Henry of Guise (Historical Novel). G. P. R. James

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      CHAPTER V.

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      The luxury of the present age has perhaps made no greater progress than in the cultivation of flowers, and in nothing, perhaps, has it produced its usual effect, of depriving men of the sweet zest of simplicity, more than in our enjoyment of those sweetest of the earth's children. Heaven forbid that we should lose any of the many bright and beautiful blossoms which have been added so abundantly to our stock within the last few years: having possessed them, we cannot lose them without pain; and, perhaps, in the very variety we receive a compensation for the something that is lost. But yet there can be no doubt that in the present day we do not feel the same keen pleasure and enjoyment in our gardens thronging with ten thousand flowers which men did in those old days, when few but the native plants of the soil had yet received cultivation.

      At the time that we are now speaking of, the attention of men in general was first strongly turned in France to the cultivation of their gardens; and Du Bellay, Bishop of Mans, was about that very period importing from foreign countries multitudes of those plants which are in general supposed to be indigenous to the country. One of the first efforts in the art of gardening had been to multiply those shrubs, which, though not, as generally supposed, indeciduous, retain their leaves and their colouring through the colder parts of the year, and cover the frozen limbs of winter with the green garmenture of the spring. Amongst the next efforts that took place, were those directed to the production of flowers and fruits at seasons of the year when they are denied to us by the common course of nature; and any little miracles of this sort, which from day to day were achieved, gave a greater degree of pleasure than we can probably conceive at this time, when such things are of daily occurrence.

      In passing round the battlements of the castle, as we have described in the last chapter, Marie de Clairvaut had remarked a considerable garden within the walls of the château itself. She had seen the rows of the neatly clipped yew, and the green holly, and she had thought that she could discover here and there a flower, even in the midst of that ungenial season of the year. How it happened, or why, matters not, but upon the third morning of her stay, she woke at a far earlier hour than usual, and rising, after a vain effort to sleep again, she dressed herself without assistance; and believing that she should have no other companion but the morning sun, she proceeded to seek her way to the garden, with a feeling of pleasant expectation, which may seem strange to us in the present day, but was then quite natural to one of her disposition and habits. The garden was easily found, many of the servants of the château were up and about; and one of them with haste and care proceeded to open the gates, and unlock the doors, for the fair lady, and usher her on her way.

      It were needless to enter into any description of the garden; for few, scanty, and poor were the flowers that it contained, even in its brightest moments, compared with those now produced in the garden of a cottage in England. At that season, too, every thing was frozen up, and the more severe frost of the preceding nights had killed even those hardy blossoms that seemed to dare the touch of their great enemy, the winter.

      It was enough, however, for Marie de Clairvaut, that the plentiful rows of evergreens refreshed her eye; and she walked along the straight alleys with a feeling of joyous refreshment, while the hoar-frost upon the grass crackled under her feet, or, catching the morning light upon the yews and hollies, melted into golden drops in the cheerful sunshine.

      She hoped for half an hour of that sort of solitude, when, though there is no one near us, the heart is not solitary; when we hold companionship with nature, and in a humble, though rejoicing spirit, converse with God in his great works.

      At such moments, dear, indeed, must be the person, sweet to our heart must be our ordinary commune with them, harmonious must be their sensations with every feeling of our bosom, if we find not their coming upon us an interruption; if we can turn from the bright face of nature to the dear aspect of human love, and feel the scene, and the companionship, and ourselves, all attuned together.

      Such we cannot say was the case with Marie de Clairvaut, when, on hearing a step behind her, she turned and saw the young Marquis de Montsoreau. She felt disappointed of her solitude; but, nevertheless, she was far too courteous in her nature to suffer such sensations to appear for a moment, and she returned his greeting with a kindly smile, and listened to his words with that degree of pleasure which the intention of being pleased is sure to carry with it. Gaspar de Montsoreau talked to her of many things, and spoke on every subject so gracefully, so clearly, and so pleasingly, that when memory brought back the conversation which she was accustomed to hear in courts and cities, it seemed to her a sort of miracle, that wit and talent, such as those two brothers possessed, should have grown up like a beautiful flower in a desert, so far removed from any ordinary means of cultivation. She felt, too, that, on her return to Paris, a comparison of the sort of communion which she now held in the country, with the only kind of society which the capital could afford, would be very, very detrimental to the latter.

      The young marquis, after the first salutation of the morning, commented on her early rising, and told her that both he and his brother had been up even before sunrise.

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