There was immense talk, with plenty of laughter and no thought of mischief, among the crowd. The habitans of en haut and the habitans of en bas commingled, as they rarely did, in a friendly way. Nor was anything to provoke a quarrel said even to the Acadians, whose rude patois was a source of merry jest to the better-speaking Canadians.

The Acadians had flocked in great numbers into Quebec on the seizure of their Province by the English, sturdy, robust, quarrelsome fellows, who went about challenging people in their reckless way,—Etions pas mon maitre, monsieur?—but all were civil to-day, and tuques were pulled off and bows exchanged in a style of easy politeness that would not have shamed the streets of Paris.

The crowd kept increasing in the Rue Buade. The two sturdy beggars who vigorously kept their places on the stone steps of the barrier, or gateway, of the Basse Ville reaped an unusual harvest of the smallest coin—Max Grimau, an old, disabled soldier, in ragged uniform, which he had worn at the defence of Prague under the Marshal de Belleisle, and blind Bartemy, a mendicant born—the former, loud-tongued and importunate, the latter, silent and only holding out a shaking hand for charity. No Finance Minister or Royal Intendant studied more earnestly the problem how to tax the kingdom than Max and Blind Bartemy how to toll the passers-by, and with less success, perhaps.

To-day was a red-letter day for the sturdy beggars, for the news flew fast that an ovation of some popular kind was to be given to the Bourgeois Philibert. The habitans came trooping up the rough mountain-road that leads from the Basse Ville to the Upper Town; and up the long stairs lined with the stalls of Basque pedlars—cheating, loquacious varlets—which formed a by-way from the lower regions of the Rue de Champlain—a break-neck thoroughfare little liked by the old and asthmatical, but nothing to the sturdy "climbers," as the habitans called the lads of Quebec, or the light-footed lasses who displayed their trim ankles as they flew up the breezy steps to church or market.

Max Grimau and Blind Bartemy had ceased counting their coins. The passers-by came up in still increasing numbers, until the street, from the barrier of the Basse Ville to the Cathedral, was filled with a noisy, good-humored crowd, without an object except to stare at the Golden Dog and a desire to catch a glimpse of the Bourgeois Philibert.

The crowd had become very dense, when a troop of gentlemen rode at full speed into the Rue Buade, and after trying recklessly to force their way through, came to a sudden halt in the midst of the surging mass.

The Intendant, Cadet, and Varin had ridden from Beaumanoir, followed by a train of still flushed guests, who, after a hasty purification, had returned with their host to the city—a noisy troop, loquacious, laughing, shouting, as is the wont of men reckless at all times, and still more defiant when under the influence of wine.

"What is the meaning of this rabble, Cadet?" asked Bigot; "they seem to be no friends of yours. That fellow is wishing you in a hot place!" added Bigot, laughing, as he pointed out a habitan who was shouting "A bas Cadet!"

"Nor friends of yours, either," replied Cadet. "They have not recognized you yet, Bigot. When they do, they will wish you in the hottest place of all!"

The Intendant was not known personally to the habitans as were Cadet, Varin, and the rest. Loud shouts and execrations were freely vented against these as soon as they were recognized.

"Has this rabble waylaid us to insult us?" asked Bigot. "But it can hardly be that they knew of our return to the city to-day." The Intendant began to jerk his horse round impatiently, but without avail.

"Oh, no, your Excellency! it is the rabble which the Governor has summoned to the King's corvee. They are paying their respects to the Golden Dog, which is the idol the mob worships just now. They did not expect us to interrupt their devotions, I fancy."

"The vile moutons! their fleece is not worth the shearing!" exclaimed Bigot angrily, at the mention of the Golden Dog, which, as he glanced upwards, seemed to glare defiantly upon him.

"Clear the way, villains!" cried Bigot loudly, while darting his horse into the crowd. "Plunge that Flanders cart-horse of yours into them, Cadet, and do not spare their toes!"

Cadet's rough disposition chimed well with the Intendant's wish. "Come on, Varin, and the rest of you," cried he, "give spur, and fight your way through the rabble."

The whole troop plunged madly at the crowd, striking right and left with their heavy hunting-whips. A violent scuffle ensued; many habitans were ridden down, and some of the horsemen dismounted. The Intendant's Gascon blood got furious: he struck heavily, right and left, and many a bleeding tuque marked his track in the crowd.

The habitans recognized him at last, and a tremendous yell burst out. "Long live the Golden Dog! Down with the Friponne!" while the more bold ventured on the cry, "Down with the Intendant and the thieves of the Grand Company!"

Fortunately for the troop of horsemen the habitans were utterly unarmed; but stones began to be thrown, and efforts were made by them, not always unsuccessfully, to pull the riders off of their horses. Poor Jean La Marche's darling child, his favorite violin, was crushed at the first charge. Jean rushed at the Intendant's bridle, and received a blow which levelled him.

The Intendant and all the troop now drew their swords. A bloody catastrophe seemed impending, when the Bourgeois Philibert, seeing the state of affairs, despatched a messenger with tidings to the Castle of St. Louis, and rushed himself into the street amidst the surging crowd, imploring, threatening, and compelling them to give way.

He was soon recognized and cheered by the people; but even his influence might have failed to calm the fiery passions excited by the Intendant's violence, had not the drums of the approaching soldiery suddenly resounded above the noise of the riot. In a few minutes long files of glittering bayonets were seen streaming down the Rue du Fort. Colonel St. Remi rode at their head, forming his troops in position to charge the crowd. The colonel saw at once the state of affairs, and being a man of judgment, commanded peace before resorting to force. He was at once obeyed. The people stood still and in silence. They fell back quietly before the troops. They had no purpose to resist the authorities—indeed, had no purpose whatever. A way was made by the soldiers, and the Intendant and his friends were extricated from their danger.

They rode at once out of the mob amid a volley of execrations, which were replied to by angry oaths and threats of the cavaliers as they galloped across the Place d'Armes and rode pell-mell into the gateway of the Chateau of St. Louis.

The crowd, relieved of their presence, grew calm; and some of the more timid of them got apprehensive of the consequences of this outrage upon the Royal Intendant. They dispersed quietly, singly or in groups, each one hoping that he might not be called upon to account for the day's proceedings.

The Intendant and his cortege of friends rode furiously into the courtyard of the Chateau of St. Louis, dishevelled, bespattered, and some of them hatless. They dismounted, and foaming with rage, rushed through the lobbies, and with heavy trampling of feet, clattering of scabbards, and a bedlam of angry tongues, burst into the Council Chamber.

The Intendant's eyes shot fire. His Gascon blood was at fever heat, flushing his swarthy cheek like the purple hue of a hurricane. He rushed at once to the council-table, and seeing the Governor, saluted him, but spoke in tones forcibly kept under by a violent effort.

"Your Excellency and gentlemen of the Council will excuse our delay," shouted Bigot, "when I inform you that I, the Royal Intendant of New France, have been insulted, pelted, and my very life threatened by a seditious mob congregated in the streets of Quebec."

"I grieve much, and sympathize with your Excellency's indignation," replied the Governor warmly; "I rejoice you have escaped unhurt. I despatched the troops to your assistance, but have not yet learned the cause of the riot."

"The cause of the riot was the popular hatred of myself for enforcing the royal ordinances, and the seditious example set the rabble by the notorious merchant, Philibert, who is at the bottom of all mischief in New France."

The Governor looked fixedly at the Intendant, as he replied quietly,—"The Sieur Philibert, although a merchant, is a gentleman of birth and loyal principles, and would be the last man alive, I think, to excite a riot. Did you see the Bourgeois, Chevalier?"

"The crowd filled the street near his magazines, cheering for the Bourgeois and the Golden Dog. We rode up and endeavored to force our way through. But I did not see the Bourgeois himself until the disturbance had attained its full proportions."

"And then, your Excellency? Surely the Bourgeois was not encouraging the mob, or participating in the riot?"

"No! I do not charge him with participating in the riot, although the mob were all his friends and partisans. Moreover," said Bigot, frankly, for he felt he owed his safety to the interference of the Bourgeois, "it would be unfair not to acknowledge that he did what he could to protect us from the rabble. I charge Philibert with sowing the sedition that caused the riot, not with rioting himself."

"But I accuse him of both, and of all the mob has done!" thundered Varin, enraged to hear the Intendant speak with moderation and justice. "The house of the Golden Dog is a den of traitors; it ought to be pulled down, and its stones built into a monument of infamy over its owner, hung like a dog in the market-place."

"Silence, Varin!" exclaimed the Governor sternly. "I will not hear the Sieur Philibert spoken of in these injurious terms. The Intendant does not charge him with this disturbance; neither shall you."

"Par Dieu! you shall not, Varin!" burst in La Corne St. Luc, roused to unusual wrath by the opprobrium heaped upon his friend the Bourgeois; "and you shall answer to me for that you have said!"

"La Corne! La Corne!" The Governor saw a challenge impending, and interposed with vehemence. "This is a Council of War, and not a place for recriminations. Sit down, dear old friend, and aid me to get on with the business of the King and his Colony, which we are here met to consider."

