Part 1

Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive.

Transcriber's Note: 1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/blanchemaidof00schuiala

2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].

BLANCHE: THE MAID OF LILLE

BLANCHE:

The Maid of Lille

Translated from the German of OSSIP SCHUBIN by SARAH H. ADAMS

PRIVATELY PRINTED BOSTON MCMII

_Copyright, 1902, by_ SARAH H. ADAMS

Colonial Press Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

INTRODUCTION

A few years since we chose to spend the summer in a chalet among the Dolomites of South Tyrol. Weird, fantastic, inaccessible, mysterious, grotesque, and yet often wearing a jewelled crown of eternal ice, these peaks soared into the ether above and around us. "Nothing," says a recent traveller, "can surpass the majesty and beauty of the towers and ramparts, the battlemented walls, impregnable castles, and gracefully pinnacled cathedrals into the forms of which their summits are built up. Their colouring is another striking characteristic; many of them rivet the eye with the richness of the tints,--deep reds, bright yellows, silvery whites, and the dark blues and blacks of the rocks. But all these colours are modified and softened by a peculiar grayish white tint. The mountains look as if powdered over with some substance less hard and cold than newly fallen snow."

Although within a day's drive of Pieve di Cadore,--Titian's birthplace--and not far from Cortina, we could hardly have found a more isolated spot. It was a hermitage, and we knew literally no one within hundreds of miles.

Ossip Schubin, the popular German novelist at that time, had sent us a volume of stories, with the request that we would translate them. We selected the story now offered as being most in sympathy with our romantic surroundings.

A learned Englishman has said, "If histories were written as histories should be, boys and girls would cry to read them." But alas! how is the spirit, the tone, of a dead century to be made to breathe again and report itself? The landscape alone is permanent; new figures constantly fill the foreground. Poetry, legend, myths, help us to divine some of the strange chords in the human chant, which, heavily burdened with sorrow, come down to us through the ages.

In this twentieth century no one sentiment or emotion is allowed so far to dominate as to crush out all others. But how was it in the days of the Crusaders, of the Minnesingers, of the Troubadours? If we would realise the seclusion, the loneliness of many lives centuries ago, we have only to enter either "The Wartburg" or the castle of Solmes Brauenfels in the Rhine valley, which dates back a thousand years. Look into the gloomy keeps; hear the shrieking of the bars in the heavy portcullis; gaze down into the damp, ugly moats; or listen to the soughing of the stormy winds in the branches of the tall forest trees which closely environ these grim abodes. It is conceivable that Elizabeth languished and died at "The Wartburg," when the chivalrous Tannhaeuser no longer came to inspire with love and song. Could even Martin Luther have lived in these cold, black walls without his work which daily rekindled his soul as he studied the inspired pages of the Bible?

Among the annals of a wicked old past, this story appears as a legend dimly connected with the pathetic face of the "Maid of Lille" a copy of which is in the Boston Art Museum.

There is no appeal here to the modern girl. The word "altruism" had not been invented. Yet there was genius in loving as Blanche did--what trustful, boundless love, what exaggeration of the object loved! And while to-day we strive to master a useless sorrow by a useful activity, we can still appreciate the beauty and holiness of such love.

SARAH H. ADAMS.

BLANCHE

In the museum at Lille, somewhat aside from the bewildering mass of pictures, stands, in a glass case, a masterpiece of unknown origin--the "tete de cire,"--a maiden's bust moulded in coloured wax.

You will smile when you hear of a coloured wax bust and think of Madame Tussaud's collection, or of a pretty, insignificant doll's head; but should you ever see the "tete de cire," instead of laughing you will fold your hands, and, instead of Madame Tussaud's glass-eyed puppets, will think of a lovely girl cut off in her early bloom, whom you once saw at rest on the hard pillow of her coffin. Pale, with exquisite features, reddish brown hair, eyes slightly blinking, as if afraid of too much sun, a painfully resigned smile about her mouth, and with neck slightly bent forward, as if awaiting her death-stroke, full of touching innocence and of a languid grace, this waxen bust stands out of its dull gold case,--the image of an angel who had lived an earthly life and whose heart was broken by a mortal pain.

