did she look ; and with what 
 intense admiration did Francis de Langy gaze, as 
 the change took place ! It was like the statue 
 of the Greek sculptor, when, warming to the 
 prayer of love, the cold limbs softened into life. 
 In a few minutes she once more opened her eyes, 
 and her lips moved. "I am better," she said ; 
 *' thank you, I am better. I can get back again 
 home now." 
 
 " Nay, nay, stay a moment," replied the vis- 
 
78 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 count; ''try your strength first, young lady; and, 
 when you are quite recovered, we will aid you 
 home. — Is it far?" 
 
 " Oh no," she answered, raising herself again 
 upon her arm, and looking down the path by which 
 they had come with somewhat anxious and ap- 
 prehensive eyes; "it is very near, not a quarter 
 of a league : but I can go on now, and I would 
 fain get back to the chateau." 
 
 The viscount and the abbe aided her to rise ; 
 while Francis de Langy stood near and gazed, 
 for a sudden timidity had come upon him, he 
 knew not why. But at length, he burst sud- 
 denly forth, on seeing her look around as if 
 seeking for something; and exclaiming, " Oh ! 
 we left it behind where we found you — we for- 
 got it ;" he darted down the path. 
 
 Some sudden emotion, however, seemed to 
 seize their fair companion, and she cried, *' Oh, 
 no, no ! — Do not go, do not go ! Not that 
 way!" while her cheek turned pale again, and 
 a look of terror came over her whole counte- 
 nance. 
 
 '' What is the matter ?" demanded the vis- 
 count. '' Is there any danger there ? Has any 
 one injured or attacked you ?'*^ 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 79 
 
 " No," she replied in a broken and confused 
 manner, " no : I saw something that fright- 
 ened me, and — and — I fainted, I suppose ; for 
 I felt sick, and then everything disappeared." 
 
 " Perhaps playing the truant a little, my 
 child ?" said the abbe. 
 
 " Oh no !" she answered, colouring, and turn- 
 ing her dark blue eyes full upon him. " My 
 mother sent me. I often walk through all these 
 woods alone." 
 
 '' What was it frightened you then ?" asked 
 the viscount. But she cast down her eyes ; 
 the colour left her face ; and, before any more 
 questions could be put to her, Francis de Langy 
 was seen coming rapidly back, carrying her bonnet 
 in his hand. 
 
 " Now, my child," said the Abbe Arnoux, 
 '' take the arm of Monsieur de St. Medard, 
 and let us guide you home. You must 
 direct us on the way, however, for we do not 
 know it." 
 
 *' Either path will take us to the chateau," re- 
 plied the young lady, " but we had better take 
 this one;"" and, receiving her bonnet from the 
 hands of the young baron, she thanked him in a 
 low voice, while she raised her eyes to the face 
 
80 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 of Monsieur de St. Medard, as if asking, " Shall 
 we go on ? " 
 
 The viscount led her on the path before them, 
 while the abbe, seeing that she still walked fee- 
 bly, supported her on the other side ; and Fran- 
 cis de Langy followed. His uncle, however, 
 turned his eyes from time to time to their fair 
 companion's face with a thoughtful and contem- 
 plative look ; and at length, just as they were 
 coming within sight of the high-road, he said, 
 " I cannot but think, mademoiselle, that, by a 
 strange chance, this pretty hand that leans upon 
 my arm is near akin to some I deeply love. May 
 I ask whose child you are ? " 
 
 She looked up in his face with an expression 
 which was not explained for many years, and re- 
 plied, " My mother is the Countess d' Artonne." 
 
 The viscount took her hand in his, and 
 pressed his lips upon it. 
 
 '' I thought so," he said ; " at your age she 
 was very like you." 
 
 " Oh, but she was very beautiful !" cried the 
 girl; " I am" sure she was very beautiful !" 
 
 The viscount smiled, and so did the good 
 Abbe Arnoux : but the former only answered, 
 " She was indeed ;" and then observed, '' you 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 81 
 
 speak of your mother only; but your father is 
 alive, and well, I hope. He was so not a month 
 ago, for I heard from him then." 
 
 Once more she had turned somewhat pale ; but 
 she replied, " Oh yes, my father is well, and here." 
 
 The viscount marked the changing expression 
 of her countenance, and he asked himself, " Can 
 D'Artonne be a harsh father? — he, who was so 
 full of deep, I may almost say, passionate fond- 
 ness for those he loved ? — Oh no, that can 
 never be," he added in his own thoughts ; and 
 then, turning to her again, he demanded, " Is 
 the chateau, to which you are now returning, the 
 one you usually inhabit. Mademoiselle d'Artonne ? 
 I thought it was on the other side of Clennont." 
 
 " No, we always live here," she answered. 
 " I recollect once being at Capelet, but it was 
 only for a month. The Chateau d'Artonne is 
 here above, and the village lies down there below. 
 I have just come from it ;" and, after having 
 spoken, she fell into thought again, till the vis- 
 count stopped by the side of the carriage which 
 was waiting for them at the mouth of the little 
 path. 
 
 " It will be better, fair lady," he said, " for 
 us all to get in and drive up to the chateau ; 
 
 £ 5 
 
82 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 for I have long promised your father a visit, 
 and intended to-morrow to go to his house 
 from Clermont." 
 
 Mademoiselle d'Artonne made no objection ; 
 and, the whole party being seated in the vehicle, 
 the postilions drove on quickly, and, in five 
 minutes more, were in the court of the chateau. 
 
 On visiting the house of a French gentleman 
 of the present day, if the door be open, which 
 is very frequently the case, one may very often 
 walk into an empty hall, and knock at half-a- 
 dozen different doors, without finding any servant 
 to ans\^\er inquiries, or conduct a stranger to the 
 master or mistress of the house. Such, however, 
 was not the case before the Revolution ; and it 
 is necessary to compare the two periods together 
 whenever we wish to estimate the proportion of 
 Americanism that has been infused into the habits 
 of Frenchmen. I say Americanism advisedly ; 
 for republicanism is a very different thing, and 
 does not imply a rejection of refinement in the 
 higher classes of society, or want of due attention 
 and respect for those who employ them in the 
 lower. In those days, in the house of every 
 gentleman of wealth and distinction, two or three 
 servants in full costume were to be found waiting 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 83 
 
 in the vestibule to receive any visitors who 
 might appear, and to answer all inquiries. If 
 they were not much better than the servants 
 of our own times in France, they were not 
 much worse, and certainly were very much more 
 pleasant in their demeanour. In the present 
 instance, no sooner did the carriage stop at the 
 door, than two of them instantly presented them- 
 selves, but appeared not a little surprised on 
 seeing their young lady handed out by two 
 strange gentlemen. 
 
 Mademoiselle d'Artonne had now recovered 
 herself completely; and mixing timid inexperience, 
 not ungraceful in itself, with habits of ease and 
 youthful confidence, which are always graceful, 
 she led the viscount and his companions forward, 
 through the vestibule and the hall beyond, to 
 a small painted and gilded room where her mo* 
 ther usually sat. 
 
 The countess was there, as her daughter 
 expected, but rose, on seeing three strangers, 
 and gazed with an inquiring eye upon the 
 face of Monsieur de St. Medard as he ad- 
 vanced. The next instant, however, her whole 
 face lighted up, and she exclaimed, " Charles 
 de St. Medard, is it you ? This is indeed a 
 
84 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 pleasure. Julie, call your father. Call him 
 quick, my love." 
 
 The colour had fluttered upon the cheek of 
 Monsieur de St. Medard, like that which we 
 see coming and going in the face of an inexpe- 
 rienced girl at the sudden presence of some one 
 whom she loves ; but he stayed Mademoiselle 
 d'Artonne as she was about to go, saying, " You 
 had better send a servant, dear lady; my fair 
 young friend here needs repose and care. We 
 found her fainting in the wood ; something had 
 frightened her." 
 
 All a mother's anxieties were instantly in arms, 
 and the Countess questioned her daughter eagerly 
 as to what could have created such alarm. Julie 
 either would not or could not tell, however. She 
 blushed, turned pale, and faltered : " She could 
 not say," she replied, " 'twas something in the 
 bushes — she saw it but faintly ;" and her reluct- 
 ance, while it excited her mother's curiosity, was 
 evidently too strong and too painful for Madame 
 d'Artonne to press her more at that moment. 
 
 She turned then to Monsieur de St. Medard, 
 asked him manifold questions regarding his fate 
 and happiness during the last seventeen or 
 eighteen years, welcomed the Abbe Arnoux and 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 85 
 
 his young charge, and, gazing in the face of 
 Francis de Langy, remarked, turning to the 
 viscount, " He is very like your elder brother." 
 
 While she was still speaking, the door opened, 
 and a fine, tall, powerful man, of the middle 
 age, dressed in a hunting- coat of green, with 
 some gold lace about it, entered the boudoir, 
 and instantly clasped the hand of his friend St. 
 Medard, saluting him and his two companions 
 after the ordinary habit of France. 
 
 " Julie has been frightened, D'Artonne," said 
 the countess ; " frightened by something, she will 
 not say what, and fainted in the wood." 
 
 The count turned to his daughter with a look 
 of eager anxiety. " Indeed, my dear Julie !" he 
 cried, holding out his arms towards her ; " come 
 to your father, my beloved child. I have scarce 
 seen you to-day. Come to my heart, my Julie, 
 come ! " 
 
 Julie hesitated, turned pale, then red, and then, 
 casting herself into her father's arms, burst into 
 tears ; while the count pressed her to his bosom 
 with tenderness and warmth which left no doubt 
 of the strength of his affection. Both father and 
 mother now applied themselves to soothe her, 
 and she soon regained her tranquillity ; but the 
 
86 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 Countess d'Artonne thought it would be better 
 for her to lie down to repose for a few hours ; 
 and she left the party in the boudoir for that 
 purpose. The count mused as his daughter 
 quitted the room ; and the countess said, " It 
 is very strange what can have alarmed Julie in 
 this manner ! She has, in general, such firm 
 nerves. Some bear, or some wolf, perhaps ; but 
 then why not say so ? " 
 
 "Very likely an ideal terror, Madam," observed 
 the Abbe Arnoux ; " and the fear of being 
 laughed at may perhaps be the cause of her 
 silence." 
 
 " I know not," answered the countess ; " but 
 she has usually no terrors of any kind. How- 
 ever, it is very strange, and I will question her 
 closely when she is somewhat recovered." 
 
 " You had better not, my dear wife," replied 
 the count. " Leave the sweet girl to her own 
 discretion. In our house, St. Medard, we all 
 trust each other ; and we have none of us ever 
 had cause to think that trust misplaced." 
 
 " Confidence is the first duty of noble minds," 
 said the viscount. " It is only the weak and the 
 narrow-minded who, from the somewhat hard 
 lessons of the world, acquire the false wisdom of 
 doubting those who have never deserved them." 
 
THE B'ALSE HEIR. 87 
 
 The count gazed at him with a bright smile- 
 " That is so like the St. Medard of other days," 
 he exclaimed ; " but the St. Medard of other days 
 is the St. Medard of to-day also. I see, you old 
 bachelors are made of hard and unchangeable 
 stuff; but we, who bring domestic sweets about 
 us, get softened and kneaded into new forms. 
 But come, St. Medard, you shall stay a month 
 with us, and see whether the pleasant spectacle of 
 home and family happiness, even in France, 
 may not teach you at length to try your fate in 
 the same way." 
 
 The viscount laughed, and shook his head. 
 *' Nay, nay," he answered ; "■ two and fifty years, 
 D'Artonne, are quite sufficient to harden one, 
 as you call it, into a crust that nothing can 
 soften. Besides, here is my son already ; and I 
 am afraid that my good friend, the Abbe Arnoux, 
 must supply the place of the lady of the mansion. 
 But, we will spend a week with you, D'Artonne, 
 and see all the fair things of Auvergne, if you 
 will show them to us. After that, we must speed 
 on upon our way, for I must take Francis here 
 through one-half of France before the winter 
 sets in. The other we must visit next summer.'" 
 
 The count smiled, and vowed that he would 
 
88 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 detain them longer ; and to this conversation 
 succeeded the arrangement of rooms, the unpack- 
 ing of the carriage, and all the little bustle of an 
 arrival. 
 
 People dined early in those days, especially in 
 Auvergne ; and some change of dress and other 
 preparations had scarcely been made by the 
 viscount and his companions, when they were 
 summoned to the dining-room. Monsieur and 
 Madame d'Artonne were alone, their daughter 
 being still in her chamber : and it would seem 
 that the slight illness which had befallen her, and 
 the fear which occasioned it, weighed upon her 
 father more than he liked to show ; for, though 
 he affected gaiety, and displayed every sign of 
 being rejoiced at his old friend's visit, he fell 
 more than once into a deep fit of thought, and his 
 brow grew gloomy and sad. When dinner was 
 over, and the dessert on the table, Madame 
 d'Artonne rallied her husband upon his gravity. 
 *' You are anxious about Julie," she said. 
 " There never was so apprehensive a father, 
 Monsieur de St. Medard. I will go and see 
 how she is, to satisfy you, Alphonse." 
 
 " Nay, I will go myself," replied her husband, 
 rising from table. " I will be back in a moment." 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 89 
 
 But he was gone near half an hour. When 
 he returned, his face bore a look of relief, and he 
 said, *'She is better, she is much better; but 
 she is not inclined to say what it was that frighten- 
 ed her, and I do not wish her to be questioned 
 farther on the subject." 
 
 " Oh, very well," replied the countess ; " I 
 suppose it is as Monsieur Arnoux suggests, some 
 girlish fright that she is now ashamed of." 
 
 " Perhaps so," replied the count ; and the 
 conversation dropped. 
 
 After sitting for a short time, the whole party 
 moved out into the grounds that surrounded the 
 Chateau d'Artonne, and which some skilful artist 
 of the line-and-rule school had laboured zea- 
 lously about forty years before to deprive of every- 
 thing like picturesque beauty. The fine old 
 woods were cut into stars and crescents, afford- 
 ing, it is true, some beautiful views, every now 
 and then, of the surrounding scenery, with shady 
 walks and pleasant places of repose innumerable, 
 but still quite unsuited to the character of the 
 country round, and to the chateau itself, which 
 had probably been built in the days of Henry 
 IV., or perhaps before. They were, however, 
 the pink of perfection, according to French taste, 
 
90 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 at the period of which I speak ; and received 
 their climax from what was called a Jardin An- 
 glais, which was unlike anything that ever was 
 seen in Great Britain between the Land's End 
 and Ultima Thule. What rendered the park, 
 however, certainly very delicious at that period of 
 the year, was the multitude of streams and foun- 
 tains that it contained, the waters of which were dis- 
 posed with great taste, affording a pleasant cool- 
 ness to the air at every turn, with pleasant sights 
 to the eye, and murmuring sounds to the ear. 
 
 After the party had sauntered through the 
 park for about half an hour, the Count d'Ar- 
 tonne was called away by a servant ; and Mon- 
 sieur de St. Medard walked on by the side 
 of the countess, talking over old times. The 
 topic was one which seemed to interest them 
 both deeply; and many a little incident and 
 scene of the past was recalled, which was spoken 
 of with a feeling, one may almost say a ten- 
 derness, which had something peculiar in it. 
 They were both grave and calm, two friends 
 conversing upon things that were gone ; but yet 
 it seemed as if sensations that were gone too 
 mingled with the stream of thought, and gave 
 it a softer, perhaps a sadder character. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 91 
 
 There is no reason why I should keep the reader 
 in any doubt upon this subject. Monsieur de St. 
 Medard had been deeply attached to the Coun- 
 tess d'Artonne before she had become the wife 
 of his friend. What had been her own senti- 
 ments towards him, he did not know ; for he 
 had offered his hand and been refused by her 
 parents, who softened the disappointment, as far 
 as such disappointments can be softened, by 
 telling him that they had long before promised 
 their daughter to the Count d'Artonne. St. 
 Medard had instantly quitted the pursuit ; and, 
 feeling that his sensations might be more than 
 he could control if he indulged them at all, 
 he had absented himself altogether from the 
 society, not only of the lady whom he loved, 
 but of the friend whose wife she became. Whe- 
 ther d'Artonne was aware of his affection or not, 
 he never knew ; and, though it had not been 
 disguised from the countess herself before her 
 marriage, he had too much delicacy of feeling 
 even to refer to it now, though their conversa- 
 tion turned upon the very days when it was at 
 its height. The only glimmering of that ten- 
 derness which shone through the shadiness which 
 memory seemed to cast over their conversation, 
 
92 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 appeared when Madame d'Artonne observed with 
 a sigh, " Those youthful days are indeed happy 
 ones, Monsieur de St. Medard, whatever one may 
 think at the time. But it was very wrong of 
 you not to come to see us long ago." 
 
 " Nay," replied the viscount, with a sigh ; 
 " nay, dear lady, it was very right." 
 
 The moment after, Monsieur d'Artonne re- 
 joined them, with a grave air. " Madame de 
 Bausse," he said, speaking to his wife, " has 
 sent to inquire whether Martin is here. His 
 dog, it seems, has returned alone. — Some new 
 folly or vice, I suppose." 
 
 " He owes one-half of them to his mother," 
 replied Madame d'Artonne, "and is as much 
 to be pitied as blamed. But to dream of 
 our giving him Julie is something too prepos- 
 terous." 
 
 " That could never be," said Monsieur d'Ar- 
 tonne, in a tone so stern and altered, that his 
 wife started, and turned to look in his face. 
 
 It was calm, though grave ; and Madame d'Ar- 
 tonne continued, addressing the viscount, " You 
 recollect Henriette de TOrne ? " 
 
 " Oh ! quite well, " replied Monsieur de St. 
 Medard, " both married and unmarried ; and so 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 93 
 
 the fair Henriette, it seems, has lost none of 
 her amiable qualities."''' 
 
 Madame d'Artonne looked down, and smiled 
 with a very meaning look ; but the count an- 
 swered, " So far from it, St. Medard, that she 
 has added to them many another, which were 
 perhaps indeed concealed in the girl, but are 
 very apparent in the woman. Capricious, co- 
 quettish, vain, weak, and false she always was ; 
 but now — " 
 
 " Hush, hush, hush, my dear Alphonse," ex- 
 claimed his wife ; " for pity's sake, do spare her 
 a little. Recollect, my friend, she is a woman, 
 and our near relation." 
 
 " A bad woman is worse than a bad man,'' 
 said the count. 
 
 " You think so because they are more rare," 
 replied his wife, laughing ; and the party re- 
 turned to the chateau. 
 
94 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 An hour or two before nightfall, Julie d'Ar- 
 tonne rejoined the party, which had now assem- 
 bled in the library of the chateau, a fine old 
 room with deep windows, lined up to the ceiling 
 with ancient volumes in rich but faded bind- 
 ings. The declining sun was shining through 
 the tall square casements with some portion of 
 the glow of evening in his light, and the warm 
 colour that he cast upon her beautiful features 
 and graceful form seemed to add to her loveli- 
 ness, as, entering the room with a timid yet grace- 
 ful step, Julie d'Artonne approached the table 
 where her father and mother were seated convers- 
 ing with the viscount, conscious that she would 
 be an object of attention and interest to all. 
 
 The little embarrassment, however, soon passed 
 away ; her father spoke calmly and kindly to her, 
 her mother gaily and cheerfully, and Monsieur de 
 St. Medard, mingling a certain degree of cour- 
 teous gallantry with fatherly tenderness, soon 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 95 
 
 made her feel as much at home with him as if 
 she had known him from her youth. Francis de 
 Langy said nothing to her, for his was that par- 
 ticular age when there is a sort of a timid con- 
 sciousness of stronger affections yet undeveloped, 
 which ties the tongue by the first influence of 
 the passion afterwards so eloquent. He stood in 
 one of the windows, however ; and gazed on her, 
 as she entered, not only with admiration but in- 
 terest. Admiration, indeed, forms but a very 
 small part of love ; and the boy was, in truth ad- 
 vancing by very easy steps towards that passion. 
 The Abbe Arnoux was standing near him, exam- 
 ining the illuminated title-page of a book which 
 he had taken down ; and the eyes of Julie d'Ar- 
 tonne, when — after speaking to her parents and 
 the viscount for a moment or two — they turned 
 in that direction, might be either looking at the 
 instructor or the pupil. 
 
 *^' You should thank our young friend the 
 baron, Julie," said Madame d'Artonne, " for it 
 seems that it was he who first found you this 
 morning in the wood, and was your first physi- 
 cian, carrying you to the fountain and sprinkling 
 your face with water ; a skilful doctor, truly, for 
 one who has so lately commenced practice." 
 
 Julie smiled, and, advancing towards Francis, 
 
96 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 gave him her hand, expressing in graceful lan- 
 guage the thanks her mother told her were his 
 due. Girls of that age are almost always less 
 timid than young men, but Francis de Langy, 
 thus encouraged, would not, and did not, let the 
 opportunity pass ; but, forcing himself to do what 
 he knew was courteous and right, he told her how 
 happy he was to have rendered her any assist- 
 ance. In the meanwhile, the conversation be- 
 tween the rest of the party had turned to other 
 subjects : the Abbe Arnoux had advanced to 
 speak with the Count d' A r tonne ; and Julie 
 and Francis remained in the window, talking to- 
 gether for nearly half an hour. The ice was 
 broken between them from that moment, and 
 such a cold commodity had never anything to do 
 with their after intercourse through life. 
 
 How long their conversation would have con- 
 tinued, is not for me to say ; for most young 
 people are fond of sweet things, and they found 
 it very pleasant. But it was interrupted at length 
 by the voice of Monsieur d'Artonne, exclaiming, 
 " Come hither, come hither, and hear what we 
 have determined. Monsieur de St. Medard will 
 spend a week with us after his return from seeing 
 all the fair sights of Auvergne — " 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 97 
 
 The face of Francis de Langy looked very 
 blank ; for, to say the truth, he thought he had 
 already seen the fairest thing that Auvergne 
 could produce, and he loved not to be hurried 
 away from it. But the subsequent words of the 
 count soon cleared his countenance again. 
 
 " This is by far the best arrangement," con- 
 tinued Monsieur d*Artonne, " for it will give 
 us an opportunity of sharing his tour, showing 
 him all the wonders of our province, and after- 
 wards of talking them all over under the shade 
 of our own trees.*" 
 
 If one might judge by Julie's face, she was not 
 less satisfied with the arrangement than the rest 
 of the party ; and her father, remarking the look 
 of pleasure that his announcement called up, 
 added, with a cheerful smile, '' We must all take 
 -^ur part in d^'ng the honours of Auvergne; and 
 to you, Juliv, I commit the charge of guide, in- 
 terpreter, and ."'structor to your young friend 
 there ; so, if he be not able to answer a complete 
 catechism upon the beauties, antiquities, and na- 
 tural productions of the province, and to speak, 
 "with the accent of a native, our own round har- 
 monious Auvergnat, I shall call you to account 
 for it." 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
98 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " Give me time, give me time," said Julie, 
 whose spirits, naturally light and cheerful, were 
 beginning to rise again ; " give me time, and I 
 will answer for the rest." 
 
 " Oh ! you shall have time," replied Monsieur 
 de St. Medard ; " we do not travel as some people 
 do, hurrying from object to object without afford- 
 ing them a second look or a second thought : we 
 go really to see, really to think, really to observe, 
 in short ; and we wish the impressions of to-day 
 to be gathered as not only memories for to- 
 morrow, but as treasures for the time to come." 
 
 " We will all early to bed to-night," said the 
 count, " that we may be up with the sun to- 
 morrow morning. Old Pierrot, who rode courier 
 for us, Elise — do you recollect ? — some seventeen 
 years ago, shall go on before and prepare horses 
 for us, and rooms, and dinners, and suppers, and 
 all the comforts of this life ; for in Auvergne, 
 you know, St. Medard, one cannot travel as one 
 does in other parts of France, trusting to the 
 providence of innkeepers to have everything ready 
 even if a whole army were to arrive." 
 
 So went on the conversation for some hours, 
 in the course of which the whole arrangements 
 were made for their journey; and the evening 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 99 
 
 passed pleasantly enough. The count evidently 
 exerted himself to show his friend how sincerely 
 rejoiced he was to see him ; and though, from 
 time to time, he fell into a fit of deep thought, 
 yet it was never of long continuance, and he roused 
 himself to be as gay as ever. Twice, indeed, 
 during the course of the evening, one of the 
 servants announced that Madame de Bausse had 
 sent to make inquiries if her son had been heard 
 of at the Chateau d'Artonne ; and the count an- 
 swered somewhat impatiently, saying, " Pray, tell 
 her he has not been here. You may add, too, 
 that I have had friends with me all day, or I 
 would have ridden down to see her." 
 
 " The man who has come up, sir," rejoined the 
 servant to whom he spoke, and who was an old 
 and privileged person in the family, — " the man 
 who has come up, sir, says that his lady thinks 
 the young marquis has been murdered ; and she 
 has had his valet, who was out all the morning, 
 arrested when he came home." 
 
 '' Nonsense ! " — cried the marquis. " I dare 
 say, by their rash acts," he continued, speaking 
 to his wife, " both mother and son have made 
 themselves enemies enough in the country ; but 
 by accusing an innocent person of murdering her 
 
 f2 
 
100 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 son, before she knows that he has been murdered 
 at all, she will not effect anything to discover 
 him." 
 
 " I doubt not in the least," said the coun- 
 tess, " that the first thing heard of him will be 
 that he is at Paris, overwhelmed with debts and 
 follies. If you remember, Alphonse, it was so 
 just eighteen months ago ; and nothing would 
 bring him home again till he was sent back by 
 the king, for some cause, I do not well remember 
 what." 
 
 " He drew his sword upon one of the gardes 
 du corps," replied Monsieur de St. Medard, " on 
 the terrace at Versailles ; a very gross misdemea- 
 nour indeed. In former days he would have 
 been punished more severely." 
 
 " Oh ! he will be found in Paris," exclaimed 
 the countess. But her husband said nothing, and 
 Julie sat in silence, with her eyes bent down 
 upon the ground. Francis de Langy had re- 
 marked the words which Madame d'Artonne had 
 used, during their morning''s walk, in regard to 
 the pretensions of Monsieur de Bausse to the 
 hand of Julie, and he now asked himself, " Is 
 she pained to hear him thus spoken of? Or 
 is she anxious respecting his fate ? Can she, 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 101 
 
 though so young, have felt love towards this 
 man ? Perhaps it is so : " and he experienced 
 those sensations rising up in his own bosom, 
 which, whatever may be their primary source in 
 the human heart, — whether vanity, pride, or any 
 other modification of selfishness, — most men of 
 fine minds have experienced towards those they 
 love ; a degree of jealousy, not so much of acts, as 
 of thoughts and feelings; a jealousy that extends, 
 not alone to the present and the future, but to 
 the past. He felt that, if love be the tree of 
 life to the heart of man, the value of the golden 
 fruit is injured if any touch but one's own 
 brushes away even the first bloom. Young 
 minds, however, dwell not long upon such things ; 
 and very soon, the conversation taking another 
 turn, the Marquis de Bausse and all concerning 
 him passed away from the minds of the greater 
 part of the persons there present, and the even- 
 ing went by cheerfully till they separated to rest. 
 The Abbe Arnoux sat for about a quarter of 
 an hour in the chamber of his pupil, for he was 
 a very conscientious man, and sought not alone 
 to store the mind of Francis de Langy, but to 
 train it ; and every night he conversed with him 
 for a short time over the events of the past day, 
 
102 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 commenting upon all that had taken place in a 
 mild and pleasant, though grave tone; seeking as 
 much to induce a habit of self-examination in 
 the mind of his young friend, as to draw in- 
 struction and counsel from the occurrences past 
 under review. But upon the present occasion 
 the admonitions of the abbe were less successful 
 than usual, though they were as wise as ever, 
 and given more in the manner of quiet conver- 
 sation than of serious instruction : but the truth 
 was, that Francis de Langy had two worlds now 
 to deal with, the world without and the world 
 within, and of the latter the good abbe could 
 see very little. Like the globe which we in- 
 habit, that world had been called into existence 
 in one day, and Francis de Langy, the Adam 
 of his own Paradise, longed to be alone to ex- 
 amine all that it contained. 
 
 When the abbe was gone, a servant presented 
 himself; but he was more easily disposed of; 
 for, after having taken the dressing-gown from 
 his hands, his young master told him he wanted 
 nothing more, and sent him quickly away. 
 Then, casting himself into a large armchair, he 
 gave himself up to thought, while his eyes wan- 
 dered round the wide old chamber, lined with 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 103 
 
 black oak, and floored with smooth and gloss 
 tiles. 
 
 His feelings were certainly strange; for, as 
 we have said, a new world had opened to him, 
 a world of sensations altogether fresh. It seemed 
 as if that one day had given him more than 
 all the rest of life. It was one of those 
 changes of existence which affect men of eager 
 and energetic character almost always suddenly. 
 Up to that morning, his life had been com- 
 paratively merely animal : the intellect had been 
 awake, it is true, to think, to reason, to act ; it 
 was the soul that had slept, — the soul, whose 
 task is, to feel. His existence had been that 
 of the chrysalis ; but now one gleam of summer 
 sunshine had burst the cold husk around him, 
 and the light creature of air had put forth her 
 wings, never to sheathe them again on this side 
 of the tomb. Oh, beautiful symbol of the 
 Greeks ! how well dost thou represent man\s 
 agitated spirit, fluttering, wandering from hour 
 to hour, seeking thy honeyed food from all the 
 bright things of God ; yet frail and delicate as 
 the flowers on which thou restest, wounded by 
 a touch, defaced by a drop of rain, blown hither 
 and thither by a breath of wind, crushed by the 
 
104 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 first wintry storm ! Oh, beautiful symbol of the 
 Greeks, thou art indeed too sadly like the 
 soul ! " 
 
 He sat for an hour trying to disentangle his 
 own thoughts ; but finding them still one be- 
 wildered maze, and at length impatient with 
 the fruitless eflPort, he determined he would cast 
 himself down to rest. There, too, he was dis- 
 appointed ; no sleep would visit his eyelids : and 
 after tossing for half an hour, gazing, by the light of 
 the lamp which he had left burning on the table, 
 at some quaint old heads grinning on the sculp- 
 tured cornice around, he rose, threw on his 
 dressing-gown : and saying, " I will get a book,'' 
 he quitted his chamber, and descended the short 
 wooden staircase which led to the ground- floor 
 of the house. 
 
