CHAPTER III

BLANCHE. A HISTORY OF SORCERERS

The welcome day had succeeded to the long and rainy night; the merchants had opened their shops, the watchmen were taking their much-needed rest after their fatiguing nocturnal duties, while the more hardy robbers of the darkness had given place to the sneaking pickpockets and thieves who exercised their calling in broad daylight in the most populous quarters. The servant maids were up and about, briskly performing their morning tasks; husbands left the nuptial couch, for then it was usual for one to sleep with his wife, at least among middle-class people, to betake themselves to their daily avocations; wives and mothers were attending to the needs of their households and their children; lovers who had dreamt of their sweethearts went to endeavor to realize some of their dreams; and the young girls who always thought of their sweethearts whether they were sleeping or waking, went, thinking of them still, to their daily work. In that time, as in this, love was the dream of youth, the distraction of the middle-aged, and the memory of the old.

The barber was always the first to rise in the house. He had no servants, although his means would well have allowed it; but when anyone asked him why he did not take a boy to help him and to watch in the shop, Touquet answered,--

"I do not need anyone; I can conduct my business alone, and I'm not fond of feeding idlers who are good for nothing but to spy on their master's actions and go and talk about them in the neighborhood."

The barber knew that Marguerite, though a little curious and somewhat of a gossip, was incapable of disobeying him in anything; she went out to buy the necessary provisions for the house, then she went upstairs again to the young girl of whom we have heard her speak, and with whom we shall soon have a better acquaintance. Marguerite went down only when her master was absent, which was rarely. Finally, the barber could not dispense with a maid since he had taken the little Blanche to grow up under his roof.

Touquet himself opened his shop; he looked up and down the street, but it was yet too early for customers to come. The barber was dreamy, preoccupied; he was thinking of the commission which had been given him by the marquis; then he returned indoors, saying,--

"Chaudoreille is late this morning; however, it's his day to be shaved."

Marguerite appeared at the entrance to the room; and, after looking about her on all sides, perhaps to assure herself that the stranger of the night before was not still there, she greeted her master respectfully, and said to him,--

"Monsieur, Mademoiselle Blanche is up and wishes to know if she may come and say good-morning to you."

The barber still threw a glance into the street; then he passed into his back shop, saying to his servant,--

"Blanche may come."

Marguerite had hardly made a sign to someone in the passage when a young girl, light as a deer and fresh as a rose, sprang into the little room where Touquet was waiting, and ran toward him with the most lovely smile, saying to him,--

"Good-morning, my good friend!"

Then she offered Touquet her candid forehead, and the barber approached her and brushed it lightly with his lips. One would have said that a painful feeling restrained him, and that he feared to wither that tender flower.

Marguerite's portrait had not flattered Blanche. The young girl was as pretty as she appeared innocent and ingenuous. Her dark hair, smoothed in bands on her forehead, fell in ringlets on her right shoulder. Powder, which the court ladies had then begun to use, had not spoiled Blanche's beautiful tresses. Her skin accorded perfectly with her name. Her mouth was fresh and tender; and her blue eyes, shaded by long lashes, had an innocent and sweet expression, as rare then as now.

What a pity that her pretty body should be imprisoned in a long corset, the bones of which seemed forcibly to compress its charms! But it was then the fashion. Today we have better taste; we wish that the figure should be in its place; we wish, above all, to be able to embrace it without being hindered by farthingales, basquines, paniers or hoops. Happily, the ladies are of our opinion, and everybody gains thereby.

Despite her long figure, straight corset, frilled sleeves, and her high-heeled shoes, Blanche was no less pretty. Beauty adorns everything that it wears, and innocence lends a more bewitching and genuine charm to beauty. Blanche had, then, every quality which could please. However, the barber did not appear to remark the attractions of the young girl; one would have said that he feared to look at her, as he had feared to touch his lips to her forehead.

"Did you have a good night?" asked Blanche of him.

"Very good, I thank you."

"Marguerite was afraid that you went to bed very late because you had one of your friends to supper with you."