Whence came this masterly production? Nobody knows! One ascribes it to Leonardo, another to Raphael, while still others have sought for its origin in antiquity. Upon one point only all agree,--that the bust was made from a cast taken after death.

The painter, Wickar, brought it out of Italy into France. 'Twas said that he found it in a Tuscan convent.

* * * * *

The lovely girl smiles, pleased at the critical debates of the curious, who wish to attribute this graceful creation to one of the illustrious Heroes of Art: smiles and dreams!

I

No, it could not be--'twould be a sacrilege!

He was forty-five and she scarcely seventeen. It could not be!

After a series of adventurous campaigns, after mourning over many defeats and celebrating many victories, and finally losing his left leg in the memorable battle of Marignano, Gottfried de Montalme, finding himself disabled for the rough work of a soldier, had returned to France and to his father's castle, whose gates his brother, the duke, hospitably opened to him.

He found this brother a widower, and at the point of death; but beside the dying man's couch was a lovely little maiden who offered her cheeks to be kissed in welcome to the wanderer. She was the Duke of Montalme's only child--Blanche, a heart's balm! the light of his eyes!

Leaving no male heir, the entire inheritance of the Duke of Montalme--his castle and lands, with all the feudal rights appertaining thereto,--would devolve upon the returned warrior, Gottfried. The little maiden was badly provided for, and this the duke knew full well, and it made his dying heart sad.

Gottfried sat by the bedside of his brother through the warm May nights. He heard the ticking of the death-watch in the wainscoting of the old walls, heard the dewdrops, as they slowly rustled through the leaves of the giant lindens outside, heard the laboured breath of the dying man--but more distinctly than all did he hear the beating of his own heart.

Toward morning, when the first slant sunbeams shed a rosy glimmer into the gray twilight of the sick man's room, this beating grew louder, for, with the early sun, Blanche slipped into the chamber, and, leaning compassionately over the sufferer, whispered, "Are you better, my father?"

Ah! for the Duke of Montalme there was no better, and one night he laid his damp, cold hand upon his brother's warm and powerful one, saying, with the directness his near relationship warranted, "Gottfried, it would be a great comfort to me if you would take Blanche for your wife."

At this Gottfried blushed up to the roots of his gray hair, and murmured, "What an idea to come into your head--I an old cripple, and this young blossom! It would be a sacrilege!"

"She does not dislike you," said the duke.

The brave Gottfried blushed deeper, and said, "She is but a child."

"Oh, these conscientious notions!" grumbled the exhausted man. But notions or not, Gottfried was firm, and of a marriage-bond with the child would not hear; he promised to afford the little maiden loving care and protection--promised to guard her as the apple of his eye--as his own child, until he could, with confidence, lay her hand into that of a worthy lover's.

And while he promised this, his voice sounded hollow and sad like the tolling of a funeral bell. The duke, with the clear-sightedness of the dying, cast a glance into his brother's heart, and discovered there a holy secret.

"You're an angel, Gottfried," he murmured, "but you make a mistake," and shortly after breathed his last.

On the day of the funeral Dame Isabella von Auberive, a distant relative whom Gottfried, for propriety's sake, had summoned hither, arrived at the castle to share with him in the care of the young girl. Beside her father's bier, surrounded by the dim, flickering candles, he kissed the sweet orphan reverently on the brow, as one kisses the hem of a Madonna's robe; and promised her his loving care. But when she, in a torrent of childish grief, wound her arms about his neck and pressed her little head against his shoulder, he became almost as white as the dead man in his coffin, and tenderly but firmly released himself from her.

It could not be--'twould be sacrilege.

II

During the brilliant period in the reign of King Francis I., it happened that in the marvellously fair, luxuriant Touraine, through whose velvet green meadows ran the "gay-jewel-glistening Loire,--the frolicsome, flippant Loire,"--there arose on its banks, one by one, the stately dwellings of many a proud lord.