 He knew the door of the library well ; and, 
 crossing the hall towards it, he opened it sud- 
 denly and went in, expecting to find it dark and 
 untenanted. To his astonishment, however, he 
 perceived the Count d'Artonne walking up and 
 down the room with his hands tightly clasped 
 together, and his eyes fixed upon the ground. 
 It was but for an instant that he beheld him in 
 this attitude ; for the opening of the door made 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 105 
 
 the count look up immediately, and a glance 
 of anger crossed liis countenance. When he 
 saw who it was, however, the expression of irri- 
 tation passed away ; and, as Francis de Langy was 
 withdrawing, lie called to him to come in. 
 
 " What ! my young friend,"" he said; " are 
 you a passer of sleepless nights ? I thought that 
 the hours of youth had a hallowed charm against 
 watchful care ; and that it was manhood alone, 
 with its anxieties, and disappointments, and 
 satieties, and sterile aspirations, that was bound 
 to keep the weary eye wide open, or to close 
 it in vain during the long vigils of the night."" 
 
 He spoke almost bitterly ; but Francis de 
 Langy had neither right nor inclination to in- 
 quire farther into the misanthropical tone of his 
 host, and he merely replied, " I know not how 
 it is, but I have not been able to fall asleep. 
 I have seen so many things to-day that I cannot 
 get them out of my head, and so, after trying 
 for some time, I came down to seek for a book to 
 amuse myself." 
 
 " And an excellent way, too,"" answered the 
 count ; '' I never thought of it. But what book 
 will you choose ? Here are plenty of every kind. 
 Here is Corneille; will you take him?"" 
 
 F 5 
 
106 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " No," replied De Langy ; " that is not a 
 book to go to sleep upon." 
 
 " Voltaire ? " said tlie count. " He is a great 
 favourite of your uncle's." 
 
 *' Nay," answered the young man ; " I did 
 not know that. I have read much of his poetry, 
 but not much of his philosophy; I did not like it." 
 
 " Ha !" exclaimed the count ; " how so ?" 
 
 " Why, it seemed to me," said Francis de 
 Langy, " though I am not very competent to 
 form an opinion, that he was always trying to 
 put the universe in a spoon ; I mean, that he 
 appeared to think his own mind could compre- 
 hend everything, and that, from the little he 
 could see upon this earth, he could judge of the 
 boundless power and wisdom that created it." 
 
 " Ha ! " cried the count thoughtfully, " ha ! 
 Your uncle surely does not teach you such 
 things ? " 
 
 " Oh no," replied the youth, " he leaves me 
 to follow what course of reading I think best ; 
 and indeed I never heard him speak upon the 
 subject." 
 
 " And the Abbe Arnoux," said Monsieur 
 d'Artonne, " Does he prohibit Voltaire ? " 
 
 " Oh no," replied Francis de Langy. '' The 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 107 
 
 only thing I ever recollect he said upon the 
 subject was, that people should beware in read- 
 ing him, lest they should take a jest for a reason, 
 and receive a doubt where they can get at a 
 certainty." 
 
 " He was right," answered the count, ''he 
 was right ; and yet what is there certain in this 
 world ?" 
 
 Francis de Langy looked down for a moment, 
 and then said in an inquiring tone, " I thought 
 many things were certain, the first principles of 
 all things, such as that there can be no effect 
 without a cause." 
 
 "■ You have dabbled in metaphysics," replied 
 the count, smiling. " But, as every cause must 
 be an effect also, we only remove the difficulty 
 by tracing one cause to another." 
 
 ''I do not well know what difficulty you 
 mean," rejoined Francis de Langy ; " but, as each 
 cause may have many effects, we might perhaps, 
 by tracing back numerous effects to fewer causes, 
 resolve the whole into one cause, which, being 
 the cause of everything, would also be the cause 
 of itself, or in other words be self-existent — the 
 first attribute of God ! " 
 
 The count paused, and looked down upon 
 
108 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 the ground for at least a minute without reply ; 
 and then, turning to one of the book-shelves, he 
 said, " Well, if you will not have Voltaire, 
 here is good Montaigne, the book of all others 
 for a sleepless night. His quiet, mild, simpli- 
 city makes me always feel, when I open his 
 pages, as if I were sitting over the fire on a 
 wintry night with an old friend. He tells all 
 his feelings with so much frankness that one 
 can scarcely refrain from telling him one's 
 own in return. Take him then, my young 
 friend * if you have never read him, you will be 
 delighted ; if you have read him before, read him 
 again, you will be sure to find something new in 
 every line." 
 
 Francis de Langy took the book, and, thanking 
 the count, was turning away, when Monsieur 
 d'Artonne added, *' This good Abb6 Arnoux, 
 he seems a very sensible man, I think." 
 
 *' He is indeed," replied Francis de Langy 
 warmly ; and then continued, with a feeling of 
 diffidence in his own opinion, " as far as I can 
 judge, he is a most sensible man ; and my uncle, 
 as well as many others, have often told me that 
 they never met a man of better judgment." 
 
 " And no bigot ? " asked the count. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 109 
 
 *' Oh ! anything but that," replied Francis 
 de Langy ; " I have often heard him declare that 
 scepticism itself is scarcely more opposed to true 
 religion than bigotry, and does it less harm." 
 
 " He is right, he is right,"" said the count. " I 
 must have some conversation with him. He does 
 believe in a God, then ?" 
 
 Francis de Langy started, and gazed for a 
 moment in the count''s face with infinite surprise. 
 "As he does in his own existence," he replied 
 at length. 
 
 " Ah, my young friend," cried the count, 
 shaking his head, " there is many an abbe and 
 many a priest in France who believe in no God, 
 no soul, no futurity." 
 
 The young man laughed. " Then they must 
 be rogues as well as fools," he said ; •' which does 
 no great honour to their creed. I have heard of 
 such things as atheists, it is true ; but I should 
 think there was room in the mad-houses of 
 France to hold them." 
 
 The count gazed at him for a moment with a 
 very meaning smile ; and then, holding out his 
 hand to him, he said, '' Good night! I, at least, 
 shall now go to my bed, and perhaps may sleep 
 the better from having seen you : try you the 
 
no THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 same plan, and lay old Montaigne down by your- 
 bedside. The best of such friends is, that they 
 are nowise impatient. He will wait till you are 
 ready to hear him, without pressing for an au- 
 dience." Thus saying, he led the way out of the 
 library, and each retired to his own chamber. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. Ill 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 At a very early hour on the following morn- 
 ing the whole party from the Chateau d'Artonne, 
 accompanied by a number of servants, and car- 
 rying with them such provisions and luxuries as 
 might be supposed necessary in a very savage 
 country, but in no other, set out for the baths 
 of the Mont d'Or. Their first halting-place 
 was at Clermont, where they stopped to dine ; 
 but, as they intended to revisit that town on 
 their way back, they paused only for the meal, 
 and then proceeded on their way in two vehicles, 
 the large old-fashioned travelling carriage of 
 Monsieur de St. Medard, with its straight sides, 
 but comfortable interior, and a chaise de poste 
 belonging to the Count d'Artonne, much in 
 the shape and form of a large roomy cabriolet. 
 The count had arranged the party according to 
 his taste, declaring that they would take it in 
 turns, two and two, to journey in the chaise de 
 
112 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 poste ; and, during their first day's expedition, tlie 
 countess, the viscount, Francis de Langy, and 
 Julie d'Artonne, occupied the travelling coach ; 
 while the count himself, perhaps in consequence 
 of his conversation over-night with his young 
 guest, took his place in the chaise de poste with 
 the Abbe Arnoux. 
 
 Hard must be the heart or stiff the exterior, 
 cold the feelings or very rigid the education, of 
 those persons who can travel together along rough 
 roads and through picturesque scenery without 
 casting away from them the husk of reserve, 
 and becoming familiar, nay, intimate, with their 
 fellow-travellers. Long years of acquaintance, 
 indeed, make us less friendly with another 
 being like ourselves than some forty or fifty 
 miles over stony causeways and amidst bad inns. 
 All the little inconveniences that one has to 
 suffer, all the little acts of kindness, attention, 
 and assistance that one has to show, remove 
 everything like distance and stiffness, and create 
 those minor interests, those small gratitudes, 
 those pleasant courtesies, which soften wonder- 
 fully the way for regard and intimacy. If 
 Francis de Langy and Julie d'Artonne, when 
 they began their journey that morning, recollected 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 113 
 
 at all tliat they were a young lady and gentle- 
 man approaching that age when early freedom 
 is to be abandoned for the sober proprieties of 
 society, they had both forgotten, before they 
 reached Clermont, that they were anything but 
 boy and girl ; and when they set out again, 
 after a hasty and unceremonious dinner, were 
 well nigh calling each other Julie and Francis. 
 
 If ever the reader have travelled from Cler- 
 mont Ferrand to the baths of the Mont d'Or, 
 he will know that the road, though perhaps not 
 the finest in all Auvergne, is, nevertheless, full of 
 rich and picturesque loveliness ; and every one 
 who has passed through the age, or reached it, of 
 love and tenderness, will know what an effect is 
 produced upon the minds of two young persons 
 of different sexes by the rich grand beautiful 
 objects of nature, what new sensations, what 
 fresh and happy sympathies are awakened by the 
 sight of splendid scenery with persons of tastes, 
 and habits, and feelings like ourselves. The 
 worst of it is, too, that sympathies, when once 
 set vibrating, extend their influence to all sorts of 
 neighbouring sensations, as the shaking of an 
 earthquake runs along the basaltic strata for an 
 immeasurable distance round the spot where the 
 
114 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 volcanic shock was given. Oh ! it is wonderful 
 how many doors, leading to the most secret cham- 
 bers of the heart, will be cast open, like that of 
 the Arabian robber, at the sound of one or 
 two magical words ! 
 
 Such was the case with Francis de Langy and 
 Julie d'Artonne, though they themselves knew 
 nothing of what was going on within them. The 
 reader may look surprised and exclaim, " What ! 
 are you going to make a boy and girl of sixteen 
 or seventeen fall in love with each other — actually 
 in love ?" 
 
 Dear reader, it is past your power or mine to 
 prevent it. — They did ! 
 
 The day was beautiful : there was no fog, as 
 on the preceding morning ; but a light white 
 cloud every now and then swept over the sun, 
 and cast a slow floating shadow over the moun- 
 tains and the valleys. Every half-league of the 
 road made a change in the scenery; some new 
 puy^ or tall volcanic mountain, starting up at 
 each turn, and, as the road wound round its 
 base, presenting strange and varied forms, such 
 as no other country in the world can produce. 
 Sometimes it was a green and velvet slope, 
 stretching up to the foot of the Alpine giant 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 115 
 
 that rose tall and blue behind; sometimes it 
 was a black mass of lava and cinders poured down 
 to the very verge of the road. Here and there 
 appeared a wood fringing the mountain's base; 
 and then again a rocky precipice with a thou- 
 sand streams trickling over its broad face, or a 
 long dim valley with a white cataract rushing 
 down in foam in the distance. 
 
 At every two or three hundred yards Julie 
 had still to cry, " Look there, — look there ! Is 
 not that beautiful ? That is the Puy de Las- 
 champs. That is the village of Salien. Now 
 we are passing the pretty little Sioulet, which 
 rises up that valley. Now we shall have to 
 ascend for some way, and then down to Ro- 
 chefort." 
 
 " Let us get out and mount on foot," said 
 Francis de Langy ; " I should like to make 
 every journey through a beautiful country on 
 foot or on horseback, and only get into a carriage 
 when there is nothing to be seen." 
 
 Julie was very ready to agree to his pro- 
 posal ; but Madame d'Artonne declined the fa- 
 tigue, and remained in the carriage with Monsieur 
 de St. Medard. The chaise de poste, however, 
 which led the way, stopped also, and the count 
 
116 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 and tlie abbe descended to walk up the hill ; 
 but Francis de Langy and Julie d'Artonne, with 
 their light young limbs, far outstripped the other 
 two, although they stopped every now and then 
 to gaze at the scenery around. 
 
 Onward they went, talking cheerfully and 
 lightly of a thousand things, and suffering each 
 subject that presented itself to carry them away 
 into its manifold collateral branches, so that 
 Heaven only knows where their young thoughts 
 wandered before they reached the top of the 
 hill. At all events, when the rest of the party 
 came up, they were both in deep meditation; 
 and both had to rouse themselves, to re-enter 
 the carriage and proceed on the way. The 
 journey was a somewhat long one for the roads 
 and customs of that day ; and, consequently, at 
 Rochefort they stopped to examine the curious 
 little town, built, as it were, in the cleft of 
 a rock, and the hill with its old chateau, now 
 I believe destroyed, and the basaltic columns 
 in one of the two neighbouring valleys. 
 
 Each party had its comment, and its enjoyments 
 of the scenes they witnessed, according to age 
 and circumstances. The elder four looked back 
 to the feudal times when Auvergne had lords 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 117 
 
 of its own, and to the strange changes in the 
 state of all things which had taken place within 
 the last century. 
 
 '' How much greater a difFerence,*" said the 
 Count d'Artonne, "has been made by the pass- 
 ing of the last hundred years than by that of 
 any two or three ages before!'"' 
 
 *' It has been effected," replied Monsieur de 
 St. Medard, " by the reign of Louis the Four- 
 teenth." 
 
 " And by the government of the Regent 
 Duke of Orleans,"" added the Abbe Arnoux. 
 " Luxuries and vices effect greater changes in 
 society than even the lightning of war, or the 
 earthquake of political convulsion."'*' 
 
 " As the chemists show us," rejoined Monsieur 
 de St. Medard, " that a few drops of acid will 
 corrode and dissolve the steel which the hardest 
 blow" could not penetrate." 
 
 " Anatomists, too, tell us," observed the abbe, 
 " that, when soft things and hard are placed 
 together, it is the soft that always mould the 
 hard to their own shape. Thus, bones have been 
 affected by the pressure of the muscles."" 
 
 "Ay," said the Count d"'Artonne; "and 
 here, in Auvergne, we see that the waters have 
 
118 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 everywhere channelled the solid rock to suit 
 their own convenience, making themselves valleys 
 for their course, as we make ourselves roads to 
 travel on." 
 
 What was the conversation of Julie and 
 Francis de Langy ? It was of the beauty of 
 the scenery, the loveliness of the day, the clear- 
 ness of the stream that sparkled by, the hap- 
 piness of dwelling amongst such sights of love- 
 liness, where Francis said truly that he could 
 remain for ever. There mingled, however, with 
 the rest, many a wild flight of fancy, many an 
 image and many a thought which poets might 
 have been proud of, springing from the best 
 fountain of poetry that the world possesses, — deep 
 feeling ; a fountain which is only, perhaps, found 
 very bright and pure before the dust and ashes 
 of earth have fallen upon it and troubled the 
 waters thereof. 
 
 So well were they contented with the little 
 town of Rochefort and its wild scenery, that 
 they almost regretted when the time came to 
 journey on to the Mont d'Or; but, as they had 
 some way still before them through a moun- 
 tainous country, they could not linger long ; and, 
 entering the carriages again as the shadows were 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 119 
 
 growing long, they set out, and reached the inn 
 at that famous watering-place just as night was 
 falling. 
 
 The two young travellers saw the deep 
 shadows gathering on the hills with regret, 
 but the rest of the party were well pleased to 
 close the pleasant labours of the day in a place 
 which the care of the good old courier, Pierrot, 
 had made as comfortable for them as possible. 
 Every thing had been prepared for the most 
 cheerful meal of the day, and about half an hour 
 after their arrival they were all seated round a 
 well-covered table. But, strange to say, all were 
 more grave and thoughtful than during the 
 journey. Once or twice, indeed, as they had 
 driven along, Julie had fallen into a deep re- 
 verie, but the ever-changing objects had called 
 her quickly from herself till the day's enjoy- 
 ments and excitement were over. Then she grew 
 sad again, and Francis de Langy also was more 
 pensive. The conversation took a serious turn ; 
 and, as he had been encouraged by his uncle to 
 do on all occasions, he mingled with it, though 
 modestly. 
 
 Julie listened to him with attention and 
 with surprise, as perhaps the reader might, if 
 
120 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 we -were to pause in order to relate all that 
 he said. It would, indeed, be almost worth 
 while to do so, had we space; for the mixture of 
 youthfulness, almost boyishness, which he show- 
 ed in all matters where feeling and imagination 
 were concerned, with the deep thought and 
 clear reasoning which had been gained by an 
 education amongst men, was not a little curious 
 in itself; and it might suggest the question, 
 whether in general with young people we do 
 not make a mistake, and whether it be not ne- 
 cessary to instruct the heart and the mind at 
 the same time, and keep the one in its know- 
 ledge upon a par with the other. But we have 
 much before us, and we must go on, closing this 
 chapter here, as the next records an adventure 
 which ought to have an apartment to itself. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 121 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Several days had passed, and seldom had 
 Time, whose wings, in moments of happiness, 
 are always those of the swallow, darted on more 
 rapidly than he had done with Francis de 
 Langy and Julie d'Artonne. Julie, for her part, 
 seemed now to have forgotten whatever was the 
 cause of those passing clouds, which, as we have 
 shown, hung upon her when first she was brought 
 before the eyes of the reader. The light- 
 heartedness of character natural to her age and 
 her disposition had all returned, everything 
 like the reserve produced by newness of acquaint- 
 ance had passed away, and she and her young 
 companion were as old friends as if they had 
 known each other twenty years. It may be 
 asked if Monsieur and Madame d'Artonne saw 
 all that was going on, and if they approved of 
 it ; if Monsieur de St. Medard marked the boyish 
 fondness of his adopted son for the beautiful 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
122 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 girl with whom he now passed his whole time. 
 The answer is very simple : they all saw it ; 
 they all approved of it ; they all desired the 
 union of Francis de Langy and Julie d'Artonne. 
 It was to some far future day they looked, it 
 is true ; but still it was a pleasant scheme, 
 which had struck them all the moment they had 
 seen those two bright young beings standing 
 side by side in the window of the chateau. 
 Madame d'Artonne had whispered it to her hus- 
 band ; the count had laughed, and told it to 
 St. Medard ; and the viscount had grasped his 
 friend's hand, and replied warmly, " With all 
 my heart !'"* 
 
 Never did the flower of love, which, frail 
 and delicate as it looks, will grow up amidst 
 storm and tempest, and bud and blossom, how 
 fairly and how often, amidst wintry desolation, — 
 never did the flower of love first rise under a 
 warmer or more genial sunshine, with a pro- 
 mise of a brighter and a fairer summer. But it 
 may be often remarked, that, when it comes forth 
 under such favourable circumstances, when an 
 unseasonable warmth nurses it from the ground, 
 and everything promises it a fair and happy 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 123 
 
 season, the flower seldom lives to cast its petals 
 and to change to fruit. Either, sickly and de- 
 licate in itself, it fades speedily ; or else it withers 
 in the fire of the sunshine in which it was born ; 
 or else some summer-day tempest comes upon 
 it with thunder and with hail, and beats the 
 broken blossom to the earth from which it rose. 
 Seldom, very seldom, does it live long; but, 
 if it does, it affords to us human beings, 
 one of the few bright proofs that we have, of 
 such a thing as happiness being possible upon 
 earth. 
 
 All then smiled upon the kindling affection 
 of Francis de Langy and Julie d'Artonne ; they 
 were all delighted to see that an alliance, which 
 they so greatly wished, would have in it an ingre- 
 dient so seldom found in the marriages of France 
 — love. Monsieur de St. Medard had known that 
 passion, and had been disappointed ; he there- 
 fore longed to secure the child of his adoption 
 against that bitterness in the cup of life which 
 he himself had tasted. Monsieur and Madame 
 d'^Artonne had also felt love — love for each other 
 — and, knowing the greatness of the blessing, 
 they eagerly sought it for their child. Thus 
 
 g2 
 
124f THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 they gladly saw, as I have said, the future union 
 of Francis de Langy and Julie d'Artonne found- 
 ed upon the basis of early attachment, and they 
 had so far yielded to the custom of their country 
 as to determine on it without consulting them. 
 / The love of boys and girls is an object on 
 which grey-bearded men vent much spleen and 
 scorn ; but depend, upon it, reader, where it 
 exists in reality, it is the sweetest thing that 
 ever life knows, it is the violet of our short 
 year of existence. The rose is beautiful, richer 
 in hues, full of perfume and brightness, as she 
 flaunts her gay bosom in the ardent sun of June : 
 but give me the violet, the dear early violet, 
 that scents with her odorous breath the air 
 of unconfirmed spring ; the soft, the timid violet, 
 retreating from the gaze with her blue eye cast 
 down ; the first sweet child of the sweetest 
 season, the tenderest, the gentlest of all the 
 flowers of the field, the emblem of earnest and 
 innocent affection. 
 
 No, there is nothing like it ! In all after 
 years we may lay our hand upon what joy we will 
 — pure and innocent it must be, to bear the com- 
 parison for a moment — but I say, we may lay 
 our hand upon what joy we will in after exist- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 125 
 
 ence, we shall never find anything on the earth 
 like the first flower of the heart. 
 
 Thus it went on, then, with every encourage- 
 ment that it could receive from all who beheld 
 the growing love of the two young people who 
 have been placed before the eyes of the reader. 
 The encouragement was not open, indeed ; that 
 is to say, there were no words spoken, no hints 
 given of that which was in contemplation between 
 the two families : but every facility for being 
 together was afforded, and every opportunity for 
 enjoying in the society of each other those calm 
 but high-toned pleasures which might so entwine 
 their mutual love with bright and everlasting me- 
 mories as to add to the mortal passion those 
 feelings which seem born for immortality. 
 
 Madame d'Artonne was not a prudent woman ; 
 she was something far better, a good one. She 
 was one of those who preserve in their heart, 
 notwithstanding some intercourse with the world, 
 the brightest of the three jewels which form the 
 crown of Charity — the thinking no evil ; and, 
 as the greater part of her life had been passed 
 at a distance from the court of France, the 
 shackles which that court and its habits im- 
 posed, even upon the education of a daughter, 
 
126 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 had not taken hold of her mind. Thus Julie, 
 as we have at first shown her, had never, in 
 the midst of her wild native mountains, been 
 subjected to the constant superintendence of the 
 gouvernante or the honne ; but had roamed 
 about at large, guarded by principles which had 
 been carefully instilled into her young heart, 
 and trusted by her parents entirely to the super- 
 vision of the best of all guides and rulers — 
 conscience. The same course was pursued still ; 
 and neither her father nor her mother thought 
 it at all more necessary that they should have a 
 watchful e^ ^ upon her, because Francis de Langy 
 was her companion. 
 
 The short visit of the party to the baths of 
 the Mont d'Or had been completed ; everything 
 in that neighbourhood which could be seen, had 
 been examined; and sweeping round — with va- 
 rious excursions to different points — from the east- 
 ern to the western side of the hills, and making 
 a considerable part of the journey on horse- 
 back, they had reached the little town of Pont- 
 ofibaud, on the road from Aubusson to Cler- 
 mont, not without some fatigue to the elder 
 part of the family. 
 
 "Well, Monsieur Arnoux," said the count, 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 127 
 
 as they sat discussing their plans for the fol- 
 lowing day, " business will take me to Pont- 
 aumur, and Monsieur de St. Medard accom- 
 panies me in the chaise de poste ; so, we must 
 have you either to stay and entertain Madame 
 d'^Artonne, who is too tired for any fresh ex- 
 peditions, or to find something curious to show 
 these two young people, and accompany them 
 to see it." 
 
 " That will be easily done," replied the 
 abbe, " for one of the most remarkable objects 
 in Auvergne lies in this neighbourhood. Francis 
 must visit it, but I do not know whether Made- 
 moiselle d"'Artonne may not find it too fa- 
 tiguing." 
 
 '' Oh no, no ! " cried Julie eagerly ; " I will 
 not be left out of the party." 
 
 " We shall have to ride a considerable part 
 of the way," said the abbe, " and the rest of 
 the journey must be performed on foot, unless 
 indeed they have improved the paths since I 
 was here before. You will have a Avalk of two 
 good hours. Mademoiselle d'Artonne." 
 
 " Oh ! Julie is the best walker in the pro- 
 vince," replied the countess. 
 
 " Besides, Monsieur Arnoux," cried Julie 
 
128 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 laughingly, alluding to some mistakes which 
 Monsieur Arnoux had made at the Mont d'Or, 
 " what would you do for an interpreter if I 
 were not with you ? You would never get back 
 to Pontgibaud : whenever any of our good Au- 
 vergnats told you to go to the right, you would 
 think he meant to the left. No, no ; you must 
 have your interpreter." 
 
 So was it settled. Three of the small horses 
 of Auvergne were hired at Pontgibaud on the 
 following morning ; and, at an early hour, the 
 abbe, accompanied by his pupil and Julie 
 d'Artonne, set out in the direction of the 
 little village, or rather hamlet, of Chalucet, 
 for, when I saw it, some half-dozen houses of 
 an extremely poor character were all that it 
 contained; and probably it was not a place of 
 much more importance at the time of this tale, 
 though I remember having seen some old walls, 
 half fallen down, which indicated that there had 
 been more and probably better houses in the 
 place in times long past. 
 
 However that may be, beyond Chalucet the 
 horses could not go; and leaving them in the 
 care of one of the peasants, whose jargon was 
 perfectly incomprehensible both to the abbe and 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 129 
 
 Francis de Langy, the former asked, through the 
 interpretation of Julie d'Artonne, whether they 
 could not have a guide to accompany them. The 
 old man, for such he was, replied that every one 
 was out tending their herds in the fields. *' If 
 you go down to the valley," he said, " and you 
 cannot miss your way down that path, you will 
 find a man fishing in the stream. He can show 
 you about, I dare say ; for, though he 's a 
 stranger here, he seems to know the country 
 well enough." 
 
 " I am afraid," said Julie laughing, after 
 she had translated this reply, — '' I am afraid that 
 this is your only chance, for our good people 
 of Auvergne are not fond of quitting their 
 flocks." 
 
 " Oh ! I can find the way myself," said the 
 abbe; "it was only for greater security; so let 
 us go :" and down the steep path they accordingly 
 proceeded, winding in and out through some of 
 the most curious scenery that they had yet seen. 
 Rocks of black lava swept round on every side, 
 and large detached blocks here and there seemed 
 resolved to obstruct the forward progress of the 
 path ; which, nevertheless, — like the perseverance 
 of a quiet but firm spirit amongst the difficulties 
 
 G 5 
 
130 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 and obstacles of the world — pursued its way on- 
 ward unceasingly, turning round those obstruc- 
 tions which it could not surmount. 
 
 "Hark, Francis!" said Julie, stopping, and 
 laying her beautiful hand upon his arm, after 
 they had gone some way laughing and talking ; 
 " hark, Monsieur Arnoux ! do you not hear a 
 loud sound ? It cannot surely be thunder ! If 
 so, we had better seek shelter immediately, for 
 our storms in these mountains are not like those 
 of any other place. Many people and cattle are 
 destroyed by them every year." 
 
 " Oh no, it cannot be thunder," exclaimed 
 Francis de Langy ; " there is nothing but a light 
 cloud here and there, and besides it goes on." 
 
 The abbe had listened to what they said with 
 a smile. '^ It is a singular sound," he replied at 
 length, " and one I never heard anywhere but 
 here. Is it not like the roaring of a volcano ?" 
 
 " Oh! I know what it is," cried Julie ; "it is 
 the noise of a cascade." 
 
 " No," answered the abbe, " it is simply the 
 murmuring of the river Sioule, which, flowing over 
 a bed of lava, and winding in and out amongst 
 a thousand rocks of the same resonant material, 
 seems as if it were imitating, for us of modern 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 131 
 
 days, the voice, which it must have often heard, 
 of the fierce volcano at the foot of which it runs. 
 The sound rises, however," he added, " and 
 seems to gather its greatest strength about this 
 point, for it becomes much fainter when you 
 reach the bank of the river below." 
 
 As he spoke, he led the way on, and in a few 
 minutes they reached the valley of the Sioule, 
 which presented to their eyes one of the most ex- 
 traordinary, wild, and interesting scenes that it is 
 possible to find on earth. On one side of the val- 
 ley rose a stupendous mountain of granite, round 
 the base of which flowed a beautifully clear stream, 
 scarcely more, at the time I speak of — which it 
 must be remembered was in the middle of sum- 
 mer — than a foot in depth at any place, and in 
 general not above five or six inches. But few 
 trees, and those scattered at great distances upon 
 small patches of vegetable mould, stood out from 
 the cold, grey mountain, serving in their insig- 
 nificance to afford some measure of its tremend- 
 ous height. 
 
