About the end of the month of June, 1633, three distinguished travellers, arriving at Marseilles, established themselves in the best inn of the city. Their dress and accent were foreign. It was soon known that they were Muscovites, and although their attendants were not numerous, they lived in magnificent style. The eldest of the three travellers had called upon the Marshal of Vitry, Governor of Provence, then residing in Marseilles, and the marshal had returned his visit, a circumstance which greatly enhanced the dignity of the foreigners.
They employed their time in visiting the public build-ings, the port, and the docks. The preceptor of the youngest of these travellers, with the permission of the Marshal of Vitry, made careful inquiry of the consuls concerning the productions and commerce of Provence, the condition of the merchant service, its equipment and destination, evidently anxious, for the benefit of his pupil, to make a comparison between the growing navy of the North and the navy of one of the most important provinces of France.
One day these Muscovites directed their journey toward Toulon.
The eldest of the three foreigners appeared to be fifty years old. His countenance presented a singular union of pride and severity. He was attired in black velvet; a long red beard covered his breast, and his hair, of the same colour, mingled with a few silver locks, showed beneath a Tartar cap trimmed with costly fur. His sea-green eyes, his sallow complexion, his hooked nose, his heavy eyebrows, and his thin lips gave him a hard and ironical expression.
He walked at some distance from his companions, and seldom spoke, and when he did it was only to hurl at them some bitter sarcasm.
The age and appearance of the two other Muscovites presented a striking contrast.
One, who seemed to be the preceptor of the younger, was about forty-five years old. He was short and fat, almost to obesity, although he seemed to have a vigorous constitution.
He wore a long robe of coarsely woven brown silk, after the manner of the Orientals, and an Asiatic cap; a Persian dagger of rare workmanship ornamented his girdle of orange-coloured silk. His fat, ruddy face, covered with a thick brown beard, and his thick lips breathed sensuality; his small, gray eyes sparkled with malice. Sometimes, in a shrill voice, he gave vent to some jest of audacious cynicism, frequently in Latin, and always borrowed from Petronius or Martial; so that the other two travellers, with allusion to the taste of their companion for the works of Petronius, had given him the name of one of the heroes of this writer, and called him Trimalcyon.
The pupil of this singular preceptor seemed at the most to be only twenty years of age. His person was of the ordinary size, but most elegant; his dress, like that of the Muscovites of the age, was a happy union of the fashions of the North and the East, arranged with perfect taste. His long brown hair fell in natural curls from a black cap, flat and without brim, set on one side and ornamented with a gold and purple band; the two ends of this band, finely embroidered and fringed, fell over the collar of a black woollen jacket, embossed with designs in purple and gold, and fastened to the hips by a cashmere shawl; a second jacket with loose sleeves, made of rich black Venetian fabric, and lined with scarlet taffeta, reached a little below the knees; large, loose Moorish trousers, hanging over red morocco buskins, completed the picturesque attire.
An observer would have been embarrassed in assigning a certain character to the countenance of this young man. His features were of perfect regularity; a young, silky beard shaded his chin and lips; his large eyes shone like black diamonds, under his straight brown eyebrows; the dazzling enamel of his teeth scarcely equalled the deep carmine of his lips; his complexion was of a soft brown pallor, and his slender figure seemed to combine strength and elegance.
But this physiognomy, as charming as it was expressive and variable, reflected in turn the different impressions which the two companions of this young man made on his mind.
If Trimalcyon uttered some gross and licentious jest, the young man, whom we will call Erebus, applauded it with a mocking, sneering smile, or, perhaps, replied in words which surpassed the cynicism of his preceptor.
If the nobleman, Pog, a silent and morose man, made a remark of unusual bitterness, suddenly the nostrils of Erebus would dilate, his upper lip curl disdainfully, and his whole face express the most contemptuous sarcasm.
On the contrary, if Erebus did not come under these two fatal influences, or an absurd boasting did not make him appear the advocate of vice, his face would become sweet and serene,—an attractive dignity beamed from his beautiful features; for cynicism and irony only passed over his soul,—noble and pure instincts soon resumed their sway, as a pure fountain regains its clearness when the disturbing element no longer troubles its crystal waters. Such were these three distinguished persons.
They were walking, as we have said, from Marseilles to Toulon.
Erebus, silent and thoughtful, walked a few steps in front of his companions. The road plunged into the defiles of Ollioules, and hid itself in the midst of these solitary rocks.
