The House of the Wolf
A Romance
By
Ln: Longmans Green, 1890 and
NY: Longmans Green, 1890
Introduction
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The following is a modern English version of a curious
French memoir, or fragment of autobiography, apparently written about the year
1620 by Anne, Vicomte de Caylus, and brought to this country—if, in fact, the
original ever existed in England—by one of his descendants after the Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes. This Anne, we
learn from other sources, was a principal figure at the Court of Henry IV.,
and, therefore, in August, 1572, when the adventures here related took place,
he and his two younger brothers, Marie and Croisette, who shared with him the
honor and the danger, must have been little more than boys. From the tone of his narrative, it appears
that, in reviving old recollections, the veteran renewed his youth also, and
though his story throws no fresh light upon the history of the time, it seems to
possess some human interest.
The House of the Wolf
--------------------------
Chapter 1
Ware Wolf!
I HAD afterwards such good reason to look
back upon and remember the events of that afternoon, that Catherine’s voice
seems to ring in my brain even now. I
can shut my eyes and see again, after all these years, what I saw then—just the
blue summer sky, and one gray angle of the keep, from which a fleecy cloud was
trailing like the smoke from a chimney.
I could see no more because I was lying on my back, my head resting on
my hands. Marie and Croisette, my
brothers, were lying by me in exactly the same posture, and a few yards away on
the terrace, Catherine was sitting on a stool Gil had brought out for her. It was the second Thursday in August, and
hot. Even the jackdaws were silent. I had almost fallen asleep, watching my cloud
grow longer and longer, and thinner and thinner, when Croisette, who cared for
heat no more than a lizard, spoke up sharply, “Mademoiselle, he said, “why are
you watching the Cahors road?”
I had not noticed that she was doing
so. But something in the keenness of
Croisette’s tone, taken perhaps with the fact that Catherine did not at once
answer him, aroused me; and I turned to her.
And lo! She was blushing in the most heavenly way, and her eyes were
full of tears, and she looked at us adorably.
And we all three sat up on our elbows, like three puppy dogs, and looked
at her. And there was a long
silence. And then she said quite simply
to us, “Boys, I am going to be married to M. de Pavannes.”
I fell flat on my back and spread out my
arms. “Oh, Mademoiselle!” I cried
reproachfully.
“Oh, Mademoiselle!” cried Marie. And he fell flat on his back, and spread out
his arms and moaned. He was a good
brother, was Marie, and obedient.
And Croisette cried, “Oh, Mademoiselle!”
too, But he was always ridiculous in his ways.
He fell flat on his back, and flopped his arms and squealed like a pig.
Yet he was sharp. It was he who first remembered our duty, and
went to Catherine, cap in hand, where she sat half angry and half confused, and
said, with a fine redness in his cheeks, “Mademoiselle de Caylus, our cousin,
we give you joy, and wish you long life; and are your servants and the good
friends and aiders of M. de Pavannes in all quarrels, as—“
But I could not stand that. “Not so fast, St. Croix de Caylus,” I said,
pushing him aside—he was ever getting before me in those days—and taking his
place. Then with my best bow I began,
“Mademoiselle, we give you joy and long life, and are your servants and the
good friends and aiders of M. de Pavannes in all quarrels, as—as—“
“As becomes the cadets of your house,”
suggested Croisette, softly.
“As becomes the cadets of your house,” I
repeated. And then Catherine stood up
and made me a low bow and we all kissed her hand in turn, beginning with me and
ending with Croisette, as was becoming.
Afterwards Catherine threw her handkerchief over her face—she was crying—and
we three sat down, Turkish fashion, just where we were, and said, “Oh, Kit!”
very softly.
But presently Croisette had something to
add.
“What will the Wolf say?” he whispered to
me.
“Ah! To be sure!” I exclaimed aloud. I had been thinking of myself before; but
this opened quite another window. “What
will the Vidame say, Kit?”
She dropped her kerchief from her face,
and turned so pale that I was sorry I had spoken—apart from the kick Croisette
gave me. “Is M. de Bezers at his house?”
she asked anxiously.
‘Yes,” Croisette answered. “He came in last night from St. Antonin, with
very small attendance.”
The news seemed to set her fears at rest
instead of augmenting them as I should have expected. I suppose they were rather for Louis de
Pavannes than for herself. Not
unnaturally, too, for even the Wolf could scarcely have found it in his heart
to hurt our cousin. Her slight willowy
figure, her pale oval face and gentle brown eyes, her pleasant voice, her
kindness, seemed to us boys, and in those days, to sum up all that was
womanly. We could not remember, not even
Croisette the youngest of us—who was seventeen, a year junior to Marie and
myself—we were twins—the time when we had not been in love with her.
But let me explain how we four, whose
united ages scare exceeded seventy years, came to be lounging on the terrace in
the holiday stillness of that afternoon.
It was the summer of 1572. The
great peace, it will be remembered, between the Catholics and the Huguenots had
not long been declared; the peace which in a day or two was to be solemnized,
and, as most Frenchmen hoped, to be cemented by the marriage of Henry of
Navarre with Margaret of Valois, the King’s sister. The Vicomte de Caylus, Catherine’s father and
our guardian, was one of the governors appointed to see the peace enforced; the
respect in which he was held by both parties—he was a Catholic, but no bigot,
God rest his soul!—recommending him for this employment. He had therefore gone a week or two before to
We were country-folk. Not one of us had been to
But we were shy. We disliked and shunned strangers. And when old Gil appeared suddenly, while we
were still chewing the melancholy cud of Kit’s announcement, and cried
sepulchrally, “M. le Vidame de Bezers to pay his respects to
Mademoiselle!”—Well, there was something like a panic, I confess!