 On the other side of the valley appeared, how- 
 ever, the object for which the abbe had brought 
 them thither. This was one of those enormous 
 masses of lava which characterize Auvergne . a 
 
132 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 mountain in itself, completely hiding from the 
 eyes below the still higher mountain behind 
 it. On its strange wild face were seen seve- 
 ral deep caverns, blacker than its own black- 
 ness ; at least, so they appeared as the sun 
 then fell: and from them, distinct and clear, 
 as if actually pouring forth in molten fury, were 
 several tremendous streams of lava, now har- 
 dened into rock, but marked out from each other 
 by wide irregular slopes of the fern and heath 
 which carpeted the mountain. Two of these 
 streams especially caught the eye of the travellers, 
 sweeping round upon the right and left, like the 
 ruined walls of some vast amphitheatre, and 
 apparently bounding the irruptions that had taken 
 place, for all the lesser torrents of lava seemed 
 embraced within those two gigantic arms. 
 
 As if to form the strongest contrast possible 
 with the magnificent wildness of the mountain 
 scene above, the banks of the stream on either 
 side were covered with exquisite soft turf of a vivid 
 green ; while the clear waters between those velvet 
 banks sparkled with the brightness of a diamond 
 over the fragments of dark stone that formed its 
 bed. Julie and Francis de Langy gazed with 
 astonishment, wonder, and awe; and, although 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 133 
 
 the abbe had seen this extraordinary spectacle 
 before, he could not behold it even a second 
 time without being strongly and strangely moved 
 by a sight which has, perhaps, no parallel in 
 nature. 
 
 But one object in the whole prospect dimi- 
 nished the effect upon the mind ; which was 
 the figure of another human being. It was a 
 scene which required perfect solitude to bring 
 out all its beauties, and that one object undoubt- 
 edly detracted greatly from the general effect. 
 Neither was his occupation one of those the 
 nature of which at all harmonized with the ob- 
 jects round. He was casting the dull line into 
 the clear water ; and certainly, whatever charm 
 beautiful scenery may give to the sport of fish- 
 ing, the sport itself adds nothing to the poetical 
 beauty of the scenery. A shepherd, a goatherd, 
 any of the objects of pastoral life, might not have 
 jarred so harshly on the sight ; but when the 
 abbe, after gazing round for some five minutes 
 in perfect silence, at length said in a low tone, 
 " There is our guide, I suppose," Julie could 
 not refrain from exclaiming, " I wish he were 
 away ; he spoils the landscape sadly." 
 
 " He does indeed," replied Francis de Langy ; 
 
134 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 neither is his costume particularly picturesque. 
 The plain brown cloth of Auvergne would suit 
 such a scene as this better than that smart-look- 
 ing Parisian frock." 
 
 " We must speak with him at all events," 
 rejoined the abbe; "for although, as I said 
 before, I believe I could find the way about 
 the place myself, yet it may save you fatigue, 
 fair lady, to have the shortest road pointed out 
 to us. 
 
 Thus speaking, he advanced towards the stran- 
 ger ; but, ere they had taken half-a-dozen steps, 
 Julie exclaimed, " Why, that is strange ; 'tis 
 surely Jean, one of the servants of Madame de 
 Bausse." 
 
 Intent upon his fishing, and his ear filled 
 with the murmur of the stream, the man had not 
 remarked their approach. When he did so, 
 however, a sudden look of surprise passed over 
 his countenance, perhaps not altogether un- 
 mingled with alarm. If there was any such 
 feeling, it passed away in an instant ; and, pull- 
 ing off his hat as he recognized Mademoiselle 
 d'Artonne, he said, "Ah, Mademoiselle Julie, 
 is that you ? Who would have thought to see 
 you here ? " 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 135 
 
 " Or you either, Jean Marais ? " she answered. 
 " How is it that Madame de Bausse has parted 
 with you ? " 
 
 The man paused for a single instant ere he re- 
 plied, but he then said easily, **Why, Made- 
 moiselle, the young marquis being away, you 
 know she had no great use for me ; so I took a 
 day"*s holiday to bring these sleek gentlemen out 
 of the Sioule :" and he pointed to some fine trout " 
 which lay upon the bank. 
 
 Julie made no answer, but cast her beautiful 
 eyes down to the ground and remained in 
 thought for a moment or two, at the end of 
 which period Francis de Langy perceived that 
 her cheek turned very pale. A painful feeling 
 that he could not define to himself came again 
 over his heart ; and, the abbe being at that mo- 
 ment in conversation with the servant in regard 
 to his capability of guiding them over the moun- 
 tain, the youth resolved he Avould satisfy himself 
 at once, and put a question which no age after 
 seventeen would have ventured to utter. 
 
 " You seem greatly interested in this Mar- 
 quis de Bausse, Mademoiselle d'Artonne," he 
 said. " I suppose you are much attached to your 
 cousin ? " 
 
136 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 Julie started, and replied with the same 
 youthful frankness which had characterized his 
 question, " Oh no ! I dislike him very much ;" 
 and the colour mounted in her cheek again. 
 " I was only thinking," she said, " that all 
 this is very strange :" and again she fell into 
 thought. 
 
 In the mean time the abbe had asked the 
 fisherman to quit his occupation for the mo- 
 ment, and guide them over the hill ; but 
 the valet laughed, saying, '' I don't know 
 ten steps from the banks of the stream, so 
 that it would but be the blind leading the 
 blind, Monsieur TAbbe.'' 
 
 " You must be better acquainted with the 
 country than we are," rejoined the abbe ; " for 
 I am the only one of the party who has ever 
 visited it, and that was twenty years ago." 
 
 The man, however, seemed unwilling to give 
 up his sport ; and the travellers, after wander- 
 ing for some way along the course of the valley, 
 turned to take another view of the precipitous 
 steep from whose caverns, unnumbered centuries 
 ago, poured forth the torrents of fire which have 
 left such extraordinary vestiges behind them. 
 What was the surprise of Julie and Francis de 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 137 
 
 Langy to behold, from the point at which they 
 were now placed, the scene entirely changed ! 
 For an instant they could scarcely help believ- 
 ing that the dead volcano had suddenly rekin- 
 dled into angry life, for several of the caverns in 
 the mountain — while some still remained sombre 
 and dark — had assumed a fiery glare, as if flames 
 and torrents of lava were about once more to 
 burst forth. 
 
 The abbe saw and enjoyed their surprise. 
 " It is from this side only," he said, " that 
 you really see the caverns ; before, they were 
 cast into deep shadow, and the red ochreous 
 colour, which has been produced by combus- 
 tion, was concealed till we got into this posi- 
 tion." 
 
 Julie gazed almost awe-struck. " It is beau- 
 tiful," she said, " but very fearful. What a 
 sight it must have been to behold such furnaces 
 in activity !" 
 
 " It looks like the mouth of the infernal re- 
 gions," said Francis de Langy. 
 
 " And doubtless," replied the abbe, " from 
 some such scene as this the poet took his picture 
 of the entrance to Pluto's kingdom. It is, indeed, 
 sublime. But what think you, Mademoiselle 
 
138 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 d'Artonne ? You are a good climber ; will you 
 venture up to the caves themselves ? It is a 
 difficult and not a very safe ascent, if I recol- 
 lect rightly.'*' 
 
 Julie laughed. " Oh ! where you and Francis 
 go, Monsieur Arnoux," she answered, '' I shall 
 find no difficulty. Mine are mountain feet, 
 more accustomed a great deal to tread the rocks 
 and lava of Auvergne than the terraces and 
 streets of Versailles and Paris. I should not 
 wonder if I had to help you both ; but, what- 
 ever we do, must be done quickly, for I am 
 afraid there will be a storm before night." 
 
 " Oh no," said the abbe, looking up to the 
 sky, " I do not think so ; — and I am a me- 
 teorologist, you know," he added, with a grave 
 smile at his own pretensions. 
 
 '^^ But I am an Auvergnate," answered Julie, 
 laughing ; '' and we all learn these things in our 
 country. Monsieur Arnoux. We have plenty 
 of practice in marking the changes of weather, 
 I can assure you ; for we often see three com- 
 pletely different climates in one day, and very 
 seldom have the same for three days together. 
 However, if a storm did come on, we could 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 139 
 
 find plenty of places of shelter here, for Nature 
 has provided us with houses in the rock." 
 
 " As she almost always does," said the abbe, 
 " wherever there is an evil or a danger, affording 
 a remedy or an escape ; even as God," he added, 
 always willing to inculcate a lesson, — " even as 
 God never suffers us to be tempted without afford- 
 ing us a warning, and offering us a resource. But 
 come, my dear children ; the easiest way, if I 
 recollect, lies round that large stream of lava : 
 there is a little path runs through the heath, 
 which carries us easily half up the' ascent.*" 
 
 The road was readily found, and the greater 
 part of it presented no serious obstacles. In 
 the end there was, indeed, some difficult climb- 
 ing to be accomplished ; but, as Julie had fore- 
 seen, her mountain habits rendered the ascent 
 more easy to herself than to either of her com- 
 panions. Francis de Langy, it is true, full of 
 youth, vigour, and activity, surmounted all the 
 impediments in the way without much trouble : 
 the only difficulty, indeed, that he met Avith 
 proceeded from his employing more strength 
 than was needful, and by a bolder spring, or 
 heavier tread, displacing here or there a mass 
 
140 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 of the lava, which went rolling down into the 
 valley below. The good abbe, however, found 
 that twenty years had made a great difference 
 in his agility, as most men do who try ; but, 
 proceeding slowly and cautiously, he went on 
 without danger, refusing all aid from his younger 
 companions. 
 
 Often, indeed, was he obliged to stop for a 
 moment, but yet the good man would look up 
 well pleased to the rock above him, where they 
 stood waiting his coming ; while Julie''s eyes 
 sparkled with pleasure and excitement, and hc~ 
 fair cheek glowed with exercise : her small full 
 lips panting all the while with the pure breath 
 of youth, and the curls of her hair driven back 
 from her forehead by the quick blast of the 
 mountain wind. Even age, the sad diluter of 
 all admirations, could not prevent the abbe from, 
 saying in his own heart, '' Well, for a being of 
 this earth, she is certainly very lovely." 
 
 Monsieur Arnoux, however, was not the only 
 one who admired ; and Francis de Langy, as he 
 stood beside her, or made an excuse to render her 
 aid where she needed it not, gazed with deeper 
 and more glowing feelings still upon his lovely 
 companion, and, plunging into the whirlpool of 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 141 
 
 thoughts which their situation suggested, soon lost 
 himself amidst a thousand bright but vague sen- 
 sations. 
 
 Thus going on, they at length reached the 
 mouth of one of the first caverns, and there 
 paused for some short time to rest themselves, 
 studying curiously, as they sat upon a block of 
 lava which had taken the form of a natural 
 bench, the innumerable curious lichens and 
 mosses which had gathered in the shadier parts 
 of the rock. The next they came to was all 
 bare ; and the entrance, which was exposed to the 
 heat of the sun, was so scorched, that the lava, 
 which has a peculiar property of absorbing and 
 retaining heat, actually burnt the hand that rested 
 upon it. The air in the inside of the cave, too, 
 was suffocating and oppressive ; and Julie, when 
 she felt it, again shook her head, saying, *' We 
 shall have a storm. Monsieur Arnoux." 
 
 Nevertheless, forward they went upon their 
 way, examining all the curious objects that sur- 
 rounded them, comparing them with other crea- 
 tions of nature or productions of art, and in the 
 sportive revelry of unrestrained imagination deriv- 
 ing a thousand beautiful figures, a thousand wild 
 speculations, a thousand bright conceptions, from 
 
142 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 the world of wonders through which they passed. 
 Circling round the front of the great volcanic 
 mass, they at length reached the very summit, 
 and then saw that it was but as the first step to 
 another giant mountain behind, apparently of 
 granite. But a different object instantly attracted 
 their attention : an immense heavy cloud rolling 
 from the base of that other mountain towards 
 them, and seeming to sweep the little plain on 
 which they now stood. 
 
 " We shall have a fog, I think," said the abbe. 
 
 " No, no,'" replied Julie, with a look of ap- 
 prehension ; " there is a storm coming, a storm of 
 hail, I think. Let us get down to one of the 
 caves as fast as possible ; we might be beaten to 
 death by the hailstones." 
 
 There was no time for delay ; for, almost as 
 Julie spoke, a bright flash of lightning blazed 
 over the face of the dark grey mass : and, running 
 down as fast as possible, the whole party made 
 their way, not without danger, towards the last 
 cave which they had quitted. To say the truth, 
 it was not that which seemed likely to afford 
 the best shelter, being formed principally by a 
 mountain of scoria, cinders, and earth, which ap- 
 peared to have been driven back by an advancing 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 143 
 
 stream of lava, with wliich it was partly mingled, 
 and from wliich it was partly detached. They 
 had no choice, however ; for, before they reached 
 it, the hail began to fall with a degree of violence 
 of which neither of the two men had any previous 
 conception. Unprepared for what was coming, 
 Francis de Langy, though young, strong, and 
 active, staggered with the blows ; but, almost at 
 the same moment, Julie put her hand to her head, 
 and fell. Tenfold strength seemed to be given 
 to him in a moment ; and, catching her up in his 
 arms, he bore her into the cavern, which, though 
 not twenty steps distant, she might hardly other- 
 wise have reached alive. 
 
 *' Julie ! dear Julie!" he cried, as he placed 
 her in safety. 
 
 " I am not hurt," she exclaimed ; " I am not 
 much hurt. — But the abbe? Poor Monsieur 
 Arnoux ? " 
 
 Francis de Langy darted out of the cavern, and 
 rushed towards the spot where the good ecclesi- 
 astic, with his face and hands bleeding, was 
 crouching under the rock, which only in part 
 sheltered him. Half-carrying, half-dragging him 
 along, his pupil at length got him into the cave, 
 though not till both were terribly bruised. 
 
/44 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur Arnoux !" cried Julie ; " you 
 are sadly hurt, I fear/' 
 
 " No, no, my child," replied the old man. 
 " It is but a little blood ; one of these dreadful 
 hailstones has cut my lip and my cheek. But 
 you ? you fell too, my child ; and poor Francis 
 has suffered more than either." 
 
 Julie gazed at her young companion with 
 an anxious and inquiring look ; but he replied, 
 with a light laugh, " Oh, no, no ! I am not 
 hurt. It is nothing. If you two are safe, I trust 
 to have many a worse beating than this before 
 i die. Let me wipe the blood from your face, 
 Monsieur Arnoux. Julie, are you sure you are 
 not hurt?" 
 
 ''Oh no!" she cried, *'no: the hail made 
 me stagger, and I stumbled over some stone I 
 fancy ; but I am not hurt, only a little bruised." 
 
 As she spoke, she clasped her hands over her 
 eyes, for just then came another awful flash of 
 lightning, which seemed to fill the whole valley 
 with fire. 
 
 " Good Heaven, what hailstones ! " exclaimed 
 Francis de Langy ; " they are absolutely masses 
 of ice. That poor fellow in the valley will be 
 ^;illed ! " 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 145 
 
 " I trust not," replied Julie ; "he knows 
 Auvergne well, and would never go far on such 
 a day as this without having marked out some 
 place of shelter. I am afraid you are much 
 hurt, Monsieur Arnoux," she continued, as she 
 saw the good abbe bending down his head upon 
 his hands. 
 
 " No, my dear young lady," answered the 
 abbe, after a moment's pause ; " I was thanking 
 God that I am not much hurt. — Turn your eyes 
 from the lightning, my son : it might blind 
 you." 
 
 "Come away, Francis ; come away," exclaimed 
 Julie d'Artonne, laying her hand upon the arm 
 of her young companion, who was gazing out from 
 the mouth of the cavern upon the strange but 
 magnificent sight afforded by the valley at their 
 feet ; *' do not stand rashly there in the full glare." 
 
 There are few dangers to which Francis de 
 Langy would not willingly have exposed himself 
 to hear such words as those ; and, drawing back 
 with Julie into the farther part of the cave, 
 they seated themselves on a pile of volcanic 
 fragments near good Monsieur Arnoux. The 
 storm every moment grew more and more ter- 
 rible ; the flashes of the lightning were incessant, 
 
 VOL. I, H 
 
146 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 and of a fearful vividness, glancing round and 
 round the cave, and exposing to tlie eye all the 
 grim features of those innermost recesses which 
 the light of day never revealed. Julie d'Artonne 
 drew closer and closer to her lover's side ; and, 
 as fear ever makes one of us weak beings cling 
 to another, breaking down all the barriers which 
 custom places between man and man, she put 
 her arm through his, and in trembling appre- 
 hension hid her eyes upon his shoulder, while 
 he soothed her with all those tender caresses 
 which nothing but the terrors of the moment 
 would have emboldened him to offer. He sup- 
 ported her with his arm, he kept her hand clasp- 
 ed in his; and though he could not but feel 
 that it was a dreadful hour, the termination of 
 which to all of them no one could tell, he tried 
 to persuade his dear Julie, as he called her, that 
 there was no danger, and that the storm would 
 soon pass away. 
 
 " One could fancy it the end of the world," 
 said the Abbe Arnoux ; and so indeed one might 
 have done, for the rocks and mountains of so- 
 norous basalt, which had multiplied the low 
 murmurs of the Sioule till they had sounded 
 like thunder, now echoed the voice of the thunder 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 147 
 
 itself from rock to rock, and cavern to cavern, 
 till the very mountain seemed to shake, and one 
 could feel the vibration of the air upon the 
 cheek as well as on the ear. The falling of the 
 hail added to the roar, and the gush of accu- 
 mulating waters mingled therewith, so that never, 
 probably, did the ear of man, except in some of 
 those vast convulsions which — with intervals of 
 unnumbered ages — change the face of the whole 
 globe, hear such a combination of terrific sounds 
 as then echoed through the valley of Chalucet. 
 
 Sheltered as they were, however, the hail 
 was no longer to be feared, and the thunder 
 was more awful than dangerous ; but a greater 
 peril than any they had yet undergone awaited 
 them, even at the moment when they thought 
 themselves secure. The hail gradually became 
 mingled with rain ; then ceased, and gave way 
 to a deluge that poured down from the sky. 
 The large lumps of ice, which lay piled up 
 more than a foot in height at the mouth of 
 the cavern, began to melt. Large drops of water 
 percolating through the arch of the cave dropped 
 with a heavy splash upon the ground ; some 
 pieces of the rock of the vault fell likewise ; and 
 at the same time a rushing sound, differing from 
 
 H 2 
 
148 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 all which had been heard before, came suddenly 
 upon the ear. A rivulet was first seen trickling 
 along the path at the entrance of the cavern, 
 driving away the hail before it ; and then, with 
 a hissing foamy rush down from the hill above, 
 swept an actual torrent, rising, as it passed, some- 
 what above the level ground of the cave, and 
 pouring in with an eddying whirl so as to cover 
 the feet of the poor travellers with water. Not 
 calculating how high it would rise, Francis de 
 Langy caught up Julie in his arms, preparing 
 to rush forth with her; but paused, instantly, 
 seeing that it must naturally flow down the hill, 
 and could not inundate the place of their retreat 
 above a few inches more. 
 
 At that instant, however, the abbe started up, 
 exclaiming, " Quick, Francis ; quick, my child ! 
 Away, away ! the cave is falling in ! '' and on he 
 darted towards the mouth. 
 
 He reached it not, however; for, before he 
 could do so, a torrent of falling cinders and scoria 
 poured down from above, and struck him to the 
 ground. There was a sad and terrible cry, the 
 mouth of the cavern was at once blocked up, and 
 all was darkness. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 149 
 
 CHAPTER JX 
 
 We must now return for a time to the banks 
 of the stream, and to the somewhat discour- 
 teous fisherman, who had chosen to follow his 
 solitary sport rather than accompany the travel- 
 lers over the mountain. The name by which 
 Julie addressed him must have already made the 
 reader aware that he is not a new acquaintance ; 
 but, from the description which we gave of his 
 person when at the Ferme Godard, he certainly 
 would not be recognised at the period of which 
 we now speak. The tall, well- formed, active 
 stripling of fourteen or fifteen had grown into a 
 man of immense powers of body : not much 
 above the ordinary height, being about five feet 
 eleven, but displaying a frame of great breadth ; 
 deep-chested, long-armed, thin in the flank, and 
 without the slightest approach to fatness, but 
 muscular to an extraordinary degree. His fea- 
 
150 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 tures were short and small, but good ; his fore- 
 head large and capacious, but with the back of 
 the head perhaps still more so, and with those 
 parts of the skull, in which phrenologists suppose 
 the organs of observation and calculation to 
 lie, developed in a remarkable manner. To 
 speak by the card, and employ the technology 
 with which our phrenological friends have fur- 
 nished us, we will point out, that the organ of 
 reverence in his head, though not absolutely 
 wanting, was very small indeed ; but that the 
 organ of benevolence was large and protube- 
 rant. Thus, if we might judge, by what was 
 on the outside of his skull, of what was in the 
 inside ; and, from both, of what was the character 
 of his mind and disposition ; we should have a 
 very curious compound of qualities. Consider- 
 able intellectual powers, with strong animal pas- 
 sions ; not much respect for anything, but a good 
 deal of kindness of feeling. — A few more traits, 
 dear reader, would make it a perfect Frenchman. 
 The expression of the countenance — in which, 
 to say sooth, we put as much faith as in phreno- 
 logy — bore out these indications perfectly. There 
 was a shrewd, intelligent, keen, and rapid look, 
 with no ferocity or harshness in it, but a great 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 151 
 
 deal of determination ; and that side-long half- 
 averted glance, which we noticed in him as a 
 youth, was now altogether gone, the place thereof 
 being supplied by a sort of impenetrable, non- 
 chalant aspect, assumed upon certain occasions. 
 
 The reader must not suppose that any great 
 change had taken place in his character, thus to 
 vary the expression of his countenance. The 
 fact is, that when a youth, though not educated 
 by any of his relations with the soundest prin- 
 ciples in the world, yet his faults and vices — and 
 they were not a few — were new to him ; and 
 the belief that they must be apparent to and 
 condemned by every one he met with, gave him 
 that downcast look which we have before men- 
 tioned. 
 
 He had disposed of it, however, in the most 
 natural manner possible ; and having discovered 
 two things, — first, that his fellow-men were not 
 near so sharp-sighted as he had imagined; and, 
 secondly, that there were a great many as bad 
 as himself, and a great many very much worse ; 
 he got somewhat conceited, not exactly of his bad 
 actions, but of the dexterity and courage with 
 which he committed them. 
 
 We have said that he was not conceited of 
 
152 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 the actions themselves ; and, in truth, his ten- 
 dency was rather away from them ; for, in reality, 
 they were committed more from a general want 
 of principle than from an inherent inclination 
 to wrong : and, as the desires and passions of 
 youth, the love of adventure, and the reckless- 
 ness of consequences, diminished by slight de- 
 grees with years, the temptations were diminished 
 also ; and he would just as soon have employed 
 his wit in doing what was right, if the oppor- 
 tunity had presented itself, as in doing what was 
 wrong. Habit, indeed, — habit was a strong 
 counterpoise : but a man of good intellect, and 
 not very corrupt inclinations, generally discovers 
 sooner or later that the weight of worldly advan- 
 tages lies on the side of good conduct, as well 
 as all the moral inducements ; and thus there is 
 ever something with a reasonable being to coun- 
 terbalance bad habit, if unfortunate circum- 
 stances do not lead him farther and farther into 
 vice, or society by its severity does not drive 
 him to despair. 
 
 The lepers at one time were cast out from 
 all communion with their fellow-men ; they 
 could associate but with lepers, and the disease 
 increased and spread. At an after period men 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 153 
 
 took them into hospitals and cured them, and the 
 malady was gradually extinguished. Might it 
 not be so with the leprosy of the mind ? 
 
 To return to Jea^ Marais, however. He re- 
 mained fishing in the stream till the party by 
 whom he had been accosted began to climb 
 the hill ; and then he said to himself, " Now, I 
 will get back to Chalucet, and be off as fast as 
 possible. I do not covet the gaol at Clermont, 
 particularly after the specimen I have had of it, 
 where, with our good laws of France, I might 
 very likely remain for nine months to come. No, 
 no ; I will keep out of the way till something 
 about this young scapegrace has been discovered. 
 — And yet the girl did not seem to know any- 
 thing of my situation : and a nice girl, too, she 
 is; a great deal too good for my vagabond master." 
 
 While he thus meditated, or rather murmured 
 to himself — for his thoughts took an audible dress 
 — he was busily undoing his fishing tackle ; but 
 just at that moment, luckily for himself and for 
 others, his eye lighted upon a remarkably fine 
 trout, the patriarch of the stream, who, lying not 
 far from the surface, with his snout to the current 
 and his fins moving slowly to keep himself in one 
 place, seemed to invite the angler to try his skill 
 
 H 5 
 
154 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 upon him. Jean Marais had too much of the 
 spirit of a sportsman to resist the temptation. 
 He put his rod together again, and cast his fly 
 lightly on the surface of th^ water, within a few 
 inches of the mouth of his destined prize. For 
 some little time the trout was obdurate, and ten 
 minutes or a quarter of an hour were spent in 
 teasing him to rise. At length, however, as if in 
 a fit of irritation, the fish darted at the fly, was 
 instantly hooked, and, conscious of his powers, 
 darted away, nearly breaking the line that held 
 him. Jean Marais was as skilful a fisherman as 
 Isaac Walton ; and, though we will not attempt 
 to describe with our quaint old friend's minute- 
 ness the sport that ensued, suffice it to say that it 
 cost the angler nearly three quarters of an hour 
 to exhaust the speckled tenant of the stream. 
 At length, however, he succeeded in landing on 
 the bank as fine a trout as ever was taken in 
 Auvergne, a land justly celebrated for them. 
 
 When it was fairly caught, he once more began 
 to pack up his fishing tackle ; but he did not do 
 so without one or two wistful looks at the sky, 
 and then at the path by which he had come 
 down the mountain. But the first clap of thun- 
 der, which our travellers had heard on the top of 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 155 
 
 the hill, warned him in the valley of what was 
 about to take place. 
 
 " No time,*" he said, " no time ! — I must get 
 to my rock ;" and, gathering up the fish he had 
 caught, his rod, his lines, and his basket, without 
 staying to put them in order, he walked through 
 the stream, ran up the green bank on the other 
 side, and made the best of his way to a spot 
 where a large fragment of granite, in rolling down 
 long ages before, had fallen slantingly against 
 an immense mass of lava, so as to form a sort of 
 hut, somewhat like the foundation of a child's 
 house of cards. Some vegetable mould had 
 gathered, by one means or another, on the top of 
 the rock ; and, a small stunted ash-tree having 
 planted itself in the crevice where the two stones 
 met, like the feather in a warrior's cap, a wild 
 bird was perched in the branches, singing gaily as 
 Jean Marais approached. 
 
 It darted out when he came near ; and he ex- 
 claimed, with a light laugh, " There, away with 
 you ! away with you ! I give you two minutes 
 to get home ; and, if you don't, the hail will catch 
 you." 
 
 Thus saying, he bent himself down, and got 
 under the little canopy formed by the two stones, 
 
156 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 drawing in his fishing tackle and his trout, and 
 crouching himself into as comfortable a position 
 as he could, without exposing any part of his 
 person or his goods to the pitiless pelting of the 
 storm. The aperture of his little stony hut 
 looked directly upon the black face of the vol- 
 cano ; and he gazed up at it, saying to himself, 
 " I wonder where they have got to !" 
 
 The moment after, he saw Francis de Langy 
 and Julie d'Artonne running down the path to- 
 wards the cave, followed by the Abbe Arnoux. 
 When he beheld the young lady fall, it is but 
 justice to good Jean Marais to say, that his first 
 impulse made him start up, as if to help her; 
 but down he sat again immediately, watching 
 with not uninterested eyes while Francis de 
 Langy carried her into the cave, and then came 
 out to bring in the abbe. 
 
 " He's a fine young fellow, that,"" said Jean 
 Marais. " I wonder who that is .?" 
 
 As the reader well knows, the limits of a hail- 
 storm are very sharply defined ; and, in many dis- 
 tricts of France, balls of ice, the size of eggs, 
 will fall on one side of a road, tearing vine- 
 yards and corn-fields to pieces, while the other 
 side shall be perfectly free in the clear sunshine. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 157 
 
 without a single hailstone touching it. In the 
 present instance, the storm came sweeping across 
 the valley towards Jean Marais, as if a dim black 
 wall seamed with a number of perpendicular 
 lines, were advancing directly against him ; and 
 so thick and tremendous did the hail become, 
 that, very speedily, the immense volcanic moun- 
 tain before his eyes grew indistinct and dark ; so 
 that, for full half an hour, the cavern in which the 
 travellers had taken refuge was lost to his sight. 
 
 We shall not again describe the storm, which 
 we have already dwelt upon enough in the pre- 
 ceding chapter. The lightning blazed, the thun- 
 der roared, the hailstones fell as before ; and Jean 
 Marais, well contented with his retreat, looked 
 out, saying to himself, " Now, if I had mur- 
 dered that young vagabond the marquis, as his 
 foolish mother says, I should be in a great fright, 
 I suppose, and think the devil was going to take 
 me."" 
 
 In his comfortable place of refuge he amused 
 himself as well as he could ; looking at the fish 
 he had caught, rolling up his lines, cleaning his 
 hooks, and taking very little notice of the storm, 
 except, every now and then, to gaze forth for an 
 instant when the thunder was particularly violent, 
 
158 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 and exclaim, in a mocking tone, " Well, upon my 
 honour ! " till, at length, the hail became mingled 
 with rain, the streams began rushing down from 
 the hills, the thunder diminished in frequency 
 and loudness, and the grim features of the oppo- 
 site rocks began to show themselves more dis- 
 tinctly through the dim grey deluge. 
 
 " Ay," cried Jean Marais, '' a pretty morn- 
 ing's work, upon my life ! But, hark ! — what 's 
 that?" and, gazing out again, he saw an im- 
 mense quantity of stones and scoria, and large 
 masses of rock, come rolling down the face of the 
 opposite precipice, bounding and thundering into 
 the stream. 
 