The appeal went to the heart of La Corne. He sat down. "You have spoken generously, Chevalier Bigot, respecting the Bourgeois Philibert," continued the Governor. "I am pleased that you have done so. My Aide-de-Camp, Colonel Philibert, who is just entering the Council, will be glad to hear that your Excellency does justice to his father in this matter."

"The blessing of St. Bennet's boots upon such justice," muttered Cadet to himself. "I was a fool not to run my sword through Philibert when I had the chance."

The Governor repeated to Colonel Philibert what had been said by Bigot.

Colonel Philibert bowed to the Intendant. "I am under obligation to the Chevalier Bigot," said he, "but it astonishes me much that any one should dare implicate my father in such a disturbance. Certainly the Intendant does him but justice."

This remark was not pleasing to Bigot, who hated Colonel Philibert equally with his father. "I merely said he had not participated in the riot, Colonel Philibert, which was true. I did not excuse your father for being at the head of the party among whom these outrages arise. I simply spoke truth, Colonel Philibert. I do not eke out by the inch my opinion of any man. I care not for the Bourgeois Philibert more than for the meanest blue cap in his following."

This was an ungracious speech. Bigot meant it to be such. He repented almost of the witness he had borne to the Bourgeois's endeavors to quell the mob. But he was too profoundly indifferent to men's opinions respecting himself to care to lie.

Colonel Philibert resented the Intendant's sneer at his father. He faced Bigot, saying to him,—"The Chevalier Bigot has done but simple justice to my father with reference to his conduct in regard to the riot. But let the Intendant recollect that, although a merchant, my father is above all things a Norman gentleman, who never swerved a hair-breadth from the path of honor—a gentleman whose ancient nobility would dignify even the Royal Intendant." Bigot looked daggers at this thrust at his own comparatively humble origin. "And this I have further to say," continued Philibert, looking straight in the eyes of Bigot, Varin, and Cadet, "whoever impugns my father's honor impugns mine; and no man, high or low, shall do that and escape chastisement!"

The greater part of the officers seated round the council-board listened with marks of approval to Philibert's vindication of his father. But no one challenged his words, although dark, ominous looks glanced from one to another among the friends of the Intendant. Bigot smothered his anger for the present, however; and to prevent further reply from his followers he rose, and bowing to the Governor, begged His Excellency to open the Council.

"We have delayed the business of the King too long with these personal recriminations," said he. "I shall leave this riot to be dealt with by the King's courts, who will sharply punish both instigators and actors in this outrage upon the royal authority."

These words seemed to end the dispute for the present.



CHAPTER XIV. THE COUNCIL OF WAR.

The Council now opened in due form. The Secretary read the royal despatches, which were listened to with attention and respect, although with looks of dissent in the countenances of many of the officers.

The Governor rose, and in a quiet, almost a solemn strain, addressed the Council: "Gentlemen," said he, "from the tenor of the royal despatches just read by the Secretary, it is clear that our beloved New France is in great danger. The King, overwhelmed by the powers in alliance against him, can no longer reinforce our army here. The English fleet is supreme—for the moment only, I hope!" added the Governor, as if with a prevision of his own future triumphs on the ocean. "English troops are pouring into New York and Boston, to combine with the militia of New England and the Middle Colonies in a grand attack upon New France. They have commenced the erection of a great fort at Chouagen on Lake Ontario, to dispute supremacy with our stronghold at Niagara, and the gates of Carillon may ere long have to prove their strength in keeping the enemy out of the Valley of the Richelieu. I fear not for Carillon, gentlemen, in ward of the gallant Count de Lusignan, whom I am glad to see at our Council. I think Carillon is safe."

The Count de Lusignan, a gray-headed officer of soldierly bearing, bowed low to this compliment from the Governor. "I ask the Count de Lusignan," continued the Governor, "what he thinks would result from our withdrawing the garrison from Carillon, as is suggested in the despatches?"

"The Five Nations would be on the Richelieu in a week, and the English in Montreal a month after such a piece of folly on our part!" exclaimed the Count de Lusignan.

"You cannot counsel the abandonment of Carillon then, Count?" A smile played over the face of the Governor, as if he too felt the absurdity of his question.

"Not till Quebec itself fall into the enemy's hands. When that happens, His Majesty will need another adviser in the place of the old Count de Lusignan."

"Well spoken, Count! In your hands Carillon is safe, and will one day, should the enemy assail it, be covered with wreaths of victory, and its flag be the glory of New France."

"So be it, Governor. Give me but the Royal Roussillon and I pledge you neither English, Dutch, nor Iroquois shall ever cross the waters of St. Sacrament."

"You speak like your ancestor the crusader, Count. But I cannot spare the Royal Roussillon. Think you you can hold Carillon with your present garrison?"

"Against all the force of New England. But I cannot promise the same against the English regulars now landing at New York."

"They are the same whom the King defeated at Fontenoy, are they not?" interrupted the Intendant, who, courtier as he was, disliked the tenor of the royal despatches as much as any officer present,—all the more as he knew La Pompadour was advising peace out of a woman's considerations rather than upholding the glory of France.

"Among them are many troops who fought us at Fontenoy. I learned the fact from an English prisoner whom our Indians brought in from Fort Lydius," replied the Count de Lusignan.

"Well, the more of them the merrier," laughed La Corne St. Luc. "The bigger the prize, the richer they who take it. The treasure-chests of the English will make up for the beggarly packs of the New Englanders. Dried stock fish, and eel-skin garters to drive away the rheumatism, were the usual prizes we got from them down in Acadia!"

"The English of Fontenoy are not such despicable foes," remarked the Chevalier de Lery; "they sufficed to take Louisbourg, and if we discontinue our walls, will suffice to take Quebec."

"Louisbourg was not taken by THEM, but fell through the mutiny of the base Swiss!" replied Bigot, touched sharply by any allusion to that fortress where he had figured so discreditably. "The vile hirelings demanded money of their commander when they should have drawn the blood of the enemy!" added he, angrily.

"Satan is bold, but he would blush in the presence of Bigot," remarked La Corne St. Luc to an Acadian officer seated next him. "Bigot kept the King's treasure, and defrauded the soldiers of their pay: hence the mutiny and the fall of Louisbourg."

"It is what the whole army knows," replied the officer. "But hark! the Abbe Piquet is going to speak. It is a new thing to see clergy in a Council of War!"

"No one has a better right to speak here than the Abbe Piquet," replied La Corne. "No one has sent more Indian allies into the field to fight for New France than the patriotic Abbe."

Other officers did not share the generous sentiments of La Corne St. Luc. They thought it derogatory to pure military men to listen to a priest on the affairs of the war.

"The Marshal de Belleisle would not permit even Cardinal de Fleury to put his red stockings beneath his council-table," remarked a strict martinet of La Serre; "and here we have a whole flock of black gowns darkening our regimentals! What would Voltaire say?"

"He would say that when priests turn soldiers it is time for soldiers to turn tinkers and mend holes in pots, instead of making holes in our enemies," replied his companion, a fashionable freethinker of the day.

"Well, I am ready to turn pedlar any day! The King's army will go to the dogs fast enough since the Governor commissions Recollets and Jesuits to act as royal officers," was the petulant remark of another officer of La Serre.

A strong prejudice existed in the army against the Abbe Piquet for his opposition to the presence of French troops in his Indian missionary villages. They demoralized his neophytes, and many of the officers shared in the lucrative traffic of fire-water to the Indians. The Abbe was zealous in stopping those abuses, and the officers complained bitterly of his over-protection of the Indians.

The famous "King's Missionary," as he was called, stood up with an air of dignity and authority that seemed to assert his right to be present in the Council of War, for the scornful looks of many of the officers had not escaped his quick glance.

The keen black eyes, thin resolute lips, and high swarthy forehead of the Abbe would have well become the plumed hat of a marshal of France. His loose black robe, looped up for freedom, reminded one of a grave senator of Venice whose eye never quailed at any policy, however severe, if required for the safety of the State.

The Abbe held in his hand a large roll of wampum, the tokens of treaties made by him with the Indian nations of the West, pledging their alliance and aid to the great Onontio, as they called the Governor of New France.

"My Lord Governor!" said the Abbe, placing his great roll on the table, "I thank you for admitting the missionaries to the Council. We appear less as churchmen on this occasion than as the King's ambassadors, although I trust that all we have done will redound to God's glory and the spread of religion among the heathen. These belts of wampum are tokens of the treaties we have made with the numerous and warlike tribes of the great West. I bear to the Governor pledges of alliance from the Miamis and Shawnees of the great valley of the Belle Riviere, which they call the Ohio. I am commissioned to tell Onontio that they are at peace with the King and at war with his enemies from this time forth forever. I have set up the arms of France on the banks of the Belle Riviere, and claimed all its lands and waters as the just appanage of our sovereign, from the Alleghanies to the plantations of Louisiana. The Sacs and Foxes, of the Mississippi; the Pottawatomies, Winnebagoes, and Chippewas of a hundred bands who fish in the great rivers and lakes of the West; the warlike Ottawas, who have carried the Algonquin tongue to the banks of Lake Erie,—in short, all enemies of the Iroquois have pledged themselves to take the field whenever the Governor shall require the axe to be dug up and lifted against the English and the Five Nations. Next summer the chiefs of all these tribes will come to Quebec, and ratify in a solemn General Council the wampums they now send by me and the other missionaries, my brothers in the Lord!"

