An Enemy to the King | Page 2

awkward lackeys in peace, sorry soldiers in
war.
Michel had my portmanteau fastened on my horse, which had been
brought out into the courtyard, and then he stood by me while I took
my last breakfast in La Tournoire; and, in my haste to be off, I would
have eaten little had he not pressed much upon me, reminding me how
many leagues I would have to ride before meeting a good inn on the
Paris road. He was sad, poor old Michel, at my going, and yet he
partook of some of my own eagerness. At last I had forced down my
unwilling throat food enough to satisfy even old Michel's solicitude. He
girded on me the finest of the swords that my father had left, placed
over my violet velvet doublet the new cloak I had bought for the
occasion, handed me my new hat with its showy plumes, and stood
aside for me to pass out. In the pocket of my red breeches was a purse
holding enough golden crowns to ease my path for some time to come.
I cast one last look around the old hall and, trying to check the rapidity
of my breath, and the rising of the lump in my throat, strode out to the
court-yard, breathed the fresh air with a new ecstasy, mounted the
steaming horse, gave Michel my hand for a moment, and, purposely
avoiding meeting his eyes, spoke a last kind word to the old man. After
acknowledging the farewells of the other servants, who stood in line
trying to look joyous, I started my horse with a little jerk of the rein,
and was borne swiftly through the porte, over the bridge, and out into
the world. Behind me was the home of my fathers and my childhood;
before me was Paris. It was a fine, bracing winter morning, and I was
twenty-one. A good horse was under me, a sword was at my side, there

was money in my pocket. Will I ever feel again as I did that morning?
Some have stupidly wondered why, being a Huguenot born and bred, I
did not, when free to leave La Tournoire, go at once to offer my sword
to Henri of Navarre or to some other leader of our party. This is easily
answered. If I was a Huguenot, I was also a man of twenty-one; and the
latter much more than the former. Paris was the centre of the world.
There was the court, there were the adventures to be had, there must
one go to see the whole of life; there would I meet men and make
conquests of women. There awaited me the pleasures of which I had
known only by report, there the advancement, the triumphs in personal
quarrels; and, above all else, the great love affair of my dreams. Who
that is a man and twenty-one has not such dreams? And who that is a
man and seventy would have been without them? Youth and folly go
together, each sweetening the other. The greatest fool, I think, is he
who would have gone through life entirely without folly. What then
mattered religion to me? Or what mattered the rivalry of parties, except
as they might serve my own personal ambitions and desires? Youth
was ebullient in me. The longing to penetrate the unknown made
inaction intolerable to me. I must rush into the whirlpool; I must be in
the very midst of things; I longed for gaiety, for mystery, for contest; I
must sing, drink, fight, make love. It is true that there would have been
some outlet for my energies in camp life, but no gratification for my
finer tastes, no luxury, no such pleasures as Paris afforded,--little
diversity, no elating sense of being at the core of events, no
opportunities for love-making. In Paris were the pretty women. The last
circumstance alone would have decided me.
I had reached twenty-one without having been deeply in love. I had, of
course, had transient periods of inclination towards more than one of
the demoiselles in the neighborhood of La Tournoire; but these
demoiselles had rapidly become insipid to me. As I grew older, I found
it less easy to be attracted by young ladies whom I had known from
childhood up. I had none the less the desire to be in love; but the
woman whom I should love must be new to me, a mystery, something
to fathom and yet unfathomable. She must be a world, inexhaustible,
always retaining the charm of the partly unknown. I had high

aspirations. No pretty maid, however low in station, was unworthy a
kiss and some flattery; but the real _affaire d'amour_ of my life must
have no elements but magnificent ones. She must be some great