 His eyes instantly ran up towards the mouth 
 of the cave where he had beheld the travellers take 
 refuge. He could no longer see it. He looked 
 to the right, to the left — it was gone ! 
 
 "Body of life!" he exclaimed, "it must 
 have fallen in upon them ! " and, leaving fish and 
 fishing tackle, and everything else, behind him, 
 he darted out, rushed through the stream, which 
 was by this time up to his middle and which, 
 strong as he was, nearly bore him away, and, 
 with the agility of a goat, climbed straight up 
 to where the cavern had been. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 159 
 
 The rain was still pouring down in fury, a 
 thousand streams were rushing over all the faces 
 of the rock, but the little path which Julie 
 and her companions had descended to reach the 
 cavern was visible for a considerable way 
 from the top of the hill. Then came a space 
 where everything seemed to be cast into rough 
 confusion, showing clearly where a considerable 
 body of earth and rubbish had slipped down the 
 hill ; and then, about fifty or sixty yards farther 
 on, the line of the path could be traced again, 
 winding forward to the mouth of another cave. 
 The cinders and scoria left by the descent of the 
 mass which had fallen rendered the footing be- 
 tween one point of the little way and another 
 both difficult and dangerous. But Jean Marais, 
 without hesitating a moment — sometimes balan- 
 cing him.self with difficulty on his feet, sometimes 
 clinging with his hands and lying almost flat 
 to the face of the mountain, traced on what he 
 conceived the direction which the path had taken, 
 examining accurately every step of ground as if 
 he were looking for some lost jewel. At length 
 a small projection of the rock gave him a further 
 hold, and, under a mass of the more solid lava 
 higher up, he perceived a small aperture, scarcely 
 
160 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 large enough to admit a man's arm. It was 
 somewhat above his head, and the task of reach- 
 ing it was by no means easy ; but at length 
 he accomplished it, and, bringing his face close 
 to the hole, he looked in. All was darkness, 
 however, but he thought he heard something like 
 a low groan ; and he exclaimed aloud, " Are you 
 there ? are you there ? '"* 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes ! " cried a voice from within ; 
 " help us quick ! Give us air, give us air !" 
 
 " I must fetch assistance," replied Jean Ma- 
 rais ; " keep up your spirits, do not fear, you 
 shall soon be delivered." 
 
 " Give us air ! " answered the voice, " give us 
 air ! She is fainting, she is dying ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, no, Francis !" cried another voice ; 
 " I am better, I am better now. It was hope 
 I wanted." 
 
 " Bring help quick, then," shouted the first 
 voice. 
 
 " Stay," said Jean Marais, " stay. I can give 
 you air too perhaps. Here is a lump of rock 
 I can roll down ; but I must take care, lest I 
 go down with it :" and, fixing his two hands 
 firmly upon a large block of stone of more than 
 a hundred pounds in weight, he rolled it slowly 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 161 
 
 over, till, freed from the rubbish in which it was 
 embedded, it bounded down the hill, rushed 
 over the green slope, and plunged into the 
 stream. 
 
 " There is a gleam of light ! " exclaimed the 
 voice from below ; " look ! Julie, look ! Thank 
 God, there is a gleam of light ! " 
 
 " Take courage, take courage !" cried Jean 
 Marais ; " I will go and bring the folks from 
 Chalucet, and have you out speedily. I must 
 not miss the spot, however," he continued, 
 speaking to himself. " There ! that shall be 
 my landmark ;" and, taking off his hat, he set 
 it upon the projecting piece of rock by which 
 he had climbed up, put a large stone in it to 
 keep it firm, and then set out for the hamlet 
 at a pace which put his life in danger at every 
 minute. 
 
162 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The most serviceable gift in the ordinary 
 course of life is common sense ; but in a career 
 of danger and difficulty there is another, which 
 is perhaps but a modification of it, and which 
 is termed presence of mind. I have called it 
 a gift, because I believe that it is perfectly 
 innate and never to be acquired ; but, cer- 
 tainly, if ever any one was born with that com- 
 bination of ready courage, quick calculation, 
 and promptitude of action, which is so termed, 
 it was Francis de Langy. The moment that 
 he beheld the abbe stricken to the earth, he 
 perceived that to pass in time was impossible; 
 and, casting his arms round Julie, he drew her 
 suddenly back from the shower of stones and 
 cinders that was falling — not to the part of the 
 cave where they had previously been seated, 
 but at once, and with a bound, to the eastern 
 side of the cavern, where he had remarked, long 
 before, that the solid lava formed, as it were, 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 163 
 
 one side of an arch, under which he rationally- 
 hoped for shelter. 
 
 He found it as he had expected ; but the 
 very first instant of thought made him almost 
 regret that he had obeyed the impulse, and 
 avoided being crushed under the falling mass. 
 All was darkness ; he, and the being whom he 
 loved, were shut in, as in a living tomb, within 
 the hard bosom of the mountain ! A long, a 
 lingering, a terrible death was before them ! 
 Even if the air which they then breathed was 
 not soon exhausted, famine must speedily reach 
 them. He must have the agony of seeing her 
 die by the most painful want, without the 
 power of giving her the slightest assistance or 
 support. Such was the terrible picture that 
 imagination first presented ; such the only fate 
 that he believed was reserved for them. Julie 
 clung to him, trembling violently ; and he, press- 
 ing her to his heart, lifted up his eyes, as if seek- 
 ing for that heaven which was shut out from 
 his sight, and which he believed that neither 
 would ever behold again. He would have fain 
 said something to soothe and comfort her, but 
 the words of consolation died away in his heart 
 and on his tongue ; and, unable to utter a sound, 
 
164 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 he pressed his lips upon her cheek, as if it was 
 the parting kiss of two beings doomed to speedy- 
 death. 
 
 At that moment there was a low groan. 
 " Ha, Julie ! **"' he exclaimed ; " there is the poor 
 abbe ! Perhaps I can extricate him and bring 
 him here. Stay for a moment. I will try." 
 
 " Oh, it will fall upon you and crush you, 
 Francis ! '"" cried Julie. 
 
 " Nay, nay, I must try, dear Julie," he re- 
 plied ; and, feeling his way forward with his hands, 
 he soon grasped the good man's cassock. His 
 arm and his head were free, for he had been cast 
 backwards in falling ; but his chest was covered 
 with a large mass of loose shingle, heaped up in a 
 pile, and his legs, up to his knees, were buried in 
 amass which blocked up the mouth of the cavern. 
 
 Francis de Langy easily removed the pile 
 that was resting on his breast ; but, when he 
 attempted to disengage the rest of his frame, 
 a shower of small stones and cinders fell thick 
 upon him, and well-nigh suffocated him. He 
 persevered, however ; and another low groan, as 
 he did so, told him that the abbe still lived. 
 The earth was loose and light ; and, as he la- 
 boured to clear it away, with his hands, from the 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 165 
 
 body of his poor tutor, a hope sprung up in 
 his bosom of being able to save himself and 
 her he loved. 
 
 In ten minutes he had succeeded so far as to be 
 able to draw the body of the abbe away, though 
 another shower of stones upon his head was the 
 consequence ; but exclaiming gladly, " I have freed 
 him, Julie, I have freed him ! "" he bore the old 
 man slowly and cautiously over the plashy floor of 
 the cave towards the spot where he had left her. 
 
 " Julie, dear Julie ! " he said as he approach- 
 ed, though the sensation of the air growing thick 
 and warm almost deadened the hope which had 
 arisen, " there is yet a chance ; keep up your 
 courage ! The earth is soft and light, and easily 
 moved ; I can pull down some part into that 
 side of the cave, and perhaps throw the rest 
 down into the valley." 
 
 She made no answer ; and Francis de Langy, 
 becommg alarmed, put out his hand to feel if 
 she was there. It rested upon her fair soft 
 neck as she bent her head down upon her hands. 
 Her young lover's heart sank, and he thought, 
 " The air is growing thick, she may faint and 
 die before I can accomplish it.'' 
 
 At that moment, however, a loud voice, 
 
166 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 coming down apparently from the upper part of 
 the cave, shouted, " Are you there ? are you 
 there ?" And, oh ! was there ever sound on 
 this earth so joyful to the ears of man ? 
 
 The reader knows the reply, and knows also, 
 that, in a moment after, a gleam of light broke in 
 upon the weary prisoners in their rocky dungeon. 
 It was like hope ; it was hope : and, oh ! what 
 is not hope to man ? — the vitality of vitality, 
 the life of his life, the great motive power of 
 all exertion, the strengthener, the consoler, the 
 stay, the great battle-sword that cleaves through 
 the armour of all adversaries, the conqueror that 
 strikes down opposition, tramples on reverses, 
 bursts open the gates of the tomb, and treads 
 upon the neck of death ! 
 j Hope came to them ; and though the ray of 
 ' light was so faint that they could not even see 
 each other's faces by its aid, looking merely like 
 a dim star high up in the blank space round, it 
 was sufficient for support, ay, and for joy ; and, 
 casting his arms round Julie, Francis de Langy 
 exclaimed, " Thou art saved !" 
 
 Those words, reader, put, as I have put them, 
 in the second person singular, mean more in 
 French than they do in English : but in any 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 167 
 
 language they would have been sufficient to 
 show to Julie d'Artonne what were the feel- 
 ings of her young lover's heart — that she was 
 his first thought ; that her safety was the object 
 first desired ; her danger, the anguish far more 
 felt than his own. 
 
 " And thou too, Francis !" she said ; " and 
 thou too ! " and she leaned her forehead on his 
 bosom. 
 
 Never did love before, or since, find its first 
 voice amongst such scenes and circumstances. 
 
 A long hour succeeded — the passing of which 
 we will not attempt to describe — ere any farther 
 sounds gave notice to the young prisoners that 
 their deliverance was near. At length, how- 
 ever, the tones which they had heard before 
 again reached their ear, asking if they were all 
 well. 
 
 " No, anything but well," replied Francis de 
 Langy : " the abbe is much hurt ; dead, I fear, 
 or dying." 
 
 '' Matin!" cried the man; and immediately 
 the sounds of pickaxes and spades rang through 
 the cavern, with voices directing and commenting 
 as the work proceeded. 
 
 A moment or two after, some of the earth and 
 
168 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 stones rolled down into the cave, and the aper- 
 ture through which the light appeared was con- 
 siderably enlarged. Julie and Francis de Langy 
 turned their first look upon each other ; but 
 their second was to the poor abbe ; and by the 
 dim glimmer, which was all that yet reached 
 them, they knelt down beside him, and gazed 
 upon his features. His cassock w^as soiled by 
 mud and dirt, and a good deal of the loose 
 ashes was adhering to his hair; but, as far as 
 they could distinguish, his features were calm and 
 placid, and it w^as evident that he still breathed, 
 though the groan which had once or twice burst 
 from his bosom had ceased. 
 
 The rushing sound of falling earth was now 
 clearly distinguished, mingled with the rolling 
 of large masses of the rock down the face of 
 the precipice. The light grew clearer, the heavy 
 air more free ; and soon the arms and chest 
 of a man labouring hard with a spade could be 
 discerned, with the blue sky behind him. The 
 cheerful sunshine, too, shone upon his shoulder 
 and his hand, showing that the storm had passed 
 away entirely ; and, oh ! what a bright and beau- 
 tiful sight did that simple gleam seem to the 
 eyes of those who had thought that they should 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 169 
 
 never behold it again ! But we must not pause 
 farther upon their sensations. It required the 
 labour of four men, during at least three quarters 
 of an hour, to enlarge sufficiently the small 
 aperture, which the mass of falling earth had 
 left in its descent, for a human being to pass 
 in and out : some masses of stone, which had 
 come down with the rest, obstructing the labour, 
 and requiring both skill and strength to remove. 
 Jean Marais, however, worked like a slave, and, 
 by his better sense and knowledge, effected as 
 much, at least, as all the three good Auvergnats 
 together. At length a sufficient passage was 
 opened ; but still it was not an easy one, for 
 the loose shingle and rock had rolled down 
 into the cave, filling up nearly two-thirds of the 
 space ; and when Jean Marais himself entered 
 to give assistance, he fell twice before he reached 
 the bottom of the mound. 
 
 " I wdll carry her, I will carry her," cried 
 Francis de Langy. 
 
 " If you do, I shallhaye to carry you," cried 
 Jean Marais ; but the youth caught Julie up in 
 his arms as lightly as if she had been a child, and, 
 with that strength and power which strong and 
 resolute feeling generally gives, he bore her out, 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
170 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 while the stout Picard followed him close, steady- 
 ing the young gentleman with his arm whenever 
 the stones rolled under his feet. 
 
 " Thank. God ! " cried Francis de Langy 
 when he once more set his fair burden down in 
 the fresh air. " Thank God." 
 
 But the sudden change was too great for Julie 
 d'Artonne; she turned pale, her head drooped, 
 and she fell back fainting, with the first breath 
 of the wind upon her cheek. 
 
 When Julie re-opened her eyes, she felt 
 herself gently borne along in a large rough, 
 brown cloak, at that time in use amongst the 
 Auvergnat shepherds, which had been stretched 
 upon two poles, so as to make a sort of litter for 
 her. A contrivance somewhat similar had been 
 applied to carry the poor Abbe Arnoux ; and, two 
 or three of the herds from the mountains having 
 been added to the party who had dug out the 
 travellers. Mademoiselle d'Artonne and the good 
 ecclesiastic were carried by the shortest and most 
 convenient paths to the little hamlet of Chalucet. 
 The women of the village and the neighbour- 
 hood instantly surrounded the sufferers ; and 
 the abbe was soon stretched upon a bed, with 
 kind female hands tending him, and every simple 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 171 
 
 means applied to recall him to consciousness. 
 As sucli accidents often happened in the moun- 
 tains, the treatment of Monsieur Arnoux was not 
 so unskilful as might have been expected, for 
 experience is the best teacher of medicine. On 
 Julie, too, the good women would fain have tried 
 their powers ; but she had quite recovered from 
 her fainting fit ere she reached the hamlet, al- 
 though she felt too weak and exhausted, after all 
 she had gone through, to ride back to Pont- 
 gibaud. 
 
 For his part, Francis de Langy resolved not 
 to quit her ; and all that remained for him to do 
 was to send a messenger to Pontgibaud to seek a 
 surgeon, and to communicate the disasters they 
 had met with, and the state they were in, to 
 Monsieur and Madame d'Artonne. For this 
 double purpose Francis de Langy determined to 
 employ Jean Marais, and accordingly went out of 
 the cottage to which Julie had been brought, in 
 order to look for him. As some time had been 
 spent, one way or another, since their arrival, he 
 found their deliverer with his fishing-rod in his 
 hand, a basket on his back, and a small parcel of 
 clothes crowning the whole, apparently setting 
 out upon some distant journey. 
 
172 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 The first words the young gentleman address- 
 ed to him were thanks, and, luckily for his pur- 
 pose, one of the expressions which he used was, 
 " I look upon it that Mademoiselle d'Artonne 
 and myself owe our lives entirely to you ; but 
 you must do us another service, Monsieur Marais. 
 I wish you particularly to mount one of the 
 horses which brought us here, and, riding it to 
 Pontgibaud, send the best surgeon you can find 
 as speedily as possible. I should then feel ex- 
 tremely obliged, if you would go to the little 
 inn called the Demie Lune, and communicate, 
 in the gentlest manner you can, to Monsieur and 
 Madame d'Artonne that we have met with a 
 frightful accident, but that Mademoiselle Julie 
 is safe and uninjured. Perhaps Monsieur d'Ar- 
 tonne may not have returned, but you will cer- 
 tainly find the countess there." 
 
 The man looked down with a hesitating, or 
 rather calculating, expression, and began his 
 reply by saying, " Why, you see. Monsieur — " 
 but suddenly stopped, and then asked, " Can 
 you not send one of these other men ?" 
 
 " I can do so, certainly," answered Francis de 
 Langy, somewhat surprised at his reluctance ; 
 '' but I wish some one to bear the intelligence 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 173 
 
 who will break it with gentleness. Besides, I 
 think you are very well deserving of a high re- 
 ward for saving our lives, and I am sure Monsieur 
 d'Artonne will be very glad to give it when he 
 is aware of the circumstances." 
 
 The valet took off his hat and made him a 
 low bow, replying with a comic air, " Rewards 
 are pleasant things, sir." 
 
 He then fell into thought again ; but the 
 moment after he roused himself, and put his hat 
 upon his head with an air of mock determina- 
 tion, saying, " Well, I '11 dare the adventure ! 
 I may want a good friend just now to help me 
 at a pinch. — Come, sir, I will do it." 
 
 Francis de Langy was totally unaware of those 
 particular points in Jean Marais' history which 
 made him hesitate to go to Pontgibaud and 
 present himself before the Count d'Artonne ; 
 but, in replying at a venture, he hit the mark 
 aright, saying, " If you do want a friend in 
 need, depend upon it you will find one in the 
 Count d'Artonne, after saving his daughter from 
 a lingering and horrible death. Nor will my 
 uncle, — I may call him father — the Vicomte de 
 St. Medard, be less grateful to you — " 
 
 " Monsieur de St. Medard.^" cried the man. 
 
174 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " Ah, bon Dieu ! Is it possible ? are you little 
 Francis de Langy, whom I have had upon my 
 knee a hundred times ? — Well, that is strange 
 enough !" 
 
 An explanation, such as the reader may con- 
 ceive, now ensued; but Francis de Langy made 
 it a short one, although he was not a little in- 
 terested in the account the man gave of him- 
 self, and of his own early years at the Ferme 
 Godard, No farther difficulties were made by 
 Jean Marais ; and mounting the horse, which was 
 speedily made ready, he set off at as rapid a 
 rate as the bad road would permit, and reached 
 Pontgibaud in little less than an hour. 
 
 As he went — according to a habit that he had 
 — ^he held a good deal of conversation with himself 
 upon his own situation and prospects. " Well," 
 he said, " I am certainly the luckiest of all unlucky 
 dogs; for no sooner do I fall into a scrape, 
 from which there seems no escape — except to be 
 set free, after many months' imprisonment on ac- 
 count of a crime I never dreamt or thought of — 
 than I stumble upon two powerful protectors, 
 and secure their certain goodwill by the merest 
 accident in the world. — Well, now, I must ma- 
 nage this matter delicately, and break the tidings 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 175 
 
 to these people as one breaks the top of an egg^ 
 little by little. — Let me see ! how I shall do it ? 
 
 — I have it, I have it ! But we must send 
 
 the surgeon first to take care of the good old 
 gentleman in the cassock, though he '11 be as dead 
 as a sole before the doctor gets there. There 's 
 not as much life in him now, as in an empty 
 tinder-box. — But sometimes miracles are per- 
 formed still ; and so we '11 send the surgeon." 
 
 Thus murmuring to himself, rode on Jean 
 Marais till he reached the little old-fashioned 
 town of Pontgibaud, where he speedily found out 
 the only surgeon that it contained, and who was 
 consequently a great man in his way. He dis- 
 patched him to Chalucet as fast as a horse could 
 carry him, telling him that a count, a countess, 
 and the bishop of Clermont had all tumbled 
 down the rocks together and half- broken their 
 necks. He then directed his steps to the inn, 
 where, at the door, which looked down upon the 
 stream of the Chalamont, stood a post-chaise with 
 smoking horses, apparently just arrived. 
 
 AValking into the kitchen, Jean Marais was in 
 two minutes quite intimate with the host and 
 hostess, the cook, and all the servants, male and 
 female ; and it luckily so happened for his purpose 
 
176 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 that none of the attendants on the party of 
 travellers were at that moment in the peculiar 
 apartment he had selected for his debut. 
 
 " Now, Monsieur Malot,"*' he said, taking 
 down the load from his shoulder, " I know you 
 have got some guests of quality here, and I have 
 brought you a basket of as beautiful trout as ever 
 you saw, to entertain them with. Here are seven 
 magnificent fellows, none of them less than a 
 couple of pounds ; and for them you shall give 
 me dinner, supper, a bed, and a breakfast." 
 
 The host admired the trout with his eyes, and 
 was taking up the last and largest one which had 
 been caught, when Jean Marais laid his hand 
 upon it, exclaiming, " Not that one. not that one ; 
 he is not included. Why, he weighs four pounds 
 if he weighs an ounce, and I destine him as a 
 present from myself to the Count d'Artonne. 
 So, give me down a dish, Madame Malot, and 
 I will carry it up with my own hands." 
 
 The good hostess very willingly obeyed his 
 injunctions, knowing that the fish must be dress- 
 ed for her guests to eat it, and that she must 
 make the sauce — which repays a French inn- 
 keeper as well as to set brilliants recompenses a 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 177 
 
 jeweller — and, a large dish having been brought 
 down, Jean Marais was ushered up to a room 
 tenanted for the time by the Count and Countess 
 d'Artonne and their guests. He entered in great 
 state, bearing the magnificent trout before, him ; 
 and found the two gentlemen standing beside 
 Madame d'Artonne, and talking with her on the 
 proceedings of the day. 
 
 " Ha ! Jean Marais ?" cried the count, when 
 he saw him ; a shade coming over his counte- 
 nance, not exactly of displeasure nor of suspicion, 
 but rather, apparently, of sadness. " They told 
 me that you were in prison." 
 
 ^' So I was, sir," said the valet, bowing low, 
 with a smile at the double meaning of the words 
 he was about to use, — " so I was, sir, for three 
 days ; but at the end of that time they let me 
 out ; and as I have been fishing about the coun- 
 try, and heard you were here, I have brought 
 you this fine trout as the most acceptable present 
 I could offer you."" 
 
 "It is a very fine trout indeed," replied the 
 count, looking at the fish ; " why, it must 
 weigh four or five pounds. We will have it 
 dressed for dinner to-day, Elise." 
 
 i5 
 
178 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " Nay, sir/' said Jean Marais gravely ; " I 
 hope you will have it stuffed and put under a 
 glass case." 
 
 Monsieur de St. Medard smiled ; and the count 
 replied, " No, really, my good friend ; though it 
 is a very fine trout, I do not think it is worthy 
 of quite so distinguished an honour as that.''' 
 
 " Now, really, I think it is," answered Jean 
 Marais ; " for this very fish, noble sir, once 
 saved a young lady's life." 
 
 The whole party looked at the speaker with 
 some astonishment, and were all silent for a 
 moment. 
 
 " You are a jester, Jean Marais," cried Mon- 
 sieur d'Artonne, at length. But the countess 
 interposed, with a cheek somewhat pale, say- 
 ing, " He means something, Alphonse. When 
 did it save a young lady's life ? " 
 
 " This very day, Madame," answered Jean 
 Marais. 
 
 "Julie!" cried Madame d'Artonne imme- 
 diately; " he means Julie ! Good God ! where 
 is she ? what has happened ?" 
 
 " She is quite well, Madame," replied Jean 
 Marais, " and quite safe at Chalucet ; but, if it 
 had not been for my staying to catch this fish, she 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 179 
 
 would have now been buried in the heart of the 
 mountain :" and, the worst being told, he pro- 
 ceeded to relate all that had occurred. 
 
 " Luckily," said the count, when he concluded, 
 " it is to you we owe her safety, Jean Marais, 
 not to the trout ; so that we can reward her de- 
 liverer. — Poor girl ! what she must have gone 
 through ! And poor Monsieur Arnoux, too ! I 
 regret him as much as if he were a brother." 
 
 " While there is life, there is hope," answered 
 the viscount. " I could spare my right hand 
 better than I could that good old man. — Come, 
 D'Artonne, let us go at once to Chalucet, and 
 see what can be done." 
 
 " I will go too, — I will go too ! " cried Ma- 
 dame d''Artonne. 
 
 " I fear the road is only practicable for 
 horses," replied Monsieur de St. Medard. 
 
 " I will ride, I will walk, I will do anything !" 
 exclaimed the mother ; " but I must see my 
 child!" 
 
 " You can get within less than a quarter of 
 a league in the carriage," said Jean Marais ; 
 " and it may serve to bring Mademoiselle back 
 again ; for she was not at all hurt, but only faint 
 and exhausted from terror." 
 
180 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 His plan was adopted : horses were again put 
 on to the carriage, and in a short time Julie 
 d'Artonne was clasped in her mother's arms ; 
 while Monsieur de St. Medard grasped the hand 
 of Francis de Langy, and advanced with him to 
 the bed on which the good abbe was stretched. 
 The surgeon was sitting beside him, and made 
 a sign for the viscount to keep silence ; but 
 Monsieur Arnoux was able to look up as he 
 recognised his friend's step, and acknowledged 
 his presence by a faint smile. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 181 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The expedition, which had begun in joy and 
 expectation, ended in sorrow and anxiety, as so 
 many others have done. The poor Abbe Ar- 
 noux, crushed and bruised, hung for three or 
 four days between life and death, and perhaps 
 was only saved for the time by the unremitting 
 attention of his pupil and Monsieur de St. Me- 
 dard. Julie also suffered, though but slightly in 
 comparison, from the terror she had endured and 
 the scenes she had gone through ; and, when 
 Francis de Langy every morning walked or rode 
 over from the little hamlet of Chalucet to Pont- 
 gibaud, he had the satisfaction of seeing the 
 colour come back warmly into her cheek, and 
 health sparkle up in her eyes once more. 
 
 Having said so much of the principal per- 
 sonages of the tale, we must turn for a moment 
 or two to our respectable friend, Jean Marais, 
 
182 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 "who, the second morning after the adventure in 
 the mountains, stood before Monsieur and Ma- 
 dame d'Artonne, giving an account of himself 
 and his proceedings, the whole of which would 
 doubtless prove both interesting and instructive if 
 we had space to lay it before the reader. We 
 can but, however, report a part, and that must be 
 the portion which refers to the present story. 
 
 " Why, you know, Jean Marais," said the 
 count; '* you know very well that you are a 
 great rogue." 
 
 Jean Marais made a low bow, replying with 
 the most perfect self-satisfaction, " How should 
 I otherwise be fit for the office of valet de cham- 
 bre to a noble gentleman like the Marquis de 
 Bausse ? " 
 
 '' Well, Jean,'' replied the count, " in regard 
 to this accusation against you, which I am quite 
 sure is false, and which you say you can prove to 
 have been made without even ground of sus- 
 picion, I will take care that the matter be fully in- 
 vestigated, as you desire, within four-and-twenty 
 hours after our arrival at Clermont ; and you 
 shall have every opportunity of establishing your 
 innocence, so as not to be detained one moment 
 longer than is necessary. You shall also have a 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 183 
 
 reward of some kind, adequate to the service 
 wliicli you have rendered me ; but indeed, my 
 good Jean Marais, as to my taking you into our 
 service, that, I fear, is quite out of the question. 
 You know very well that, besides the love-making 
 to the maids, which would be endless, you would 
 do nothing but cheat me from morning to night." 
 
 Jean Marais laughed, without showing the 
 slightest symptom either of shame or indignation. 
 
 " On my word of honour. Monsieur d'Ar- 
 tonne," he said, " you make a very great mis- 
 take. Every man has certain principles upon 
 which he acts, and mine would prevent me from 
 cheating you even of a sous. The matter is very 
 different, indeed, when I am with such a master 
 as the Marquis de Bausse. It was a part of my 
 duty to cheat him, else I render the old proverb 
 of no avail. ' Like master, like man,' noble sir, 
 is much more universally true than people be- 
 lieve. If my master leads the way, as a matter 
 of course I follow ; and, if he runs very fast, he 
 must not be surprised at my treading on his 
 heels : but with you the matter would be dif- 
 ferent. I should never think of practising on 
 you any such tricks as are every day played by 
 the fashionable valet on the fashionable master. 
 
184 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 I -would not go out in your clothes and call 
 myself by your name, nor half-empty your snuff- 
 box every night into a jar lent me by the tobac- 
 conist on purpose to keep my earnings fresh 
 against the time for returning them to his shop. 
 You would never lose four or five canes in a year, 
 and be persuaded that you had left them in a 
 Jiacre or in a friend's house. Your shirts would 
 not be frequently mislaid by the washerwoman ; 
 your stock of pocket-handkerchiefs would not 
 daily decrease ; you would not have an opportu- 
 nity of seeing how well your own cravats look 
 upon the neck of your valet, nor admire your 
 gloves upon his hands before they had been twice 
 on your own. If your purse remained in your 
 pocket when you went to bed, every louis would 
 answer to the muster-roll next morning ; and the 
 sous would rest in peace upon the edge of the 
 scrutoire. I can assure you I should be per- 
 fectly exemplary, unless I saw you begin to gam- 
 ble or cheat at cards, or say sweet things to 
 Madame's femme de chambre ;" and he bowed 
 reverently to the countess as he spoke. 
 
 " A pleasant picture you give, certainly, of 
 a valet's life," said Monsieur d'Artonne ; ''but 
 I am afraid, my good Jean Marais, that, even if 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 185 
 
 there was a probability of your keeping all your 
 promises, I could not grant your request, for 
 my servants are old and faithful friends, whom 
 I am not likely to part with, and I have fully 
 as many of them as I want." 
 
 '' Happy Monsieur d'Artonne," exclaimed 
 Jean Marais, " and unhappy I ! — But it is always 
 so in life ; when we want to escape temptation, 
 we find the door shut upon us : so I shall 
 have nothing to do but to go on with sweet 
 Monsieur de Bausse when he comes back again, 
 which, of course, will be the case when he has 
 spent all his money ; or else to get myself a new 
 place with some other noble gentleman of the same 
 kind, where, in duty to myself, I shall be obliged 
 to cheat him from morning till night, or lose 
 my character for ever amongst my friends and 
 companions." 
 