The Abbe, with the slow, formal manner of one long accustomed to the speech and usages of the Indians, unrolled the belts of wampum, many fathoms in length, fastened end to end to indicate the length of the alliance of the various tribes with France. The Abbe interpreted their meaning, and with his finger pointed out the totems or signs manual—usually a bird, beast, or fish—of the chiefs who had signed the roll.

The Council looked at the wampums with intense interest, well knowing the important part these Indians were capable of assuming in the war with England.

"These are great and welcome pledges you bring us, Abbe," said the Governor; "they are proofs at once of your ability and of your zealous labors for the King. A great public duty has been ably discharged by you and your fellow-missionaries, whose loyalty and devotion to France it shall be my pleasure to lay before His Majesty. The Star of Hope glitters in the western horizon, to encourage us under the clouds of the eastern. Even the loss of Acadia, should it be final, will be compensated by the acquisition of the boundless fertile territories of the Belle Riviere and of the Illinois. The Abbe Piquet and his fellow-missionaries have won the hearts of the native tribes of the West. There is hope now, at last, of uniting New France with Louisiana in one unbroken chain of French territory.

"It has been my ambition, since His Majesty honored me with the Government of New France, to acquire possession of those vast territories covered with forests old as time, and in soil rich and fertile as Provence and Normandy.

"I have served the King all my life," continued the Governor, "and served him with honor and even distinction,—permit me to say this much of myself."

He spoke in a frank, manly way, for vanity prompted no part of his speech. "Many great services have I rendered my country, but I feel that the greatest service I could yet do Old France or New would be the planting of ten thousand sturdy peasants and artisans of France in the valley of the far West, to make its forests vocal with the speech of our native land.

"This present war may end suddenly,—I think it will: the late victory at Lawfelt has stricken the allies under the Duke of Cumberland a blow hard as Fontenoy. Rumors of renewed negotiations for peace are flying thick through Europe. God speed the peacemakers, and bless them, I say! With peace comes opportunity. Then, if ever, if France be true to herself and to her heritage in the New World, she will people the valley of the Ohio and secure forever her supremacy in America!

"But our forts far and near must be preserved in the meantime. We must not withdraw from one foot of French territory. Quebec must be walled, and made safe against all attack by land or water. I therefore will join the Council in a respectful remonstrance to the Count de Maurepas, against the inopportune despatches just received from His Majesty. I trust the Royal Intendant will favor the Council now with his opinion on this important matter, and I shall be happy to have the cooperation of His Excellency in measures of such vital consequence to the Colony and to France."

The Governor sat down, after courteously motioning the Intendant to rise and address the Council.

The Intendant hated the mention of peace. His interests, and the interests of his associates of the Grand Company, were all involved in the prolongation of the war.

War enabled the Grand Company to monopolize the trade and military expenditure of New France. The enormous fortunes its members made, and spent with such reckless prodigality, would by peace be dried up in their source; the yoke would be thrown off the people's neck, trade would again free.

Bigot was far-sighted enough to see that clamors would be raised and listened to in the leisure of peace. Prosecutions for illegal exactions might follow, and all the support of his friends at Court might not be able to save him and his associates from ruin—perhaps punishment.

The parliaments of Paris, Rouen, and Brittany still retained a shadow of independence. It was only a shadow, but the fury of Jansenism supplied the lack of political courage, and men opposed the Court and its policy under pretence of defending the rights of the Gallican Church and the old religion of the nation.

Bigot knew he was safe so long as the Marquise de Pompadour governed the King and the kingdom. But Louis XV. was capricious and unfaithful in his fancies; he had changed his mistresses, and his policy with them, many times, and might change once more, to the ruin of Bigot and all the dependents of La Pompadour.

Bigot's letters by the Fleur-de-Lis were calculated to alarm him. A rival was springing up at Court to challenge La Pompadour's supremacy: the fair and fragile Lange Vaubernier had already attracted the King's eye, and the courtiers versed in his ways read the incipient signs of a future favorite.

Little did the laughing Vaubernier forsee the day when, as Madame du Barry, she would reign as Dame du Palais, after the death of La Pompadour. Still less could she imagine that in her old age, in the next reign, she would be dragged to the guillotine, filling the streets of Paris with her shrieks, heard above the howlings of the mob of the Revolution: "Give me life! life! for my repentance! Life! to devote it to the Republic! Life! for the surrender of all my wealth to the nation!" And death, not life, was given in answer to her passionate pleadings.

These dark days were yet in the womb of the future, however. The giddy Vaubernier was at this time gaily catching at the heart of the King, but her procedure filled the mind of Bigot with anxiety: the fall of La Pompadour would entail swift ruin upon himself and associates. He knew it was the intrigues of this girl which had caused La Pompadour suddenly to declare for peace in order to watch the King more surely in his palace. Therefore the word peace and the name of Vaubernier were equally odious to Bigot, and he was perplexed in no small degree how to act.

Moreover, be it confessed that, although a bad man and a corrupt statesman, Bigot was a Frenchman, proud of the national success and glory. While robbing her treasures with one hand, he was ready with his sword in the other to risk life and all in her defence. Bigot was bitterly opposed to English supremacy in North America. The loss of Louisbourg, though much his fault, stung him to the quick, as a triumph of the national enemy; and in those final days of New France, after the fall of Montcalm, Bigot was the last man to yield, and when all others counselled retreat, he would not consent to the surrender of Quebec to the English.

To-day, in the Council of War, Bigot stood up to respond to the appeal of the Governor. He glanced his eye coolly, yet respectfully, over the Council. His raised hand sparkled with gems, the gifts of courtiers and favorites of the King. "Gentlemen of the Council of War!," said he, "I approve with all my heart of the words of His Excellency the Governor, with reference to our fortifications and the maintenance of our frontiers. It is our duty to remonstrate, as councillors of the King in the Colony, against the tenor of the despatches of the Count de Maurepas. The city of Quebec, properly fortified, will be equivalent to an army of men in the field, and the security and defence of the whole Colony depends upon its walls. There can be but one intelligent opinion in the Council on that point, and that opinion should be laid before His Majesty before this despatch be acted on.

"The pressure of the war is great upon us just now. The loss of the fleet of the Marquis de la Jonquiere has greatly interrupted our communications with France, and Canada is left much to its own resources. But Frenchmen! the greater the peril the greater the glory of our defence! And I feel a lively confidence,"—Bigot glanced proudly round the table at the brave, animated faces that turned towards him,—"I feel a lively confidence that in the skill, devotion, and gallantry of the officers I see around this council-table, we shall be able to repel all our enemies, and bear the royal flag to fresh triumphs in North America."

This timely flattery was not lost upon the susceptible minds of the officers present, who testified their approval by vigorous tapping on the table, and cries of "Well said, Chevalier Intendant!"

"I thank, heartily, the venerable Abbe Piquet," continued he, "for his glorious success in converting the warlike savages of the West from foes to fast friends of the King; and as Royal Intendant I pledge the Abbe all my help in the establishment of his proposed fort and mission at La Presentation, for the purpose of dividing the power of the Iroquois."

"That is right well said, if the Devil said it!" remarked La Corne St. Luc, to the Acadian sitting next him. "There is bell-metal in Bigot, and he rings well if properly struck. Pity so clever a fellow should be a knave!"

"Fine words butter no parsnips, Chevalier La Corne," replied the Acadian, whom no eloquence could soften. "Bigot sold Louisbourg!" This was a common but erroneous opinion in Acadia.

"Bigot butters his own parsnips well, Colonel," replied La Corne St. Luc; "but I did not think he would have gone against the despatches! It is the first time he ever opposed Versailles! There must be something in the wind! A screw loose somewhere, or another woman in the case! But hark, he is going on again!"

The Intendant, after examining some papers, entered into a detail of the resources of the Colony, the number of men capable of bearing arms, the munitions and material of war in the magazines, and the relative strength of each district of the Province. He manipulated his figures with the dexterity of an Indian juggler throwing balls; and at the end brought out a totality of force in the Colony capable unaided of prolonging the war for two years, against all the powers of the English.

At the conclusion of this speech Bigot took his seat. He had made a favorable impression upon the Council, and even his most strenuous opponents admitted that on the whole the Intendant had spoken like an able administrator and a true Frenchman.

Cadet and Varin supported their chief warmly. Bad as they were, both in private life and public conduct, they lacked neither shrewdness nor courage. They plundered their country—but were ready to fight for it against the national enemy.