Somewhat apart from the others, in a retired spot, where King Francis's elegant hunters seldom found their way, towered up the Castle of Montalme; large, massive, with gloomy little windows sunk into deep holes in the walls, and with a round turret on either wing. Stern and forbidding, it looked down into the moat in whose waterless bed toads and frogs revelled amid the moist green foliage; for the age was fast drawing to a close in which every nobleman had been a little king, and the simple heroic French feudality, blinded by the nimbus of Francis I., were rapidly being transformed into a mere host of courtiers.

The dull uniformity in the architecture of Montalme stood out in striking contrast to the rest of the castles of sunny, pleasure-loving Touraine. The internal arrangement corresponded to the plain exterior, and to the naive pretensions of a century when, even in Blois and Amboise, the favourite castles of the king, the doors were so low that Francis himself, who is known to have been of regal stature, had to stoop to enter them. The scantiness of the furniture in this huge Castle of Montalme added to its forlorn aspect; nor was the slightest deference paid to prevailing fashion. The ladies wore sombre-coloured dresses, cut high in the neck, and covering the arms down to the very end of the wrists; skirts hanging in long, heavy folds, allowing only the pointed toe of the leather shoe to peep out. The gentlemen wore the hair long, and their faces smoothly shaved; their doublets reached in folds almost to the knees, as had been the fashion under the simple, economical rule of the late king.

* * * * *

A year had glided by since the death of the duke. Blanche enjoyed the happiness of youth, free from care, and Gottfried the peace of honest, high-souled self-denial. A guardian angel, he limped about modestly at the side of his niece, rejoicing to be able to remove every stone which threatened to mar the smoothness of her path, or to scare away the hawks lurking in ambush to surprise her innocence.

And when considering the charms of his dear little niece, Gottfried thought of the orgies in the Amboise Castle, of the "petite bande" and the merry raids of the king, the real aim of which was nothing higher than some foolish love-adventure, he shuddered. Deeply and often he pondered the matter. Blanche was eighteen--it was time for her to be married--and yet his brave, faithful heart shrank with anguish at the bare thought of it. He would not hesitate (at least he believed this of himself) to part with her if only he could find a true-hearted, honourable man. But in this age of beauty and song--the age of King Francis such an one was hard to find.

Meanwhile Blanche was contented with her lonely, monotonous life, perhaps, in part, because she knew no other, yet, also, because a fountain of youthful gaiety was still unexhausted in her heart. There were many things to do in the daytime, and she played chess with her uncle in the long winter evenings, while sparks flashed out of the heavy oak logs in the chimney, and the single tallow candle in its artistically wrought iron candlestick wove a little island of light in the Cimmerian darkness of the monstrous hall.

Sometimes Gottfried entertained her with stories--the legend of Tristran and Iseult--or the pathetic tale of the Count of Lusignano and the fair Melusina; often, too, he told her of his own adventures in foreign lands.

But the happier Blanche made herself in this lonely life, the more furious became Dame Isabella. She was a worthy woman, but never could realise that her once distinguished beauty had long been buried under a weight of corpulence, and therefore did not restrain herself from putting on all sorts of ridiculous airs and graces, in order to attract the attention of the whole neighbourhood to her supposed charms. Out of sheer _ennui_ she ogled even her page, Philemon, a boy of twelve years, although he cherished a modest but so much the more glowing adolescent passion for the lovely Blanche.

Whilst winding endless skeins of silk off the hands of the page, she sighed in a heart-breaking way, and made the most pointed remarks about the laziness and unmannerliness of those noblemen who purposely avoided any approach to the kind, chivalrous king.