"I don't know why Marguerite should make such a remark, nor what necessity there was that she should tell you I had anyone here last night."

While uttering these words Touquet looked severely at Marguerite, who dusted and wiped the furniture without daring to look at her master.

"But, my dear," answered Blanche, "is there anything bad in one's supping with one of his friends?"

"Undoubtedly not."

"What harm, then, has Marguerite done in telling me that?"

"A servant should not incessantly tell tales about everything her master does. It should be very indifferent to you, Blanche, whether anyone comes to see me in the evening or not."

"Oh, mercy, yes, since you won't let me come down, though that would amuse me much better than staying in my room."

"A young girl should not talk to everybody, and many people come here of whom I know very little."

"Yes, in the morning; but in the evening you only receive your friends."

"I receive very few visitors in the evening except Chaudoreille, whom you know."

"Oh, yes; and he makes me laugh every time I see him, for he will give me lessons in music, and I believe at the present time I know much more about it than he does. You will never let me leave my room."

"Blanche, isn't it apparent to you that that is not convenient?"

"But when you are alone I should like much better to keep you company and chat to you, than to listen to Marguerite's stories, which often make me very timorous and prevent me from going to sleep."

"You know that I'm not very chatty; after a day's work I'm tired and I like to rest."

"And Marguerite said that you didn't go to bed until very late, that you kept the light burning a long time, and that she doesn't know if you sleep one hour every night."

The old servant coughed, but unsuccessfully, to make Blanche stop talking; but the latter, not thinking that she had done anything wrong in repeating all that, paid no attention to her and continued to speak. Marguerite, in order to avoid her master's look, wiped and dusted with new ardor; but this time the voice of the barber made itself heard, and it was she whom he addressed.

"Marguerite, I said to you when you came into my house that I detested curious, indiscreet people,--servants who spy on their master. Do you remember it?"

"Yes, yes, monsieur," said the old servant, continuing to rub the top of the table.

"How do you know, then, whether I sleep late, whether I keep the light burning a long time, whether I am awake at night?--you who should be in your room at nine o'clock every evening and go to bed immediately."

"Monsieur, I beg your pardon; but at times, when the wind blows or the thunder growls, it's impossible for me to sleep; then, monsieur, I get up to pray to my patron saint, or cross my shovel and tongs, or to place a branch of boxwood on my bed. You know boxwood conjures the storm; and if they had taken some of it formerly to the Arsenal, on the Billi Tower, it would not have been entirely destroyed by lightning in the year 1537 or '38--I don't know which exactly."

"Hang it! leave your boxwood and the Billi Tower alone; answer the question I asked you."

"That's what I'm doing, monsieur; it's always the wind or the storm which makes me wakeful, and as my window faces yours (when I say faces, it's a story above), then I see your light sometimes, and it seems to me that monsieur is walking about in his room. I'm not very certain of it, for there are curtains, and the shade deceives one sometimes."

"As I wish to prevent you from having the trouble of making sure that I am asleep, this evening you will change your room, and you will sleep in that which is above my apartments."

"What, monsieur! in that room where nobody ever goes? I do not believe that it has been inhabited since I came here, and I fear--"

"That's enough; see that you obey; and take care not to spy again on my actions, or I shall be forced to send you away from the house."

"Mercy! how ashamed I am at having made you scold Marguerite!" said Blanche, again approaching the barber. "If she said that, my friend, it was because of the interest she takes in your health. You know well that she is very much attached to you; but since it makes you angry, I promise you it shall not occur again. Come, that's the last of it; you won't say any more to her about it--will you?"

Blanche's voice was so sweet, so touching, that Touquet lost his air of severity and very nearly smiled as he answered,--

"Yes, that's the last of it; let us there leave it. As to you, Blanche, continue to be good, docile."

"And you will let me go out a little--will you not? You will allow me to go to walk in the Pre-aux-Clercs or on the Place Royale?"

"We shall see; we shall see a little later. To amuse yourself, vary your employments."