Erebus had just reached a small open space, where he could overlook a great part of the route, which at this point was very steep and formed a sort of elbow around the eminence upon which the young man stood. Interrupted in his reverie by the sound of singing in the distance, Erebus stopped to listen.
The voice came nearer and nearer.
It was a woman’s voice, with a resonance of wonderful power and beauty.
The air and the words she sang expressed an unaffected melancholy. Soon, at a sudden turn of the road, Erebus could see, without being seen, a company of travellers; they quietly accommodated themselves to the step of their saddle-horses, that climbed the steep road with difficulty.
If the coast of Provence was often desolated by pirates, the interior of the country was as little safe, for the narrow passes of Ollioules, solitudes almost impenetrable, had many times served as a refuge for brigands. Erebus was not astonished to see the little caravan advance with a sort of military circumspection.
The danger did not seem to be imminent, for the young girl continued to sing, but the cavalier who led the march took the precaution to adjust his musket on his left thigh, and at frequent intervals to test his firearms, leaving behind him a little cloud of bluish smoke.
This man, a military figure in the full strength of manhood, wore an old leather jerkin, a large gray cap, scarlet breeches, heavy boots, and rode a small white horse; a hanger or hunting-knife was fastened to his belt, and a tall black hound, with long hair and a leather collar bristling with iron points, walked in front of his horse.
About thirty steps behind this forward sentinel came an old man and a young girl.
The latter was mounted on an ambling nag, as black as jet, elegantly caparisoned with a silk net and a blue velvet cloth; the silver mounting of the bridle glittered in the rays of the setting sun; the reins, scarcely held by the young girl, fell carelessly upon the neck of the nag, whose gentle and regular step by no means interrupted the harmonious measure of the beautiful traveller’s song.
She wore right royally the charming riding-habit so often reproduced by painters in the reign of Louis XIII. On her head was a large black hat with blue feathers, which fell backward on a wide collar of Flanders lace; her close-fitting coat of pearl-gray taffeta, with large, square basques, had a long skirt of the same material and colour, both skirt and waist ornamented with delicate lace-work of sky-blue silk, whose pale shade matched admirably the colour of the habit If one ever doubted the fact that the Greek type had been preserved in all its purity among a few of the families of Marseilles and lower Provence, since the colonisation of the Phoenicians,—the rest of the population recalling more the Arabian and Ligurian physiognomy,—the features of this young girl would have presented a striking proof of the transmission of the antique beauty in all its original perfection.
Nothing could be more agreeable, more delicate, or purer than the exquisite lines of her lovely countenance; nothing more limpid than the blue of her large eyes, fringed with long black lashes; nothing whiter than the ivory of her queenly brow, around which played the light chestnut curls that contrasted beautifully with the perfect arch of eyebrows as black as jet, and soft as velvet; the proportions of her well-rounded form resembled Hebe, or the Venus of Praxiteles, rather than the Venus of Milo.
As she sang she yielded herself to the measured step of her steed, and every movement of her charming and graceful body revealed new treasures of beauty.
Her small, arched foot, encased in a boot of cordovan leather, laced to the ankle, appeared from time to time beneath the ample folds of her long skirt, while her hand, as small as that of a child, gloved in embroidered chamois-skin, carelessly played with the switch by which she urged the gait of her nag.
It would be difficult to picture the frankness which shone from the pure brow of this young girl, the serenity of her large blue eyes, bright with happiness and hope and youth, the unsophisticated sweetness of her smile, and, above all, the look of solicitude and filial veneration which she often directed toward the aged but robust father who accompanied her.
The eager, hardy, and joyous air of this old gentleman contrasted not a little with his white moustache, and the vinous colour of his cheeks announced the fact that he was not indifferent to the seductions of the generous wines of Provence.
A black cap with a red plume, a scarlet doublet trimmed with silver, and mantle of the same, a shoulder-strap of richly embroidered silk, supporting a long sword, and high boots of white sheepskin, with gilded spurs, testified to the quality of Raimond V., Baron des Anbiez, chief of one of the most ancient houses of Provence, and related or allied to the most illustrious baronial houses of Castellane, Baux, Frans, and Villeneuve.
The road which the little caravan followed was so narrow that it permitted two horses to walk abreast with difficulty; a third person rode a few steps behind the baron and his daughter. Two servants, well-mounted and well-armed, closed the march.
This third person, a young man of about twenty-five years, tall and well-made, with a handsome and amiable face, managed his horse with grace and ease. He wore a green hunting-habit, trimmed with gold lace.