Other officers followed in succession,—men whose names were already familiar, or destined to become glorious in New France,—La Corne, St. Luc, Celeron de Bienville, Colonel Philibert, the Chevalier de Beaujeu, the De Villiers, Le Gardeur de St. Pierre, and De Lery. One and all supported that view of the despatches taken by the Governor and the Intendant. All agreed upon the necessity of completing the walls of Quebec and of making a determined stand at every point of the frontier against the threatened invasion. In case of the sudden patching up of a peace by the negotiators at Aix La Chapelle—as really happened—on the terms of uti possidetis, it was of vital importance that New France hold fast to every shred of her territory, both East and West.

Long and earnest were the deliberations of the Council of War. The reports of the commanding officers from all points of the frontier were carefully studied. Plans of present defence and future conquest were discussed with reference to the strength and weakness of the Colony, and an accurate knowledge of the forces and designs of the English obtained from the disaffected remnant of Cromwellian republicans in New England, whose hatred to the Crown ever outweighed their loyalty, and who kept up a traitorous correspondence, for purposes of their own, with the governors of New France.

The lamps were lit and burned far into the night when the Council broke up. The most part of the officers partook of a cheerful refreshment with the Governor before they retired to their several quarters. Only Bigot and his friends declined to sup with the Governor: they took a polite leave, and rode away from the Chateau to the Palace of the Intendant, where a more gorgeous repast and more congenial company awaited them.

The wine flowed freely at the Intendant's table, and as the irritating events of the day were recalled to memory, the pent-up wrath of the Intendant broke forth. "Damn the Golden Dog and his master both!" exclaimed he. "Philibert shall pay with his life for the outrage of to-day, or I will lose mine! The dirt is not off my coat yet, Cadet!" said he, as he pointed to a spatter of mud upon his breast. "A pretty medal that for the Intendant to wear in a Council of War!"

"Council of War!" replied Cadet, setting his goblet down with a bang upon the polished table, after draining it to the bottom. "I would like to go through that mob again! and I would pull an oar in the galleys of Marseilles rather than be questioned with that air of authority by a botanizing quack like La Galissoniere! Such villainous questions as he asked me about the state of the royal magazines! La Galissoniere had more the air of a judge cross-examining a culprit than of a Governor asking information of a king's officer!"

"True, Cadet!" replied Varin, who was always a flatterer, and who at last saved his ill-gotten wealth by the surrender of his wife as a love-gift to the Duc de Choiseul. "We all have our own injuries to bear. The Intendant was just showing us the spot of dirt cast upon him by the mob; and I ask what satisfaction he has asked in the Council for the insult."

"Ask satisfaction!" replied Cadet with a laugh. "Let him take it! Satisfaction! We will all help him! But I say that the hair of the dog that bit him will alone cure the bite! What I laughed at the most was this morning at Beaumanoir, to see how coolly that whelp of the Golden Dog, young Philibert, walked off with De Repentigny from the very midst of all the Grand Company!"

"We shall lose our young neophyte, I doubt, Cadet! I was a fool to let him go with Philibert!" remarked Bigot.

"Oh, I am not afraid of losing him, we hold him by a strong triple cord, spun by the Devil. No fear of losing him!" answered Cadet, grinning good-humoredly.

"What do you mean, Cadet?" The Intendant took up his cup and drank very nonchalantly, as if he thought little of Cadet's view of the matter. "What triple cord binds De Repentigny to us?"

"His love of wine, his love of gaming, and his love of women—or rather his love of a woman, which is the strongest strand in the string for a young fool like him who is always chasing virtue and hugging vice!"

"Oh! a woman has got him! eh, Cadet? Pray who is she? When once a woman catches a fellow by the gills, he is a dead mackerel: his fate is fixed for good or bad in this world. But who is she, Cadet?—she must be a clever one," said Bigot, sententiously.

"So she is! and she is too clever for young De Repentigny: she has got her pretty fingers in his gills, and can carry her fish to whatever market she chooses!"

"Cadet! Cadet! out with it!" repeated a dozen voices. "Yes, out with it!" repeated Bigot. "We are all companions under the rose, and there are no secrets here about wine or women!"

"Well, I would not give a filbert for all the women born since mother Eve!" said Cadet, flinging a nut-shell at the ceiling. "But this is a rare one, I must confess. Now stop! Don't cry out again 'Cadet! out with it!' and I will tell you! What think you of the fair, jolly Mademoiselle des Meloises?"

"Angelique? Is De Repentigny in love with her?" Bigot looked quite interested now.

"In love with her? He would go on all fours after her, if she wanted him! He does almost, as it is."

Bigot placed a finger on his brow and pondered for a moment. "You say well, Cadet; if De Repentigny has fallen in love with that girl, he is ours forever! Angelique des Meloises never lets go her ox until she offers him up as a burnt offering! The Honnetes Gens will lose one of the best trout in their stream if Angelique has the tickling of him!"

Bigot did not seem to be quite pleased with Cadet's information. He rose from his seat somewhat flushed and excited by this talk respecting Angelique des Meloises. He walked up and down the room a few turns, recovered his composure, and sat down again.

"Come, gentlemen," said he; "too much care will kill a cat! Let us change our talk to a merrier tune; fill up, and we will drink to the loves of De Repentigny and the fair Angelique! I am much mistaken if we do not find in her the dea ex machina to help us out of our trouble with the Honnetes Gens!"

The glasses were filled and emptied. Cards and dice were then called for. The company drew their chairs into a closer circle round the table; deep play, and deeper drinking, set in. The Palais resounded with revelry until the morning sun looked into the great window, blushing red at the scene of drunken riot that had become habitual in the Palace of the Intendant.



CHAPTER XV. THE CHARMING JOSEPHINE.

The few words of sympathy dropped by Bigot in the secret chamber had fallen like manna on the famine of Caroline's starving affections as she remained on the sofa, where she had half fallen, pressing her bosom with her hands as if a new-born thought lay there. "I am sure he meant it!" repeated she to herself. "I feel that his words were true, and for the moment his look and tone were those of my happy maiden days in Acadia! I was too proud then of my fancied power, and thought Bigot's love deserved the surrender of my very conscience to his keeping. I forgot God in my love for him; and, alas for me! that now is part of my punishment! I feel not the sin of loving him! My penitence is not sincere when I can still rejoice in his smile! Woe is me! Bigot! Bigot! unworthy as thou art, I cannot forsake thee! I would willingly die at thy feet, only spurn me not away, nor give to another the love that belongs to me, and for which I have paid the price of my immortal soul!"

She relapsed into a train of bitter reflections as her thoughts reverted to herself. Silence had been gradually creeping through the house. The noisy debauch was at an end. There were trampings, voices, and footfalls for a while longer, and then they died away. Everything was still and silent as the grave. She knew the feast was over and the guests departed; but not whether Bigot had accompanied them.

She sprang up as a low knock came to her door, thinking it was he, come to bid her adieu. It was with a feeling of disappointment she heard the voice of Dame Tremblay saying, "My Lady, may I enter?"

Caroline ran her fingers through her disordered hair, pressed her handkerchief into her eyes, and hastily tried to obliterate every trace of her recent agony. She bade her enter.

Dame Tremblay, shrewd as became the whilom Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport, had a kind heart, nevertheless, under her old-fashioned bodice. She sincerely pitied this young creature who was passing her days in prayer and her nights in weeping, although she might rather blame her in secret for not appreciating better the honor of a residence at Beaumanoir and the friendship of the Intendant.

"I do not think she is prettier than I, when I was the Charming Josephine!" thought the old dame. "I did not despise Beaumanoir in those days, and why should she now? But she will be neither maid nor mistress here long, I am thinking!" The dame saluted the young lady with great deference, and quietly asked if she needed her service.

"Oh! it is you, good dame!"—Caroline answered her own thoughts, rather than the question,—"tell me what makes this unusual silence in the Chateau?"

"The Intendant and all the guests have gone to the city, my Lady: a great officer of the Governor's came to summon them. To be sure, not many of them were fit to go, but after a deal of bathing and dressing the gentlemen got off. Such a clatter of horsemen as they rode out, I never heard before, my Lady; you must have heard them even here!"

"Yes, dame!" replied Caroline, "I heard it; and the Intendant, has he accompanied them?"

"Yes, my Lady; the freshest and foremost cavalier of them all. Wine and late hours never hurt the Intendant. It is for that I praise him, for he is a gallant gentleman, who knows what politeness is to women."

Caroline shrank a little at the thought expressed by the dame. "What causes you to say that?" asked she.

"I will tell, my Lady! 'Dame Tremblay!' said he, just before he left the Chateau. 'Dame Tremblay'—he always calls me that when he is formal, but sometimes when he is merry, he calls me 'Charming Josephine,' in remembrance of my young days, concerning which he has heard flattering stories, I dare say—"

"In heaven's name! go on, dame!" Caroline, depressed as she was, felt the dame's garrulity like a pinch on her impatience. "What said the Intendant to you, on leaving the Chateau?"