 " Well, well, Jean Marais," replied the count, 
 '' we will see what is to be done for you ; per- 
 haps I may be able to find you a better place 
 than you have : but remember, if I do so, and 
 you dishonour my recommendation, I will cut 
 your ears off with my own hands." 
 
 " Sir, they are perfectly at your service,"" 
 answered Jean Marais, making him a low bow ; 
 
186 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 *' but, in the mean time, I may look to you to 
 get me clear of this charge." 
 
 " Nay, my good friend," cried the count, *' I 
 did not exactly say that ; I merely promised 
 that you should have an opportunity of estab- 
 lishing your innocence at once, if you can do so, 
 and should not be kept for months in prison, 
 as is too much the custom in France, whether 
 an accused person be guiltless or criminal." 
 
 " That is all I want, that is all I want, sir," 
 replied Jean Marais, " for I know that there 
 cannot be even a cause of suspicion shown against 
 me ; and, to tell you the truth, sir, I am afraid 
 of my morals." 
 
 " How so .?" demanded the count ; " I should 
 think, my good friend, that your morals were very 
 safe." 
 
 '* Oh ! you flatter me, sir," answered Jean 
 Marais ; " but I can assure you that a prison in 
 France is not the best school of virtue that one 
 can be in. It is only on the outside of the walls 
 that one protests one's innocence ; in the inside 
 each one rivals the other in telling how many 
 crimes he has committed." 
 
 Jean Marais might, perhaps, have gone on 
 for some time longer entertaining the count with 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 187 
 
 his views of society ; but at that moment Mon- 
 sieur de St. Medard entered, and the valet with- 
 drew. The viscount came to propose a new 
 arrangement, although it had only been that 
 morning determined that they were to stay for 
 three or four days longer at Pontgibaud, in 
 order that the good Abbe Arnoux might be the 
 better enabled to bear a journey. 
 
 " You will think me somewhat whimsical," 
 said Monsieur de St. Medard ; " but the truth 
 is, I begin much to doubt the skill of our worthy 
 surgeon here, and I am anxious that the abb6 
 should have more scientific advice and better 
 care. We can easily have a litter made, in which 
 his bed may be laid, and he himself carried to 
 Clermont without any fatigue." 
 
 " Oh ! if he arrives at Clermont," cried the 
 countess, " he must not stop short of the Chateau 
 d'Artonne ; and the better care and tendance he 
 will have with us will make up for the short 
 additional distance." 
 
 Thus then was it settled. The remainder of 
 that day was passed in constructing the litter, 
 and rendering it as comfortable as circumstances 
 would allow : and early on the following morning 
 the whole party set out upon their return, the 
 
188 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 sick man being borne on the shoulders of four 
 stout Auvergnats, with a relay of bearers fol- 
 lowing ; by which means he was brought without 
 much fatigue to Clermont, and thence to the 
 Chateau d'Artonne. 
 
 The viscount and Francis de Langy accom- 
 panied him on horseback ; but the count and 
 countess, with Julie, had gone on, and were ready 
 to receive their guests on the terrace before the 
 house. While Monsieur Arnoux was carried up 
 to the comfortable chamber which had been 
 prepared for him, and Julie lingered for a minute 
 or two with Francis de Langy in the gardens 
 looking at the setting sun. Monsieur de St. 
 Medard followed his host and hostess into 
 the chateau to examine the contents of a large 
 packet which the count said had been waiting 
 for him for several days, but which the servants 
 had foolishly neglected to forward. 
 
 The moment the viscount read the first lines, 
 he exclaimed, " This is very unfortunate ! A 
 summons to Versailles, my dear D'Artonne, to 
 give his majesty information regarding Pondi- 
 cherry. It has reached me somewhat late, and 
 there must be no more delay ; we must depart 
 to-morrow without fail." 
 
 Julie and Francis were entering at the very 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 189 
 
 moment that he uttered the last words, and it 
 would be difficult to describe the look of conster- 
 nation which came upon those two young faces 
 at the tidings they heard. Madame d'Artonne 
 marked it with a smile, and exclaimed at once, 
 " But the abbe cannot go ; and Francis shall 
 not, I declare ! " 
 
 ''Leave him with us, St. Medard," said the 
 count ; " he is in duty bound to stay and 
 nurse his tutor. We will keep him, too, as 
 a pledge that you yourself come back, and fulfil 
 your promise to us of staying at least a week.'^ 
 
 Monsieur de St. Medard looked towards 
 Francis de Langy ; and though the young man 
 cast his eyes upon the ground, and expressed 
 no wish of any kind, yet it needed little skill 
 to perceive that his inclinations turned not to- 
 wards Versailles. 
 
 The matter, then, was settled as the Count 
 d'Artonne proposed ; and although we have 
 not said much hitherto of Julie's feelings in 
 
 o 
 
 regard to Francis de Langy, yet it must be 
 acknowledged that her young heart beat joy- 
 fully with sensations she never thought of in- 
 quiring into. The age had not come with her 
 for shrinking from the first approaches of love, 
 for trembling at the presence of the new spirit 
 
190 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 within her. At that age love assumes not 
 his form of power and might, over-awing the 
 heart and mastering all the senses ; but, on 
 the contrary, he comes in the sweeter and the 
 gentler form of the winged child, his quiver 
 hidden, and his bow behind his back. Young, 
 happy friendship is the name he takes ; and all 
 Julie thought she wished to keep, was the kind 
 companion whom chance had thrown so for- 
 tunately in her way. Perhaps she might think 
 it a little strange that she was so very, very 
 glad he was going to stay ; but then that 
 was easily accounted for. He was so noble, he 
 was so kind ; he was the first companion, too, 
 whom she had ever had ; the first to whom her 
 heart and mind had opened, the first who 
 had entered into all her thoughts and feelings, 
 the first who had taught her what it was to 
 have a brother. All these reasons were summed 
 up in a moment in the mind of Julie ; and so 
 little idea had she of what was beneath them all, 
 that she expressed her joy warmly and openly ; 
 while Francis, on the contrary, said not a word, 
 though his looks were quite sufficient. 
 
 A messenger had been sent forward for the 
 most skilful surgeon in the neighbourhood ; and 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 191 
 
 in about half an hour he arrived at the chateau, 
 much to the satisfaction of Monsieur de St. 
 Medard, who was anxious to hear some really 
 good opinion upon the case of the poor Abbe 
 Amoux. Unwilling, however, to give any bias 
 to the views of the man of healing, he suffered 
 the surgeon to visit his patient alone, and waited 
 in a neighbouring chamber for his coming forth, 
 for nearly an hour. 
 
 When the surgeon at length appeared, his 
 opinion of the case was very doubtful ; " I have 
 hope," he said, " I have much hope, that a 
 perfect recovery may be effected. But still I 
 will by no means assure you, sir, that such will 
 be the case ; the injuries received have been very 
 severe, the consequences will be long and difficult 
 to deal with, and the result, I must say — though 
 I hope for the best, is uncertain." 
 
 " Do you believe that conversation may be 
 hurtful to your patient ? " demanded the viscount ; 
 " for, as I am unexpectedly obliged to go to 
 Versailles, I should like to sit with him for an 
 hour to-night." 
 
 " Oh ! you may do so," replied the surgeon ; 
 " it will not injure him, if you leave him when- 
 ever you see he is becoming fatigued." 
 
192 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 It was between nine and ten at night when 
 Monsieur de St. Medard, having been told that 
 the Abbe Arnoux had obtained an hour's sleep 
 and was much refreshed, entered his room to bid 
 him farewell before his departure for Paris. 
 Approaching his bed with a quiet and cautious 
 step, the viscount sat down on a chair at his 
 side, and, looking at the calm and placid though 
 worn features of the good ecclesiastic, he said, 
 " You look better, Arnoux ; your journey seems 
 to have done you good."" 
 
 " I feel much better," replied the abbe ; '* I 
 feel much better, my dear friend. I seem to 
 breathe more freely here. I thank God for it 
 most sincerely. Monsieur de St. Medard ; and I 
 can assure you, whatever you may think, that it 
 is the greatest of all comforts to be able to bless 
 and thank God for any happiness or any mere 
 relief that He sends us.*" 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 193 
 
 The viscount smiled. " I admire religion 
 very much, you know, abbe," he said, " and 
 think it an excellent thing ; but yet I cannot 
 see how it makes any difference. A man is 
 happy, or unhappy; he suffers pain, or is re- 
 lieved : but it matters very little to him, methinks, 
 whence the relief or the happiness comes." 
 
 " Not at all ! " replied the abbe with a degree 
 of eagerness which conquered his corporeal weak- 
 ness, "it matters in the most essential degree. 
 The higher and the finer emotions of the heart 
 are all of them the sources of our most intense 
 delight, and none more so than gratitude. 
 A slight difficulty of breathing is easily borne, 
 and to be relieved from it is a very ordinary 
 comfort looked at abstractedly ; but when we 
 trace it up to the mercy of God, and look upon 
 it as a fresh motive for thankfulness to Him 
 who has given us a thousand others, a more 
 expansive joy takes possession of the breast. 
 The satisfaction is doubled by gratitude to the 
 hand whence the relief comes ; ay, and more- 
 over, in each indication of mercy towards us we 
 find the materials of confidence, hope, and ex- 
 pectation." 
 
 "My good abbe," said the viscount, " you 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
194 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 know I never like to talk upon these subjects ; 
 not because I wish in any degree to shut my own 
 ears, but because I never like to say one word 
 which may shake the faith of other people — 
 a faith in which they are happy, and which I 
 have no right to disturb. But, when you speak 
 upon this subject, one must answer you ; and I 
 will only point out that you, good devoted 
 gentlemen, are like our loyal grandfathers in the 
 time of Louis the Fourteenth, who used to go 
 to the Bastille with the most humble resignation, 
 and experience all the pleasures of gratitude 
 when they were let out again after two or three 
 years' imprisonment. He, who has now sent you 
 relief, rolled down the rocks upon you ; . your 
 gratitude in the one case would be naturally 
 counterbalanced by your indignation in the other, 
 if you did not regard God as a despotic king, like 
 our Grand Monarque in the eyes of our country- 
 men a century ago.*" 
 
 '' We regard Him as an all-wise one," said 
 the abbe ; '^ and that, my dear friend, makes a 
 very great difference. Those who look upon a 
 mere mortal as all-wise commit a very great 
 sin, taking from the only Being who can possess 
 such an attribute a part of his glory to robe a 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 195 
 
 human idol withal. But if, in our belief of 
 God's infinite wisdom and infinite goodness, we 
 feel our hearts raised with joyful thankfulness 
 for every act of mercy, the same convictions 
 bring resignation, and deep confidence, and hum- 
 ble hope, at every act of chastisement which He 
 may perform. Thus, every pleasure is heigh- 
 tened, and every pain diminished, by tracing 
 each to the same great Source of wisdom and 
 goodness.*" 
 
 The viscount paused thoughtfully for a mo- 
 ment or two. The truth of what the abbe said 
 was apparent, but he would not grasp it, as 
 Monsieur Arnoux wished, and he ended his 
 reverie by replying, " Yes, I know it is a very 
 pleasant thing ; I always thought so, and ever 
 wished that I possessed it : but one's will has no 
 power over one's convictions, my dear abbe, and 
 my mind has been made up many years." 
 
 " But upon good grounds ? " demanded the 
 abbe. " How many changes in our views. Mon- 
 sieur de St. Medard, take place in twenty years ; 
 how do our powers of reasoning become acumin- 
 ated by time and exercise ? Do you think that 
 the same arguments would convince you to-day 
 that convinced you a quarter of a century ago ^ " 
 
 K 2 
 
"^96 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " I really do not know," replied the viscount ; 
 " I am very hard to convince, my dear abbe, 
 and am growing more and more so every day 
 of my life. But what I wished to talk to you 
 about," he continued, very willing to change 
 the subject, " was quite another affair. I came 
 to tell you that I have received a summons to 
 Versailles, and may not return for a fortnight 
 or three weeks. In the mean time, Francis 
 will remain here with you ; and, at my return, 
 I hope to find you perfectly well again." 
 
 The abbe shook his head. " Francis was here 
 a minute ago,'' he said : *' He told me you were 
 going ; and that is the reason, my dear friend, 
 that I venture to speak with you upon a subject 
 very near my heart. Pray, listen to me for a 
 few moments patiently. I believe, St. Medard, 
 that we shall never meet again : I had wished 
 that you might see me die, for I believed that 
 the sight of how a fellow-being can meet the 
 approach of death in Christian hope and faith 
 might produce at least a new train of thought, 
 which would lead you to quit the fatal errors 
 which you have imbibed, and which render the 
 grave a dark and gloomy abode indeed." 
 
 " You mistake, my dear friend," answered the 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 197 
 
 viscount ; " we philosophers, I can assure you, 
 do not look upon the approach of annihilation 
 with the horror that you, perhaps, suppose :* 
 believing that death is but a more complete 
 sleep, I could lay my head down to-morrow in 
 the grave with as little care as upon my pillow 
 this night." 
 
 " And without the hope of awaking ? " de- 
 manded the abbe. 
 
 The viscount nodded his head. 
 
 "And with no fear of that waking?" said 
 Monsieur Arnoux. 
 
 " None," answered his friend. 
 
 " I am sorry for it," replied the abbe : " what 
 hopes do you not exclude yourself from ; what 
 glorious expectations do you not shut out ; what 
 sources of high and generous feeling do you not 
 batten down and forcibly repress ? I speak 
 merely of this world, even supposing that there 
 were not another. By the loss of its promises, 
 its principles,' its objects, you lose fully one 
 half of the joys which man may derive from 
 the abundant springs of felicity in his own mixed 
 nature." 
 
 * Very nearly the same words have been ascribed to 
 Gibbon ; but such opinions were common just before the 
 first French Revolution. 
 
198 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 '' I am inclined to believe that we do, my 
 dear abbe," said the viscount ; " at all events, 
 we lose a great deal : and, amongst other things, 
 we lose those barriers, and those inducements, 
 which supply the place of a fine moral sense to 
 at least three quarters of mankind. It is for 
 this very reason, because I believe religion to 
 be both a very happy and a very beneficial in- 
 gredient in the cup of life, that I never give 
 voice to my own opinions, and would very wil- 
 lingly see the promulgation of such doctrines 
 prohibited by law." 
 
 " Then what,"" asked the abbe, in return, 
 " what do you hold to be the origin of all 
 religion ? How did it arise ; whence did it 
 spring ? Here is what you acknowledge to be 
 a principle which gives happiness and virtue ; 
 which is strong enough to supply the place of 
 moral sense, where it is wanting ; which is bene- 
 ficial to society, and excellent for man himself ; 
 and yet it is altogether false, wrong, absurd ! 
 If it is a falsehood, it is an immorality ; and 
 by your own rules, as I have heard them a thou- 
 sand times expounded, that which is immoral 
 must be baleful in its effects. Whence did this 
 extraordinary and anomalous excellence spring ?" 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 199 
 
 " According to my belief, my dear abbe," 
 replied the viscount, " from the heated imagina- 
 tions of the East, fashioned afterwards into a 
 peculiar form by some very wise and very good 
 men, and receiving additions and alterations from 
 time to time as the necessities of society re- 
 quired such changes." 
 
 " And all these very wise and good men," 
 said the abbe, " while every one of them con- 
 demns the slightest deviation from truth, is 
 engaged in promulgating falsehoods, ay, and in 
 manufacturing them wholesale." 
 
 " But for the very best and greatest purposes," 
 cried the viscount, a little heated. 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed the abbe ; " the good 
 and the wise are to have a monopoly of false- 
 hood, according to your code, and to use it for 
 their purposes, and theirs alone ? I am afraid, my 
 dear viscount, that your ethics somewhat halt, 
 and that your idea of good and wise men teaching 
 lies, and at the same time denouncing lying, is 
 not a bit less anomalous and inconceivable than 
 that of a whole system of falsehood and absurdity 
 unworthy of the belief of any reasonable man, 
 producing, when called religion, the happiest ef- 
 fects for individuals and society. One proposition, 
 
^00 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 or the other, must be true : either religion is 
 false, wicked, and detrimental, and those who 
 framed it shameless impostors; or it is bene- 
 ficial, blessed, and excellent, with God for its 
 origin, and truth for its foundation." 
 
 " My dear abbe," replied Monsieur de St. Me- 
 dard, after musing thoughtfully for a moment or 
 two, and apparently finding a difficulty in recon- 
 ciling the admissions he had made with the con- 
 clusions naturally deduced from them, — " my dear 
 abbe, it is not for me to explain how these things 
 are. You asked me how I thought religion 
 arose : I say what I suppose to be possibly the 
 case ; I do not mean absolutely to assert that 
 it is so. If I am to be convinced, you must 
 bring forward proofs to show that what you be- 
 lieve is true, and not attempt to puzzle me by 
 making me explain a state of things I see exist, 
 but to the origin and history of which I have 
 paid but very little attention." 
 
 " My first object, my dear friend," replied the 
 abbe, in a low tone, "is to puzzle you. Nay, 
 answer me not with a jest, St. Medard! You un- 
 believers have a great habit of jesting with your 
 own minds, killing an argument with a sarcasm, 
 and dismissing an unpleasant truth with a sneer. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 201 
 
 My first object, I repeat, is to puzzle you ; or, 
 in short, to cast your preconceived notions upon 
 these subjects into confusion. I know that you 
 will not leave them so ; I know that your first 
 task will be to search, to inquire, to examine. 
 Your mind is too clear, too precise, too strong to 
 rest in doubt : and I believe that in the search, if 
 you can but throw the prejudices of years behind 
 you, you will find truth — that which man should 
 seek beyond anything else." 
 
 " Indeed, my dear abbe,'' replied the viscount, 
 " you cannot love it better than I do ; but I will 
 not suffer you to go on to-night, such discussions 
 are too much for you."" 
 
 "Nay, nay!" cried the abbe eagerly, raising 
 himself up on his arm, "you must, indeed, hear 
 me to-night, St. Medard, or you will leave me 
 unhappy ; you will darken my bed of death. 
 Only give me a little of that drink, and hear me." 
 
 The viscount gave him the glass, and sat 
 down again by his bed-side ; and, after a mo- 
 mentary pause, the abbe went on again. 
 
 " My object," he said, " is to prompt you to 
 search — to search with a mind devoid of preju- 
 dice, with a heart clear of passion, with a spirit 
 full of humility, with a mind open to truth. In 
 
 k5 
 
202 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 the first place, then, I have sought from your 
 own principles to make you doubt that religion 
 springs from the imaginations of men, moulded 
 into certain forms to suit certain purposes by men 
 of genius. I think I have made you doubt it." 
 
 " You have," said the viscount gravely ; " and 
 I will examine into that matter."" 
 
 '*Do," rejoined Monsieur Arnoux ; " and, the 
 more you examine, the brighter will be the light 
 that breaks upon you. You will find religion in 
 some shape in every age and tribe of intellectual 
 beings. You will find it becoming purer and 
 purer as it approaches nearer to that grand stream 
 of doctrine which all who have dispensed it assert 
 to flow direct from God. You will there find every- 
 thing embodied that morals can require, and the 
 whole concluded and distinguished by the doc- 
 trine that God is truth. I call upon you as a 
 reasonable man to satisfy your own mind of how 
 religion rose in the human heart, of how this 
 peculiar religion which Christians profess was 
 first received, and how it has been transmitted. 
 Remember, I speak of the religion itself, and 
 not at all of the comments of men, which have 
 sometimes, perhaps, elucidated, but often em- 
 barrassed it. This is my first object, — to make 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 203 
 
 you doubt and examine. If you find that you 
 have not been right upon this point, you may 
 perhaps doubt and examine some others ; and 
 then the first great inquiry, on which rests all 
 others, will of course present itself once more 
 to your mind, ' Is there, or is there not, a God,' 
 who has given this knowledge of his existence to 
 every tribe of earth ; and who, it is asserted, has 
 revealed himself, his attributes, and his will, to 
 some particular nations ? " 
 
 "And why not to all?"" demanded the vis- 
 count. 
 
 " That you may discover," replied the abbe, 
 " as you go on ; though I do not say that every 
 question which you ask may be answered." 
 
 " And why not ? " inquired the viscount. 
 
 " Because, my dear friend," replied the abbe, 
 " there never yet was a man upon this earth 
 whose mind could comprehend a thousandth part 
 of the phenomena that are going on in this little 
 globe — still less of those which are taking place in 
 all the millions of worlds that roll in what we 
 call the sky — still less in the Infinite beyond. 
 When you can comprehend all these things, 
 explain, discuss, and judge them, it will be then 
 time for you to say to the God who made them, 
 
204 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 ' Why didst thou thus, and thus ? ' — but »ot- 
 before." 
 
 The viscount paused for a moment, fixing an 
 intense gaze upon the blue star-lit heaven, which 
 might be seen through the window of the sick 
 man's chamber, and to which he had pointed as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " That would close all inquiry," said Monsieur 
 de St. Medard at length. 
 
 " Not so," replied the abbe ; " not so. You 
 must first learn to believe in God before you can 
 justly reverence him. All I seek is, to make you 
 approach that inquiry with the humility and the 
 awe that are becoming ; not to start away at vague 
 objections, but to see whether there be not sufii- 
 cient proof that there is a God, — proof irre- 
 fragable, demonstrable : and, having arrived at 
 that point, your mind is too logical to reject the 
 notion of his existence because you cannot com- 
 prehend the motives of his actions." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," exclaimed the viscount; 
 " once afford me a clear, satisfactory proof that 
 there does exist a God, and to his governance of 
 the world we must bow without inquiry. Give me 
 a proof of his existence, that is all that I require." 
 
 " It is in every herb and every flower," replied 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. ^05 
 
 the abbe ; " in every fruit and every seed, in 
 every being and in every thought, in every limb 
 and feature, in every blood-vessel and every 
 nerve, in every grain of sand and in the universe, 
 in every part and in the whole ! Search, search, 
 my dear friend ; go forth and search, and God 
 will meet you everywhere. Whenever the heart 
 of man demands, in sincerity and truth, ' Where 
 art thou, God V the Almighty answers, ' Here !^ "'"' 
 "I do not exactly understand you," replied 
 the viscount, " although I perceive that you mean 
 to impress generally that God is to be traced in 
 what you call his works. I see not how you 
 will prove that all the phenomena that we behold 
 are not attributable to any other self-existing 
 cause. Why should I at all suppose that what 
 is to-day was not yesterday ? Or, if there has 
 been a change, as we know there has, in society 
 and other things, why should I not attribute that 
 change to the ordinary operation of one material 
 substance upon another ? We know that motion 
 is produced by substances in certain relations to 
 each other, and with motion and matter the 
 whole seems to me to require no other expla- 
 nation. There is nothing observable in the whole 
 world that cannot be referred to these two causes." 
 
206 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 " Yes," replied the abbe ; " there is the most 
 important of all." 
 
 " And what is that ?" demanded Monsieur de 
 St. Medard. 
 
 " Design," answered his friend ; " the adap- 
 tion of particular means to a particular end, 
 which is observable in every part of the universe, 
 but more especially in the highest classes of 
 organised beings : which proves, beyond all possi- 
 bility of doubt, the existence of an intellectual 
 Agent proposing a particular object to be attained 
 in the construction of a certain being, and arriving 
 at that object by the most complex and wonder- 
 ful machinery that it is possible to produce, — 
 machinery which shows in every part some of 
 the attributes of God, his almighty power, his 
 infinite wisdom, his unceasing love for the crea- 
 tures that He forms. Design, my dear friend, 
 design, that is the proof of the Godhead, which 
 vou cannot attribute to matter and motion." 
 
 The viscount remained in deep thought for 
 several minutes, and at the end of that time he 
 replied, " I will search, I will examine, my dear 
 abbe. One should always hold one's mind open to 
 conviction : and if I do find proofs of design, so 
 conclusive as to convince me that the ordinary 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 207 
 
 self-arrangement of matter in motion has not pro- 
 duced the effect, it will go far to make me be- 
 lieve there is a principle of some kind, which you 
 perhaps may call God, and which imagination 
 may invest with various attributes or qualities ; 
 though I, perhaps, may look upon that principle 
 as an established geometrical law, without pas- 
 sions, feelings, sensations, but operating through 
 all nature by fixed rules." 
 
 " I will never cavil at words," replied the 
 abbe ; " and I understand what you mean : 
 though the very difficulty of expressing your 
 views, nay — the impossibility of making them 
 clear, without a contradiction in terms, should 
 in itself lead you to believe, that, in flying from 
 some difficulties, you plunge into still greater. 
 You speak of a law : where was there ever a law 
 without a law-maker ? You talk of a rule : who 
 laid it down ? You have no answer to any of 
 these questions, but that it was an inevitable 
 necessity ! Inevitable necessity does not de- 
 sign, does not adapt means to an end ; and if 
 you admit, as you must and will do, that there 
 has been one great Creator of all things, you will 
 soon see his attributes issuing as a natural con- 
 sequence from his existence, and displayed in his 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 works. You, who look upon intellect with such 
 high and proud esteem, will not be long, after 
 you have admitted the existence of a God, in 
 admitting also that He must be the perfection of 
 intellect ; and that He, who raises you yourself 
 above the brute by so many noble qualities, must 
 possess in Himself the acme and essence of all 
 those gifts with which He has endowed you. But 
 I have now gained my object; you have promised 
 to search, you have promised me to examine. 
 I require nothing more, unless it be that you 
 examine with humility, and remember how very 
 little of the whole subject you can comprehend ; 
 although every man can comprehend fully enough 
 to perceive that — whatever be the truth in regard 
 to a thousand accessory circumstances — the grand 
 doctrines of religion must be true. I speak as a 
 dying man, my friend ; as one who, in all pro- 
 bability, is about to part with you here for ever, 
 but one who, nevertheless, hopes to meet with 
 you in another world, where time, and doubt, 
 and change will all be at an end." 
 
 The viscount pressed his hand kindly, saying, 
 " I will not continue the subject with you now, 
 my friend, for in your zeal you have somewhat 
 already exhausted yourself; and I, who unhap- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. ^09 
 
 pily entertain little hope of that meeting in 
 another world, would fain enjoy your society a 
 little longer in this. The surgeon, however, 
 gives me good hope of you ; and you must try all 
 you can to live, abbe, in order that you may guide 
 my researches : for it is a wide and trackless 
 ocean that lies between this world and another, 
 if there be such a thing ; and the ignorant voyager 
 much needs some one better instructed to give 
 him a chart." 
 
 " It is, indeed, a wide ocean/" said the abbe, 
 " full of waves and dangers, storms and tempests ; 
 and, like the Atlantic before the adventurous 
 Genoese first crossed it, no one comes back to tell 
 us what is beyond. But, as to the eye of Co- 
 lumbus, enlightened by true genius, it was self- 
 evident, that, to harmonize with the known world 
 in which he dwelt, there must be another conti- 
 nent beyond the wide western sea ; so, to the 
 eye of the religious man, enlightened by revela- 
 tion, it is self-evident that beyond the ocean of 
 time there must be another world to equalize all 
 that is unequal in this.*" 
 
 The figure that the abbe used, though an 
 imperfect one, had fully as much effect upon 
 Monsieur de St. Medard as all the rest of his 
 
glO THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 reasoning : for so constituted is the mind of 
 man, that it with the greatest difficulty grasps 
 abstractions, even when the most accustomed to 
 their consideration ; and an immense number of 
 mistakes in metaphysical reasonings are to be 
 traced to man''s tendency to employ material 
 facts, or the terms that represent them, as a sort 
 of covert illustration of abstract ideas ; for meta- 
 physical science has not even yet an accurate 
 technology. 
 
 However, the viscount once more repeated, 
 " I will examine, my friend ; and, if I find that 
 I have been mistaken, I will not scruple to own 
 it : for, if it be a credit to any man to overcome 
 the prejudices of others, it is still a greater cre- 
 dit to overcome his own. But now, my dear 
 abbe, I will leave you ; trusting most sincerely 
 that you may be restored to health, and that I 
 shall find you well at my return." 
 
 " Farewell I '' replied the abbe ; " it may be 
 so : and, if it be, I trust that it will be for 
 the purpose of seeing some fruit rise from the 
 seed that has been sown this night." 
 
 Once more the viscount pressed his hand, with 
 a faint smile at the good man's zeal, and left him. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 211 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "As you please, my dear Francis ; as you 
 please," said Monsieur de St. Medard, with 
 his foot upon the step of the carriage : " the 
 fellow is a rogue undoubtedly." 
 
 " I know it," replied Francis de Langy ; 
 " but I think his roguery only goes to a cer- 
 tain extent, and a valet de chambre, my dear 
 uncle — " 
 
 '' Must have a certain quantity of roguery," 
 said Monsieur de St. Medard, " as a hair-dresser 
 must have a pot of pomatum ; ha, Francis ? 
 Well, my dear boy, I leave it entirely to your- 
 self : only, let him be perfectly cleared of this 
 other business, let there not be the slightest 
 doubt upon that score ; and then, if out of 
 gratitude for the service he has rendered, you 
 choose to take him as your personal attendant, 
 do so. Some reward he must certainly have, 
 but consider the matter well ; and you have my 
 
212 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 full authority either to receive him as your 
 valet, or to give him a hundred louis as his 
 recompense." 
 
 " Perhaps," answered Francis de Langy, after 
 a moment's thought, " perhaps the best plan will 
 be to offer him his choice, whether he will take 
 the hundred louis, or the place." 
 
 " Oh ! he will take the hundred louis," re- 
 plied the viscount. 
 
 " Then I shall be the better satisfied not 
 to give him the place," said Francis de Langy ; 
 " and it will be some sort of test of his cha- 
 racter." 
 
