interior we will give the reader an idea if he will with us
follow the cavalcade to the majestic porch of the castle of
the states.
Monsieur rode a little steady-paced horse, equipped with a
large saddle of red Flemish velvet, with stirrups in the
shape of buskins; the horse was of a bay color; Monsieur’s
pourpoint of crimson velvet corresponded with the cloak of
the same shade and the horse’s equipment, and it was only by
this red appearance of the whole that the prince could be
known from his two companions, the one dressed in violet,
the other in green. He on the left, in violet, was his
equerry; he on the right, in green, was the grand veneur.
One of the pages carried two gerfalcons upon a perch, the
other a hunting-horn, which he blew with a careless note at
twenty paces from the castle. Every one about this listless
prince did what he had to do listlessly.
At this signal, eight guards, who were lounging in the sun
in the square court, ran to their halberts, and Monsieur
made his solemn entry into the castle.
When he had disappeared under the shades of the porch, three
or four idlers, who had followed the cavalcade to the
castle, after pointing out the suspended birds to each
Page 6
Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
other, dispersed with comments upon what they saw: and, when
they were gone, the street, the place, and the court all
remained deserted alike.
Monsieur dismounted without speaking a word, went straight
to his apartments, where his valet changed his dress, and as
Madame had not yet sent orders respecting breakfast,
Monsieur stretched himself upon a chaise longue, and was
soon as fast asleep as if it had been eleven o’clock at
night.
The eight guards, who concluded their service for the day
was over, laid themselves down very comfortably in the sun
upon some stone benches; the grooms disappeared with their
horses into the stables, and, with the exception of a few
joyous birds, startling each other with their sharp chirping
in the tufted shrubberies, it might have been thought that
the whole castle was as soundly asleep as Monsieur was.
All at once, in the midst of this delicious silence, there
resounded a clear ringing laugh, which caused several of the
halberdiers in the enjoyment of their siesta to open at
least one eye.
This burst of laughter proceeded from a window of the
castle, visited at this moment by the sun, that embraced it
in one of those large angles which the profiles of the
chimneys mark out upon the walls before mid-day.
The little balcony of wrought iron which advanced in front
of this window was furnished with a pot of red gilliflowers,
another pot of primroses, and an early rose-tree, the
foliage of which, beautifully green, was variegated with
numerous red specks announcing future roses.
In the chamber lighted by this window was a square table,
covered with an old large-flowered Haarlem tapestry; in the
center of this table was a long-necked stone bottle, in
which were irises and lilies of the valley; at each end of
this table was a young girl.
The position of these two young people was singular; they
might have been taken for two boarders escaped from a
convent. One of them, with both elbows on the table, and a
pen in her hand, was tracing characters upon a sheet of fine
Dutch paper; the other, kneeling upon a chair, which allowed
her to advance her head and bust over the back of it to the
middle of the table, was watching her companion as she
wrote, or rather hesitated to write.
Thence the thousand cries, the thousand railleries, the
thousand laughs, one of which, more brilliant than the rest,
had startled the birds in the gardens, and disturbed the
slumbers of Monsieur’s guards.
We are taking portraits now; we shall be allowed, therefore,
we hope, to sketch the two last of this chapter.
The one who was leaning in the chair — that is to say, the
joyous, the laughing one — was a beautiful girl of from
eighteen to twenty, with brown complexion and brown hair,