PASSAGES FROM THE LIFE OF MARY STUART.
CHASTELAR.
“Fired by an object so sublime, What could I choose but strive to climb? And as I strove I fell. At least ’tis love, when hope is gone, Through shame and ruin to love on.”—Anon.

The last flush of day had not yet faded from the west, although the summer moon was riding above the verge of the eastern horizon, in a flood of mellow glory, with the diamond-spark of Lucifer glittering in solitary brightness at her side. It was one of those enchanting evenings which, peculiar to the southern lands of Europe, visit, but at far and fleeting intervals, the sterner clime of Britain. Not Italy, however, could herself have boasted a more delicious twilight than this, which now was waning into night, above the rude magnificence of Scotland’s capital. The fantastic dwellings of the city, ridge above ridge, loomed broadly to the left, partially veiled by those wreaths of vapor, which have been the origin of its provincial name; while, far above the misty indistinctness of the town, the glorious castle towered aloft upon its craggy throne, displaying a hundred fronts of massive shadow, and as many salient angles jutting abruptly into sight. The lovely vale of the King’s park, with its velvet turf and shadowy foliage, shone out306 in quiet lustre from beneath the dark-gray buttresses of Arthur’s seat; while from the trim alleys and pleached evergreens, which at that day formed a belt of lawn, and shrubbery, and royal garden, around the venerable pile of Holyrood, the rich song of the throstle—the nightingale of Scotland—came in repeated bursts upon the ear.

Delightful as such an evening must naturally be to all who have hearts awake to the influence of sweet sounds and lovely sights, how inexpressibly soothing must it seem to one who, languishing beneath the ungenial atmosphere of a northern region, and sighing for the bluer skies and softer breezes of his fatherland, feels himself at once transported, by the unusual aspect of the heavens, to the distant home of his regrets! It was, perhaps, some fancied similarity to the nights in which he had been wont to court the favor of the high-born dames of France with voice and instrument, that had awakened the melody of some foreign cavalier, more suitable perchance to the light murmurs of the Seine than to the distant booming of the seas that lash the coasts of Scotland. Such, however, was the illusion produced by the unwonted softness of the hour, that the tinkling of a lute and the full, manly voice of the singer did not at the moment seem so inconsistent to the spirit of the country and of the times as in truth it was. The words were French, and the air, though sweet, so melancholy, that it left a vague sensation of pain upon the listener—as though none but a heart diseased could give birth to notes so plaintive. “Pensez à moi! pensez à moi!—noble dame—Pensez à moi!”—the burden of the strain swelled clearly audible in the deepest tones of feeling, although the intermediate words were lost amid the accompaniment of the silver strings. Never, perhaps, since the unfortunate Chatelain de Concy first chanted his extemporaneous farewell to the lady of his heart, had his simple words been sung with taste or execution more appropriate to their subject.307 In truth, it was impossible to listen to the lay without feeling a conviction that the heart of the minstrel was in his song. There were, moreover, moments in which a practised ear might have discovered variations, not in the tune only, but in the words, as the singer exerted his unrivalled powers to adapt the text, which he had chosen, to his own peculiar circumstances; nor would it have required more than a common degree of fancy to have traced the sounds, “O Reine Marie!” mingling with the proper refrain of the chant, although it would have been less easy to distinguish whether the fervent expression with which the words were invested was applied to an object of mortal idolatry or of immortal adoration. It would seem, however, that there were listeners near, to whom this doubt had not so much as once occurred; for in a shadowy bower, not far distant from the spot where the concealed musician sang, there stood a group of ladies, drinking with breathless eagerness every note that issued from his lips. Foremost in place, as first in rank, was one whose charms have been said and sung, not by the poet and the romancer only, but by the muse of history herself, who almost seems to have dipped her graver pencil in the hues of fiction when describing Mary Stuart of Scotland. Her form, rather below than above the middle stature of the female form, was fashioned with such perfect elegance, that it was equally calculated to exhibit the extremes of grace and majesty. Her ringlets of the deepest auburn, glancing in the light with a glossy, golden lustre, and melting into shadows of dark chestnut; the statue-like contour of her Grecian head; her eyes, on which no man had ever gazed with impunity to his heart—more languid and at the same time far more brilliant than those of created beauty; her mouth, whose wreathed smile might have almost tempted angels to descend and worship; her swan-like neck of dazzling whiteness; and, above all, the glorious blending of feminine ease with regal dignity—of condescension308 and affability toward the meanest of her fellow-men, with the exalted consciousness of all that was due, not to her rank, but to herself—combined to render her perhaps the loveliest, as after-events proved her beyond a doubt the most unfortunate, of queens or women. Sorrow at this time had scarcely cast a shadow on that transparent brow; or, if an occasional recollection of the ill-fated Francis did leave a trace behind, it was a sadness of that gentle and spiritualized description which is, perhaps, a more attractive expression to be marked in the features of a lovely woman, than the full blaze of happiness and self-enjoyment. Simple almost to plainness in her attire, the queen of Scotland moved before her four attendant Maries, ten thousand times more lovely from the contrast of her unadornment to the gorgeous dresses of those noble dames, who had been selected to be near her person, with especial regard, not to exalted rank alone, or to the distinctive name, which they bore in common with their royal mistress, but to intellect, and beauty, and all those accomplishments which, general as they are in our day, were then at least as highly valued for their rarity, as for their intrinsic merits. A robe of sable velvet, with the closely-fitted corsage peculiar to the age in which she lived, a falling ruff from the fairest looms of Flanders, and the picturesque head-gear which has ever borne her name, with its double tressure of pearls, and a single string of the same precious jewels around her neck, completed Mary’s dress, while rustling trains of many-colored satin, guarded with costly laces and stomachers studded with gems, bracelets, and carcanets, and chains of goldsmith’s work, gleamed on the persons of her ladies. Still the demeanor of the little group was more in accordance to the simplicity of the mistress than to the splendor of the others. No rigid etiquette was there; none of that high and haughty ceremonial which, in the courtly festivals of the rival queen of England, froze up the feelings even of those trusted309 few who bore with the caprices, in seeking for the favors, of Elizabeth. The titles of grace and majesty were lisped indeed by the lips of the fair damsels, but the character of their remarks, the polished raillery, the light laugh, and the freedom of intercourse, were rather those of the younger members of a family toward an elder sister, than of a court-circle toward a powerful queen. As the last notes of the song died away, she who was nearest to Mary’s person whispered in a sportive tone, “Your grace has heard that lute before—”