Gottfried long forbore to respond to such innuendoes. Of what use would it be to try to explain to this silly old person that the court of King Francis was not the proper sphere for such a fat old woman as herself, or for a little maiden like Blanche, who would receive a kind of adulation before which the good, true-hearted warrior shuddered? Once, however, when Dame Isabella, more excited than usual, stormed in upon him and insisted that the young girl's future should be taken into immediate consideration, he gave her an angry answer. But it did not silence her, and though the worthy woman talked plenty of nonsense, yet she sometimes made a remark that Gottfried could not think wholly unjustifiable. "Blanche is eighteen years old!" stormed Dame Auberive; "if you do not wish her to marry you must resolve to place her in one of the nunneries, which are the only respectable refuge for unmarried women of her position."

"Who told you that I did not want Blanche to marry?" exclaimed Gottfried, with anger and agitation; "it is only that I have not yet found any one good enough for her." But Dame Isabella replied with cutting scorn, "No one will ever seem to you good enough for her!" and bounced out of the room the picture of righteous indignation.

Shortly after this it happened that a young knight was brought into the castle badly wounded; he had fallen among thieves, been robbed, and left unconscious by the roadside. He must be a man of rank, the servants thought who brought him in, for his dress, though soiled and torn, was of the finest material, and he wore the full beard with close-shaved hair which most of the courtiers wore in imitation of the king. Gottfried recognised in him a certain Henri de Lancy who, at the battle of Marignano, had fought beside him and won general admiration for his bravery, and had, more than all, dragged him--his old friend Gottfried--out of the thick of the battle after a ball had broken his leg.

As he bent over the handsome youth lying there before him with closed eyes, so pale and helpless, an emotion of deep pity overcame Gottfried, and he exerted himself to the utmost to lavish on De Lancy all the comforts which the poor castle of Montalme could command.

The sight of the wounded knight roused the quiet castle out of its phlegmatic drowsiness, and the heart of Dame Isabella beat so wildly that her orders confused the heads of her servants. Even through the veins of the innocent Blanche thrilled a strange, dreamy unrest.

At that time there prevailed, together with a sultry kind of viciousness, compared with which modern profligacy appears petty and childish, a frank, genial naivete, which is lost to our age with its prudish, artificial morality. The most delicate maiden did not hesitate, at that time, to lend help in nursing a sick man; and besides, women in that century--thanks to the rarity of doctors--found it necessary to acquire some knowledge of the healing art.

Hence it was that Blanche came to the assistance of Dame Isabella and her Uncle Gottfried in the care of De Lancy, and as her hand was the most delicate, it usually fell to her to loosen the bandages around the ugly wound on his head, and as she had the steadiest nerve, it was she who, with Gottfried's help, removed the splinter of a broken sword-point from his shoulder.

Quiet and helpful as an angel, she hovered about the unconscious man. But once, as she was bending over his couch to watch the breathing of the sufferer, a great abatement of the wound fever happily set in. De Lancy opened his eyes, which, though at times blue as the heavens above, were at others black as an abyss. The "petite bande" knew these eyes well.

Just now they were very blue and fixed with peculiar pleasure on the tender little maiden. But she drew back embarrassed. The strange, marvellous eyes had driven away his guardian angel, and from that hour she avoided the sick man's room.

* * * * *

We shall readily imagine that Henri de Lancy would not endure to be nursed like a sick woman, and, as soon as he could lift hand and foot, he dragged himself off his couch--possibly his impatience to see the pretty girl again had also something to do with this haste.

It provoked the young dandy that he could not introduce himself into the presence of the ladies in a more elegant costume; yet his comparatively simple travelling dress was becoming to him, and still more (at least in the eyes of the sweet Blanche) his paleness, his deep-sunk, feverish eyes, and the weakness in all his movements, which he strove to hide; for there is something which appeals to the sympathies of a true woman in seeing a strong, chivalrous man impatient and mortified at his weakness. Under her dropped eyelids Blanche watched all his movements, and was constantly considering how to remove what might interfere with the comfort of the helpless invalid. Yet she did not offer him the slightest service herself, only secretly made Dame Isabella acquainted with the need. Her sympathy and her charming bashfulness did not fail to touch the heart of the convalescent.