 ^' But scarcely fair, I think," rejoined Monsieur 
 de St. Medard : " you owe him a recompense 
 of some kind, Francis ; and now, though every 
 office is venal in France under the government, 
 it has not become so in gentlemen's houses, 
 and we do not put for sale to the best bidder 
 a ' charge de valet de chamhre aupres de Mon- 
 sieur le Baron de St, Medard.'' So you must 
 not count the place as worth a hundred louis." 
 
 " No, no," replied Francis de Langy, «' I do 
 not propose to do so ; but merely to try him 
 in that way, and give him whatever you think 
 right as a recompense afterwards." 
 
THE FALSE HETR. 213 
 
 '* Well, do so, do so," said the viscount ; 
 *' but I think you will find that he will not 
 hesitate." 
 
 ** I do not know," answered his nephew, 
 " he showed so much eagerness upon the sub- 
 ject ; and — " 
 
 " And, perhaps, you think," rejoined Mon- 
 sieur de St. Medard, '* that he may calculate 
 upon soon making up the hundred louis, by 
 wages, and perquisites, and tours de panier, 
 &c. &c. However, Francis, I cannot stay now. 
 The time is rapidly coming when you will have 
 to act for yourself, and judge for yourself — the 
 most difficult trade that man has to learn, and 
 one to which he ought to serve an apprentice- 
 ship. Begin, therefore, at once, my dear boy, 
 in this instance, and we shall see what will come 
 of your first essay." 
 
 Thus saying, he entered the carriage ; the 
 postillions cracked their whips in the most ap- 
 proved and antique fashion ; and Francis de Langy 
 re-entering the house returned to his chamber ; 
 the family of Monsieur d'Artonne all courting 
 the drowsy god a little longer than usual, after 
 the fatigues which they had lately undergone. 
 
 The young man sat, and mused ; few sounds 
 
S14 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 ., were heard in the house : he was left alone, and 
 i he felt that sensation of solitude in the world 
 •' which we all experience when cast for the first 
 time on our own resources. I say all, for I 
 believe that every man feels it. However strong 
 may be the buoyancy of his nature, however 
 vivid the bright hopes of youth, however for- 
 tunate the circumstances in which he is placed, I 
 do believe that each human being feels a sensation 
 of loneliness when, after long dependence upon 
 the guidance and direction of others, he is sud- 
 denly left to choose his own path and rule his 
 own conduct. There is a certain degree of sad- 
 ness in the impression, too ; for it seems as if a 
 faint fore-shadowing came upon us of all the 
 struggles and perplexities, the difficulties and the 
 temptations, the disappointments, the rebuffs, the 
 errors, and the faults of life. Often indeed, very, 
 very often, in the course of our existence, does 
 the prophetic heart seize the favourable moment 
 to array before us the things of the coming 
 days, as if to prepare us for the battle which the 
 spirit is ever destined to perform against its 
 innumerable enemies on earth ; and one of those 
 moments seems to occur when, at our outset on the 
 j path of active exertion, we need most a warning 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 215 
 
 voice to direct us in those first decisions, which 
 are often most dangerous, and always most im- 
 portant. 
 
 A feeling of sadness, then? and of loneliness, 
 came upon Francis de Langy when he found him- 
 self alone, left for the first time deprived of the 
 guidance of the only one on whom he had relied 
 through life, by Monsieur de St. Medard's absence, 
 and of the counsels of the only one who could 
 have supplied that friend's place, by the sickness 
 of the Abb^ Arnoux. He attributed this gloom, 
 however, entirely to sorrow at being separated 
 even for a time from his earliest and dearest 
 friend ; and his thoughts soon brightened when 
 he remembered that he was to stay with Julie 
 d'Artonne. He felt, reader, what every man 
 should feel when he asks his heart, " Do I 
 love ?" he felt that he could remain with her 
 for ever ; that she could console him for the 
 absence of all others, that she w^as to him the 
 world, and more than the world. He thought, 
 too, that the time might come when he would be 
 called upon to act for her as well as for himself, 
 to protect, to guide, to direct her ; and the 
 manly spirit, which had quailed for a moment in 
 the breast of youth under the consciousness of 
 
216 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 all life'*s obstacles, rose up again in power, and 
 made his eye glisten and his chest expand. 
 
 Soon after, he heard the sound of steps and 
 persons speaking ; and, descending from his room, 
 he found Julie giving her father the morning 
 greeting at the foot of the stairs. 
 
 " Well, Francis," cried the count ; " how 
 sped your request with your uncle ?" 
 
 " Oh ! as well as I could wish,'' replied Francis 
 de Langy : " he leaves me to decide for myself, 
 convinced that our good friend Jean Marais is 
 a great rogue ; but — "" 
 
 " But leaving you to have a rogue about 
 you, if you like it," interrupted Monsieur d'Ar- 
 tonne, "" as a useful sort of commodity." 
 
 " No, not exactly," answered Francis de Langy; 
 " what I was going to say is, he requires that 
 this rogue should free himself distinctly and 
 clearly of the crime with which he has been 
 charged." 
 
 " Oh ! that will be easily done," replied the 
 count; "he is as much guilty as — as — as you 
 are. You and I will ride over to Clermont 
 after breakfast, and have him set free." 
 
 Francis de Langy had calculated upon passing 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 217 
 
 the whole of a long day with Julie d'Artonne ; 
 and, in the love of early youth_, as the reader 
 ■well knows, the society of the one we have 
 chosen out of the world is like the lotus fruit, 
 the more we taste, the more the fondness for it 
 increases. He could not, however, well refuse 
 the invitation of the count ; and accordingly, as 
 soon as breakfast was over, they set out. Though 
 their conversation by the way was not an unin- 
 teresting one, and Francis de Langy fancied 
 he perceived that Monsieur d'Artonne was not 
 altogether blind to his growing attachment for 
 Julie, from various words which were let fall 
 from time to time, yet we must not pause upon 
 what was said by either, but lead them on at once 
 into the good old town. 
 
 As they mounted the steep hill and entered 
 the first narrow streets, close, gloomy, and sad as 
 they are, and always have been, one of those fits 
 of dark thought fell upon Monsieur d''Artonne 
 which we have before had occasion to notice. 
 Rousing himself, however, after a moment, he 
 said, *' I will ride on and speak to the intendant, 
 Francis ; by his means we shall get the matter 
 the sooner over for the poor fellow. You go 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
2] 8 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 and find liim out, and tell liim what we are 
 doing.'' 
 
 " Where is he ?'' demanded Francis de Langy ; 
 " I have lost sight of him since yesterday morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " He is in the prison, he is in the prison,"" 
 replied Monsieur d'Artonne. " By my advice 
 he went and surrendered himself. — Go with the 
 baron," he continued, speaking to one of his 
 servants, " and show him the lower prison." 
 
 Thus saying, the count rode on ; and Francis 
 de Langy was piloted by the servant to the 
 smaller or lower prison, which I believe was 
 swept away during the first French revolution. 
 
 At the time I speak of, the local authorities 
 in France did very much what they liked as 
 to the disposal of prisoners. Order, the great 
 bond which binds all the divers parts of society 
 together, was not in reality to be found much 
 more than even in the times of anarchy which 
 succeeded. Tranquillity, it is true, did exist, but 
 there is a great difference between tranquillity 
 and order ; for though order is the only certain 
 cause of complete and permanent tranquillity, 
 yet tranquillity may be produced for a time by 
 a thousand other circumstances. Weariness, 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 219 
 
 apathy, weakness, may bring it about ; but order 
 ensures it. In all branches of the administration, 
 in the execution of the laws, in the operation 
 of the police, in all the relations between man 
 and man, there was nothing like order ; otherwise 
 there would have been no revolution. The state 
 of France exhibited a confused mass of conflict- 
 ing privileges, unacknowledged rights, and in- 
 definite notions, only held together by fragments 
 of decayed institutions, and lying tranquil but 
 as the grapes before they begin to ferment 
 in the wine- vat, or as the elements when the 
 storm is brooding in the sky. The want of 
 order, and of definite and fixed rules of action, was 
 shown in nothing more strongly than in the 
 manner of dealing with prisoners before trial. 
 The police might do anything, in short, that 
 they liked with them ; for, as is always the case 
 in absolute monarchies, all inferior agents — es- 
 pecially at a distance from the centre of action — 
 seized upon a portion of irresponsible power; 
 and, where the king by his simple mandate could 
 imprison any of his subjects in whatsoever dun- 
 geon he pleased without rendering an account 
 to any man, his officers, of course, were without 
 a lawful check as to their conduct towards 
 
 l2 
 
220 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 those who fell into their power. In short, the 
 police of France was then, as it always has been 
 more or less, a diluted despotism answerable 
 to none but the crown. In one part of the 
 country a prisoner was treated well, and often 
 wise magistrates had established a code of local 
 regulations, which, without the force of law, were 
 acted upon as such. The prisoner was placed in 
 a house of detention apart from convicted crimi- 
 nals, brought to trial as speedily as possible, and 
 regarded as innocent till he was proved guilty. 
 In others, however, to be accused was to be 
 criminal, or at least to be treated as such ; and 
 brutal and unjustifiable arrests were frequently 
 followed by the iniquity of long imprisonment, 
 the degradation of an association with felons, and 
 the gnawing misery of the dungeon. 
 
 The prison to which Jean Marais had now 
 been sent was in the lower part of the town 
 of Clermont, and was usually destined for the 
 reception of notorious criminals and the most 
 dangerous characters in the neighbourhood. Very 
 often, however, persons perfectly innocent, or 
 only advanced one or two steps in the career 
 of vice, were plunged into the midst of the sea 
 of crime and profligacy it contained ; and some- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 221 
 
 times they were detained there for weeks and 
 months, breathing a pestiferous atmosphere, from 
 which they very seldom escaped without imbibing 
 more or less of the moral contagion. In such 
 cases, the fact of their being placed there de- 
 pended, not upon the nature of the charge against 
 them, or of their own conduct under arrest, but 
 upon the convenience of the police, or the good 
 or bad will of some municipal officer. With 
 Jean Marais, however, there was a pretext for 
 treating him with some severity, in consequence 
 of his previous evasion from confinement. He 
 had, therefore, been sent, immediately on sur- 
 rendering himself, to the lower prison, both 
 as the most secure place of detention, and as 
 some punishment for the trouble he had given. 
 It was a gloomy-looking building; and, as 
 Francis de Langy approached it, he could not 
 but shudder at the thought of all the misery, and 
 sorrow, and guilt, which those walls must have 
 witnessed. Nevertheless, with the great gate 
 ajar behind them, stood two or three of the 
 gaolers, laughing, and talking, and jesting with 
 as much indiJfferent gaiety as is displayed by an 
 undertaker after he has conveyed some fellow- 
 mortal to his last home. There seemed to be 
 
^^J^ THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 but little inquiry as to who went into the prison ; 
 for two women and a boy pushed open the gate, and 
 entered, while Francis de Langy was dismounting 
 from his horse, without attracting the attention 
 of the turnkeys even in the slightest degree. 
 But a moment after, when the door again opened 
 and some one came out, all three instantly turned 
 round ; and one, darting up to the man who was 
 issuing forth, gazed close in his face with keen 
 and eager eyes, and did not suffer him to pro- 
 ceed till he had satisfied himself that he was 
 none of those under his especial charge. No one 
 would have impeded the entrance of the young 
 nobleman, but he thought it better to inquire 
 for the person he came to seek, by name ; and 
 he accordingly asked the man nearest to him if 
 he could see a person called Jean Marais. 
 
 " You will find him in the court," replied 
 the turnkey ; and, seeming to take it for granted 
 that every one must be as well acquainted with 
 the intricacies of the prison as himself, he carried 
 his civility no farther than merely to push the 
 door open with his foot, in order to let the visiter 
 enter. 
 
 The very first step produced a difficulty ; for, 
 after passing the gate, Francis de Langy found 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 22S 
 
 a passage on either hand, and another before 
 him. He proceeded straightforward, however ; 
 and, meeting with a personage carrying a pipkin 
 of soup, he asked him his way to the court. 
 
 " Oh, the cushion !'"* cried the man ; " you 've 
 come up the wTong spout : you must go back 
 and turn the clumsy, when the first pipe on the 
 clever will lead you to it.'"* 
 
 Hebrew w^ould have been much more intelli- 
 gible to Francis de Langy ; and the man, per- 
 ceiving his air of astonishment, added, " Ay, 
 you 're in the seed, I see ; but you 11 soon do 
 better, and turn your colocynth to wiser pur- 
 pose. I mean, — Go back again, turn up the pas- 
 sage to the left, and then the first to the right 
 will lead you into the court." 
 
 He was an old, grey-eyed, malicious-looking 
 man who spoke ; and so keen, sneering, and 
 coldly contemptuous was his whole manner, that 
 Francis de Langy could scarcely help thinking 
 that he was directing him wrong on pur- 
 pose. It was not so, however ; and the curl of 
 his lip, and the sarcastic tone in which he an- 
 swered, were only tokens of that scorn which 
 every thorough-bred felon feels for the blessed 
 inexperience and ignorance which he can never 
 
224f THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 regain himself. The practised scoundrel always 
 looks upon the virtuous as poor creatures ; and 
 supposes, or tries to suppose, that they only want 
 the wit to be wicked. 
 
 Following his directions, the young gentleman 
 soon issued out into a court where some twenty 
 or thirty persons were gathered together, amusing 
 themselves in various ways, and, apparently, en- 
 joying themselves a good deal. There were no 
 sombre looks, there was no air of despair, there 
 was nothing of the dark and hideous aspect of 
 imprisonment about them. Loud and uproari- 
 ous laughter was ringing through the court ; 
 every group was grinning, chattering, talking, 
 sporting ; and, if it had not been for the prison 
 dress, the soiled and ragged coat, half-grey, half- 
 black, which many of them wore, and the in- 
 describable, but not to be mistaken, expression 
 of habitual vice which appeared in the counte- 
 nances of the greater part of those there present, 
 one might have supposed them a party met for 
 merry-making. Everything upon the superficies, 
 in short, was not only cheerful, but gay; the 
 misery was in the heart, and they kept it there. 
 Too often, indeed, do we see it so in life. I 
 recollect an old picture in which one had a sort 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 225 
 
 of allegorical section of the earth ; and what is 
 below? The upper half showed a beautiful 
 landscape, and gay groups dancing, with some 
 of the follies and some of the faults of life ; 
 the lower half represented the grave and hell, 
 with corruption, remorse, and punishment : and 
 I never see reckless gaiety in a bad man with- 
 out thinking of that picture, and asking myself, 
 What is below ? 
 
 The group in front of the prison-yard consisted 
 of four or five men, sporting together with some 
 what rude jocularity: one suddenly leaping over 
 the head of another ; his companion, again, trip- 
 ping up his feet ; a third, almost a giant in size 
 and strength, lifting the least of the party from the 
 ground by the waistband, and holding him out at 
 arm's-length, as men hold out a lap-dog ; and all 
 of them, though sometimes receiving a bruise or 
 a cut, and swearing at each other with foul and 
 blasphemous oaths, resuming the tone of sport 
 the moment after, with as much good-humour 
 as if they had never injured a fellow-being in 
 their lives. A little farther on, a small monkey- 
 faced man, perched upon an inverted pail, seemed 
 holding forth to a large auditory with a great 
 deal of extravagant gesticulation, but wdth the 
 
 L 5 
 
226 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 gravest and most solemn countenance possible ; 
 while all his hearers were rolling, convulsed with 
 immoderate fits of laughter, and even a guard, 
 who was standing near on duty, was grinning 
 from ear to ear. As Francis de Langy passed 
 by them, he found that the mimic was preaching, 
 as he called it, to his dear flock ; parodying 
 a sermon with a torrent of filth, and blasphemy 
 such as was never heard by man but in a similar 
 place. 
 
 A number of other groups were scattered 
 abroad ; but the eye of the young gentleman at 
 that moment fell upon one in the corner of the 
 yard, consisting of three or four persons, whereof 
 Jean Marais was one. Here, too, all was gaiety ; 
 and Jean seemed to be entertaining his hearers 
 by some story fully as much as the preacher was 
 amusing his by the sermon. Two of his com- 
 panions, however, deserve a brief description ; and 
 they shall have it. The first was a tall, athletic 
 young man, probably not more than two or three 
 and twenty, with a frank and open countenance, 
 but a certain sort of daring and determined expres- 
 sion, which augured no great scruples in follow- 
 ing out his own views and purposes. There 
 was indeed a look of thought about his eyes 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 221 
 
 and brow, which was visible even through the 
 laugh which he was bestowing upon Jean Ma- 
 rais"* tale; and as he sat in the shade with his 
 hat on his knee, twisting round and round some 
 eagle's feathers which were stuck in the front 
 of it, Francis de Langy fancied that his mind 
 would fain have wandered away to other things, 
 if it had not been for the sort of conventional 
 indifference which men in his situation believe 
 themselves bound to assume. 
 
 He was not dressed in the prison garb ; but 
 another, who was seated by him, displayed that 
 indication of some serious offence. He was not 
 so tall as the other by nearly three inches, but 
 was gigantic in depth of chest and breadth of 
 shoulders. His countenance, which was some- 
 what pale, with a dark bluish beard, wore a gay 
 and good-humoured expression, without the slight- 
 est trace of care or anxiety. He laughed loud 
 and merrily; and the only thing which could show 
 that the mind was not in a state of perfectly placid 
 repose, ready to submit itself implicitly to any 
 pleasant impression that might offer, was the 
 wandering glance of the keen dark eye, which 
 seemed continually searching for something that 
 it did not find. The face of Jean Marais was 
 
228 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 turned obliquely from Francis de Langy, so 
 that the worthy valet de chambre did not see 
 the young gentleman approaching ; and he went 
 on with his narrative in the same loud tone he 
 had been using, in order to rise above all the 
 multitudinous sounds with which the court of 
 the prison was ringing. The ear of his visitor 
 thus caught several sentences, and Francis was 
 not a little pleased to find that there was none 
 of the profane and ribald licentiousness in his 
 conversation which he had just heard poured 
 forth from the mouth of the man who was preach- 
 ing. Jean Marais was relating his own adventures 
 in the house of Madame de Bausse ; and the 
 picture he gave of that good lady herself, her 
 frivolity, her malice, her aiFectation, was so clever 
 and so droll as to compel an unwilling smile 
 upon the lips of his unperceived auditor. The 
 subject was, at that moment, the marchioness's 
 first anxiety at the prolonged absence of her son ; 
 and Jean Marais mocked her tone, and her words, 
 and her looks, as he described her calling up all 
 the men-servants, one after another, to commu- 
 nicate her apprehensions to them ; hinting, more- 
 over, that her vanity was not insensible to the 
 admiration of the lowest footboy in her house- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 hold. He took off, too, her whole demeanour : 
 he wriggled, he heaved, he panted, he rolled 
 his eyes about, he sighed, he fluttered, and, lay- 
 ing his hand upon his left side, he exclaimed, 
 in the shrill treble of mock sensibility, " Ah, 
 my poor heart ! " Then, starting up, he pre- 
 pared to tear his hair ; but, suddenly perceiving 
 the young gentleman standing near, he stopped, 
 crying, " Ah ! Monsieur le Baron, you have 
 woke me from a delicious dream ; I was just 
 then Madame de Bausse, enjoying the excite- 
 ment of her son's disappearance.'* 
 
 Francis de Langy now took him aside, and 
 gave him the information he had been sent to 
 communicate ; at which Jean Marais seemed not 
 a little pleased, saying, " I shall be glad enough 
 to get out, for we have not the best school of 
 morals here, sir, and my virtue is of a somewhat 
 delicate constitution : yet, after all,"" he added, 
 " I am not sorry I came in again, seeing that I 
 met with that poor lad, who sits there with his 
 hat in his hand, and who wants a little comfort 
 and consolation. I Avish, sir, you could speak 
 to the Count d'Artonne about him.'' 
 
 *' Who is he ?" demanded Francis de Langy, 
 eyeing the man with the eagle's feathers in 
 
S30 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 his hat; "who is he, and how came he in 
 here?" 
 
 Jean Marais drew him a little farther away, 
 and then replied, " He is a poor devil who has 
 been brought in for poaching — upon the Count's 
 lands, too. I am very much afraid he's guilty; 
 in fact, he does not deny it." 
 
 " That is a serious offence," said Francis de 
 Langy, who naturally entertained the prejudices 
 of his class and his times in regard to the rights 
 of the chase ; any infringement of which was, 
 at that time, regarded in France as a crime 
 nearly equal to murder, and certainly very much 
 deeper than the breach of some commandments 
 in the decalogue. 
 
 " It is indeed, sir," replied Jean Marais ; 
 " and yet it is a wonderfully tempting thing to 
 see a nice, soft, grey roebuck within forty or 
 fifty yards of the muzzle of your gun. How- 
 ever, this lad has a better excuse ; and I am 
 sure, if he did not poach, I don't see what he 
 was to do." 
 
 " How so .'^" demanded Francis de Langy. 
 " What excuse has he to allege ?" 
 
 " Why, in the first place, sir," replied Jean 
 Marais, '' you know there are certain provinces 
 in France where every one has the right of kill- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 231 
 
 ing and eating whatever wild animals he likes ; 
 and this young man came from one of those. 
 In the next place, you see, poor devil ! there 
 was nothing else for him to do : he and the 
 rest of his people, some two years ago, took a 
 little farm belonging to Monsieur d'Artonne up 
 amongst the hills ; but, being Huguenots, the 
 people round, who were all Catholics, would have 
 nothing to say to them. They are in a state 
 of complete excommunication, though they are 
 as good souls as ever lived. Late in the spring, 
 and during the summer, there is plenty of work 
 upon the farm; but during a great part of au- 
 tumn, all winter, and two-thirds of the spring, 
 there is nothing to do in that country but to walk 
 about the hills and woods with a gun. He kept 
 himself to bears and wolves, and beasts of prey, 
 for a long time ; but it is hard to refrain a shot 
 at a buck or a doe, a hare, or a wild boar, es- 
 pecially when a man's hungry and is fond of 
 venison." 
 
 " It is," said Francis de Langy ; " and I 
 will speak to Monsieur d''Artonne about him. I 
 should not think he was inclined to deal harshly 
 with any one. Was he apprehended by the 
 count's people ?" 
 
 " No, sir," answered Jean Marais, " he was 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 apprehended by the marechaussee. They 
 caught him with a roe over his shoulders, and 
 took him in the fact. It was on a part of the 
 count's ground so far distant from the chateau 
 that Monsieur d'Artonne takes no pains with 
 the game upon it." 
 
 " I will speak to him, I will speak to him," 
 said Francis de Langy ; " and, if he has any 
 power, I doubt not he will have him set free. 
 Who is that other man with whom you were 
 talking just now ? He has not the air of an 
 Auvergnat." 
 
 " Oh, pardie, no ! " replied Jean Marais ; 
 "he is from the north, — one of the ecor- 
 cheurs you may have heard of — a brave garden 
 nevertheless." 
 
 Francis de Langy heard him with some sur- 
 prise ; for, perhaps, amongst all the blood-thirsty 
 ruffians that Europe has produced, there never 
 was a race so remorseless and sanguinary as 
 the ecorcheurs of France in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. " I should suppose," he said, with a 
 grave and displeased expression of countenance, 
 " that there was nothing good to be found 
 in such a man, and no advantage in his com- 
 panionship." 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 2S3 
 
 Jean Marais smiled. "Not much, perhaps, 
 sir," he answered : *' but, when I am put in a 
 place like this, I am obliged to choose the best 
 society it affords ; and the prison of Clermont, 
 sir, is not the saloon of Versailles, or even the 
 salle-d-manger of the cafe Regnard." 
 
 " But you do not mean to say," cried Francis 
 de Langy, " that he is amongst the best that you 
 could have found here ? " 
 
 " In good truth, I do, sir," replied Jean Ma- 
 rais. " The three men with whom I was talking 
 are the three most respectable people in the place. 
 We four are the only part of the congregation 
 who do not talk blasphemy and obscenity from 
 morning till night, which is none the wittier in 
 my ears because it is wrapped in argot * Now, 
 we four have amused ourselves by telling our 
 histories in good plain French, laughing a little 
 at our betters perhaps, but saying nothing here 
 which we should be ashamed to say in any other 
 place ; though some of us might not like, indeed, 
 to make such full confessions. As to the ecor- 
 cheur, he is one of the best-born and best- 
 educated amongst us ; the son of a great far- 
 mer in Picardy, who bred him up to the trade 
 
 * Otherwise slang. 
 
^34 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 he followed, and taught him to cultivate the 
 fields by day, and to rob houses and passengers 
 by night. All we Frenchmen have very little 
 care for human life ; we don't much mind losing 
 our own, or taking that of another ; and Jacques 
 Braye assured me, not an hour ago, that he never 
 thought there was any great harm in what he was 
 doing, till his father was broken on the wheel 
 about three months ago, and he himself escaped 
 with difficulty into Auvergne. He then began 
 to fancy that it was not quite right, after all, to 
 take men's money, and, perhaps, their lives too ; 
 though the only thing he had ever objected to 
 before was, once when his father broiled an old 
 Jew alive, in order to make him confess where he 
 had hidden his money. — It is very shocking, sir, 
 I acknowledge ; but yet, if you will compare him 
 with the other men in the place, you will find 
 him one of the honestest persons in it. I Avill 
 answer for it, that, except the four who were 
 sitting in the corner there together, there is 
 not a man who repents of anything that he has 
 done in the past, or proposes anything for the 
 future, but to be revenged upon society by some 
 new crime as soon as he can get out. Now, poor 
 Jacques Braye does repent very heartily, though 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 235 
 
 lie '11 be broken on tlie wheel within a fortnight 
 from this time, if they bring him to trial. But, 
 at all events, I can assure you, sir, that a man 
 who has committed even a very great crime, but 
 has not long habits of vice, is a less dangerous 
 companion than one who has worn away every 
 good feeling as well as good principle in the 
 practice of small delinquencies^ and is only pre- 
 vented from doing something worse by fear or 
 caution. 
 
 Francis de Langy thought there might be 
 some truth in Jean Marais' observation ; but, 
 before he could reply, his companion gave him 
 a hint that it w^ould be better to get out of the 
 court as fast as possible. 
 
 " That old foul-mouthed Esorve,'' he said in a 
 whisper, "has had his eye upon you for the last 
 minute, and he is now whispering with some of 
 his companions. I know what it means very 
 well, and in another instant you will be stripped 
 of everything that is worth having upon you." 
 
 While he spoke, Francis de Langy moved 
 towards the door ; and luckily at the same mo- 
 ment the guard crossed over towards them ; for 
 there was a sudden movement amongst the pri- 
 soners in that direction, which showed that their 
 
2S6 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 operations were about to commence. A howl of 
 mortification and derision met the young gentle- 
 man's ear as he entered the passage leading away 
 from the court ; and with not a little satisfaction 
 he quitted the den of thieves, in which his future 
 valet had been placed for the completion of his 
 education. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The most corrupt invention of the corrupt 
 race to "which we belong — and we certainly did 
 for many generations go on from one stage of 
 moral putridity to another — was devised in 
 France. It was neither more nor less than the 
 venality of the offices of justice. All posts, in 
 fact, were venal during several centuries in that 
 country ; and, although one might have ex- 
 pected that common sense and common honesty 
 would have preserved the magistracy from such 
 a taint, alas, it was not so ! and those who 
 were destined to administer the law amongst their 
 fellow-subjects purchased their offices as they 
 would a farm. Now, if a man chooses to buy 
 the right of being shot at, and wearing a red 
 or a blue coat, either by land or sea, there can 
 be no great harm in letting him do so, especially 
 where his appointment to any important com- 
 
2.38 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 mand depends upon persons responsible for their 
 conduct ; but to sell the office of a judge is 
 but in other terms to sell justice, and we may 
 be very sure that the article will be adulterated 
 before it comes to the general market. 
 
 The intendants of justice, police, and finance, as 
 they were called, were personages sent from Paris 
 into the various provinces of France to preside 
 over certain districts with a curious, somewhat in- 
 definite, and very extensive power. They were 
 generally chosen from amongst the Maitres de 
 Requetes, and were but too frequently subjected 
 to any other influence than that of Themis. 
 Corruption, as a machine indeed, does not always 
 work so ill as men may imagine : and though, 
 at first sight, one would suppose that a system, 
 in which an officer, purchasing his post at an 
 enormous sum, and very often obtaining leave 
 to purchase it only through the interest of a 
 harlot, was sent down to dispense justice in a 
 large district, must necessarily soon come to a 
 stop by the general abhorrence, disgust, indigna- 
 tion, and resistance of those upon whom he 
 exercised his functions ; yet the thing went on for 
 many years, and men were found — ay, men oF 
 gravity, station, and wisdom, — to say of this, as 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 239 
 
 of more than one iniquity in our own country, 
 "It works well!" 
 