"Oh, he spoke to me of you quite feelingly—that is, bade me take the utmost care of the poor lady in the secret chamber. I was to give you everything you wished, and keep off all visitors, if such were your own desire."

A train of powder does not catch fire from a spark more quickly than Caroline's imagination from these few words of the old housekeeper. "Did he say that, good dame? God bless you, and bless him for those words!" Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of his tenderness, which, although half fictitious, she wholly believed.

"Yes, dame," continued she. "It is my most earnest desire to be secluded from all visitors. I wish to see no one but yourself. Have you many visitors—ladies, I mean—at the Chateau?"

"Oh, yes! the ladies of the city are not likely to forget the invitations to the balls and dinners of the bachelor Intendant of New France. It is the most fashionable thing in the city, and every lady is wild to attend them. There is one, the handsomest and gayest of them all, who, they say, would not object even to become the bride of the Intendant."

It was a careless shaft of the old dame's, but it went to the heart of Caroline. "Who is she, good dame?—pray tell me!"

"Oh, my Lady, I should fear her anger, if she knew what I say! She is the most terrible coquette in the city—worshipped by the men, and hated, of course, by the women, who all imitate her in dress and style as much as they possibly can, because they see it takes! But every woman fears for either husband or lover when Angelique des Meloises is her rival."

"Is that her name? I never heard it before, dame!" remarked Caroline, with a shudder. She felt instinctively that the name was one of direful omen to herself.

"Pray God you may never have reason to hear it again," replied Dame Tremblay. "She it was who went to the mansion of Sieur Tourangeau and with her riding-whip lashed the mark of a red cross upon the forehead of his daughter, Cecile, scarring her forever, because she had presumed to smile kindly upon a young officer, a handsome fellow, Le Gardeur de Repentigny—whom any woman might be pardoned for admiring!" added the old dame, with a natural touch of the candor of her youth. "If Angelique takes a fancy to the Intendant, it will be dangerous for any other woman to stand in her way!"

Caroline gave a frightened look at the dame's description of a possible rival in the Intendant's love. "You know more of her, dame! Tell me all! Tell me the worst I have to learn!" pleaded the poor girl.

"The worst, my Lady! I fear no one can tell the worst of Angelique des Meloises,—at least, would not dare to, although I know nothing bad of her, except that she would like to have all the men to herself, and so spite all the women!"

"But she must regard that young officer with more than common affection, to have acted so savagely to Mademoiselle Tourangeau?" Caroline, with a woman's quickness, had caught at that gleam of hope through the darkness.

"Oh, yes, my Lady! All Quebec knows that Angelique loves the Seigneur de Repentigny, for nothing is a secret in Quebec if more than one person knows it, as I myself well recollect; for when I was the Charming Josephine, my very whispers were all over the city by the next dinner hour, and repeated at every table, as gentlemen cracked their almonds and drank their wine in toasts to the Charming Josephine."

"Pshaw! dame! Tell me about the Seigneur de Repentigny! Does Angelique des Meloises love him, think you?" Caroline's eyes were fixed like stars upon the dame, awaiting her reply.

"It takes women to read women, they say," replied the dame, "and every lady in Quebec would swear that Angelique loves the Seigneur de Repentigny; but I know that, if she can, she will marry the Intendant, whom she has fairly bewitched with her wit and beauty, and you know a clever woman can marry any man she pleases, if she only goes the right way about it: men are such fools!"

Caroline grew faint. Cold drops gathered on her brow. A veil of mist floated before her eyes. "Water! good dame water!" she articulated, after several efforts.

Dame Tremblay ran, and got her a drink of water and such restoratives as were at hand. The dame was profuse in words of sympathy: she had gone through life with a light, lively spirit, as became the Charming Josephine, but never lost the kindly heart that was natural to her.

Caroline rallied from her faintness. "Have you seen what you tell me, dame, or is it but the idle gossip of the city, no truth in it? Oh, say it is the idle gossip of the city! Francois Bigot is not going to marry this lady? He is not so faithless"—to me, she was about to add, but did not.

"So faithless to her, she means, poor soul!" soliliquized the dame. "It is but little you know my gay master if you think he values a promise made to any woman, except to deceive her! I have seen too many birds of that feather not to know a hawk, from beak to claw. When I was the Charming Josephine I took the measure of men's professions, and never was deceived but once. Men's promises are big as clouds, and as empty and as unstable!"

"My good dame, I am sure you have a kind heart," said Caroline, in reply to a sympathizing pressure of the hand. "But you do not know, you cannot imagine what injustice you do the Intendant"—Caroline hesitated and blushed—"by mentioning the report of his marriage with that lady. Men speak untruly of him—"

"My dear Lady, it is what the women say that frightens one! The men are angry, and won't believe it; but the women are jealous, and will believe it even if there be nothing in it! As a faithful servant I ought to have no eyes to watch my master, but I have not failed to observe that the Chevalier Bigot is caught man-fashion, if not husband-fashion, in the snares of the artful Angelique. But may I speak my real opinion to you, my Lady?"

Caroline was eagerly watching the lips of the garrulous dame. She started, brushed back with a stroke of her hand the thick hair that had fallen over her ear,—"Oh, speak all your thoughts, good dame! If your next words were to kill me, speak them!"

"My next words will not harm you, my Lady," said she, with a meaning smile, "if you will accept the opinion of an old woman, who learned the ways of men when she was the Charming Josephine! You must not conclude that because the Chevalier Intendant admires, or even loves Angelique des Meloises, he is going to marry her. That is not the fashion of these times. Men love beauty, and marry money; love is more plenty than matrimony, both at Paris and at Quebec, at Versailles as well as at Beaumanoir or even at Lake Beauport, as I learned to my cost when I was the Charming Josephine!"

Caroline blushed crimson at the remark of Dame Tremblay. Her voice quivered with emotion. "It is sin to cheapen love like that, dame! And yet I know we have sometimes to bury our love in our heart, with no hope of resurrection."

"Sometimes? Almost always, my Lady! When I was the Charming Josephine—nay, listen, Lady: my story is instructive." Caroline composed herself to hear the dame's recital. "When I was the Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport I began by believing that men were angels sent for the salvation of us women. I thought that love was a better passport than money to lead to matrimony; but I was a fool for my fancy! I had a good score of lovers any day. The gallants praised my beauty, and it was the envy of the city; they flattered me for my wit,—nay, even fought duels for my favor, and called me the Charming Josephine, but not one offered to marry me! At twenty I ran away for love, and was forsaken. At thirty I married for money, and was rid of all my illusions. At forty I came as housekeeper to Beaumanoir, and have lived here comfortably ever since I know what royal intendants are! Old Hocquart wore night-caps in the daytime, took snuff every minute, and jilted a lady in France because she had not the dower of a duchess to match his hoards of wealth! The Chevalier Bigot's black eye and jolly laugh draw after him all the girls of the city, but not one will catch him! Angelique des Meloises is first in his favor, but I see it is as clear as print in the eye of the Intendant that he will never marry her—and you will prevent him, my Lady!"

"I? I prevent him!" exclaimed Caroline in amazement. "Alas! good dame, you little know how lighter than thistledown floating on the wind is my influence with the Intendant."

"You do yourself injustice, my Lady. Listen! I never saw a more pitying glance fall from the eye of man than the Intendant cast upon you one day when he saw you kneeling in your oratory unconscious of his presence. His lips quivered, and a tear gathered under his thick eyelashes as he silently withdrew. I heard him mutter a blessing upon you, and curses upon La Pompadour for coming between him and his heart's desire. I was a faithful servant and kept my counsel. I could see, however, that the Intendant thought more of the lovely lady of Beaumanoir than of all the ambitious demoiselles of Quebec."

Caroline sprang up, and casting off the deep reserve she had maintained, threw her arms round the neck of Dame Tremblay, and half choked with emotion, exclaimed,—

"Is that true? good, dear friend of friends! Did the Chevalier Bigot bless me, and curse La Pompadour for coming between him and his heart's desire! His heart's desire! but you do not know—you cannot guess what that means, dame?"

"As if I did not know a man's heart's desire! but I am a woman, and can guess! I was not the Charming Josephine for nothing, good Lady!" replied the dame, smiling, as the enraptured girl laid her fair, smooth cheek upon that of the old housekeeper.

"And did he look so pityingly as you describe, and bless me as I was praying, unwitting of his presence?" repeated she, with a look that searched the dame through and through.

"He did, my Lady; he looked, just then, as a man looks upon a woman whom he really loves. I know how men look when they really love us and when they only pretend to? No deceiving me!" added she. "When I was the Charming Josephine—"

"Ave Maria!" said Caroline, crossing herself with deep devotion, not heeding the dame's reminiscences of Lake Beauport. "Heaven has heard my prayers! I can die happy!"

