Arthur Blane; or, The Hundred Cuirassiers

I found myself bewildered among the intricate and gloomy streets of old Paris; having lost the way to my hotel, the _Golden Fleur de Lys_, in the ancient Rue d'Ecosse. In my ign...

I dreaded being robbed and consequently of perchance losing the duke's letter to Madame d'Amboise--a letter which contained the destiny of my life. I had nothing valuable to los...

'In the affairs of every one,' says a French writer, 'there is a moment which decides upon his future. It is almost always chance, which takes a man as the wind does a leaf, and...

'In the Scottish language it denotes, madame, that the holder has either given his name to the territory he possesses, or has taken his name from it; moreover, that he is the he...

I was hastily conducted to a chamber by Antoine, the servant who had brought this alarming intelligence, and who marched before me, bearing two tall candles of pink wax, bowing...

And for a minute I continued to loiter between the doorway over which the gorgeous hangings of blue and silver had fallen, and the chair in which sat the beautiful friend of kin...

The horse I rode, my new bay horse Dagobert, was a beautiful animal, and his housings were worthy of the generous donor, whose strange freedom of manner and voluptuous image, fi...

A soldier of the Grey Musketeers, who was on duty at one of the gates, politely directed me to the quarters of Patrick Gordon, the Marechal de Logis of the Garde du Corps Ecossais.

This hotel was a picturesque old mansion having three sharp wooden gables that cut the blue sky overhead, and projected over the street on beams of grotesquely-carved wood, whic...

I was now fairly one of the hundred cuirassiers of that Scottish Guard, whose name is inseparably connected with the ancient royalty and military history of France, and who form...

A few days after my enrolment, the trumpets of the Light Horse and Musketeers blew shrilly in the court of the Louvre, announcing that his Majesty was leaving the Council to pro...

Remembering the injunctions of the Countess, I avoided the elaborately-carved Porte Cochère, under which a few of the Comte de Treville's musketeers were loitering--so publicly...

Leaving me in some danger of suffocation, and to my own reflections, among which the warnings of the Marquis de Gordon occupied a prominent place, the fair Countess had just tim...

My reflections were of a somewhat chequered nature. The amorous dalliance I had observed, and the conversation I had been forced to overhear, shocked and cooled, while it exaspe...

After these occurrences, a fortnight elapsed, and during all that time I did not visit the Countess, and I never received any message from her, a circumstance which rather pique...

With dawn next day came an order from M. de la Ferte Imbault, Colonel-General des Ecossais, in the name of the King, for the cuirassiers of the Scottish Guard to march that even...

The army of Lavalette covered all the roads that led towards Lorraine, and the aspect of the column to which our Scottish cuirassiers were attached was brilliant and imposing as...

Dundrennan, Sir Quintin Home, Raynold Cheyne and I, entered the common hall, or room of the tavern, and after bowing politely to two abbés who were seated in a corner conversing...

Our next day's march brought us to Vitry le Francois, a walled town, built of wood. Here we crossed the Marne; the cavalry by a ford, the infantry and artillery by boats and flo...

A ride of some miles brought us to a valley overshadowed by steep black mountains. The darkness had set in, and a waning moon, diminished to a crescent, peeped coldly above the...

We came in sight of Bitche on the morning of the 25th March, which was still in that year (1634), _New Year's-day_ in England; though the governments of Scotland and of France a...

Like Bitche, La Mothe, in the bailiewick of Bassignie, had the reputation of being impregnable, as it crowned the crest of a mountain of hard rock, which overlooked all the neig...

Dundrennan, Sir Quentin Home, the Chevalier Livingstone, and other gallant gentlemen of the troop were anxious to share with me the honour of this perilous enterprise; but, awar...

The rain and wind had passed away, and the keen, bright stars were looking out of the blue sky; but there was no moon, and half-an-hour before dawn, three hundred chosen men of...

Sir Robert Bruce of Blairhall, and Sir Archibald Douglas of Heriotmuir, with other gallant gentlemen, French and Scottish, who were slain in this assault, we buried with all hon...

On passing the borders of Champagne, I proceeded more at my leisure, and after a pleasant journey of about thirty miles per day, found myself one evening, in the beginning of Au...

At luncheon M. de Brissac and I were joined by the Earl of Irvine and several young sparks of the French Guards, glittering with jewels, velvets, and cloth of gold. We were atte...

After putting my costume in proper order, I placed a new plume in my hat, pointed up my moustache, perfumed my hair like a court gallant, and sent little Poquelin about dusk for...

To resume my own narrative: I had proceeded from the Rue St. Jacques, after a somewhat devious course, along the Rue Betizi and the Fosses St. Germain l'Auxerrois, when at the p...

When I alighted, the musketeers closed round me. We were under the shadow of an immense dark building, the massive outline of which was broken at intervals by eight round towers...

Perceiving that I was becoming very dull and miserable, Martin Omelette brought me an old book, which he said had been left by my predecessor. It was a manuscript, and was entit...

One night I had fallen into an uneasy slumber, and without undressing lay on my bed untrimmed and unshaven, for I was fast becoming careless of an existence so monotonous. As us...

Next morning we were seated at breakfast in the secret boudoir--that charming little room in which I had first seen the Marquis de Gordon; the Countess was brilliantly attired a...

'This is passing strange!' thought I, as we trotted along the highway towards Meaux, the cathedral spire of which rose above the mosses of the ville on the right bank of the Mar...

'Neither virtue nor vice consists in passive sentiment--but in action.' I remembered this maxim of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and resolved to be actively good, and to thrust the...

We put up at a quiet auberge in the suburbs--such a place as I usually chose. It was kept by a reverend-looking old man, who told me that he had been a soldier in the wars of th...

