One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre

Name: One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre
Author: G. P. R. James

by G. P. R. James

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Subjects

France -- History -- Henry IV, 1589-1610 -- Fiction

In: Historical Novels

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George Payne Rainsford James, Historiographer Royal to King William IV., was born in London in the first year of the nineteenth century, and died at Venice in 1860. His comparatively short life was exceptionally full and active. He was historian, politician and traveller, the reputed author of upwards of a hundred novels, the compiler and editor of nearly half as many volumes of letters, memoirs, and biographies, a poet and a pamphleteer, and, during the last ten years of his life, British Consul successively in Massachusetts, Norfolk (Virginia), and Venice. He was on terms of friendship with most of the eminent men of his day. Scott, on whose style he founded his own, encouraged him to persevere in his career as a novelist; Washington Irving admired him, and Walter Savage Landor composed an epitaph to his memory. He achieved the distinction of being twice burlesqued by Thackeray, and two columns are devoted to an account of him in the new "Dictionary of National Biography." Each generation follows its own gods, and G. P. R. James was, perhaps, too prolific an author to maintain the popularity which made him "in some ways the most successful novelist of his time." But his work bears selection and revival. It possesses the qualities of seriousness and interest; his best historical novels are faithful in setting and free in movement. His narrative is clear, his history conscientious, and his plots are well-conceived. English learning and literature are enriched by the work of this writer, who made vivid every epoch in the world's history by the charm of his romance.

"The Man at Arms" tells the story of Jarnac and Moncontour, and ends with the fatal day of St. Bartholomew. "Henry of Guise" takes up the history of the Religious Wars, with sympathy chiefly for the Catholics, and closes with the assassination of that great soldier; then "One in a Thousand" resumes the tale just before the murder of Henry III. and the battle of Ivry. The two former are rather short and remarkably brisk in movement, this one is somewhat longer and much more elaborate. It has a complex plot, a large crowd of characters from both factious, and has evidently been worked out with, perhaps, less vivacity but more pains. "Willingly" says the novelist, "we turn once more from the dull, dry page of history ... to the more entertaining and instructive accidents and adventures of the individual characters which, with somewhat less skill than that of a Philidore, we have been moving about on the little chess-board before us." There is an ironical undermeaning here; but so far as James suggests that his flagrant romanticism, mysterious dwarfs, princesses disguised as pages, and battles prefigured in the thunder-clouds are more interesting than his retelling of historical events and careful portraiture of historical people, we must venture to dissent from him. The fiction is simply his favourite story of a wealthy heiress held out as a bait by the heads of rival factions to attract the allegiance of two powerful nobles. We feel not the slightest anxiety as to the ultimate happiness of the fair lady and the blameless lover, or the appropriate fate of their enemies. On the other hand, the intimate picture of the Leaguers at Paris, of the headquarters of Henry Quatre, and more particularly the speaking likeness of the Duke de Mayenne, the head of the Guises, are keenly interesting and real contributions to the history of those times. Though the stage effects are well done, this shows far more talent. With all his fierce ambition, his lack of scruple, and his froward temper, the Duke stands out as a man, and is infinitely more alive than the purely romantic characters; furthermore, the family likeness between the various members of that powerful house, the Guises, is admirably brought out in this series of romances, and the figure of Henry of Navarre is not less well done, though he is a personage that we meet with less rarely either in James's novels or in those of other historical raconteurs.

ONE IN A THOUSAND; OR, THE DAYS OF HENRI QUATRE.

Oh the confines of the two beautiful provinces of Maine and Touraine, lies one of the sweetest valleys that the foot of man ever trod. The hills by which it is formed are covered on one hand by a wood of venerable oaks, while the other side offers a green slope only broken occasionally by rocky banks; and on the summit of every eminence stands out, in bold relief, a group of two or three young trees, casting their deep, soft shadows on the velvet turf below.

The eye of a traveller, placed at the northern extremity of the valley, may trace its course winding on in varied beauty for nearly a league to the southward; till at length the hills between the acclivities of which it lies, seem to end abruptly in that direction, but still without meeting; the one side terminating in a high rugged rock, cutting clear and distinct upon the sky, and the other fringed by the branches and foliage of the trees. Far away beyond--enframed, as it were, by the opening of the valley--lies a rich, splendid landscape, showing bright Touraine, with its plains, and woods, and dells fading off in long misty lines of light and shade, till earth and heaven blend in the blue obscurity of distance.

Washing the roots of the trees on one side, and edged with a bank of soft green moss on the other, a small limpid stream runs swiftly along over a shallow bed of rocks and pebbles, and, like some spoiled child of fortune, winds rapidly on amidst a thousand sweets and beauties, still hurrying forward, careless of all the bright things that surround its path. Such is the picture of that valley as I have seen it within the last twenty years; but the tale I have to tell refers to a period more remote.