"Heaven forbid you should die at all, my Lady! You die? The Intendant loves you. I see it in his face that he will never marry Angelique des Meloises. He may indeed marry a great marchioness with her lap full of gold and chateaux—that is, if the King commands him: that is how the grand gentlemen of the Court marry. They wed rank, and love beauty—the heart to one, the hand to another. It would be my way too, were I a man and women so simple as we all are. If a girl cannot marry for love, she will marry for money; and if not for money, she can always marry for spite—I did, when I was the Charming Josephine!"

"It is a shocking and sinful way, to marry without love!" said Caroline, warmly.

"It is better than no way at all!" replied the dame, regretting her remark when she saw her lady's face flush like crimson. The dame's opinions were rather the worse for wear in her long journey through life, and would not be adopted by a jury of prudes. "When I was the Charming Josephine," continued she, "I had the love of half the gallants of Quebec, but not one offered his hand. What was I to do? 'Crook a finger, or love and linger,' as they say in Alencon, where I was born?"

"Fie, dame! Don't say such things!" said Caroline, with a shamed, reproving look. "I would think better of the Intendant." Her gratitude led her to imagine excuses for him. The few words reported to her by Dame Tremblay she repeated with silently moving lips and tender reiteration. They lingered in her ear like the fugue of a strain of music, sung by a choir of angelic spirits. "Those were his very words, dame?" added she again, repeating them—not for inquiry, but for secret joy.

"His very words, my Lady! But why should the Royal Intendant not have his heart's desire as well as that great lady in France? If any one had forbidden my marrying the poor Sieur Tremblay, for whom I did not care two pins, I would have had him for spite—yes, if I had had to marry him as the crows do, on a tree-top!"

"But no one bade you or forbade you, dame! You were happy that no one came between you and your heart's desire!" replied Caroline.

Dame Tremblay laughed out merrily at the idea. "Poor Giles Tremblay my heart's desire! Listen, Lady, I could no more get that than you could. When I was the Charming Josephine there was but one, out of all my admirers, whom I really cared for, and he, poor fellow, had a wife already! So what was I to do? I threw my line at last in utter despair, and out of the troubled sea I drew the Sieur Tremblay, whom I married, and soon put cosily underground with a heavy tombstone on top of him to keep him down, with this inscription, which you may see for yourself, my Lady, if you will, in the churchyard where he lies:

"'Ci git mon Giles, Ah! qu'il est bien, Pour son repos, Et pour le mien!'

"Men are like my Angora tabby: stroke them smoothly and they will purr and rub noses with you; but stroke them the wrong way and whirr! they scratch your hands and out of the window they fly! When I was the Charming—"

"Oh, good dame, thanks! thanks! for the comfort you have given me!" interrupted Caroline, not caring for a fresh reminiscence of the Charming Josephine. "Leave me, I pray. My mind is in a sad tumult. I would fain rest. I have much to fear, but something also to hope for now," she said, leaning back in her chair in deep and quiet thought.

"The Chateau is very still now, my Lady," replied the dame, "the servants are all worn out with long attendance and fast asleep. Let my Lady go to her own apartments, which are bright and airy. It will be better for her than this dull chamber."

"True, dame!" Caroline rose at the suggestion. "I like not this secret chamber. It suited my sad mood, but now I seem to long for air and sunshine. I will go with you to my own room."

They ascended the winding stair, and Caroline seated herself by the window of her own chamber, overlooking the park and gardens of the Chateau. The huge, sloping forest upon the mountain side, formed, in the distance, with the blue sky above it, a landscape of beauty, upon which her eyes lingered with a sense of freshness and delight.

Dame Tremblay left her to her musings, to go, she said, to rouse up the lazy maids and menservants, to straighten up the confusion of everything in the Chateau after the late long feast.

On the great stair she encountered M. Froumois, the Intendant's valet, a favorite gossip of the dame's, who used to invite him into her snug parlor, where she regaled him with tea and cake, or, if late in the evening, with wine and nipperkins of Cognac, while he poured into her ear stories of the gay life of Paris and the bonnes fortunes of himself and master—for the valet in plush would have disdained being less successful among the maids in the servants' hall than his master in velvet in the boudoirs of their mistresses.

M. Froumois accepted the dame's invitation, and the two were presently engaged in a melee of gossip over the sayings and doings of fashionable society in Quebec.

The dame, holding between her thumb and finger a little china cup of tea well laced, she called it, with Cognac, remarked,—"They fairly run the Intendant down, Froumois: there is not a girl in the city but laces her boots to distraction since it came out that the Intendant admires a neat, trim ankle. I had a trim ankle myself when I was the Charming Josephine, M. Froumois!"

"And you have yet, dame,—if I am a judge," replied Froumois, glancing down with an air of gallantry.

"And you are accounted a judge—and ought to be a good one, Froumois! A gentleman can't live at court as you have done, and learn nothing of the points of a fine woman!" The good dame liked a compliment as well as ever she had done at Lake Beauport in her hey-day of youth and beauty.

"Why, no, dame," replied he; "one can't live at Court and learn nothing! We study the points of fine women as we do fine statuary in the gallery of the Louvre, only the living beauties will compel us to see their best points if they have them!" M. Froumois looked very critical as he took a pinch from the dame's box, which she held out to him. Her hand and wrist were yet unexceptionable, as he could not help remarking.

"But what think you, really, of our Quebec beauties? Are they not a good imitation of Versailles?" asked the dame.

"A good imitation! They are the real porcelain! For beauty and affability Versailles cannot exceed them. So says the Intendant, and so say I!," replied the gay valet. "Why, look you, Dame Tremblay!" continued he, extending his well-ringed fingers, "they do give gentlemen no end of hopes here! We have only to stretch out our ten digits and a ladybird will light on every one of them! It was so at Versailles—it is just so here. The ladies in Quebec do know how to appreciate a real gentleman!"

"Yes, that is what makes the ladies of Ville Marie so jealous and angry," replied the dame; "the King's officers and all the great catches land at Quebec first, when they come out from France, and we take toll of them! We don't let a gentleman of them get up to Ville Marie without a Quebec engagement tacked to his back, so that all Ville Marie can read it, and die of pure spite! I say we, Froumois; but you understand I speak of myself only as the Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport. I must content myself now with telling over my past glories."

"Well dame, I don't know but you are glorious yet! But tell me, what has got over my master to-day? Was the unknown lady unkind? Something has angered him, I am sure!"

"I cannot tell you, Froumois: women's moods are not to be explained, even by themselves." The dame had been sensibly touched by Caroline's confidence in her, and she was too loyal to her sex to repeat even to Froumois her recent conversation with Caroline.

They found plenty of other topics, however, and over the tea and Cognac the dame and valet passed an hour of delightful gossip.

Caroline, left to the solitude of her chamber, sat silently with her hands clasped in her lap. Her thoughts pressed inward upon her. She looked out without seeing the fair landscape before her eyes.

Tears and sorrow she had welcomed in a spirit of bitter penitence for her fault in loving one who no longer regarded her. "I do not deserve any man's regard," murmured she, as she laid her soul on the rack of self-accusation, and wrung its tenderest fibres with the pitiless rigor of a secret inquisitor. She utterly condemned herself while still trying to find some excuse for her unworthy lover. At times a cold half-persuasion, fluttering like a bird in the snow, came over her that Bigot could not be utterly base. He could not thus forsake one who had lost all—name, fame, home, and kindred—for his sake! She clung to the few pitying words spoken by him as a shipwrecked sailor to the plank which chance has thrown in his way. It might float her for a few hours, and she was grateful.

Immersed in these reflections, Caroline sat gazing at the clouds, now transformed into royal robes of crimson and gold—the gorgeous train of the sun filled the western horizon. She raised her pale hands to her head, lifting the mass of dark hair from her temples. The fevered blood, madly coursing, pulsed in her ear like the stroke of a bell.

She remembered a sunset like this on the shores of the Bay of Minas, where the thrush and oriole twittered their even-song before seeking their nests, where the foliage of the trees was all ablaze with golden fire, and a shimmering path of sunlight lay upon the still waters like a glorious bridge leading from themselves to the bright beyond.

On that well-remembered night her heart had yielded to Bigot's pleadings. She had leaned her head upon his bosom, and received the kiss and gave the pledge that bound her to him forever.

The sun kept sinking—the forests on the mountain tops burst into a bonfire of glory. Shadows went creeping up the hill-sides until the highest crest alone flamed out as a beacon of hope to her troubled soul.

Suddenly, like a voice from the spirit world, the faint chime of the bells of Charlebourg floated on the evening breeze: it was the Angelus, calling men to prayer and rest from their daily labor. Sweetly the soft reverberation floated through the forests, up the hill-sides, by plain and river, entering the open lattices of Chateau and cottage, summoning rich and poor alike to their duty of prayer and praise. It reminded men of the redemption of the world by the divine miracle of the incarnation announced by Gabriel, the angel of God, to the ear of Mary blessed among women.