The "petite bande" would have laughed in scorn and right heartily, had they seen how modestly the audacious De Lancy exerted himself to please the unpretending little girl with the pale face of a novice.

And Lady Isabella neglected the page Philemon and adorned herself to such a degree that--well--it cost De Lancy all the trouble in the world not to laugh in her face. The finest part of her toilet was her "coiffure," which in style dated back at least thirty years. It consisted of a towering head-dress that ran up to a point, from which an enormous veil fluttered down to her knees.

* * * * *

The days came and went--the beautiful July days--flooding Touraine with golden sunshine from dawn to dewy eve. The air was heavy with the perfume of roses and linden blossoms. Henri's hollow face had regained its full, natural contour, and his arm had long been freed from the sling. He was able to travel--yet of his departure spoke never so much as a dying word.

He was only a merry-hearted, heedless fellow, but with a very attractive manner; when it pleased him he could assume toward women at once such a courteous, amiable, respectful manner that no one could long be vexed with him, even were she the proudest of the daughters of earth. He had so completely enchanted Dame Isabella that she spent whole nights pondering over the preparation of the most _recherche_ viands. She served up to him the most skilfully made pies, capons dressed with spices after the Spanish custom, or young peacocks which she knew how to roast so artistically as not to singe a feather on tail or little crown; and when the dame saw with what love-intoxicated gaze he often fastened his eyes on the beautiful girl, she furthered his intercourse with her as only she could. It would have delighted her to win such an aristocratic connection as De Lancy.

But there was one person in Montalme who could not feel friendly toward the gallant young knight--and this was the lord of the castle himself.

"How long is he going to stay?" he growled out one day to Dame Isabella. "He has sent for his clothes and his pages, and next he will be inviting his friends here to display Blanche's charms to the whole country."

"Don't imagine this," said Isabella, with a shrewd smile; "lovers are miserly, and would, if possible, keep the joy of their heart out of sight of the entire world."

"The joy of his heart!" exclaimed Gottfried. "Then it is high time that I interfered and obliged him to declare himself!"

"Let nothing of the kind occur to you!" exclaimed Isabella, with a look of horror. "Spare the germ of his young love until it ripens into an earnest desire for the happiness of marriage."

Gottfried became gloomy. "If I thought that the man would woo the girl honourably! He is a most attractive fellow, but although brave and generous, the best among the young coxcombs of to-day are proud of transgressions which the worst in my day would have been ashamed of, and, in fact, they regard it only as a good joke, an aristocratic pastime, to seduce an innocent girl!" and he struck his brow with his fist.

"Such an idea should never come into your mind," said Isabella, passionately; "it is shocking in you to insult the man who saved your life, by such scandalous suspicions. You call your suspicions conscientious--they should properly bear quite a different name."

"What, then?" growled Gottfried. Dame Isabella stood on the tips of her toes, and hissed in his ear, "Jealousy!"

At this he ground his teeth,--his eyebrows contracted with pain;--he turned on his heels and left the room: determined to watch and be silent!

III

In the cool, lofty rooms of the Castle of Montalme Blanche wandered about all this time like one bewildered by a great joy. Her eyes were half-closed, as if dazzled by too clear a radiance, and her voice was full of plaintive rapture, like that in which the nightingale sobs his love through the warm summer nights, and all her motions had an added grace.

But one day Dame Isabella whispered to her, "He is desperately in love with you!"

And it awakened Blanche out of her sweet, unconscious ecstasy. She began to test it--to doubt! She noticed exactly how often he addressed a word directly to her, was sad if he passed her without seeking response; his glance to her glance--his smile to her smile!

IV

Dreamy afternoon stillness brooded over Montalme, the doves cooed monotonously on the roof. In one of the deep, oak-panelled window niches Blanche stood gazing down into the courtyard, which was full of dark shadows. There stood De Lancy in the picturesque costume Titian has immortalised in the portraits of Francis I., the puffed sleeves and high ruff under which the handsomest man in France was pleased to hide the stoop in his shoulders and the thickness of his neck.