Louis XI. having ransomed her from Edward IV. for the enormous sum of 50,000 crowns, after she had been imprisoned already five years. This closing part of her life was spent in misery, and, for one in her station, in actual poverty. What a fate for this strong-minded, ambitious, and yet fine-natured woman! All her plans defeated, the survivor of all she loved, not a single thing, as far as this world was concerned, to soften the dread reality. Truly these pictures of bygone royalty are not without their lesson, if we read them aright.
We are drawing rapidly to the conclusion of these sketches. Our last but one will take a different line to any of the preceding ones; though the story connected with the castle we are now to speak of is sadly and terribly true, the romance that has arisen out of these facts has been one of the most widely-circulated and ancient fairy tales on record.
Near the little village of Champtoie there are some very magnificent ruins of a feudal castle, which we stopped to explore, having heard previously of the celebrity they had acquired from the frightful crimes of their owner, by name Gilles de Retz Sieur de Laval, who lived in the reign of Charles VII. He was a perfect monster in human shape, and a complete bugbear to all the surrounding country, who gave him the name of Barbe Bleu, the original of our well-known story of Blue Beard. The story-tellers have thought proper to clothe the hero in a turban and Eastern dress; though he comes from the banks of the Loire. His history affords a remarkable instance of the superstitions of the fifteenth century, and of the impunity for his atrocities which a feudal seigneur enjoyed in that dark age. This wretch, having run through an enormous fortune by extravagance, and greatly injured his constitution in early youth, sought to renovate both by magic arts. He kept in his pay an Italian alchemist and magician, who induced his miserable dupe to believe that a charm could be produced from the blood of infants, which would restore both his health and fortune, if he used it as a bath. For this purpose children and young persons were spirited away, and then murdered in the deep dungeons of his castle, or in the dense darkness of his forests, to the number, as stated in ancient chronicles, of one hundred, the monster in many cases plunging the dagger into the breasts of his victims. At length the fury and indignation of the whole country reached such a height that a regular insurrection was organised, and the people rose against their lord with a determination to put him to death, but the then Duke of Brittany interfered in the business: he heard the charges against De Retz; he was found guilty, condemned, and burnt at Nantes, in 1440, after making a full confession of his monstrous crimes. The peasants actually still regard with horror the ill-omened walls and vaults in which these awful atrocities were committed, and the popular belief is still unaltered, that this wretched being had made a compact with the Evil One. This whole story is accurately recorded in the ancient chronicles of the time.
The locality of this sad story of crime and misery suits well with the events that then occurred. The country hereabouts is wholly devoid of attraction, though there is a gloomy grandeur about these really fine ruins, that renders them no unfitting stage for the awful tragedy that was here enacted; but we will leave this mixed chapter of fact and fiction and close our chronicle with one more scene of stirring and brilliant events; and then drop the curtain.
The last castle to which we will lead the reader is that of Saumur, which we visited on a beautiful autumnal day. Its situation is most striking; it crowns a ridge that rises like a lofty wall above the pretty town (Sous-le-Mur is a fanciful derivation of its name). The donjon is of great height, and is now used as a powder magazine. The associations with this castle are numerous. The great Protestant leader, Du Plessis Mornay, was sent there as governor by Henri Quatre. It was under his care made the great stronghold of the Protestants; but the revocation of the Edict of Nantes altered all that state of things, and the castle is next brought before our notice during the stirring times of the Vendean War. One of the greatest events of that time was the capture of the castle, June 10, 1793, after storming the heights on which the Republican army was intrenched. Henri de la Rochejaquelin, that pattern of a brave and valiant gentleman, devoted, loyal, generous, and warm hearted, was more like one of the chivalrous Paladins, in the days of knight-errantry, than like a real existing character in the awful times in which he lived;—this brave chief forced the intrenchments of the town, and excited his followers to the capture of a redoubt by throwing his hat, decorated by a white plume, into the midst of it, calling out “Qui me le cherchera?” an appeal not thrown away, we may be sure. With only 60 men to back him, he dashed into the town, clearing all before him as far as the bridge. This gallant conduct gained the day, the castle surrendering almost immediately. 11,000 prisoners were taken and arms in proportion. This was one of the many successes that made the Vendean War rather one continued chronicle of wondrous deeds, than a matter-of-fact account of fights between two contending parties.
And now we have done. What a period do our slight chronicles embrace, beginning with our recollections of the magnificent Francis the First, embracing in its annals our own Plantaganet monarchs; one French king after another appearing upon our motley page. The great, the distinguished, the learned, the brave, the criminal; the fairest, the noblest, and again the frailest among women; stirring events, deep tragedies, pathetic love stories, conspiracies, massacres even, all have had their place here, till we are brought down to the memorable time when a whole nation was convulsed throughout the length and breadth of the land, and when such characters as Henri de la Rochejaquelin are seen to rise to the distinction they merit. To the present day his name is worshipped in all the country, where the account of his exploits are still handed down from father to son, as their boast and glory. On such a memory it is pleasant to dwell, and pleasant to drop the curtain on a character so deserving of all praise, though a degree of mournful pathos is mixed up with it when we reflect on his tragic fate.