His face expressed an indescribable delight in the contemplation of Mlle. Reine des Anbiez, who, without discontinuing her song, every now and then turned to him with a charming glance, to which the Chevalier Honorat de Berrol responded with all the ardour of an infatuated and betrothed lover.
The baron listened to his daughter’s singing with joy and paternal pride; his genial and venerable countenance beamed with happiness.
His contemplative felicity was, nevertheless, not a little disturbed by the sudden jumps of his little horse, brought from the island of Camargne,—a bay stallion with long mane and a long black tail, a wicked eye and ferocious disposition, full of fire, and evidently possessed with a desire to unhorse his master and regain his liberty in the solitary swamps and wild heath where he was born.
Unfortunately for the designs of Mistraon,—named for the impetuous northwest wind, on account of the rapidity of his gait and his bad character,—the baron was an excellent horseman.
Although suffering from the consequences of a wound in the hip, received in the civil war, Raimond V., seated on one of those ancient saddles which in our day we call picket-saddles, answered these vicious caprices of the untamable animal with sound blows of whip and spur. Mistraon, with that patient and diabolical sagacity which horses carry to the point of genius, after several vain attempts, stolidly waited a more favourable occasion for dismounting his rider.
Reine des Anbiez continued to sing.
Like a child, she amused herself by waking the echoes in the gorges of Ollioules, making by turn loud and soft modulations, which would have put a nightingale to despair.
She had just made a most brilliant and musical arpeggio, when suddenly, anticipating the echo, a male voice, sweet and melodious, repeated the young girl’s song with incredible exactness.
For some moments these two charming voices, meeting by chance in a marvellous union, were repeated by the many echoes of this profound solitude.
Reine stopped singing, and blushed as she looked up at her father.
The baron, astonished, turned to Honorat de Berrol, and said, with his habitual exclamation: “Manjour! chevalier, who in the devil is imitating the voice of an angel?”
In the first moment of surprise the baron had unfortunately let the reins fall on Mistraon’s neck.
For some time the deceitful animal kept his step with a gravity and dignity worthy of a bishop’s mule, then in two vigorous bounds, and before the baron had time to recover himself, he climbed up an escarpment which shut in the road.
Unhappily, the horse had made such an effort in ascending this steep acclivity, that he fell upon his head, the reins went over his ears, and floated at random. All this happened in less time than is required to write it.
The baron, an excellent master of horse, although not a little surprised by the adventure of Mistraon, reseated himself in the saddle; his first effort was to try to seize the reins,—he could not reach them. Then, notwithstanding his courage, he shuddered with horror, as he saw himself at the mercy of an unbridled horse that in his frenzy was trying to leap the precipitous edge of a torrent bed.
This deep and wide gulf lay parallel with the road, and was separated from it only by a space of fifty feet.
Seized the Bloody Bridle
Seated in his saddle, and by reason of his wound unable to get out of it before the horse could plunge into the abyss, the old man gave his last thought to his God and his daughter,—made a vow of a weekly mass and an annual pilgrimage to the Chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde, and prepared to die.
From the height where he was standing, Erebus saw the danger of the baron; he saw that he was separated from him by the deep bed of the torrent, ten or twelve feet wide, toward which the horse was plunging.
With a movement more rapid than thought, and an almost desperate leap, Erebus cleared the abyss, and rolled under the animal’s feet The baron screamed with terror,—he believed his saviour would be carried over into the golf, for, notwithstanding the pain and fright which this violent jerk had given him, Mistraon was not able to arrest the impetuosity of his spring, and dragged Erebus several steps.
The latter, endowed with extraordinary strength and admirable presence of mind, had, as he fell, wound the reins around his wrists, while the horse, overcome by the enormous weight which hung upon him, seated himself on his haunches, having exhausted the impulse which instigated such activity.
Scarcely ten steps separated the baron from the edge of the gulf, when Erebus slowly raised himself, seized the bloody bridle-bit with one hand, and with the other threw over the smoking neck of Mistraon the reins which he offered to the old man.
All this transpired so rapidly that Reine des Anbiez and her betrothed, climbing the escarpment, arrived near the baron without having suspected the frightful danger he had just escaped.
Erebus, having replaced the reins in the old man’s hands, picked up his cap, shook the dust from his clothes, and readjusted his hair, and, save the unnatural flush upon his cheeks, nothing in his appearance revealed the part he had taken in this event.