The soft bells rang on. Men blessed them, and ceased from their toils in field and forest. Mothers knelt by the cradle, and uttered the sacred words with emotions such as only mothers feel. Children knelt by their mothers, and learned the story of God's pity in appearing upon earth as a little child, to save mankind from their sins. The dark Huron setting his snares in the forest and the fishers on the shady stream stood still. The voyageur sweeping his canoe over the broad river suspended his oar as the solemn sound reached him, and he repeated the angel's words and went on his way with renewed strength.

The sweet bells came like a voice of pity and consolation to the ear of Caroline. She knelt down, and clasping her hands, repeated the prayer of millions,—

"'Ave Maria! gratia plena.'"

She continued kneeling, offering up prayer after prayer for God's forgiveness, both for herself and for him who had brought her to this pass of sin and misery. "'Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!'" repeated she, bowing herself to the ground. "I am the chief of sinners; who shall deliver me from this body of sin and afliction?"

The sweet bells kept ringing. They woke reminiscences of voices of by-gone days. She heard her father's tones, not in anger as he would speak now, but kind and loving as in her days of innocence. She heard her mother, long dead—oh, how happily dead! for she could not die of sorrow now over her dear child's fall. She heard the voices of the fair companions of her youth, who would think shame of her now; and amidst them all, the tones of the persuasive tongue that wooed her maiden love. How changed it all seemed! and yet, as the repetition of two or three notes of a bar of music brings to recollection the whole melody to which it belongs, the few kind words of Bigot, spoken that morning, swept all before them in a drift of hope. Like a star struggling in the mist the faint voice of an angel was heard afar off in the darkness.

The ringing of the Angelus went on. Her heart was utterly melted. Her eyes, long parched, as a spent fountain in the burning desert, were suddenly filled with tears. She felt no longer the agony of the eyes that cannot weep. The blessed tears flowed quietly as the waters of Shiloh, bringing relief to her poor soul, famishing for one true word of affection. Long after the sweet bells ceased their chime Caroline kept on praying for him, and long after the shades of night had fallen over the Chateau of Beaumanoir.



CHAPTER XVI. ANGELIQUE DES MELOISES.

"Come and see me to-night, Le Gardeur." Angelique des Meloises drew the bridle sharply as she halted her spirited horse in front of the officer of the guard at the St. Louis Gate. "Come and see me to-night: I shall be at home to no one but you. Will you come?"

Had Le Gardeur de Repentigny been ever so laggard and indifferent a lover the touch of that pretty hand, and the glance from the dark eye that shot fire down into his very heart, would have decided him to obey this seductive invitation.

He held her hand as he looked up with a face radiant with joy. "I will surely come, Angelique; but tell me—"

She interrupted him laughingly: "No; I will tell you nothing till you come! So good-by till then."

He would fain have prolonged the interview; but she capriciously shook the reins, and with a silvery laugh rode through the gateway and into the city. In a few minutes she dismounted at her own home, and giving her horse in charge of a groom, ran lightly up the broad steps into the house.

The family mansion of the Des Meloises was a tall and rather pretentious edifice overlooking the fashionable Rue St. Louis.

The house was, by a little artifice on the part of Angelique, empty of visitors this evening. Even her brother, the Chevalier des Meloises, with whom she lived, a man of high life and extreme fashion, was to-night enjoying the more congenial society of the officers of the Regiment de Bearn. At this moment, amid the clash of glasses and the bubbling of wine, the excited and voluble Gascons were discussing in one breath the war, the council, the court, the ladies, and whatever gay topic was tossed from end to end of the crowded mess-table.

"Mademoiselle's hair has got loose and looks like a Huron's," said her maid Lizette, as her nimble fingers reaerranged the rich dark-golden locks of Angelique, which reached to the floor as she sat upon her fauteuil.

"No matter, Lizette; do it up a la Pompadour, and make haste. My brain is in as great confusion as my hair. I need repose for an hour. Remember, Lizette, I am at home to no one to-night except the Chevalier de Repentigny."

"The Chevalier called this afternoon, Mademoiselle, and was sorry he did not find you at home," replied Lizette, who saw the eyelashes of her mistress quiver and droop, while a flush deepened for an instant the roseate hue of her cheek.

"I was in the country, that accounts for it! There, my hair will do!" said Angelique, giving a glance in the great Venetian mirror before her. Her freshly donned robe of blue silk, edged with a foam of snowy laces and furbelows, set off her tall figure. Her arms, bare to the elbows, would have excited Juno's jealousy or Homer's verse to gather efforts in praise of them. Her dainty feet, shapely, aspiring, and full of character as her face, were carelessly thrust forward, and upon one of them lay a flossy spaniel, a privileged pet of his fair mistress.

The boudoir of Angelique was a nest of luxury and elegance. Its furnishings and adornings were of the newest Parisian style. A carpet woven in the pattern of a bed of flowers covered the floor. Vases of Sevres and Porcelain, filled with roses and jonquils, stood on marble tables. Grand Venetian mirrors reflected the fair form of their mistress from every point of view—who contemplated herself before and behind with a feeling of perfect satisfaction and sense of triumph over every rival.

A harpsichord occupied one corner of the room, and an elaborate bookcase, well-filled with splendidly bound volumes, another.

Angelique had small taste for reading, yet had made some acquaintance with the literature of the day. Her natural quick parts and good taste enabled her to shine, even in literary conversation. Her bright eyes looked volumes. Her silvery laugh was wiser than the wisdom of a precieuse. Her witty repartees covered acres of deficiencies with so much grace and tact that men were tempted to praise her knowledge no less than her beauty.

She had a keen eye for artistic effects. She loved painting, although her taste was sensuous and voluptuous—character is shown in the choice of pictures as much as in that of books or of companions.

There was a painting of Vanloo—a lot of full-blooded horses in a field of clover; they had broken fence, and were luxuriating in the rich, forbidden pasture. The triumph of Cleopatra over Antony, by Le Brun, was a great favorite with Angelique, because of a fancied, if not a real, resemblance between her own features and those of the famous Queen of Egypt. Portraits of favorite friends, one of them Le Gardeur de Repentigny, and a still more recent acquisition, that of the Intendant Bigot, adorned the walls, and among them was one distinguished for its contrast to all the rest—the likeness, in the garb of an Ursuline, of her beautiful Aunt Marie des Meloises, who, in a fit of caprice some years before, had suddenly forsaken the world of fashion, and retired to a convent.

The proud beauty threw back her thick golden tresses as she scanned her fair face and magnificent figure in the tall Venetian mirror. She drank the intoxicating cup of self-flattery to the bottom as she compared herself, feature by feature, with every beautiful woman she knew in New France. The longer she looked the more she felt the superiority of her own charms over them all. Even the portrait of her aunt, so like her in feature, so different in expression, was glanced at with something like triumph spiced with content.

"She was handsome as I!" cried Angelique. "She was fit to be a queen, and made herself a nun—and all for the sake of a man! I am fit to be a queen too, and the man who raises me nighest to a queen's estate gets my hand! My heart?" she paused a few moments. "Pshaw!" A slight quiver passed over her lips. "My heart must do penance for the fault of my hand!"

Petrified by vanity and saturated with ambition, Angelique retained under the hard crust of selfishness a solitary spark of womanly feeling. The handsome face and figure of Le Gardeur de Repentigny was her beau-ideal of manly perfection. His admiration flattered her pride. His love, for she knew infallibly, with a woman's instinct, that he loved her, touched her into a tenderness such as she felt for no man besides. It was the nearest approach to love her nature was capable of, and she used to listen to him with more than complacency, while she let her hand linger in his warm clasp while the electric fire passed from one to another and she looked into his eyes, and spoke to him in those sweet undertones that win man's hearts to woman's purposes.

She believed she loved Le Gardeur; but there was no depth in the soil where a devoted passion could take firm root. Still she was a woman keenly alive to admiration, jealous and exacting of her suitors, never willingly letting one loose from her bonds, and with warm passions and a cold heart was eager for the semblance of love, although never feeling its divine reality.

The idea of a union with Le Gardeur some day, when she should tire of the whirl of fashion, had been a pleasant fancy of Angelique. She had no fear of losing her power over him: she held him by the very heart-strings, and she knew it. She might procrastinate, play false and loose, drive him to the very verge of madness by her coquetries, but she knew she could draw him back, like a bird held by a silken string. She could excite, if she could not feel, the fire of a passionate love. In her heart she regarded men as beings created for her service, amazement, and sport,—to worship her beauty and adorn it with gifts. She took everything as her due, giving nothing in return. Her love was an empty shell that never held a kernel of real womanly care for any man.

Amid the sunshine of her fancied love for Le Gardeur had come a day of eclipse for him, of fresh glory for her. The arrival of the new Intendant, Bigot, changed the current of Angelique's ambition. His high rank, his fabulous wealth, his connections with the court, and his unmarried state, fanned into a flame the secret aspirations of the proud, ambitious girl. His wit and gallantry captivated her fancy, and her vanity was full fed by being singled out as the special object of the Intendant's admiration.

She already indulged in dreams which regarded the Intendant himself as but a stepping-stone to further greatness. Her vivid fancy, conjured up scenes of royal splendor, where, introduced by the courtly Bigot, princes and nobles would follow in her train and the smiles of majesty itself would distinguish her in the royal halls of Versailles.