“In France, Carmichael,” answered Mary, with a breath so deeply drawn as almost to resemble a sigh, “in our beautiful France; when, when shall I look upon that lovely land again.”

While she was yet speaking the music recommenced. A dash of impatience was mingled with the plaintive sweetness of the strain, and the words “pensez à moi” swept past their ears with all the energy of disappointed feelings.

“It is the voice—”

“Of the sieur de Chastelar,” interrupted the queen; “we would thank the gentleman for his minstrelsey. Seyton, ma mignonne, hie thee across yon woodbine-maze, and summon this night-warbler to our presence.”

With an arch smile the lively girl bounded forward, and was for an instant lost among the foliage of the garden.

“Dost thou remember, Carmichael,” said the queen, whose thoughts had been reflected by the well-remembered strains—“dost thou remember our sylvan festivals in the lovely groves of Versailles, with hound and hawk for noonday pastime, and the lute, the song, and the unfettered dance upon the green sward, beneath moons unclouded by the hazy gloom of this dark Scotland’s?”

“And does your grace remember,” laughed the other in reply, “a certain fête in which the palm of minstrelsey was awarded by your royal hand to a masked hunter of the forest? Yet310 was his bearing somewhat gentle for a ranger of the green-wood, and his hand was passing white to have handled the tough bow-string? Does your grace’s memory serve to recall the air whose executions gained that prize of harmony? Methinks it did run somewhat thus,”—and she warbled the same notes which had formed the burthen of the serenade.

Whether some distant recollections conjured up the mantling color to the cheeks of Mary, or whether she dreaded the misconstruction of the serenader, on his hearing his own tender words repeated in a voice of female melody, it was with brow, neck and bosom of the deepest crimson that she turned to Mary Carmichael—

“Peace, silly minion!” she said, with momentary dignity; “wouldst have it said that Mary of Scotland is so light of bearing as to trill love-ditties in reply to unseen ballad-mongers? Nay, weep not neither, Marie; if I spoke somewhat shortly, ’twas that the gentleman was even then approaching. Cheer up, my girl; thou hast, we know it well, a kind, a gentle, and a trusty heart, though nature has coupled the gift to that of a thoughtless head and random tongue. Take not on thus, or I shall blame myself in that I checked thee, though surely not unkindly. Mary of Stuart loves better far to look upon a smiling lip than a wet eye, even if it be a stranger’s—much less that of one whom she loves—as I love thee, Carmichael.”