“My God, father, why did you climb this steep? What imprudence!” cried Reine, excited but not frightened, as she bounded lightly from her nag, without seeing the unknown person standing on the other side of the baron’s horse.
Then, seeing the pallor and emotion of the old man as he made a painful descent from his horse, the young girl perceived the danger which had threatened the baron, and throwing herself into his arms, she exclamed:
“Father, father, what has happened to you?” “Reine, my darling child,” said the lord of Anbiez with a broken voice, embracing his daughter with effusion. “Ah, how frightful death would have been,—never to see you again!”
Reine withdrew herself suddenly from her father’s arms, put her two hands on the old man’s shoulders, and looked at him with a bewildered air.
“But for him,” said the baron, cordially pressing in his own hands the hand of Erebus, who had stepped forward, gazing with admiration on the beauty of Reine, “but for this young man, but for his courageous sacrifice, I should have been dashed to pieces in this gulf.”
In a few words the old man told his daughter and Honorat de Berrol how the stranger had saved him from certain death.
Many times during this recital the blue eyes of Reine met the black eyes of Erebus; if she slowly turned her glance away to fix it on her father with adoration, it was not because the manner of this young man was bold or presumptuous; on the contrary, a tear moistened his eyes, and his charming face expressed the most profound emotion. He contemplated this pathetic scene with a sublime pride. When the old man opened his arms to him with paternal affection, he threw himself into them with inexpressible delight, pressed him many times to his heart, as if he had been attracted to the old gentleman by a secret sympathy, as if this young heart, still noble and generous, had anticipated the throbs of another noble and generous heart.
Suddenly Trimalcyon and Pog, who, twenty steps distant, had witnessed this scene from the height of the rock where they were resting, cried out to their young companion some words in a foreign language.
Erebus started, the baron, his daughter, and Honorat de Berrol turned their heads quickly.
Trimalcyon looked at the baron’s daughter with a sort of vulgar and sneering admiration.
The strange physiognomy of these two men surprised the baron, while his daughter and Honorat regarded them with an instinctive terror.
A skilful painter would have found wealth of material in this scene. Imagine a profound solitude in the midst of tremendous rocks of reddish granite, whose summit only was lighted by the last rays of the sun. On the first plane, almost on the edge of the torrent bed, the baron with his left arm around Reine, grasping in his right hand the hand of Erebus, and fixing an anxious, surprised look on Pog and Trimalcyon.
These two, on the second plane, the other side of the golf, standing up side by side, with their arms crossed, outlining a characteristic silhouette upon the azure sky, distinctly perceptible across the ragged edges of the rocks.
Lastly, a few steps from the baron, stood Honorat de Berrol, holding his horse and Reine’s nag, and farther still the two servants, one of whom was occupied in readjusting the harness of Mistraon.
At the first words of the strangers, the beautiful features of Erebus expressed a sort of distressed impatience; he seemed to be undergoing an inward struggle; his face, which awhile ago was radiant with noble passions, gradually grew sombre, as if he were submitting to a mysterious and irresistible influence.
But when Trimalcyon, in a shrill and bantering voice, again uttered a few words, as he designated Reine by an insolent glance, when the lord Pog had added a biting sarcasm in the same language, unintelligible to the other actors in this scene, the features of Erebus completely changed their expression.
With an almost disdainful gesture, he roughly repulsed the hand of the old man, and fixed an impudent stare on Mlle, des Anbiez. This time the girl blushed and dropped her eyes.
This sudden metamorphosis in the manners of the stranger was so striking that the baron recoiled a step. Nevertheless, after a silence of a few seconds, he said to Erebus, in a voice deeply moved:
“How shall I acknowledge, sir, the service you have just rendered me?”
“Oh, sir,” added Reine, overcoming the peculiar emotion which the last look on the part of Erebus had inspired, “how shall we ever be able to prove our gratitude to you?”
“By giving me a kiss, and this pin as a remembrance of you,” replied the impudent young man.
He had scarcely uttered these words, when his mouth touched Reine’s virginal lips, and his bold hand tore away the little pin enamelled with silver, which was fastened in the young girl’s waist.
After this double larceny, Erebus, with wonderful agility, again cleared the gulf behind him, and rejoined his companions, with whom he soon disappeared behind a mass of rocks.
Reine’s fright and emotion were so violent that she turned deathly pale, her knees gave way, and she fell fainting in the arms of her father.
The next day after this scene, the three Muscovites took leave of the marshal, Duke of Vitry, departed from Marseilles with their attendants, and proceeded on their way to Languedoc.