Chesnel

“ Once he had ventured to allude to his mistake in spite of the Marquis' prohibition, and the old noble answered gravely &mdash"Chesnel, before the troubles you would not have permitted yourself to entertain such injurious suppositions. What can these new doctrines be if they have spoiled you?"
Maitre Chesnel had gained the confidence of the whole town; people looked up to him; his high integrity and considerable fortune contributed to make him a person of importance. ”

“ The death of a king on the scaffold, the protracted agony of a queen, the division of the nobles’ lands, in his eyes were so many binding contracts; and where so many vested interests were involved, it was not likely that those concerned would allow them to be attacked. Chesnel saw clearly. His fanatical attachment to the d’Esgrignons was whole-hearted, but it was not blind, and it was all the fairer for this. The young monk’s faith that sees heaven laid open and beholds the angels, is something far below the power of the old monk who points them out to him. ”

“ Blondet won over, he would take a peremptory tone with the examining magistrate, to whom he hoped to prove that if Victurnien was not blameless, he had been merely imprudent; the whole thing should be shown in the light of a boy’s thoughtless escapade.
But Chesnel slept neither soundly nor for long. Before dawn he was awakened by his housekeeper. The most bewitching person in this history, the most adorable youth on the face of the globe, Mme. la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse herself, in man’s attire, had driven alone from Paris in a caleche, and was waiting to see him. ”

“ Chesnel, honest Chesnel, upright, worthy Chesnel, called his darling Comte Victurnien’s creditors “curs.”
Meanwhile his successor was making his way along the Rue du Bercail just as Mlle. Armande’s traveling carriage turned into it. Any young man might be expected to feel some curiosity if he saw a traveling carriage stop at a notary’s door in such a town and at such an hour of the night; the young man in question was sufficiently inquisitive to stand in a doorway and watch. He saw Mlle. Armande alight. ”

“ Is there a woman in the world for whom such a thing has been done? Poor boy! Come, do not lose time, dear M. Chesnel; and count upon me as upon yourself."
"Mme. la Duchesse! Mme. la Duchesse!" It was all that he could say, so overcome was he. He cried, he could have danced; but he was afraid of losing his senses, and refrained.
"Between us, we will save him," she said, as he left the room.
Chesnel went straight to Josephin. Josephin unlocked the young Count's desk and writing-table. Very luckily, the notary found letters which might be useful, letters from du Croisier and the Kellers. ”

“ Such a character will drag a man down into the mire if he is left to himself, or bring him to the highest heights of political power if he has some stern friend to keep him in hand. Neither Chesnel, nor the lad's father, nor Aunt Armande had fathomed the depths of a nature so nearly akin on many sides to the poetic temperament, yet smitten with a terrible weakness at its core. ”

“ Armande. "Oh, Chesnel, no one but you would think of such a thing!" she added, with a withering look; before such a look from a woman's eyes no mortal can stand. "There is but one crime that a noble can commit—the crime of high treason; and when he is beheaded, the block is covered with a black cloth, as it is for kings."
"The times have changed very much," said Chesnel, shaking his head. Victurnien had thinned his last thin, white hairs. "Our Martyr-King did not die like the English King Charles."
That thought soothed Mlle. Armande's splendid indignation ”

“ That relation, only to be found in some out-of-the-way province, or among a few old servants of the King, did honor alike to a noblesse that could call forth such affection, and to a bourgeoisie that could conceive it. Such noble and magnificent devotion is no longer possible among us. Noble houses have no servitors left; even as France has no longer a King, nor an hereditary peerage, nor lands that are bound irrevocably to an historic house, that the glorious names of the nation may be perpetuated. Chesnel was not merely one of the obscure great men of private life ”

“ Then, the young Count must have a man in the d'Esgrignon livery. He prided himself on setting the fashion among young men in the town and the department; he entered that world of luxuries and fancies which suit youth and good looks and wit so well. Chesnel paid for it all, not without using, like ancient parliaments, the right of protest, albeit he spoke with angelic kindness.
"What a pity it is that so good a man should be so tiresome!" Victurnien would say to himself every time that the notary staunched some wound in his purse. ”