There was, perhaps, no circumstance more remarkable than the power which, at every period of her momentous life, Mary appears to have possessed of winning, as it were at a glance, the affections of all who came in contact with her. The deep devotion, not of the barons and the military chiefs alone, who bled in defence of her cause, but of the ladies, the pages, the chamberlains of her court, nay, of the very grooms and servitors, with whom she could have held no intercourse beyond a311 smile or inclination of the head, in return for their lowly obeisance, was ever ready for the proof, when circumstances might demand its exercise. Not shown by outward acts of heroism only, or by those deeds which men are wont to perform, no less at the instigation of their wishes for renown, or of rivalry with some more famed competitor, this devotion was constantly manifested in the eagerness of all around her to execute even the most menial duties to Mary’s satisfaction; in the promptness to anticipate her slightest wish; in the lively joy which one kind word from her could awaken, as if by magic, on every brow; and, above all, in the utter despondency which seemed to sink down upon those whom she might deem it necessary to check, even with the slightest remonstrance. In the present instance the sensitive girl, to whom the queen had uttered her commands in the nervous quickness of excitement, rather than with any feeling of harshness or offended pride, felt, it was evident, more bitterness of grief at the rebuke of one whom she loved no less than she revered, than she would have experienced beneath the pressure of some real calamity. As quickly, however, as the sense of sorrow had been excited, did it pass away, before the returning smiles, the soft caresses, and the winning manners of the most fascinating of women the most amiable of superiors.

Scarcely had the tears of Mary Carmichael ceased to flow, when the footsteps, which for some moments previously had been heard approaching, sounded close at hand; the branches of the embowering shrubbery were gently put asunder, and the lady Seyton stood again before the queen, attended by a gentleman of noble aspect, and whose very gesture was fraught with that easy and graceful politeness which, perhaps, showed even more to advantage in that iron age and warlike country, displayed, as it often was, in contrast to the rude demeanor and stern simplicity of the warrior lords of Scotland, than in his312 native France.

The sieur de Chastelar was at this time in the very prime of youthful manhood, and might have been some few years, and but few, the senior of the lovely being before whose presence he bent in adoration humbler, and more fervently expressed, than the reverence due from a mere subject to a mortal queen. Tall and fairly-proportioned, with a countenance in which almost feminine softness of expression was blended, with an aspect of the eye and lip, which proved the vicinity of bolder and more manly qualities, slumbering but not extinct, he seemed at the first glance a man most eminently qualified to win a female heart. And who, that looked upon the broad and massive brow, and the quick glance of that eye, fraught with intelligence, could doubt but that the mind within was equal to the more perishable beauties of the form in which it was encompassed? And when to all this was added, that the sieur de Chastelar had already won a name in his green youth that ranked with those of gray-haired veterans in the lists of glory; that in all manly exercises, as in all softer accomplishments, he owned no superior; that the most skilful master of defence, the far-famed Vicentio Saviola, confessed De Chastelar his equal in the quickness of eye, the readiness of hand and foot which had combined to render him the most distinguished swordsman of the day; that the wildest and most untameable chargers that ever were compelled to undergo the manége, might as well have striven to shake off a portion of themselves, as to dismount De Chasteler by any display of violence and power; that his hand could draw the cloth-yard arrow to the head, and speed it to its aim as truly as the fleetest archer that ever twanged a bow in Sherwood; that he moved in the stately measure of the pavon, or the livelier galliarde, with that grace peculiar to his nation; that, in the richness of his voice, his execution and taste on lute or guitar, he might have vied with the sons of Italy herself;313 in short, that all perfections which were deemed most requisite to form a gentleman were united in De Chastelar, what female heart, that was not proof to all the allurements of love or fancy, could hope to make an adequate resistance? Young, handsome, romantic, ardent in his hopes, enthusiastic almost to madness in his affections, he had been captivated years before in the gay salons of the French capitol, by the beauty and irresistible fascinations of the princess.

In the intercourse of French society, which even in the times of the Medici, as it has been in all succeeding ages, was far more liberal in its distinctions, and less restricted by the formalities of etiquette, than in any other court, a thousand opportunities had occurred, by which the youthful cavalier had profited to rivet the attention of the princess; at every carousel he bore her colors; in every masque he introduced some delicate allusion, some soft flattery, palpable to her alone; in every contest of musical skill, which yet survived in Paris, the sole remnant of the troubadours, some covert traces of his passion might be discovered, if not by every ear, at least by that of Mary. Intoxicated as she was, at this stage of her life, by the adulation of all, by the consciousness of beauty, power, and rank, far above all her fellows, the queen of Scotland owed much of her misery in after-years to the unclouded brilliancy of her youthful prospects, and to the wide distinction between the manners of that court, in which her happiest hours were spent; and of her northern subjects, by whom her gaieté de cour, her love for society less formal than the routine of courts, and her predilections for all innocent amusements, were ever looked upon in the light of grave derelictions ............