THE HEIR
In 1617, twenty and some years after the horrible night during which Etienne came into the world, the Duc d'Herouville, then seventy-six years old, broken, decrepit, almost dead, was sitting at sunset in an immense arm-chair, before the gothic window of his bedroom, at the place where his wife had so vainly implored, by the sounds of the horn wasted on the air, the help of men and heaven. You might have thought him a body resurrected from the grave. His once energetic face, stripped of its sinister aspect by old age and suffering, was ghastly in color, matching the long meshes of white hair which fell around his bald head, the yellow skull of which seemed softening. The warrior and the fanatic still shone in those yellow eyes, tempered now by religious sentiment. Devotion had cast a monastic tone upon the face, formerly so hard, but now marked with tints which softened its expression. The reflections of the setting sun colored with a faintly ruddy tinge the head, which, in spite of all infirmities, was still vigorous. The feeble body, wrapped in brown garments, gave, by its heavy attitude and the absence of all movement, a vivid impression of the monotonous existence, the terrible repose of this man once so active, so enterprising, so vindictive.
"Enough!" he said to his chaplain.
That venerable old man was reading aloud the Gospel, standing before the master in a respectful attitude. The duke, like an old menagerie lion which has reached a decrepitude that is still full of majesty, turned to another white-haired man and said, holding out a fleshless arm covered with sparse hairs, still sinewy, but without vigor:--"Your turn now, bonesetter. How am I to-day?""Doing well, monseigneur; the fever has ceased. You will live many years yet.""I wish I could see Maximilien here," continued the duke, with a smile of satisfaction. "My fine boy! He commands a company in the King's Guard. The Marechal d'Ancre takes care of my lad, and our gracious Queen Marie thinks of allying him nobly, now that he is created Duc de Nivron. My race will be worthily continued. The lad performed prodigies of valor in the attack on--"At this moment Bertrand entered, holding a letter in his hand.
"What is this?" said the old lord, eagerly.
"A despatch brought by a courier sent to you by the king," replied Bertrand.
"The king, and not the queen-mother!" exclaimed the duke. "What is happening? Have the Huguenots taken arms again? Tete-Dieu!" cried the old man, rising to his feet and casting a flaming glance at his three companions, "I'll arm my soldiers once more, and, with Maximilien at my side, Normandy shall--""Sit down, my good seigneur," said Beauvouloir, uneasy at seeing the duke give way to an excitement that was dangerous to a convalescent.
"Read it, Maitre Corbineau," said the old man, holding out the missive to his confessor.
These four personages formed a tableau full of instruction upon human life. The man-at-arms, the priest, and the physician, all three standing before their master, who was seated in his arm-chair, were casting pallid glances about them, each presenting one of those ideas which end by possessing the whole man on the verge of the tomb.
Strongly illumined by a last ray of the setting sun, these silent men composed a picture of aged melancholy fertile in contrasts. The sombre and solemn chamber, where nothing had been changed in twenty-five years, made a frame for this poetic canvas, full of extinguished passions, saddened by death, tinctured by religion.
"The Marechal d'Ancre has been killed on the Pont du Louvre by order of the king, and--O God!""Go on!" cried the duke.
"Monsieur le Duc de Nivron--"
"Well?"
"Is dead!"
The duke dropped his head upon his breast with a great sigh, but was silent. At those words, at that sigh, the three old men looked at each other. It seemed to them as though the illustrious and opulent house of Herouville was disappearing before their eyes like a sinking ship.
"The Master above," said the duke, casting a terrible glance at the heavens, "is ungrateful to me. He forgets the great deeds I have performed for his holy cause.""God has avenged himself!" said the priest, in a solemn voice.
"Put that man in the dungeon!" cried the duke.
"You can silence me far more easily than you can your conscience."The duke sank back in thought.
"My house to perish! My name to be extinct! I will marry! I will have a son!" he said, after a long pause.
Though the expression of despair on the duke's face was truly awful, the bonesetter could not repress a smile. At that instant a song, fresh as the evening breeze, pure as the sky, equable as the color of the ocean, rose above the murmur of the waves, to cast its charm over Nature herself. The melancholy of that voice, the melody of its tones shed, as it were, a perfume rising to the soul; its harmony rose like a vapor filling the air; it poured a balm on sorrows, or rather it consoled them by expressing them. The voice mingled with the gurgle of the waves so perfectly that it seemed to rise from the bosom of the waters. That song was sweeter to the ears of those old men than the tenderest word of love on the lips of a young girl; it brought religious hope into their souls like a voice from heaven.
"What is that?" asked the duke.
"The little nightingale is singing," said Bertrand; "all is not lost, either for him or for us.""What do you call a nightingale?"
"That is the name we have given to monseigneur's eldest son," replied Bertrand.
"My son!" cried the old man; "have I a son?--a son to bear my name and to perpetuate it!"He rose to his feet and began to walk about the room with steps in turn precipitate and slow. Then he made an imperious gesture, sending every one away from him except the priest.