Down the steep, rugged bridle-road, which, descending sharply from the brow of the more exposed hill, crossed the course of the valley and the stream at nearly a right angle, and then, mounting the opposite slope, made its way through the forest;--down that road, somewhere near the end of April, 1589, a very handsome boy, seemingly about sixteen years of age, took his path on foot. He was just at the time of life when childhood and manhood meet--when sports, and pastimes, and sweet innocence are cast away like faded flowers, and when we first set the naked foot of inexperience on that burning and arid path through the fiery desert of desire and disappointment, which each man must tread, ere he reach the night's resting-place of the tomb. Not a shade of down yet tinged his upper lip with the budding of the long-coveted mustachio, and his face was smooth and soft; but there was a flash and a fire in his splendid dark eye, which told that the strong and busy passions that beset man's prime had already taken possession of his heart.

He was dressed in a vest of dark murrey-coloured cloth, bound with a light edging of gold, and in large trunk breeches descending to his knee, made of the same stuff, and ornamented in the same manner. His cloak, which was more ample than was usual in those days, or than the time of year required, was fastened by a buckle to the right shoulder, and, being brought round under his left arm in the Italian mode, was wrapped across his chest, without opposing any obstacle to the free passage of his hand towards the hilt of his dagger or his sword. He was, if anything, below the middle height, and slightly made; but in his countenance there were all those signs and features from which we are accustomed to argue the presence of high and daring courage: and, perhaps, it might have been a safer task to attack many a man of greater personal strength, and much more warlike appearance, than that slight boy, with his light active limbs, and quick remarking eye.

On the summit of the hill he paused for a moment, and gazed over the country which he had left behind, as if looking anxiously for some expected sight; and then, muttering the words, "Negligent varlets!" he resumed his path down the side of the hill. After wandering for a short space along the margin of the shallow stream, seeking for a place where he might cross its fretful waters, without wetting the light buskins that covered his feet, he sat down upon the mossy bank under the shade of a clump of oaks, seemingly wearied with his walk, and, pulling off his boots and stockings, dipped his feet in the rivulet to cool and refresh them. Laying his broad-plumed hat by his side, he leaned back against the broken bank, from which sprang the oaks that shaded him; and, with the water still rippling over his feet, and the chequered light and shade of the green leaves above playing on his broad fair brow, he seemed to give himself up to one of those fanciful dreams ever so busy with the brain of youth.

It was certainly a spot and an hour to dream in. It was the noon of a bright spring day. Every bird of the season was singing its sweetest song in the forest opposite or in the trees above his head; and his seat was carpeted with the meek-eyed wood anemone, the soft blue periwinkle, the daisy, the primrose, and the violet, together with a thousand other flowers, the sweetest children of the early year, whose very birth and being are one of the brightest themes that nature offers to imagination. And yet the youth's meditations did not appear to be pleasant ones. Whatever was the chain of thought that bound his mind, there was upon his countenance an expression of sad and painful gloom, which gradually changed, like the hues of a red and stormy sunset, to the deeper signs of wrath and indignation. Sometimes he gazed heavily upon the stream, with an eye all unconscious of the flashing waters before it; and then again, as some sterner feeling seemed to take possession of his heart, his brow would knit, his lip would quiver, and his eye would flash like a young tiger in its spring. Soon, however, the thoughts--whatever they were--which gave rise to such emotions, passed away; and, hanging down his head, sadder sensations seemed, in turn, to occupy his breast. A bright drop rose and glittered in his eye, and the quick blood mounted hastily into his cheek, as if ashamed of the passion he had shown, though he knew not that any one was near to witness its expression.

Whether the passing emotions by which he had been agitated were marked or not, his progress from the top of the hill to the spot where he sat had not been unobserved; and the next moment a rustling sound, proceeding from the bushes on the opposite side of the stream, startled him from his reverie. Bounding up like a frightened fawn, he fixed his eyes upon the trees in the direction from which the noise had proceeded; but the thick foliage concealed for the time the object which alarmed him; though, by the continuance of the sound, and the waving of the boughs, it was evident that some large body was making its way towards the side of the river. The next instant the figure of a man emerged from the wood, and then that of a horse, whose bridle, cast over the stranger's arm, afforded the means of leading it forward along the narrow footpath which they had been treading. The leisurely pace at which both man and horse proceeded gave no signs of intentions actively hostile towards any one; and although those were days in which dangers were to be found in every field and in every road, yet a moment's thought seemed to have made the youth ashamed of the timid start which the stranger's approach had occasioned. Colouring highly, he sat down again upon the bank, and applied himself busily to replace his boots and stockings, without vouchsafing a look towards the other side of the stream.

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