 Little less than kings in their own particular 
 provinces, the intendants lived sumptuously, 
 ftired luxuriously, and had magnificent houses ; 
 and into the saloon of one of those dwellings, in 
 the town of Clermont, we shall introduce the rea- 
 der, in order that he may see and hear Mon- 
 sieur d'Artonne and the intendant of that gene- 
 rality chatting over the events wdiicli brought 
 the former thither. Nothing could be more ex- 
 quisite and luxurious than the furniture of the 
 apartment. Every article had been brought from 
 Paris, and an artist of celebrity had come from 
 the capital for the express purpose of painting 
 and gilding the panels of the wainscot. It 
 was not difficult, in short, to fancy oneself in 
 one of the royal chambers at Versailles ; and as 
 Monsieur d'Artonne looked around him when 
 first ushered into the saloon, which was then 
 vacant, he could not help asking himself, " How 
 is all this splendour obtained ? " 
 
 In a moment or two after, the intendant him- 
 self appeared. He was a man of about forty- 
 five ; thin, but well-formed ; with keen, dark, 
 black eyes, an atrabilious complexion, and raven 
 
240 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 hair without a single thread of silver mingling 
 with it. His manner was calm and mild, but 
 impressive ; his step noiseless, but firm ; his 
 voice sweet in tone, but very penetrating; his 
 words well chosen, but studiously indefinite. 
 One was convinced that he was a man of great 
 abilities, yet one knew not why ; one was pleased 
 with his demeanour, yet felt that he was un- 
 approachable. There was nothing repellent, 
 indeed : you might see him, you might ques- 
 tion him, you might argue with him, without 
 any fear of a rebuff, but you would discover 
 nothing more than the outside. He was like 
 some object incased in crystal, which you may 
 handle and look at for ever without being able 
 to touch. On the present occasion he was 
 dressed, as usual, with the most scrupulous neat- 
 ness, but all in black. He was a man full of 
 proprieties, and would not for the world have 
 appeared either in a garb of a gay and glittering 
 character, or in one in the least degree discom- 
 posed, or inferior to his station. His coat was 
 of the richest and most expensive velvet, fitting 
 his person beautifully, without ply or wrinkle. 
 His black silk stockings were the finest that 
 could be made for money ; his buttons were of 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 241 
 
 jet, with a small diamond in the centre of each. 
 The very hilt and hangers of his sword were of 
 the same grave hue, but exquisite in their work- 
 manship ; and it was clear that he looked upon 
 his functions as too important and solemn not 
 to require a dress and demeanour perfectly har- 
 monizing therewith. 
 
 Approaching the count with quick but easy 
 and regular steps, he made him a low and cere- 
 monious bow ; then took his hand, and assured 
 him, with a face which expressed fully as much 
 pleasure as if it had been sparkling with smiles, 
 that he was delighted to see him : and Monsieur 
 d'Artonne had every reason to think that it was 
 so ; for the intendant, ever since that officer had 
 come down to Clermont, — now somewhere about a 
 year and a half, — ^had shown him the most marked 
 respect and attention. Indeed, nobody in the whole 
 surrounding country had received such testimonies 
 of distinguished regard ; and, to say the truth, as 
 the count was unaware of any power to serve or 
 please that great personage, his civilities seemed 
 somewhat extraordinary to the object thereof. 
 
 We may as well let the reader into a part 
 of the secret, however. The intendant, on 
 being dispatched to that district by the king, had 
 
242 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 made accurate and scrupulous inquiries as to the 
 fortune, character, and family of every gentleman 
 in the vicinity. He had found that the count 
 possessed large property, that he was a man very 
 generally loved and respected throughout the 
 neighbourhood, that he was not easily swayed by 
 passions or prejudices of any kind, and that he 
 had an only daughter, who was almost certain 
 of being the heiress of very extensive estates. 
 Now, the intendant might well calculate, that, by 
 some one or other of these qualities, the friend- 
 ship of Monsieur d'Artonne might in future 
 be very serviceable to him. His mind rested 
 with complacence upon the idea of being son- 
 in-law to his noble friend, receiving a rich dower 
 with the count's daughter, and allying himself 
 to an old and distinguished family. Monsieur 
 d'Artonne's countenance and support, too, in the 
 execution of his functions, might be of no small 
 value ; and, at all events, pleasant society and 
 friendly intercourse with people in high station 
 were things very desirable in the eyes of one who 
 himself had risen from a family not of the most 
 elevated class, for at that period there were 
 many grades in the French nobility, with some 
 difficulty in stepping from the one to the other. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 243 
 
 It must not be supposed, indeed, that he had 
 laid any definite plan for seeking the hand of 
 Julie d'Artonne. He very well knew that under 
 existing circumstances such a thinor would not be 
 listened to for a moment ; but, to use a not very 
 elegant but expressive form of speech, he always 
 considered what was upon the cards. Thus there 
 was probably no one in the province who had 
 more influence with him than the count. 
 
 After various ceremonial greetings, such as the 
 customs of the day required, Monsieur d'Artonne 
 opened the business which brought him there, by 
 saying, " I come to speak with you, Monsieur 
 I'lirtendant, upon the case of a poor man who has 
 been charged by Madame de Bausse with the 
 commission of a crime upon apparently the most 
 frivolous and absurd motives. Being not very 
 fond of a prison, and somewhat impatient of the 
 law''s delay, he made his escape — most fortunately 
 for me, I must say ; for he was accidentally the 
 means, during our late tour, of saving my daugh- 
 ter"*s life. By my advice, he surrendered himself 
 yesterday ; and I come to request that you would 
 cause him to be examined yourself, would look 
 into the nature of the charge against him, and see 
 whether there is sufficient cause for detaining him 
 
 M 2 
 
244 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 in prison any longer. If I could prevail upon 
 you personally to investigate the matter, I should, 
 I confess, be much gratified ; for one cannot ex- 
 pect either such discrimination or such decision 
 from inferior officers as from a gentleman of your 
 eminence and authority/' 
 
 The intendant heard him to an end without any 
 reply, even by the movement of a muscle. With 
 the greater part of the world, men are constantly 
 making some sort of answer, false or true, as 
 the case may be, while another is speaking to 
 them, either by some interjected words, some 
 gesture, or some change of countenance; but 
 every now and then we find an individual who 
 possesses from nature, or has acquired by art, a 
 screen impenetrable to all eyes, by which he 
 shrouds his thoughts from those the most anxious 
 to discover them. The face of the intendant 
 was one of these screens ; he listened to what- 
 ever was said to him gravely, attentively, but 
 without the slightest variation of look. His 
 eyes even did not wink ; and whether the subject 
 was grave or gay, pathetic or risible, all re- 
 mained still. One would have thought he was 
 a man destitute of all emotions. 
 
 As soon as Monsieur d'Artonne, however, had 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 245 
 
 concluded, he replied, " It gives me the greatest 
 satisfaction, my dear count, to hear any wish of 
 yours ; for to hear is but to satisfy. I will have 
 the man brought before me immediately. Ma- 
 dame de Bausse is now in the town, for I saw 
 her carriage pass some ten minutes ago. She 
 shall be sent for too, and the matter shall be 
 instantly investigated. She is, I understand, in 
 sad distress, poor lady ! at the disappearance of 
 her son ; and you, I think, my dear count, must 
 be somewhat deeply affected by this affair, if 
 report speaks true that an alliance was in con- 
 templation — " 
 
 " Report does not speak true, Monsieur 
 rintendant," exclaimed the Count d'Artonne, 
 interrupting him with some vehemence. " In 
 disposing of the hand of my daughter, I shall be 
 guided but by one consideration ; virtue, honour, 
 and high qualities. I need not tell you that 
 Monsieur de Bausse possessed none of these.'' 
 
 The intendant had quite good enough an 
 opinion of himself to imagine that he had a 
 fair chance, and, of course, his prepossessions in 
 favour of Monsieur d'Artonne increased rather 
 than diminished. His countenance, however, 
 retained its impassibility ; no one could have 
 
246 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 told that the count was not describing to him 
 the building of a cow-house, so gravely in- 
 different was his face ; and his only reply was, 
 " We had better, perhaps, proceed with the 
 business immediately." 
 
 Some attendants were summoned by the tink- 
 ling of a small silver bell which stood upon the 
 table, and an order in due form was sent to the 
 lower prison for bringing Jean Marais to the in- 
 tendant's house. A messenger was then dispatch- 
 ed to seek Madame de Bausse through the town 
 of Clermont ; after which, the high officer and 
 his guest sat chatting over the news of the 
 day. Scarcely had five minutes elapsed, how- 
 ever, when the doors of the saloon were thrown 
 open, and the Bishop of Clermont was an- 
 nounced : which, perhaps, was not satisfactory to 
 the Count d'Artonne ; the prelate being the 
 brother of Madame de Bausse, and one very 
 likely to adopt and support her views, not from 
 any conviction that they were right, but from 
 a tender regard for certain good things which 
 the fair marquise had at her disposal. 
 
 We shall not have much to do, dear reader, 
 with the estimable Bishop of Clermont ; but, 
 having an infinite horror of all those capricious 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 247 
 
 rules and regulations by which ancient critics 
 endeavoured to tie men down and to prevent 
 them from following the course of the great 
 teacher Nature, I shall take the liberty of 
 giving a full-length portrait of a personage who 
 had, it is true, no great influence upon the fate 
 of our principal characters, but whose class — 
 a class luckily now nearly extinct — had a very 
 great influence indeed upon the whole world both 
 in a political and religious manner. In doing 
 this, I repeat, I do but follow Nature : for how 
 often is it in the march of life that a personage 
 suddenly appears before us, strongly engaging 
 our attention, remarkable in every respect, wor- 
 thy of philosophical contemplation, and occupy- 
 ing the whole of our thoughts and attention 
 for a short period ; but then passing away imme- 
 diately from our eyes, never being seen again, 
 and aflfecting us in no other manner than by 
 that moral influence which is exercised upon each 
 human creature by the characters of those with 
 whom his mind is brought in contact either 
 as a subject of their operation, or an active agent 
 itself ? 
 
 The Bishop of Clermont was a man of good 
 family, some five years older than Madame de 
 
248 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 Bausse. He was now the head of the house ; his 
 elder brother having died childless, but not until 
 he himself had entered the church, and obtained 
 considerable preferment therein. His family was 
 poor in relation to their station in society ; and, 
 consequently, even after he had succeeded to his 
 broth er''s estates, he experienced no regret at 
 having embraced a profession in which celibacy 
 was obligatory. At first, as a young man, he 
 had felt very little disposed to become an ecclesi- 
 astic ; for his character was worldly, his passions 
 were strong, his taste for pleasure acute ; and he 
 would have resisted, had it been according to the 
 usages of his country and his times for the son of 
 a noble family to show any choice in regard to 
 the pursuits which lay before him. He had 
 thought it very hard, while at the seminary where 
 he was brought up, to forswear those indulgences 
 for which he felt a strong propensity at an early 
 age ; but, very soon after he had received the ton- 
 sure, he made a world of discoveries in regard to 
 the facilities of clerical life, which taught him to 
 laugh at his former objections, by showing him 
 that his pleasures only obtained an extended 
 sphere by the gown that hid them. 
 
 As soon as this perception came upon him, he 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 249 
 
 set himself to consider how he might best, in the 
 circumstances which surrounded him, enjoy life 
 and prolong its enjoyment ; and, being of a 
 shrewd, keen, and unscrupulous character, he 
 speedily saw that the path had been clearly 
 marked out by personages of his own views and 
 inclinations, so that he had nothing to do but 
 to follow upon a very beaten track. Decency 
 was the first thing to be attended to : and 
 accordingly, though a somewhat zealous director 
 of fair penitents, he contrived to avoid scandal. 
 The inconvenient rules and regulations which 
 abridged the pleasures of the table were without 
 difficulty evaded by any ecclesiastic who knew 
 how to make a friend of his cook ; so that public 
 abstemiousness was fairly compensated by private 
 indulgence. A number of other little sins, very 
 pleasant to deal with, found a very convenient 
 cloak in the robe of the church : grasping avarice 
 might allege charity as its excuse, and the hand 
 that swept up louis-d'ors might cleanse itself by 
 the distribution of livres ; the daily alms cover- 
 ing the daily exactions. Pride too might be 
 quietly gratified by sinking the man in the 
 ecclesiastic ; and the honour of religion and the 
 
 m5 
 
250 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 church mignt be the watchword, when the real 
 object was that for which angels fell. 
 
 He comprehended the whole scheme at once, 
 and acted upon it with great skill ; taking care, as 
 the very first point of the plan, to smooth down 
 all asperities, and to dress up each of his pas- 
 sions in a garb the most opposite to that which it 
 wore with other men. Slander and malice were 
 unknown to the good bishop ; but sometimes 
 they took the form of paternal reproof, some- 
 times that of benign unguardedness : he would 
 let drop a word, that rankled for years, with a 
 smiling and placid countenance; he would dis- 
 seminate a calumny with an inefficient expression 
 of disbelief. He would inquire into the most in- 
 decent particulars, and regale his imagination 
 with prurient images, from zeal for the purity of 
 his flock ; and he would encourage the licentious 
 jest by a tone of gentleness in his reproof. When 
 it was necessary to persecute and to destroy, the 
 spirit of religious fervour would seize him ; and, 
 when he wished to favour and indulge, Christian 
 charity and moderation were upon his lips. 
 
 Nature, however, has always provided herself 
 with tell-tales ; and the hypocrite has gene- 
 rally physical witnesses against him, which are 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 251 
 
 difficult to silence. Thus, our Tartuff was "^ro* 
 et gras, et se portoit a merveille."' See Lini, 
 dear reader ! see him as he enters the saloon of the 
 intendant, with that slow, calm, and dignified step, 
 stout and overflowing with animal health, some- 
 what corpulent, but not greatly so ; his rosy 
 countenance close-shaved and smooth, his fat 
 and luscious lips bearing a pleasant smile, his 
 watery and erotick eyes possessing that peculiar 
 fatness which the inspired writers have pointed 
 out as the characteristic mark of the licentious ! 
 Look at the well-furnished double-chin hanging 
 upon his smooth plaited band ; and mark those 
 large animal ears that rise on either side of his 
 calotte ! Do not overlook either the large, round- 
 ed, weighty calf of his leg, and the fine small 
 ancle, before he drops his robe over it, as soon as 
 he finds that there are no women in the room ; 
 and consider well the graceful benignity with 
 which he salutes the intendant, and the brotherly 
 love with which he embraces his dear cousin 
 D'Artonne ! Oh ! he is a worthy pillar of the 
 church, a noble preacher of a religion of absti- 
 nence and self-denial, a proper follower of the 
 meekest and mildest of men ! 
 
 Hark, too, how he declares to the count that the 
 
252 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 pleasure of his visit to the intendant is doubled 
 by the unexpected satisfaction of finding him 
 there ! — It is true that his eyes were fixed upon 
 the door of the house from one of the windows of 
 the episcopal residence at the very moment that 
 Monsieur d'Artonne dismounted from his horse ; 
 it is true that the servants of that gentleman, each 
 of whom he well knew, were then standing in the 
 square ; it is true Madame de Bausse was at that 
 precise time in his own oratory, had remarked 
 the count's visit to the intendant, and had won- 
 dered aloud what he could want there ! But, of 
 course, wrapped in heavenly musing, the bishop 
 had neither seen nor heard, and was quite taken 
 by surprise at finding his cousin in the saloon. 
 
 Monsieur d'Artonne understood him as well, 
 perhaps, as one man can understand another; 
 and, therefore, from the worthy bishop*'s asserting 
 that he was surprised, the count was naturally 
 led to conclude that he came thither for the pur- 
 pose of seeing what he was doing. His reception 
 of the prelate's gratulations was certainly some- 
 what cold — perhaps a little embarrassed. It is 
 not always, indeed, easy to know how to deal with 
 a disingenuous man ; but the intendant saved 
 Monsieur d'Artonne any explanations with the 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 253 
 
 bishop, by inquiring, after a few brief words, if 
 he could tell where Madame de Bausse was to 
 be found in the town, and stating the business 
 they were about to proceed with. 
 
 " I left her at the jBuecAe," replied the bishop; 
 " I will see in a minute if she is still there :'" 
 and without waiting to give ear to the intend- 
 ant's entreaties that he would, not take the 
 trouble, and offers to send over a messenger to 
 the marquise immediately, the bishop walked 
 out of the room, bowing, with a thousand 
 smiles, and saying that he would be back again 
 without delay. A considerable time, however, 
 elapsed without his making his appearance ; and 
 before the prelate had returned it was announced 
 to the intendant that the prisoner, Jean Marais, 
 had been brought up, according to his directions. 
 An order was given to keep him below for a few 
 minutes longer ; and in the end the folding-doors 
 were again thrown open, and Madame de Bausse 
 entered, leaning on her brother's arm. She was 
 the picture of a faded coquette : her dress, which 
 was not of mourning, for she had not yet given 
 up the hope of seeing her son return, was in the 
 height of the Parisian fashion, and might have 
 become a girl of eighteen or twenty ; nor had any- 
 
254f THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 thing been omitted that art could do to lighten 
 the load of years, at least in appearance. She 
 was, at least, forty years of age ; and, as her spirit, 
 was not the most quiet and gentle, those forty 
 years had wrought more serious ravages than is 
 usually the case : but still, what between assist- 
 ance from the perruquier, and abundant but judi- 
 cious dispensation of rouge and other pigments, 
 padded additions to various parts of her person, 
 shadings of lace, and ornaments of silk, Madame 
 de Bausse might very well pass for thirty-five at 
 the utmost, and usually called herself thirty-three ; 
 leaving in a sort of misty indistinctness the fact 
 that she had a son whose twentieth birth-day 
 would return no more, and not attempting to 
 explain the phenomenon. She did indeed usually 
 term the young gentleman her boy ; but, if his 
 follies were those of extreme youth, his vices 
 smacked strongly of manhood. 
 
 On the present occasion she was fluttered and 
 agitated. Her shrewish black eyes sparkled, her 
 thick silk petticoat rustled, and her lip quivered ; 
 so that, although she bore a smile upon her coun- 
 tenance, having been exhorted to moderation by 
 her brother as they came, the expression was sour 
 and petulant, and she evidently met Monsieur 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 255 
 
 d'*Artonne "uith not the most placable feelings, 
 seeming to entertain no great gratitude towards 
 him for interfering on behalf of poor Jean Marais. 
 The face and manner of the count as he met her 
 ■were peculiarly grave and serious, so that she 
 could not accuse him of regarding the painful ap- 
 prehensions which she entertained in respect to 
 the fate of her son with anything like levity ; but 
 yet she displayed, in their very first salutation, a 
 degree of irritability which somewhat embarrassed 
 him. 
 
 Having greeted her kindly, and inquired into 
 her health, receiving but a peevish answer, the 
 count, as if for the purpose of doing something, — 
 which, as the reader well knows, is not very easy 
 under all circumstances, — stretched forth his hand 
 to pat the head of a large dog which had followed 
 her into the room, calling the animal by its name, 
 as if familiar with it. The dog, however, seem- 
 ing to take his tone from his mistress, instantly 
 growled, and flew at him ; and was only driven 
 off by a severe kick, and the interference of the 
 servants, who were closing the doors of the saloon. 
 
 '' Ah ! " exclaimed Madame de Bausse, with 
 a bitter smile ; '* poor Noble knows very well 
 that you were never a friend of his master, cousin 
 
256 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 D'Artonne, and that you have come here now to 
 protect his murderer." 
 
 The count started, with an angry and indig- 
 nant look. " I come here for no such thing, Hen- 
 riette,'' he replied ; " you, yourself, are not even 
 convinced that any murder has been committed 
 at all ; and, if the slightest cause could be shown 
 for supposing the man guilty, I should be the 
 first to require that he be proceeded against 
 in a regular manner. — But, from all that I have 
 heard, I do not believe that such is the case. 
 He saved my daughter'^s life, as I wrote to you 
 some days ago ; and all I desire is, that Monsieur 
 I'Intendant may examine into the affair at once, 
 in order that the poor fellow may not be kept 
 in prison, which is in itself sufficient punish- 
 ment for a great crime." 
 
 " Ay !" cried Madame de Bausse, " you 
 think a great deal about your daughter, but 
 nothing about my son ; and, as for the rest of 
 the matter, I say this man ought to be kept 
 in prison till we can find out who did murder 
 him, and who did not." 
 
 " Such will be the course, Madame," said the 
 intendant, in his calm grave manner, " if there 
 is just cause of suspicion against the prisoner. All 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 257 
 
 that the count requires is immediate investigation, 
 and that I feel I have no right to refuse. The 
 inquiry shall be carried on in your presence, and 
 I doubt not that you will be satisfied with the 
 result." 
 
 " I think my word might be sufficient,"" replied 
 Madame de Bausse ; " I am not supposed to 
 be a person, am I, Monsieur Tlntendant, to 
 accuse a man wrongfully ? '''' 
 
 " Certainly not, Madame/' answered the in- 
 tendant ; "■ and it must be very satisfactory to 
 you to have an opportunity of stating the mo- 
 tives of your accusation fully and immediately." 
 
 " True, my son," said the bishop : " but you 
 must recollect that this lady may have strong 
 moral causes of suspicion, which do not amount 
 to absolute proofs ; she may wish to have time 
 to investigate and develope fully the evidence 
 against this man, without making indiscreet reve- 
 lations, which might perhaps tend to frustrate the 
 ends of justice." 
 
 " The police," replied the intendant, " are 
 the persons best fitted by habit, as well as en- 
 titled by law, to carry on such an inquiry ; 
 and, in stating the cause of her suspicions to 
 me, Madame de Bausse will put the matter in 
 
258 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 train for arriving at a just result. She may 
 do so, if she pleases, before the man is brought 
 up, and I will give all due weight to the facts 
 she adduces. Pray be seated, Madame, and in- 
 form me whether you have discovered anything 
 more than is stated in the first proces verbal 
 upon which the prisoner was arrested. I have 
 read the papers, and find it therein recited, that, 
 on the day of the supposed murder, he was 
 absent from the house for two hours ; and that a 
 spot of blood, or something like blood, was found 
 upon the breast of his shirt. These, I think, 
 are the only facts from which we can infer a 
 suspicion." 
 
 ''And quite enough too, I should think," 
 exclaimed Madame de Bausse. 
 
 *' When joined with the unaccountable ab- 
 sence of his master," added the bishop, *' the 
 certainty that they went out in the same direc- 
 tion together, the knowledge which we have that 
 all the other servants were in the house, and the 
 fact of my poor nephew having reproved this 
 very person severely on the preceding night, re- 
 ceiving, we understand, a very insolent and 
 threatening reply. Far be it from me, how- 
 ever, to insinuate that he may not be able to 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 259 
 
 prove his innocence ; or that my good cousin 
 D'Artonne suffers himself to be moved by even 
 the pure spirit of gratitude to favour a base assas- 
 sin, because that man saved his daughter's life. It 
 has been currently reported, it is true, that the 
 count had always a dislike to my poor nephew, 
 that he said at various times very harsh things 
 of him, that he magnified any juvenile follies, and 
 depreciated his many good qualities and virtues ; 
 but I do not believe a word of it. I believe 
 that the count may have been actuated solely, 
 in any severity he showed towards my nephew, 
 by high notions of the necessity of restraining 
 and reproving youth ; and I do not give the 
 slightest credit, I assure you, to one-half of 
 the anecdotes that are told of Monsieur d'Ar- 
 tonne's intemperate expressions regarding the 
 poor boy.*" 
 
 The prelate might have spared his malignant 
 eloquence ; it was pouring water upon a rock, as 
 far as the intendant was concerned. That officer 
 heard him tranquilly to the end without the 
 slightest appearance of interest, and then returned 
 to the point. " The chain of facts," he said, " is 
 important, and unless they can be accounted for, 
 or at least some of them, may afford grounds for 
 
260 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 such suspicion as to justify the detention of this 
 man ; but, as they are all points susceptible of 
 explanation, it is right that we should hear what 
 he has to say upon the subject. If he refuses, 
 or is incapable of giving such explanation, the 
 case will be very much aggravated ; and, on 
 the contrary, if his account of all these trans- 
 actions be satisfactory, the suspicions them- 
 selves vanish ; and therefore, my lord, we have 
 the strongest motive for inquiring into the mat- 
 ter immediately." 
 
 As he spoke, he rang his bell and ordered 
 Jean Marais to be brought in. The first act 
 of the intendant, when the prisoner appeared 
 between two archers, was to gaze at him fixedly 
 for a moment or two with keen considering eyes, 
 in a manner which might have abashed many a 
 very innocent man. Jean Marais, however, was 
 not a person very easily abashed, and he under- 
 went the scrutiny with the most perfect com- 
 posure, waiting till the intendant had taken a 
 full survey of his features and person before he 
 made the slightest movement ; and then merely 
 bowing to Madame de Bausse with a placable 
 smile, as he said, " Bon jour^ Madame ! " in a 
 tone which certainly implied no malice. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 261 
 
 "Ah) don't speak to me, you wretch!" ex- 
 claimed the marquise ; "I abhor you ! Noble, 
 come hither; don't go near him !"*"* But the dog, 
 without attending to her commands, walked up 
 familiarly to Jean Marais, and put its broad nose 
 into his hand. 
 
 " Jean Marais, attend ! " said the intendant. 
 '* You were absent from the house of the Mar- 
 quise de Bausse for two hours on the seventh day 
 of the present month. Where were you during 
 that time, and what were you doing ?"" 
 
 " I walked into Clermont," replied Jean Marais 
 without the slightest hesitation ; "I went along 
 the bank of the river till I came to the path 
 through the fields, by which I proceeded to 
 Clermont. I met fat Peter Beuvron, and I said 
 to him, ' Bon jour, gros papa ! ' to which he re- 
 plied, ^ Bon Jour, ganache !' '^ 
 
 " The walk took you half an hour," said the 
 intendant ; " what then ?"" 
 
 "Not quite half an hour," answered Jean 
 Marais ; " I go fast, sir, when I put my feet to 
 the ground. But what I did next was, to take 
 my master's hat to have a new feather-band, 
 according to his orders. I gave it to Martin 
 Grange, the hatter ; that was the business which 
 
262 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 took me to Clermont, and he can tell whether I 
 was with him or not/' 
 
 " That did not occupy much time," said the 
 intendant. " What did you do next, my good 
 friend ? You will still have near an hour to 
 account for by your own statement." 
 
 Jean Marais paused for a moment, and the 
 eyes of Madame de Bausse glistened at what she 
 thought his hesitation ; while the bishop sat with 
 his two hands on his broad knees, and stared in 
 the poor fellow's face with an intensity that had 
 something of triumph in it. 
 
 " Well !"" continued the intendant, after wait- 
 ing an instant. 
 
 " Well, sir," replied Jean Marais ; " if the 
 truth must be told in this reverend society^ 
 spent the missing hour with Jeannette Cottille, 
 the little couturiere, whom Madame knows, for 
 she makes her gowns for her, and puts in the 
 pads about the breast and shoulders." 
 
 Madame de Bausse looked spears and lances 
 at him; but Jean Marais himself was as grave 
 as a judge, and the intendant also. A sly smile, 
 however, stole over the round rosy face of the 
 bishop ; and he gave a sidelong glance to Mon- 
 sieur d'Artonne, who looked down, and played 
 with the fringe of his sword-belt. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 263 
 
 *' Will Jeannette Cottille swear that you 
 spent an hour with her on that day ?" demanded 
 the intendant. 
 
 " I really don't know, sir," replied Jean Ma- 
 rais ; "it depends upon whether she is in a 
 humour for telling the truth." 
 
 " And when you left her," continued his in- 
 terrogator, '' what did you do then ?" 
 
 " I walked back again," answered Jean Ma- 
 rais. 
 
 " Did you not quarrel with your master the 
 night before ?" demanded the intendant. 
 
 " No, sir," replied the prisoner ; '' but he 
 quarrelled with me." 
 
 " Give your own account of what occurred on 
 that occasion," said the officer. 
 
 " Oh ! of course he will tell a fine string of 
 lies !" exclaimed Madame de Bausse. 
 
 " No, I will not, indeed, Madame," rejoined 
 Jean Marais ; " merely out of policy I will tell 
 the whole truth : for falsehood, in a dangerous 
 case, such as mine, is like paint upon an old 
 woman, soon found out, and making that which 
 it rests upon look all the uglier. I did not tie 
 Monsieur de Bausse's cravat to his taste, and 
 he vowed I did it on purpose. I assured him 
 
264f THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 I did not, and we tried it again, but it was 
 worse than before ; and then he got very angry, 
 and struck me on the face, which made my nose 
 bleed : so then I told him that I was a ser- 
 vant, but not a slave, and that I would not re- 
 main with him." 
 
 " 'Tis all false together," cried Madame de 
 Bausse, with her eyes flaming and her cheeks 
 red. " I knew you would manufacture a lie ; but, 
 if his mere word is to be believed, there is no 
 use of any inquiry at all. It is all false to- 
 gether, Monsieur Flntendant." 
 
 " It seems very like it, indeed, Madame," 
 said the intendant in his usual tone. " It 
 is scarcely possible to believe that the Mar- 
 quis de Bausse should so forget himself to 
 a servant ; and, if the servant made him such 
 a reply, why did he not send him away di- 
 rectly.?" 
 
 " Because I knew too many of his secrets," 
 answered Jean Marais in an indifferent tone ; 
 '' and, as for this part of the story, I related every 
 word of it the same night to Morris the lackey. 
 He is now in the town with Madame's carriage, 
 for I saw him as I came along from the prison. 
 You can send for him and inquire ; he will tell 
 you the same tale." 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 265 
 
 '* If he does, I will discharge him that mi- 
 nute," cried Madame de Bausse. 
 
 The intendant looked at her, but said nothing. 
 The expression of his countenance could scarcely 
 be said to change, so slight was the difference ; 
 and yet it was easy to see that he thought the 
 lady a great fool. 
 
 " I find it asserted here," he continued, ad- 
 dressing Jean Marais after a momentary pause, 
 " that you and Monsieur de Bausse left the 
 chateau together, and took the same road. 
 Where did you part from him ? •' 
 
 " At the end of the avenue," replied Jean 
 Marais. " He stopped to speak with Allard 
 the farmer, and they walked away together on 
 the Riom road, while I went on my way to 
 Clermont." 
 