Angelique felt she had power to accomplish all this could she but open the way. The name of Bigot she regarded as the open sesame to all greatness. "If women rule France by a right more divine than that of kings, no woman has a better right than I!" said she, gazing into the mirror before her. "The kingdom should be mine, and death to all other pretenders! And what is needed after all?" thought she, as she brushed her golden hair from her temples with a hand firm as it was beautiful. "It is but to pull down the heart of a man! I have done that many a time for my pleasure; I will now do it for my profit, and for supremacy over my jealous and envious sex!"

Angelique was not one to quail when she entered the battle in pursuit of any object of ambition or fancy. "I never saw the man yet," said she, "whom I could not bring to my feet if I willed it! The Chevalier Bigot would be no exception—that is, he would be no exception"—the voice of Angelique fell into a low, hard monotone as she finished the sentence—"were he free from the influence of that mysterious woman at Beaumanoir, who, they say, claims the title of wife by a token which even Bigot may not disregard! Her pleading eyes may draw his compassion where they ought to excite his scorn. But men are fools to woman's faults, and are often held by the very thing women never forgive. While she crouches there like a lioness in my path the chances are I shall never be chatelaine of Beaumanoir—never, until she is gone!"

Angelique fell into a deep fit of musing, and murmured to herself, "I shall never reach Bigot unless she be removed—but how to remove her?"

Ay, that was the riddle of the Sphinx! Angelique's life, as she had projected it, depended upon the answer to that question.

She trembled with a new feeling; a shiver ran through her veins as if the cold breath of a spirit of evil had passed over her. A miner, boring down into the earth, strikes a hidden stone that brings him to a dead stand. So Angelique struck a hard, dark thought far down in the depths of her secret soul. She drew it to the light, and gazed on it shocked and frightened.

"I did not mean that!" cried the startled girl, crossing herself. "Mere de Dieu! I did not conceive a wicked thought like that! I will not! I cannot contemplate that!" She shut her eyes, pressing both hands over them as if resolved not to look at the evil thought that, like a spirit of darkness, came when evoked, and would not depart when bidden. She sprang up trembling in every limb, and supporting herself against a table, seized a gilded carafe and poured out a full goblet of wine, which she drank. It revived her fainting spirit. She drank another, and stood up herself again, laughing at her own weakness.

She ran to the window, and looked out into the night. The bright stars shone overhead; the lights in the street reassured her. The people passing by and the sound of voices brought back her familiar mood. She thought no more of the temptation from which she had not prayed to be delivered, just as the daring skater forgets the depths that underlie the thin ice over which he skims, careless as a bird in the sunshine.

An hour more was struck by the loud clock of the Recollets. The drums and bugles of the garrison sounded the signal for the closing of the gates of the city and the setting of the watch for the night. Presently the heavy tramp of the patrol was heard in the street. Sober bourgeois walked briskly home, while belated soldiers ran hastily to get into their quarters ere the drums ceased beating the tattoo.

The sharp gallop of a horse clattered on the stony pavement, and stopped suddenly at the door. A light step and the clink of a scabbard rang on the steps. A familiar rap followed. Angelique, with the infallible intuition of a woman who recognizes the knock and footstep of her lover from ten thousand others, sprang up and met Le Gardeur de Repentigny as he entered the boudoir. She received him with warmth, even fondness, for she was proud of Le Gardeur and loved him in her secret heart beyond all the rest of her admirers.

"Welcome, Le Gardeur!" exclaimed she, giving both hands in his: "I knew you would come; you are welcome as the returned prodigal!"

"Dear Angelique!" repeated he, after kissing her hands with fervor, "the prodigal was sure to return, he could not live longer on the dry husks of mere recollections."

"So he rose, and came to the house that is full and overflowing with welcome for him! It is good of you to come, Le Gardeur! why have you stayed so long away?" Angelique in the joy of his presence forgot for the moment her meditated infidelity.

A swift stroke of her hand swept aside her flowing skirts to clear a place for him upon the sofa, where he sat down beside her.

"This is kind of you, Angelique," said he, "I did not expect so much condescension after my petulance at the Governor's ball; I was wicked that night—forgive me."

"The fault was more mine, I doubt, Le Gardeur." Angelique recollected how she had tormented him on that occasion by capricious slights, while bounteous of her smiles to others. "I was angry with you because of your too great devotion to Cecile Tourangeau."

This was not true, but Angelique had no scruple to lie to a lover. She knew well that it was only from his vexation at her conduct that Le Gardeur had pretended to renew some long intermitted coquetries with the fair Cecile. "But why were you wicked at all that night?" inquired she, with a look of sudden interest, as she caught a red cast in his eye, that spoke of much dissipation. "You have been ill, Le Gardeur!" But she knew he had been drinking deep and long, to drown vexation, perhaps, over her conduct.

"I have not been ill," replied he; "shall I tell you the truth, Angelique?"

"Always, and all of it! The whole truth and nothing but the truth!" Her hand rested fondly on his; no word of equivocation was possible under that mode of putting her lover to the question. "Tell me why you were wicked that night!"

"Because I loved you to madness, Angelique; and I saw myself thrust from the first place in your heart, and a new idol set up in my stead. That is the truth?"

"That is not the truth!" exclaimed she vehemently; "and never will be the truth if I know myself and you. But you don't know women, Le Gardeur," added she, with a smile; "you don't know me, the one woman you ought to know better than that!"

It is easy to recover affection that is not lost. Angelique knew her power, and was not indisposed to excess in the exercise of it. "Will you do something for me, Le Gardeur?" asked she, tapping his fingers coquettishly with her fan.

"Will I not? Is there anything in earth, heaven, or hell, Angelique, I would not do for you if I only could win what I covet more than life?"

"What is that?" Angelique knew full well what he coveted more than life; her own heart began to beat responsively to the passion she had kindled in his. She nestled up closer to his side. "What is that, Le Gardeur?"

"Your love, Angelique! I have no other hope in life if I miss that! Give me your love and I will serve you with such loyalty as never man served woman with since Adam and Eve were created."

It was a rash saying, but Le Gardeur believed it, and Angelique too. Still she kept her aim before her. "If I give you my love," said she, pressing her hand through his thick locks, sending from her fingers a thousand electric fires, "will you really be my knight, my preux chevalier, to wear my colors and fight my battles with all the world?"

"I will, by all that is sacred in man or woman! Your will shall be my law, Angelique; your pleasure, my conscience; you shall be to me all reason and motive for my acts if you will but love me!"

"I do love you, Le Gardeur!" replied she, impetuously. She felt the vital soul of this man breathing on her cheek. She knew he spoke true, but she was incapable of measuring the height and immensity of such a passion. She accepted his love, but she could no more contain the fulness of his overflowing affection than the pitcher that is held to the fountain can contain the stream that gushes forth perpetually.

Angelique was ALMOST carried away from her purpose, however. Had her heart asserted its rightful supremacy—that is, had nature fashioned it larger and warmer—she had there and then thrown herself into his arms and blessed him by the consent he sought. She felt assured that here was the one man God had made for her, and she was cruelly sacrificing him to a false idol of ambition and vanity. The word he pleaded for hovered on her tongue, ready like a bird to leap down into his bosom; but she resolutely beat it back into its iron cage.

The struggle was the old one—old as the race of man. In the losing battle between the false and true, love rarely comes out of that conflict unshorn of life or limb. Untrue to him, she was true to her selfish self. The thought of the Intendant and the glories of life opening to her closed her heart, not to the pleadings of Le Gardeur,—them she loved,—but to the granting of his prayer.

The die was cast, but she still clasped hard his hand in hers, as if she could not let him go. "And will you do all you say, Le Gardeur—make my will your law, my pleasure your conscience, and let me be to you all reason and motive? Such devotion terrifies me, Le Gardeur?"

"Try me! Ask of me the hardest thing, nay, the wickedest, that imagination can conceive or hands do—and I would perform it for your sake." Le Gardeur was getting beside himself. The magic power of those dark, flashing eyes of hers was melting all the fine gold of his nature to folly.

"Fie!" replied she, "I do not ask you to drink the sea: a small thing would content me. My love is not so exacting as that, Le Gardeur."

"Does your brother need my aid?" asked he. "If he does, he shall have it to half my fortune for your sake!" Le Gardeur was well aware that the prodigal brother of Angelique was in a strait for money, as was usual with him. He had lately importuned Le Gardeur, and obtained a large sum from him.

She looked up with well-affected indignation. "How can you think such a thing, Le Gardeur? my brother was not in my thought. It was the Intendant I wished to ask you about,—you know him better than I."

This was not true. Angelique had studied the Intendant in mind, person, and estate, weighing him scruple by scruple to the last attainable atom of information. Not that she had sounded the depths of Bigot's soul—there were regions of darkness in his character which no eye but God's ever penetrated. Angelique felt that with all her acuteness she did not comprehend the Intendant.