"That's what I do, my dear; I often leave my needle to spin some thread; or, better still, I take my tapestry work. Oh, you shall see; I'm making something very pretty."

"I know your talent--your taste. You have a sitar; you can amuse yourself by playing on it. Chaudoreille has given you some lessons."

"Yes; now I can play as well as he can, for I believe he's not very practised on it, although he says he's a great musician. But all that hardly ever amuses me; I should like much better to sit at the window which looks on the street, but you won't let me open it."

"No, Blanche; too many people are passing in this neighborhood; you would be seen, ogled, insulted, by the bachelors, the pages, who take pleasure in annoying people."

"Well, I won't open my window. However, if you were willing I could put a mask on my face; then they could not see me."

"They would notice you none the less; besides, Blanche, only the court ladies are permitted to wear masks. I repeat to you, avoid the glances of these impertinent louts who run the streets, ogling at all the windows. You are not yet sixteen years old. In some years I shall leave Paris; I shall sell this house, and I shall retire into the country; there you can enjoy more liberty, and there you will taste pleasures which are worth more than any this city could offer you.--But someone is coming into the shop; go, Blanche, upstairs to your room."

The young girl kissed the barber and quickly regained the passage, from which a staircase led to her chamber. She sighed lightly as she entered it, and said to herself, while glancing around her,--

"Always here! Always to see the same things! No one to speak to except Marguerite! She is very good, she loves me very much; but sometimes her stories are very wearisome to me. Well, then, if I must--" and Blanche took up a piece of tapestry which she was making and sang, while working, one of the three airs which her music master had taught her. Soon the door of the room opened; Marguerite had followed the young girl, but did not arrive as soon as she, because her legs had not the vivacity of sixteen years. The old nurse pouted, for Blanche was the cause of her having to change her room, which was no small matter to Marguerite. Blanche perceived it; she ran in front of the old woman, made her sit down, and took her hands, while saying to her with a calming smile,--

"Are you vexed with me, nurse? You must have seen that I said all that without thinking that there was anything wrong in it."

Who could resist Blanche's smile? The old woman was much more sensitive to such sweet manners because people rarely used them with her; and that is why sometimes an old man loses his reason when a pretty girl casts a tender glance at him, because for a long time he has not been in the habit of receiving such glances.

"Who could remain angry with you?" said Marguerite, pressing Blanche's hand; "but for all that, it's very disagreeable to change rooms--to move at my age."

"I will help you, dear nurse; I will carry everything."

"Oh, it's not that; it's on the same landing; it's not far to carry things. But the room I've lived in for eight years, ever since I came here, was, thanks to my prayers and precautions, protected from the visits of all evil spirits. There I could defy all attempts of sorcerers and magicians; and all that I did there I shall have to do over again in the new room where I am to sleep."

"Do you believe, then, Marguerite, that sorcerers will come to visit you if you don't take all your precautions?"

"And why not, mademoiselle? Don't those people get in wherever they can penetrate? There are a great number of them in Paris. They carry away the corpses off the gibbets of Montfaucon; they commit a thousand horrors to make their sorceries successful. It is now nearly fifty years ago (it was my mother who told me that story) that a lackey, ruined by play, sold himself to the devil for ten crowns. The demon transformed himself into a serpent and took possession of the lackey, introducing himself into the latter's body by the mouth; and from that time on the unlucky man made horrible grimaces, because the devil was in his body. Some years later a watchman was carried off by a sorcerer."

"Ah, dear nurse, you are going to tell me some more of those stories which will make me timorous at night."

"I don't tell you these to make you tremble, but to prove to you that it's necessary to be on one's guard against magicians, and not to be like those incredulous people who doubt everything when we have so many examples of the power of magic. I'll not do more than cite to you the Marechale d'Ancre and Urbain Grandier, who lodged some devils in the bodies of some pious Ursulines at Loudun; that is too frightful. But I will only tell you what happened to a magician called Cesar Perditor; that dates seventeen years back, or thereabouts. You see, my dear child, that's not very ancient."