“ We owe it to the honor of our ancestors, kept stainless until now, that we can look all men in the face, and need bend the knee to none save a mistress, the King, and God. This is the greatest of your privileges."
Chesnel, good man, was breakfasting with the family. He took no part in counsels based on heraldry, nor in the inditing of letters addressed to divers mighty personages of the day; but he had spent the night in writing to an old friend of his, one of the oldest established notaries of Paris. Without this letter it is not possible to understand Chesnel's real and assumed fatherhood. ”

“ Chesnel told me; the King knows the truth."
"We will think of a way of repairing the evil," said the Duchess.
Mlle. Armande went downstairs to the salon, and found the Collection of Antiquities complete to a man. Every one of them had come, partly to do honor to the Bishop, partly to rally round the Marquis; but Chesnel, posted in the antechamber, warned each new arrival to say no word of the affair, that the aged Marquis might never know that such a thing had been. The loyal Frank was quite capable of killing his son or du Croisier ”

“ And yet beneath that harshness Chesnel saw a great affection. The Marquis' attachment for his old servant was something of the same order as a man's affection for his dog; he will fight any one who kicks the animal, the dog is like a part of his existence, a something which, if not exactly himself, represents him in that which is nearest and dearest&mdashhis sensibilities. ”

“ She was a beautiful woman. An ex-contractor for forage to the armies of the Republic, a man of the district, with an income of six thousand francs, persuaded Chesnel to carry a proposal of marriage to the lady. The Marquis and his sister were alike indignant with such presumption in their man of business, and Chesnel was almost heartbroken ”

“ The d’Esgrignons, the honor of the province!” she said.
“There is more in it than that,” exclaimed du Croisier, rising to begin his restless walk again.
“More? What more?” asked Chesnel in amazement.
“France is involved, M. Chesnel! It is a question of the country, of the people, of giving my lords your nobles a lesson, and teaching them that there is such a thing as justice, and law, and a bourgeoisie—a lesser nobility as good as they, and a match for them! There shall be no more trampling down half a score of wheat fields for a single hare ”

“ Chesnel saw that Victurnien possessed that uncontrollable appetite for enjoyments which should be the prerogative of men endowed with giant powers; the men who feel the need of counterbalancing their gigantic labors by pleasures which bring one-sided mortals to the pit.
At times the good man stood aghast; then, again, some profound sally, some sign of the lad's remarkable range of intellect, would reassure him. He would say, as the Marquis said at the rumor of some escapade, "Boys will be boys." Chesnel had spoken to the Chevalier, lamenting the young lord's propensity for getting into debt ”

“ In his sustained self-devotion is there not something indefinably solemn and sublime, something that rises above the one beneficent deed, or the heroic height which is reached by a moment’s supreme effort? Chesnel’s virtues belong essentially to the classes which stand between the poverty of the people on the one hand, and the greatness of the aristocracy on the other ”

“ Mme. du Croisier shared Chesnel’s views of the d’Esgrignons. She was a deeply religious woman, a Royalist attached to the noblesse; the interview had been in every way a cruel shock to her feelings. She, a staunch Royalist, had heard the roaring of that Liberalism, which, in her director’s opinion, wished to crush the Church. ”

“ Ah! God give me strength to appear in a Court of Justice and maintain a lie before men!"
Chesnel kissed Mme. du Croisier's hand, then stood upright, and majestic as one of the prophets that Raphael painted in the Vatican.
"You uncle's soul is thrilled with joy," he said; "you have wiped out for ever the wrong that you did by marrying an enemy of altar and throne"&mdashwords that made a lively impression on Mme. du Croisier's timorous mind.
Then Chesnel all at once bethought himself that he must make sure of the lady's director, the Abbe Couturier. ”

“ And, truth to tell, the man is none the worse off. In England, if a married man is put in prison for debt for twenty-four hours, his wife will be jealous and make a scene when he comes back."
"Here we are, without meeting a soul on the way," said Chesnel. "You are the more sure of complete ascendency here, Mme. la Duchesse, since Mme. Camusot's father is one Thirion, usher of the royal cabinet."
"And the King never thought of that!" exclaimed the Duchess. "He thinks of nothing! ”