Beyond Chalons we rode for several miles in silence, for Nicola seemed to be still displeased with me, and I felt a sadness and irresolution for which I could not account, for t...

The darkness of the sky and the denseness of the interwoven foliage overhead, made our whereabouts so obscure, that our horses stumbled at every step, till dismounting, I led th...

With night and darkness the storm passed away, and, when morning broke, no trace of it remained but the torn and twisted branches, the thunder-riven oak, and the diamond-like de...

The old town of St. Michel, the capital of a bailiewick of the same name, now rose before us on an eminence. The banner with the three fleur-de-lis waved above its ramparts, sho...

'Some wine, ho!' stepped towards the tree under which the Marquis and his two followers were regaling. The latter stared at me with the usual insolence of liveried valets, until...

As we proceeded, we hourly heard of the terrors and ravages committed by the Count de Bitche, colonel of the petardiers of Lorraine, a man steeped to the lips in crime and sin;...

Gathering the reins I prepared to mount, when suddenly the animal snorted again, and swerving round in an unusual manner, nearly fell upon his haunches. Blood on the grass now a...

In my cloak-bag at the auberge I had left the king's dispatches, addressed to Sir John Hepburn and to the Duc de Lavalette, together with the case containing the baton of a mare...

My captor, Wolfgang Count Pappenheim, the intended son-in-law of Duke Charles, was the son and heir of the great Pappenheim of the German wars, he who had received no less than...

First came the principal citizens of Nanci, four abreast, bearing steel partizans and clad in scarlet velvet pourpoints and black serge breeches, slashed with red, guarding the...

The Duke's garde du corps of horse, consisting of a hundred Lorraine troopers, who wore white hocquetons over their cuirasses, with a regiment of German imperial infantry, clad...

M. Schreckhorn, an officer of the Swiss guard, was now ushered into my chamber, and with much formality, and more bad French, announced that the Duke required my presence in the...

The cheers of the people still rang in the streets, where several puncheons of wine were set abroach by the master of the household; the contents of these were quaffed by the Ge...

I now rehearsed, as succinctly as I could, considering the agitation of my thoughts, my adventures with Marie Louise on our journey; omitting only such passages as I deemed migh...

Vaudemont's page was conducting me to my rooms, when one of the Duke's gentlemen in waiting, M. René, who wore the cross of Malta on his dark velvet cloak, met me in the corrido...

The lofty air assumed by this presumptuous Austrian lord rankled in my breast like a poisoned arrow! I longed to meet him alone--alone on the solitary highway, or in some deep a...

When I rode from the chapel of St. Nicolas in the Wood the morning was cool and delicious. The forests were clothed with luxuriant green foliage, that rustled pleasantly in the...

'M. l'Abbé, alias M. Blane de Blanerne, alias M. Scaramouche le Moucharde, welcome! most welcome to share the hospitality of Phalsbourg!' exclaimed De Bitche, twisting up his en...

My first impulse was to look from the window of this apartment. It was large for the window of a turret, but so closely grated that the iron bars, together with its height from...

The morning stole away and noon drew near: no food was brought to me; but I did not miss it then, my mind being so agitated by alarm and useless regrets. I was agreeably surpris...

Before I could either rush upon him, or tear the document to pieces, he snatched it from me, and thrust me furiously back by the muzzle of the loaded pistol, which, by heaven's...

This sombrely tapestried and stately apartment seemed at first quite unoccupied; and for a moment the idea of throwing burning faggots on the floor, and setting the hated tower...

Inquiries were first made as to whether I was wounded; then as to who I was, my rank and name--for my attire, to say the least of it, was rather peculiar, and my face was still...

A dull and pricking pain over all my stiffened limbs, as the blood slowly and laboriously forced its way through vein and artery; a dim light in my aching eyes, as if the dawn w...

The brave general of the Scots being thus slain by those citizens of Zaberne, who, as Cardinal de la Valette said, 'had been keeping him at bay for the last six months by playin...

The evil fortune which had attended my comrade in his love affair affected my own spirit, and for several days after rejoining the Garde du Corps, I felt sad, lonely, and though...

Pappenheim had brought up another body of at least a thousand horse, and placed them in a wood, on the extreme left of his bivouac, in front of which we found the original foe w...

Severe operations in Alsace, which luckily left me little time for reflection, followed this cavalry affair. Picardy was invaded by twenty thousand horse and ten thousand foot,...

I bit my lips, and strove to conceal from René the real emotions that stirred my soul; but had not a sudden giddiness and dimness of sight, consequent to his wound and loss of b...

With a mind full of chequered thoughts, I set out that evening for the scene of my new duties, duly furnished with all the papers given to me by the Marquis, and escorted by a p...

Towards the latter end of October, when the brown or ruddy autumnal tints were stealing over the chestnut forests of the Vosges, a day of gloom had closed, and, as the night dre...

With ten of Brissac's dragoons, each having a Scottish musketeer _en croupe_ behind him, I mounted and rode from Lutzelstein about sunset on the 11th, having previously, since m...

I checked my horse, and stricken to the soul, like one who had been guilty of a great crime, shrank to the rear of all my party; nor did I again approach her, till we had surmou...

Three days passed over, during which my fair prisoner remained in her apartments and I saw nothing of her. The little Duke, however, I met frequently, playing with the watchdog...

Marie Louise, being naturally warm-hearted and affectionate, wept for the poor boy's death, and wreathed a chaplet of white roses for his head when we coffined him; and with eve...

These four horsemen were from Paris direct, and proved to be M. de Brissac, a Commander of Notre Dame de Mont Carmel, and two grey musketeers, gentlemen in the suite of Cardinal...

I found her pale and in tears, with a face that too plainly told of present suffering and of past sorrow. She was dressed in a dark robe, having wide loose sleeves trimmed with...