 At this moment the bishop, who had been 
 conversing in a low voice with Madame de 
 Bausse, rose, as if to take his leave, saying, 
 " As I think that this matter is very likely to 
 affect the man'*s life. Monsieur Tlntendant, it 
 does not become me, as a bishop of a church 
 of mercy, to take any farther part in the pro- 
 ceedings." 
 
 " Stop one moment, Monsieur de Clermont," 
 
266 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 replied the intendant. " Take away the pri- 
 soner, archers, and keep him below for a little. 
 One of you go to the carriage of Madame de 
 Bausse, and bring hither the lackey named 
 Morris, not suffering him to interchange a word 
 with any one by the way. Let another be 
 sent for Jeannette Cottille, the couturiere ; and 
 mind—" 
 
 " I really must take my leave," said the 
 bishop; " my time is growing short. I have du- 
 ties to perform, my son." 
 
 " So have I, reverend sir," replied the inten- 
 dant, holding him by the edge of the robe ; 
 " but I really must detain you for one minute. 
 — Do as I command you," he continued, ad- 
 dressing the archers, who had lingered as if in 
 doubt. — " I really must detain you for one mi- 
 nute to perform an act well becoming your sacred 
 character; which is, to persuade your fair sister 
 not to discharge this servant of hers for telling 
 the truth, as she threatens. You will easily 
 perceive that it will give an appearance of in- 
 justice and passion to her proceedings, of which 
 they are doubtless totally devoid, and, at the 
 same time, it will be unchristian and unjust. 
 Moreover I fear, if she do not withdraw the 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 267 
 
 threat, that my office will compel me to take 
 unpleasant measures in regard to a person thus 
 endeavouring by menaces to turn aside the course 
 of justice."" 
 
 " Oh ! it was but an ebullition of anger,"" 
 replied the bishop, " easily excused in a mother 
 who has lost her son. It was never intended 
 seriously, of course ; and I am sure she will re- 
 frain from any expression of the same kind in 
 future." 
 
 The bishop sat down again by Madame de 
 Bausse to speak with her for a moment, and 
 there he remained, notwithstanding his previous 
 anxiety to depart. What had been his purposes 
 we must not take upon ourselves to assert; but it 
 is clear, that, as soon as he found that the archers 
 were too far gone for him to reach the Eveche 
 before them, he was less desirous of quitting the 
 saloon than before. 
 
 Jeannette Cottille and the lackey Morris ar- 
 rived at the same time, but the intendant thought 
 fit to examine the fair couturiere first. She was 
 a pretty-looking young woman, apparently not 
 overburdened with modesty, though frank and 
 simple enough in her demeanour ; and, when 
 asked if Jean Marais had lately passed any time 
 
 N 2 
 
268 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 with her, she replied at once, " Ah, pauvre 
 gargon ! I know they have been accusing him of 
 things he never committed, and I '11 tell the 
 truth, whatever comes of it ; for it can do him 
 no harm, I 'm sure, though it may do some to 
 me. The last time I saw him was on the 
 seventh of this month; and then he came, 
 and spent an hour with me."' 
 
 "You have learnt your tale, child!" cried 
 Madame de Bausse in a sharp tone. " How 
 should you recollect so pat it was the seventh P'"* 
 
 " Oh ! I can tell you very well, Madame," 
 answered the girl ; "I had promised your maid 
 Mathilde to send home, on that day, your 
 false " 
 
 Madame de Bausse waved her hand, im- 
 patiently exclaiming, " I dare say you knew 
 all about it." 
 
 The sempstress was about to reply, and her 
 rejoinder might not have been much to the sa- 
 tisfaction of Madame de Bausse; but the in- 
 tendant interposed gravely, demanding, " At 
 what hour did you see him ?" and on Jean- 
 nette replying, " At twelve o'clock exactly ; I 
 know it quite well, for my two girls had just 
 gone to their dinner," he nodded his head. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 269 
 
 slowly saying, " That will do, you may retire. 
 — Bring in the lackey." 
 
 Morris was accordingly ushered into the 
 saloon, looking somewhat white at finding him- 
 self in the hands of an archer. Madame de 
 Bausse fidgeted upon her chair, and went the 
 length of nodding, winking, and shrugging at him. 
 The intendant, on the contrary, told him to tell 
 the truth, and that he had nothing to fear; 
 adding, with a degree of sternness in his tone, 
 " The slightest prevarication will convey you to 
 prison. Now mark!" he continued, " I find it 
 stated that a quarrel took place between Monsieur 
 de Bausse and his valet, Jean Marais, on the 
 night of the sixth of this month. Do you know 
 anything of it .?" 
 
 " Yes, Monseigneur," replied the man; " a 
 quarrel did take place, and a very bad quarrel 
 too, for " 
 
 His eye caught the expression of Madame de 
 Bausse's countenance at that moment, and he 
 paused and hesitated. 
 
 " Were you ever in prison ? " demanded the 
 intendant ; " if not, you are very likely to 
 be there within five minutes, should you suffer 
 a sign from any one to prevent you from tell- 
 
270 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 ing the truth. Finish out what you were about 
 to say.'' 
 
 " I say, then," continued the man, *' that it 
 was a very bad quarrel, too; for Jean came down 
 with his nose bleeding, and told me his master 
 had struck him." 
 
 " Was the blow a severe one?" demanded 
 the intendant ; '' was it bleeding much ?" 
 
 " Oh no," replied the lackey ; "a drop or 
 two had fallen upon the breast of his shirt, and 
 there was some on his handkerchief, but it soon 
 stopped." 
 
 '' Do you know if the valet threatened his 
 master in consequence ?" demanded the in- 
 tendant. 
 
 '' Oh yes," exclaimed the lackey, " he threat- 
 ened to leave him immediately ; at least, so he 
 told me." 
 
 " But do you think," inquired his inter- 
 rogator, " that the marquis had any particular 
 dislike to this man, Jean Marais, which made 
 him strike him ?" 
 
 '' Oh no, sir," replied the man ; " he has 
 done the same to us all at different times, but 
 we did not mind it. He once threw a boot at 
 my head." 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. ^71 
 
 Not a muscle of the intendant's face moved ; 
 but, telling the lackey he might retire, he ordered 
 the prisoner to be brought before him. 
 
 " Jean Marais," he said, as soon as he appear- 
 ed, " you have been accused of a serious crime, 
 and in consequence of that accusation you have 
 been committed to prison till such time as it was 
 possible to investigate the grounds of the charge 
 against you. You foolishly and rashly made 
 your escape from the hands of justice, and might 
 have subjected yourself to severe punishment on 
 that account. But your subsequent voluntary 
 surrender may be received as atonement for the 
 offence ; and, the accusation having been now 
 sifted and inquired into, I find that there is 
 not the slightest motive or cause whatsoever 
 for suspecting you of the crime with which 
 you have been charged. You are, therefore, 
 from this moment at liberty, and may go 
 whithersoever you please !" 
 
 " Mighty well !" cried Madame de Bausse, 
 rising indignantly ; " mighty well ! So, I am 
 told I have brought an unfounded accusation, 
 am I ? Well, I will take care that this is 
 made known. I wish you good morning, sir ! 
 I wish you good morning ! This is fine jus- 
 
272 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 tice, indeed, when a lady of my rank and 
 station is not to be believed against a valet 
 de cliambre." 
 
 " Good morning, Madame ! " replied the im- 
 perturbable intendant, bowing low and calmly; 
 " good morning, Monsieur de Clermont ! — Mon- 
 sieur d'Artonne, I am obliged to you for 
 urging me to give this case immediate at- 
 tention. Is there anything else I can do to 
 serve you ?" 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 273 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 It was in the afternoon of the same day of 
 which we have just been speaking, that Francis 
 de Langy and his friend, the count, stood in 
 one of the old-fashioned rooms of the Chateau 
 d'Artonne, relating to the countess and Julie 
 what had taken place at Clermont. The count 
 touched upon the particulars but lightly, indeed ; 
 and came rapidly to the conclusion, of Jean 
 Marais' exculpation and liberation. Julie re- 
 mained somewhat thoughtful ; and, though she 
 expressed much satisfaction at the result, Francis 
 de Langy could not help fancying that she was 
 somewhat more grave than might have been 
 expected. The gratification of Madame d'Ar- 
 tonne was much more apparent and vivacious, 
 and the girl of fifteen seemed to have changed 
 places with the woman of seven or eight and 
 thirty. 
 
 While the countess was thus congratulating 
 
 n5 
 
S74 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 herself upon the deliverance of the person who 
 had saved her child's life, one of the servants, 
 who had not accompanied the party on their 
 tour, entered the room to announce that Jean 
 Marais had arrived at the chateau, according 
 to the orders he had received from Monsieur 
 d'Artonne. 
 
 «' Send him in, send him in," cried the count ; 
 and, the moment after, our respectable friend, 
 Jean Marais, stood bowing before the assem- 
 bled party, with a face full of perfect satisfac- 
 tion, and, though respectful, certainly impudent 
 enough. 
 
 The count received his thanks with grace 
 and dignity, merely saying, with a slight in- 
 clination of the head, " I merit no gratitude, 
 my good friend, merely having fulfilled my pro- 
 mise.'" 
 
 " That is what I am so grateful for, sir," 
 replied Jean Marais ; "as it is what no one 
 has a right to expect from another in this 
 world." 
 
 " Now, Francis," whispered the count, '' let 
 us see the result of your experiment." 
 
 And Francis de Langy, with a little of the 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 275 
 
 embarrassed timidity of youth, looked round, and 
 then said, " Well, Jean Marais, Monsieur d'Ar- 
 tonne has acquitted himself of his share of gra- 
 titude towards you." 
 
 " Not quite," cried Monsieur d'Artonne; 
 "but never mind — " 
 
 " I have yet done nothing to show mine," 
 continued the young gentleman ; " and I have 
 the permission of the viscount to do the best 
 I can to testify my sense of the service you 
 lately rendered me. You expressed a great wish 
 to enter into my service, or that of the Count 
 d'Artonne. Now it is not convenient for him 
 to receive you into his family, as he has no 
 vacant place ; but I will offer you your choice 
 of two things. Here is a purse containing a 
 hundred louis ; I will either give you that at 
 once as a reward for what you have done ; or 
 I will take you as my valet de chambre. But 
 I must warn you, that, in the latter case, your 
 conduct must be somewhat more strict and re- 
 gular than, perhaps, it has hitherto been ; for 
 Monsieur de St. Medard, though he is a kind 
 and liberal master, and not at all inclined to 
 be severe upon venial errors, is of a determined 
 
276 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 and immovable nature, and will not pass over 
 anything that he may consider an indication of 
 a bad and depraved heart. Your wages will 
 be the same as those of his own valet : and, 
 having stated the matter fairly to you, you can 
 now make your choice, and either take the place, 
 such as I have represented it, or the gold, and 
 with that little fortune seek another situation, 
 where, perhaps, you may be more at your ease. 
 Will you like some time to consider your de- 
 termination ?" 
 
 " Oh no, sir," replied Jean Marais, laughing ; 
 " I do not want even a single moment to con- 
 sider : my determination is made already. First 
 impulses are not always the best, but they are 
 always the pleasantest to follow." 
 
 '' Then I suppose you will take the purse, 
 and leave the place ?" said Monsieur d'Artonne. 
 
 " Oh dear, no, sir," replied Jean Marais; " I 
 will do nothing of the kind. The place for me, 
 if you please ; and the purse for the baron's 
 pocket." 
 
 '' I thought so," cried Julie with a well- 
 pleased smile, little fancying that, to an ob- 
 servant eye, the look and the words, common 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 277 
 
 and meaningless as tliey miglit seem, would be- 
 tray more of the secrets of the heart than she 
 might be very willing should appear. 
 
 Jean Marais saw all about it in a moment ; 
 and Madame d^Artonne said to herself, " The 
 girl, who thinks the situation of his servant so 
 desirable, would not very much object to be 
 his wife." 
 
 The valet, however, bowed low to the young 
 lady, replying, " Thank you, Mademoiselle, for 
 doing me justice. I could not hesitate a mo- 
 ment, under any circumstances, between a good 
 situation, which I hope long to retain, and a 
 hundred louis, which would be, most likely, gone 
 to-morrow. But, besides, I take a very parti- 
 cular interest in this young gentleman, and have 
 more motives for attaching myself to him than 
 one. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Francis de Langy ; " may 
 I ask what.?" 
 
 " Oh ! sir," replied Jean Marais, with one of 
 his light, but somewhat sarcastic laughs, " they 
 are, first and foremost, because I think you a 
 very charming and excellent young gentleman ; 
 and, secondly, because my family are not a little 
 
S78 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 indebted to yours. An excellent relation of 
 mine, now Marguerite Latouches, formerly Mar- 
 guerite Lemaire, was once femme de chambre to 
 tbe marquise, your mother, who married her to 
 my good uncle Gerard." 
 
 "Indeed!" cried Francis de Langy ; ''are 
 you their nephew ? As you must know well 
 then, she was, moreover, my foster-mother." 
 
 " Exactly," said Jean Marais, somewhat dryly ; 
 but the moment after he added, in a very dif- 
 ferent manner, " Ay, sir, and many is the time 
 you have sat upon my knee, when you were a 
 child, and I was a youth younger than you are 
 now." 
 
 There is something in the memory of early 
 years and young affections which wakes up in 
 the breast, even of the hardened and criminal, 
 and still more in the heart of the light, the 
 thoughtless, and the vicious, sweeter and holier 
 feelings ; which, however transitory they may be 
 in themselves, still have a purifying influence 
 of shorter or longer duration, according to cir- 
 cumstances, but ever tending, through regret, 
 towards repentance. Those feelings, for the 
 time, too, affect the outward man ; and though 
 he may struggle against them, and strive to cover 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 279 
 
 them with the light and sparkling veil of careless 
 gaiety, or the thick cloak of dogged resolution, 
 they will still give a more thoughtful or a, ten- 
 derer character to the look and manner of him 
 who experiences them, and tell the beholder 
 that the heart within is touched. Such was the 
 case in the present instance with Jean Marais; 
 and, as he uttered the words " Many is the time 
 you have sat upon my knee, when you were a 
 child, and I was a youth younger than you 
 are now," the light air of gay effrontery died 
 away, his tone was softened and saddened, and, 
 dropping his eyes to the floor, he fell into a fit 
 of thought. 
 
 " Well,'''' said the Count d'Artonne, after a 
 moment's pause, " all these circumstances will 
 form a bond between your young master and 
 yourself, which, I trust, may lead you to serve 
 him faithfully and well ; and now you must make 
 my steward take care of you while we have still 
 the honour and the pleasure of his company at 
 the Chateau d'Artonne." 
 
 " I will serve him, sir, better, perhaps, than 
 he thinks," replied Jean Marais ; and, making 
 a low bow, he was retiring from the room, when 
 Francis called him back again, saying, *' I must 
 
280 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 not make my poor service your only reward, 
 Jean Marais ; that will not be sufficient re- 
 compense : here are fifty out of the hundred 
 louis for you; and I may promise, at the end 
 of the year, if your conduct receives the appro- 
 bation of Monsieur de St. Medard, he will be- 
 stow upon you the other fifty, both as a re- 
 ward for the past and an encouragement for the 
 future." 
 
 Jean Marais took the money without the 
 slightest affectation of reluctance, replying gaily, 
 " I will be a very good young man indeed, sir, 
 I have heard folks declare that virtue is its own 
 reward ; and, like other hard-working people, she 
 has but poor pay, it is true : but, depend upon 
 it, she never works so well as when she has 
 something to work for." 
 
 " I have an account to settle with you, too, 
 Jean Marais," said the Count d'Artonne ; " but I 
 really hardly know what to offer you as a recom- 
 pense. However, if you will think over the 
 matter, and let me know anything that you 
 desire ; if it be in reason, I will not deny it 
 to you. Take time to consider !" 
 
 " No, sir, I do not want time," replied Jean 
 Marais ; " being now a rich man, and well pro- 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 281 
 
 vided for, I have but one thing to ask of any 
 body under Heaven, and am only afraid that you 
 mayn't think it quite reasonable." 
 
 " Let me hear what it is !" said the count. 
 
 " Oh ! it 's a long story, sir," replied Jean 
 Marais. 
 
 " Always an unreasonable thing in itself," 
 answered Monsieur d''Artonne. " However, we 
 have a little time before the intendant comes to 
 dinner ; so, if it be not so long as one of Made- 
 moiselle de Scuderi''s romances, we shall get 
 through it."" 
 
 *' Well, then, sir," replied Jean Marais ; 
 " there is a poor fellow in the lower prison at 
 Clermont, named Antoine Bure, who is charged 
 with poaching on your lands — " 
 
 " Oh ! I know all about that story," exclaimed 
 the count ; " but what is your request ?" 
 
 " That you would withdraw the charge, sir," 
 said Jean Marais boldly. " Poor fellow ! he is 
 as good a creature as ever lived." 
 
 The count waved his hand. '* You need not 
 enter into the question," he answered gravely ; 
 " I am sorry to say I cannot grant your request. 
 You must think of something else." 
 
 Jean Marais looked down, and bit his lip ; 
 
282 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 Francis de Langy turned his eyes upon the 
 count, with some mortification and disappoint- 
 ment in his countenance ; and Julie gazed at her 
 father for a moment with evident surprise, but 
 then caught his hand with a gay smile, exclaiming, 
 " He is jesting, he is jesting. I see it on the corner 
 of his lip ; he is jesting." 
 
 " No, indeed !" said the count, smiling like- 
 wise ; " I am speaking the plain truth, Julie : 
 
 I cannot withdraw the charge, because 1 
 
 have withdrawn it already. It was made during 
 our absence without my consent ; and, as I think 
 the punishment in this country very much too 
 great for the offence, the moment I heard of it 
 I gave orders to stop all proceedings on my part. 
 Jean Marais must, therefore, think of something 
 else ; for I trust that Antoine Bure will be at 
 liberty to-morrow." 
 
 " I have thought of something else already, 
 sir," cried Jean Marais. " You shall let me 
 carry him the news, sir ; and tell him that you 
 did it by your own act, without any solicitation." 
 
 " That as you please," replied the count ; 
 "but as I see you have not yet decided upon 
 the recompense for saving my daughter's life 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 283 
 
 which you would most desire, take time, as I 
 said before, to consider of it, and let me know 
 when you have made up your mind." 
 
 Almost as he spoke, the sound of wheels roll- 
 ing over the stones of the court-yard announced 
 the coming of a visitor ; and, going out with 
 ceremonious politeness to receive him, the count 
 met the intendant at the door of the chateau, 
 and returned with him to the room where the rest 
 of the party were assembled. It is scarcely pos- 
 sible to describe the manner of this worthy officer 
 of the crown as he entered, and paid his respects 
 to the Countess d'Artonne and Julie, without 
 combining incompatibilities. It was perfectly 
 easy, and yet it was restrained ; but it was with 
 that sort of restraint which depended upon his 
 own will, upon his own habits : it was not in the 
 slightest degree the restraint of awkwardness or 
 uncertainty. You saw that he was doing nothing 
 by impulse ; that in the smallest as well as in 
 the greatest he had a guard upon every word, 
 and look, and movement ; that his mind was 
 present in everything ; that he did all that he 
 wished to do, and yet did not do one-half that 
 other men would have done who sought to make 
 
284 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 themselves agreeable. I am not sure that there 
 is any English expression by which I can convey 
 to the reader exactly what I mean, and even in 
 French I must do it by negatives. To borrow 
 an expression from that language, however, he 
 had no abandon ; and yet there was something 
 powerful and striking in the very quiet mas- 
 tery of himself which he seemed to possess. All 
 that is deep and unapproachable, whether moral 
 or physical, is generally impressive. It matters 
 not much whether it be great or whether it be 
 little, whether it be pleasing or whether it be 
 displeasing; the very act of baffling our efforts 
 to penetrate it implies power, and the idea of 
 power is almost always more or less productive 
 of the sublime. Sometimes, indeed, the small- 
 est image which can be presented to the human 
 mind, when combined even remotely with the 
 fact of power, gives birth to the sublime in the 
 highest and most overwhelming degree ; and, 
 of all the images by which the Hebrew pro- 
 phets and poets have endeavoured to convey 
 to narrow humanity some conception of the 
 Almighty, the most awful is found in *' the 
 still small voice.'"' 
 
 But to return to lower things. In seeing the 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 285 
 
 man we speak of, one felt from his very aspect 
 that there was a mind of no ordinary power 
 beneath. There might also be violent passions : 
 one suspected it : one fancied that it was so ; 
 and yet one could not tell why. It was, in fact, 
 as when one gazes on a tiger walking calmly 
 and majestically up and down his den, with 
 a step as noiseless as that of a cat ; we see the 
 terrible strength that lies in those gliding and 
 easy limbs, and divine the fierce and blood- 
 thirsty spirit that dwells in that tranquil and 
 graceful form. 
 
 We cannot pause upon all that took place 
 during dinner, nor give even any specimen of 
 the conversation that passed between the parties 
 there present. With every one but the in- 
 tendant the reader is already well acquainted, and 
 therefore it is upon his conduct that we must 
 principally dwell. He did not speak much ; but 
 what he did say was always to the point, clear, 
 accurate, and sometimes brilliant : but the most 
 sparkling things he uttered were so easy in 
 manner, that the hearer was impressed with the 
 conviction that he could say more sparkling 
 things still ; and so little did he seem to value 
 the powers which he displayed, that one felt 
 
286 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 inclined to suppose he showed but a small 
 part of the treasures of his mind. To Madame 
 d'Artonne he paid marked and peculiar atten- 
 tion, listened to her with that silent flattery 
 which is so captivating, and answered but 
 briefly, more in comments on what she had said 
 than by observations of his own. To Monsieur 
 d'Artonne his demeanour was the same as we have 
 depicted it in the morning. With Julie he con- 
 versed only once or twice, but then with a bland 
 smile and look of interest. Of Francis de Langy 
 he took no notice whatsoever, and he did so on 
 purpose. If the young gentleman spoke upon 
 any occasion, he never interrupted him, he 
 showed him no rudeness whatsoever ; but, the 
 moment Francis had done, he broached some 
 new topic, as if he had not heard a word the 
 other had uttered, or judged his observations 
 unworthy of any attention. 
 
 Had Francis de Langy been of a vain or con- 
 ceited character, he would have been bitterly 
 mortified; as it was, he was not pleased. But 
 though he was by no means self-sufficient or arro- 
 gant in disposition, yet he felt within his own 
 breast powers of mind and energies of character 
 which the supercilious inattention even of a man 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 287 
 
 of great intellect could not keep down. To 
 him the dinner passed off unpleasantly. But let 
 us inquire what was the effect upon the mind 
 of Julie d'Artonne. It was very strange : in 
 listening to the words of the intendant, in 
 marking his demeanour, there was something that 
 she shrunk from, she knew not what ; and yet 
 she could ^ot help V^tening, she could not help 
 observing vvlth eager interest. There was a sort 
 of fascinatio . about him unpleasant, yet strong ; 
 stronger -^ erhaps than if he had paid her marked 
 alien ticn, and mingling in some degree admi- 
 ratijn with dislike. It was like the fabled 
 .ascination of the serpent upon the bird, and 
 was, in fact, painful ; yet, though she strove to 
 withdraw her attention, she could not do so. 
 
 But let not the reader suppose there was any- 
 thing uncommon in her feelings ; the same effect 
 is produced every day by the same qualities, 
 though perhaps not always to the same extent : 
 it is woman's nature to look up, and great powers 
 have always great command over her. Whether 
 there be such a thing as animal magnetism or 
 not, there is certainly such a thing as mental mag- 
 netism ; but it happens, sometimes happily, some- 
 times unhappily, that in the breast of woman 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 love and admiration are two perfectly distinct 
 things. They may be combined, but, far from 
 being always so, are very often separate ; and 
 the man whom a woman admires the most is not 
 unfrequently the one of all others for whom she 
 could feel the least tenderness. 
 
 Did Julie then admire the intendant ? After 
 a certain fashion she assuredly did ; she did 
 so more than he deserved, but not in the way 
 he would have liked. It was th-^ admiration 
 of astonishment rather than of pleasure ; nor 
 was it unnatural that, while she gave him little 
 credit for qualities of the heart, she sh'^uld 
 give him too great credit for high qualities of 
 mind. The fair and soft companions of our 
 troublous path are, by Nature's will, beings of 
 trust and confidence ; they need hard teaching 
 in ihe ways of life to make them think that 
 things are not as they seem. Where man will 
 pause till he has examined, will try talent and 
 genius by a thousand touchstones, and not be 
 satisfied till he is sure that it is gold indeed ; 
 woman will but too often take unweighed, un- 
 criticized, a gilded bauble, and hold it as a 
 jewel of high price, till it tarnishes under her 
 touch, and she finds too late how worthless was 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 289 
 
 the things he valued. The air and the assump- 
 tion of great abilities, unless the hollowness of 
 the pretence be very apparent indeed, is generally 
 enough for her ; and it is not wonderful that 
 in this case, where there was indeed an intellect 
 of great power, Julie should give him who pos- 
 sessed it credit for more than really belonged 
 to him, and take upon trust all that he assumed. 
 But she never dreamt that any other feeling 
 could ever be supposed to have a share in her 
 breast towards a man some thirty years older than 
 herself; and, luckily for them both, neither did 
 Francis de Langy. He disliked the Intendant 
 with that sort of keen distaste which a young man 
 of genius always entertains towards a supercilious 
 though talented man of the world, who under- 
 estimates his abilities, with that longing for strife 
 with him, either physical or intellectual, which 
 an eager spirit always feels towards the arrogant 
 assumption of superiority : but jealousy had no 
 share in his sensations. He was glad, however, 
 when the Intendant retired, which was about an 
 hour before nightfall ; and still more glad when 
 Julie d'Artonne reminded her mother that she 
 had promised to walk round the gardens and the 
 park. 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
^90 ■ THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 Each sensation of the human heart seems natu- 
 rally to require some peculiar and appropriate place 
 for its full developement, and none more eagerly 
 than love. The counterfeit passion may reign in 
 gay saloons and lighted halls, or in darker and 
 more confined dwellings, and revel amidst noise and 
 confusion, the vain clatter of tongues, and all the 
 empty luxury of art, feeling itself there most at 
 home where nature is most excluded; but the 
 pure high love of the young and unperverted 
 heart always longs for the presence of calm and 
 sublime things, — the ^free air, the wide sky, the 
 sunny verge of the sparkling ocean, fields, moun- 
 tains, woods, and all those objects that make the 
 soul thrill with vague memories or fancies of a 
 earlier and a holier state, when love was the 
 brightest flower of Paradise. The narrow and 
 confined walls of houses built with hands seem 
 to oppress and keep in the divine spirit within 
 us, and Francis de Langy longed to be with her 
 in the midst of the splendid scene that surround- 
 ed them. 
 
 Madame d'Artonne replied that she was too 
 much fatigued, but bade the two young people 
 go themselves ; and Monsieur d'Artonne promised 
 to follow them soon. 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. S91 
 
 They went out together, the lover and the be- 
 loved, — so young, so very young, to feel such emo- 
 tions, and yet experiencing them strongly, deeply, 
 truly, "with no difference between their sensations 
 and those of manhood's love, except the purity 
 of early youth. They wandered on, they saw 
 beautiful scenes, they heard the sweet sounds of 
 evening, they gazed upon the glowing sky, and, 
 drinking in from the cup of Nature deep and 
 congenial draughts of Heaven''s own poetry, they 
 lived for a brief space in that dreamy enjoyment 
 in which there is no current of thought, no dis- 
 tinctness of idea, but that mere sensation of 
 enjoyment which perhaps may approach near to 
 the happiness of an after-state, when all the 
 glory of God shall give full fruition to the un- 
 fettered souls of the blessed. 
 
 They were seated side by side upon a fragment 
 of basaltic rock, with a wild ash-tree waving its 
 feathery branches above their head, the giant 
 mountains of Auvergne stretching blue upon the 
 left, the gorgeous setting of a summer day's sun 
 flooding with rosy light the glowing sky before 
 them, the sparkling stream glistening in the valley 
 beneath, love in their hearts and tranquillity 
 all around, when Julie's father approached, see- 
 
292 THE FALSE HEIR. 
 
 ing til em before he was seen, and looking upon 
 them with the mingling tenderness of memory and 
 hope. When they did notice him, neither of them 
 moved, for they had nothing to conceal, nothing 
 that shunned the eye of those whom they re- 
 verenced. Julie held out her hand to her father 
 as he came near, asking, " Is not this beauti- 
 ful ?" and replying, with more than one meaning 
 in his words, he said, '' Beautiful, indeed, my 
 dear child!" 
 
 Monsieur d'Artonne sat down beside them, 
 and gazed in silence for several minutes over the 
 prospect. At length his eyes filled with tears, 
 for it is only to the breast of youthful innocence 
 that such moments bring enjoyment unmingled 
 with regret. Each step that man takes forward 
 in life tramples down some flower ; and, when 
 he pauses for a moment to look around him, he 
 must needs give a tear to all which those foot- 
 steps have destroyed. 
 
 The emotion was transitory, however, from 
 whatever cause it sprung; -and, banishing all 
 memories, the count joined with the two young 
 beings beside him in the enjoyment of the 
 present hour. He gave himself up to happi- 
 ness ; and, when he turned to walk back with 
 
THE FALSE HEIR. 293 
 
 them towards the chateau, a feeling of repose 
 and peace reigned in his breast, as well as 
 theirs. 
 
 How rarely in this life is such a sensation any- 
 thing but the harbinger of agitation and care ! 
 Whether it was, or was not so, in the present 
 instance, the reader who goes on with me will 
 know. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 London : 
 
 Printed by S. & J. Bestley, Wilson, and Flet, 
 
 Bangor House, Shoe Lane. 
 
#■ # 
 
UNIVERSfTY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
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