“ Chester said musingly.
"Yes! and he was refined, yet never weak. 'Strength,' he said, 'valor, truth, they are the foundations; better be dead than without them. Yet one can have them, in crude form, and still better be dead. The noble, the humane, the chaste, the beautiful, 'tis with them we build the superstructure, the temple, of life--Mr. Chester, if you knew French I could tell you that better." ”

“ Chesney.
"Good!" Cecil exclaimed, much pleased. "And I say, suppose we drop the 'Mister' and the 'Marquis'—such rot, really—thanks. Well, Sophy—what d'you think? Will you come along, too—eh?"
"No.... I don't think I can to-morrow, Cecil."
"Why not?"
"I ... I don't think I care to sail all day. The glare gives me a headache if I'm out too long in it."
"Just as you like, of course. But I rather fancy 'twould do you good. A bit of sunburn wouldn't hurt—you're looking a bit pale, I find. What do you think, Amaldi? Don't you find Mrs. Chesney paler than she was in England?" ”

“ In the foreground the yellow of the West Kensington liveries outlined itself against the dark blue draperies of South Kensington. The crests of these again brightened suddenly into green as the almost woodland colours of Bayswater rose behind them. And over and behind all, the great purple plumes of North Kensington showed almost funereal and black.
"There is something lacking," said the King, "something lacking. What can—Ah, there it is!—there it is!"
In the doorway had appeared a new figure, a herald in flaming red. ”

“ Chessells had been described to me,—a dapper dandyish man with twinkling eyes, red hair and whiskers, approaching as from his own residence, and showing in his face and port all that animated air of business importance and urgency which one never sees in the men who carry on a steady respectable trade, and always in those who live by its affectation. ”

“ The last time du Chesne had met Howaha was at the annual fair in Ville Marie, when he appeared in a picturesque attire befitting his dignity and rank. He was much less imposing now as he squatted on the grass after his triumphs, chopping rank tobacco with a scalping-knife. An astute old savage, well trained in arts of policy, he showed every disposition to render himself agreeable to the son of the influential French trader.
“But look, du Chesne! Here is a white prisoner—a woman, too. Oh, surely she is not dead!” cried Diane. ”

“ Chessells, found fresh occasion to be again liberal with his West End manifestations of obsequious affability.
One instant, and what a change! He had scarcely got through his course of salutations before his keen, accustomed eye missed, I suppose, those peculiar modifications a long innings of aristocratic ease impresses on the features, and his colour, going and coming with every beat of the heart, indicated pretty clearly that he had made a discovery out of the way of his trade, and was beginning to pass a rather awkward couple of minutes. ”

“ Every one knows the result of the fatal fight fought within sight of Chester walls, when most of the knights and squires, the flower of Cheshire chivalry, lay dead on the stricken field. Woeful was the day for Cheshire men. Henry captured the Baron of Kinderton and Sir Richard Vernon, and beheaded them. Even some who fought on the King’s side fell in battle, including Sir John Calveley and Sir John Massey. Moreover, the stern Henry was wroth against the county, and every man felt that his head was in jeopardy. ”

“ Not all the men of Cheshire were loyal to Richard, or were perhaps wearied of him. When the storm burst some of them, including Sir Richard and Sir John Legh, went over to Henry’s side. He came to Chester and raised an army there, and executed Sir Piers Legh, who had remained faithful to Richard. Soon the men of Chester saw the stern Duke of Lancaster marching into the city, and behind him rode their unfortunate King, a prisoner in the hands of one who knew no pity, and soon to be done to death at Pontefract Castle. ”

“ So Sir Guy Chester, coming with his bride to court, Hermoine, by the graces of her mind, which are enchanting, and by her beauty, which is grand and winning, sends Shene and Westminster wild with admiration.
Looking on this, Queen Bess remarks sadly: “Good fortune has made this Chester a carpet knight; he now eats with that Italian abomination called a fork. Still, he has an eye for treasure; his lady’s diamonds are finer than my own. Perchance he may make a good Lord of the Treasury, for he’ll do no more fighting—unless he is a fool.” ”