"But, dear nurse, aren't you going to begin your moving?" said Blanche, who did not seem very eager to hear Marguerite's story.

"We've plenty of time," answered the old servant as she drew her chair close to Blanche's, delighted to relate a story about sorcerers, although that would make her tremble also. Marguerite commenced immediately:--

"This Cesar was, said they, very well versed in his magic art, and produced at his will both hail and thunder. He had a familiar spirit, and a dog that carried his letters and brought back the answers to him. At a quarter of a league distant from this city, on the Gentilly side, he lived in a cave, in which he caused the devil and all his infernal court to appear. Ah, my poor child; they say that at a great distance from the cave a frightful noise might be heard every night. He made love philters, and wax images, by means of which he caused the persons they represented to languish and die.

"One day--no, it must have been one night--an old man came to the cave, who appeared to be suffering and in great distress. A great lord, a libertine, a worthless fellow, had stolen away his daughter, his only child; the old man in his despair, unable to obtain justice, went to the magician to procure the means of revenging himself upon the man who had outraged him."

"Nurse, it seems to me your master is calling you," said Blanche, interrupting Marguerite.

"No, no; he did not call me. Except at meal times, what need has M. Touquet of me? But as we were saying, the old man went to seek a magician, and the latter promised him help; in fact, they heard more noise than usual in the cave that night,--so much that the lieutenant of police sent some people there, and Cesar was taken and led to the Bastile, where soon after the devil strangled him."

"And the old man, nurse?"

"He never returned to his dwelling; without doubt the devil carried him away also, or else the great nobleman, having learned that he had gone to the magician's house. But nobody knows anything further about it. Still, that will prove to you, my dear, how dangerous it is to have anything to do with those people."

"Dear nurse, this little talisman which you gave me, that I wear,--is not that the work of a sorcerer?"

"Certainly not, darling; on the contrary, it is to preserve you from their snares that I gave it to you. It is under the protection of my patron saint; with that, my dear Blanche, you could go about, run anywhere; your innocence would not be in the slightest danger."

"Why, then, does my good friend never permit me to leave my room?"

"Ah, my dear Blanche, it is because M. Touquet does not believe in talismans; and it is very unfortunate for him."

"But you, Marguerite, who are afraid of everything,--why don't you carry a similar talisman?"

"Ah, my child, the quality of yours consists principally in preserving your virtue, and at my age one has no need of a talisman to preserve that."

"My virtue! Do magicians take virtue from young girls?"

"Not only magicians, but fascinating gallants,--finally, all the worthless fellows of whom M. Touquet was talking to you this morning."

"And what would these people do with my virtue?"

"My dear child, that is to say, they would seek to turn your head, to give you a taste for coquetry, dissipation, baubles, vanity and deceit; then you would be no longer my good, sweet Blanche."

"Ah, I understand; but, dear nurse, without a talisman I fully believe that I should never have those tastes. I would do nothing that should cause trouble to those who had taken care of me from my infancy, who have done so much for me since I lost my father."

"That's all very well, my child, but with a talisman you see I am much easier; and if M. Touquet believed about it as I do, he would give you a little more liberty. Not that I blame him for fearing for you the attempts of worthless fellows; you are growing every day so pretty."

"Dear nurse, do worthless fellows trouble pretty girls, then?"

"Alas, yes, my dearie. I have seen them often do so; and, unfortunately, the pretty girls listen willingly to the good-for-nothing fellows."

"They listen willingly to them, nurse? Is it because they speak better than other men?"

"No, not better, but they know so well how to dissemble; their speech is golden, their eyes deceptive, their manners--Ah, how glad I am that you have a talisman!"

"But, nurse, since I do not leave my room--"

"That's true, my dear; but you will not always keep your room, and under my watchful care it seems to me that one could very well allow you to take a little walk from time to time. M. Touquet is severe--very severe--to make me change my lodging because I noticed that he did not sleep at night. Is it my fault--mine--that he does not sleep?"

"He prevents me from opening my window."

"Ah, that is because it opens on the street; and if he knew you looked so often through the lattice--But no one can possibly see you; the panes are so small, so close together."

"Oh, yes; it is like a grating."

"A father could not be more strict."

"Ah, Marguerite, he stands to me in the place of mine."

"Yes, yes; I know it well; however, he is no relation--is he?"

"No, Marguerite; I believe not."

"According to what I heard in the neighborhood, before I came into his service, you are the daughter of a poor gentleman who came to Paris to follow a lawsuit about ten years ago."

"Yes, dear nurse; I was then five years and some months of age. It seems to me, however, that I still remember my father; he was very good, and he often kissed me."

"And your mother,--do you remember her?"

"Alas, no; but I believe I can still remember the time when my father and I arrived here; we had been a long time in a carriage, and came from far off."

"And M. Touquet lodged you, for then he kept lodgings; and after that?"

"I was very tired; they gave me something to eat and put me to bed in this room, and I have always occupied it since."

"And after that?"

"I did not see my father again. The next day M. Touquet told me he was dead."

"Yes; it was very unfortunate, they say. There were then, as there are very often still, fights in the night between pages and lackeys and honest men, who were often attacked by these cursed scoundrels while entering their own houses. That night they committed a thousand disorders in the streets of Paris; several persons were assassinated; and your poor father, who had gone out, was, while returning, drawn into a brawl, and perished trying to defend himself. That is all that I have learned; do you know anything further?"

"No, Marguerite; besides, you know very well that my protector does not wish me to talk about that."

"Yes, because he fears that it will give you pain."

"He has deigned to keep me near him, to educate me as his daughter and give me some accomplishments; and I have for him the most lively gratitude."

"Oh, yes; he has done very well by you. He loves you, although he is not caressing, nor does he say much; and I am very sure that he has the greatest interest in you. It seems that he does not intend himself to marry, although he is still young. He is in easy circumstances,--more so than he wishes it to appear."

"Do you believe that, Marguerite?"

"Ah, hush! If he knew that I had said that, and that I had sometimes seen him counting gold, he would send me away for it."

"You have seen him counting gold?"

"I did not say that to you, mademoiselle. No, no; I have seen nothing. Ah, mon Dieu! what a gossip I am! I had much better go and attend to my moving."

"I will go with you, dear nurse."

"Come then, if you like, Blanche."

Blanche followed Marguerite as she went up, and hastened to carry the furniture and clothing of the old servant to the opposite room. In vain Marguerite cried to her,--

"Slowly, mademoiselle; don't carry anything until I have sprinkled it with holy water."

Blanche, to spare Marguerite fatigue, had very soon finished the moving.

"You will be better here," said Blanche; "this room is more convenient, larger."

"I shall find it pretty sad," said Marguerite, casting fearful glances around her. "That large alcove, those dark hangings, those recesses--Oh, mademoiselle, do see, if you please, if there is anything in that big closet."

Blanche ran to open the closet, and, after having looked through it, brought to Marguerite a little book, thick with dust.

"That's all I've found, dear nurse," said she, presenting the book to the old woman, who put on her spectacles and said,--

"Let's see a bit what it is."

Marguerite succeeded, with no little trouble, in reading, "Conjuring-book of the Sorcerer Odoard, the Famous Tier of Tags."

"Ah, mon Dieu!" said Marguerite, letting the book fall; "I am lost if that sorcerer has slept in this room. Misericorde! a tier of--"

"What does that mean,--a tier of tags?"

"That is to say--that is to say, mademoiselle, a very wicked man, who doesn't love his kind; a man who casts spells to make folks unlucky."

"Are there any of those sorcerers now?"

"Alas, yes, my dear child; they are always casting spells, for I have met during my life several persons who have been bewitched by them. Let us burn that; let's burn that quick."

Marguerite hurried to throw the book of sorceries on to the hearth, where she lit a fire; then she began to pray to her patron saint, and Blanche went down to her work.