We scrambled to our feet, muttering, “The
Wolf!” The entrance at Caylus is by a
ramp rising from the gateway to the level of the terrace. This sunken way is fenced by low walls so
that one may not—when walking on the terrace—fall into it. Gil had spoken before his head had well risen
to view, and this gave us a moment, just a moment. Croisette made a rush for the doorway into
the house; but failed to gain it, and drew himself up behind a buttress of the
tower, his finger on his lip. I am slow
sometimes, and Marie waited for me, so that we had barely got to our
legs—looking, I dare say, awkward and ungainly enough—before the Vidame’s
shadow fell darkly on the ground at Catherine’s feet.
“Mademoiselle!” he said, advancing to her
through the sunshine, and bending over her slender hand with a magnificent
grace that was born of his size and manner combined, “I rode in late last night
from
He seemed to see us for the first time and
negligently broke off in his compliment; raising himself and saluting us. “Ah,” he continued indolently, “two of the
maidens of Caylus, I see. With an odd
pair of hands apiece, unless I am mistaken.
Why do you not set them spinning, Mademoiselle?” and he regarded us with
that smile which—with other things as evil—had made him famous.
Croisette pulled horrible faces behind his
back. We looked hotly at him; but could
find nothing to say.
“You grow red!” he went on, pleasantly—the
wretch!—playing with us as a cat does with mice. “It offends your dignity, perhaps, that I bid
Mademoiselle set you spinning? I now
would spin at Mademoiselle’s bidding, and think it happiness!”
“We are not girls!” I blurted out, with
the flush and tremor of a boy’s passion.
“You had not called my godfather, Anne de Montmorenci, a girl, M. le
Vidame!” For though we counted it a joke
among ourselves that we all bore girls’ names, we were young enough to be
sensitive about it.
He shrugged his shoulders. And how he dwarfed us all as he stood there
dominating our terrace! “M. de
Montmorenci was a man,” he said scornfully.
“M. Anne de Caylus is—“
And the villain deliberately turned his
great back upon us, taking his seat on the low wall near Catherine’s
chair. It was clear even to our vanity
that he did not think us worth another word—that we had passed absolutely from
his mind. Madame Claude came waddling
out at the same moment, Gil carrying a chair behind her. And we—well we slunk away and sat on the
other side of the terrace, whence we could still glower at the offender.
Yet who were we to glower at him? To this day I shake at the thought of
him. It was not so much his height and
bulk, though he was so big that the clipped pointed fashion of his beard—a
fashion then new at court—seemed on him incongruous and effeminate; nor so much
the sinister glance of his gray eyes—he had a slight cast in them; nor the grim
suavity of his manner, and the harsh threatening voice that permitted of no disguise. It was the sum of these things, the great
brutal presence of the man—that was overpowering—that made the great falter and
the poor crouch. And then his
reputation! Though we knew little of the
world’s wickedness, all we did know had come to us linked with his name. We had heard of him as a duelist, as a bully,
an employer of bravos. At Jarnac he had
been the last to turn from the shambles.
Men called him cruel and vengeful even for those days—gone by now, thank
God!—and whispered his name when they spoke of assassinations; saying commonly
of him that he would not blench before a Guise, nor blush before the Virgin.
Such was our visitor and neighbor, Raoul
de Mar, Vidame de Bezers. As he sat on
the terrace, now eyeing us askance, and now paying Catherine a compliment, I
likened him to a great at before which a butterfly has all unwittingly flirted
her prettiness. Poor Catherine! No doubt she had her own reasons for
uneasiness; more reasons I fancy than I then guessed. For she seemed to have lost her voice. She stammered and made but poor replies; and
Madame Claude being deaf and stupid, and we boys too timid after the rebuff we
had experienced to fill the gap, the conversation languished. The Vidame was not for his part the man to
put himself out on a hot day.
It was after one of these pauses—not the
first but the longest—that I started on finding his eyes fixed on mine. More, I shivered. It is hard to describe, but there was a look
in the Vidame’s eyes at that moment which I had never seen before. A look of pain almost; of dumb savage alarm
at any rate. From me they passed slowly
to Marie and mutely interrogated him.
Then the Vidame’s glance traveled back to Catherine, and settled on her.
Only a moment before she had been but too
conscious of his presence. Now, as it
chanced by bad luck, or in the course of
The shadow deepened on the Vidame’s
face. Slowly he took his eyes from hers,
and looked northwards also.
I looked that way too. A solitary horseman was descending the steep
track from the hills.
“Mademoiselle!” cried the Vidame
suddenly. We all looked up. His tone was such that the color fled from
Kit’s face. There was something in his
voice before—something that to a woman was like a blow. “Mademoiselle,” he snarled, “is expecting
news from Cahors, from her lover. I have
the honor to congratulate M. de Pavannes on his conquest.”
Ah! He had guessed it! As the words fell on the sleepy silence, an
insult in themselves, I sprang to my feet, amazed and angry, yet astounded by
his quickness of sight and wit. He must
have recognized the Pavannes badge at that distance. “M. le Vidame,” I said indignantly—Catherine
was white and voiceless—“M. le Vidame—“ but there I stopped and faltered
stammering. For behind him I could see
Croisette; and Croisette gave me no sign of encouragement or support.
So we stood face to face for a moment; the
boy and the man of the world, the stripling and the roué. Then the Vidame bowed to me in quite a new
fashion. “M. Anne de Caylus desires to
answer for M. de Pavannes?” he asked smoothly; with a mocking smoothness.
I understood what he meant. But something prompted me—Croisette said
afterwards that it was a happy thought, though now I know the crisis to have
been less serious than he fancied—to answer, “Nay, not for M. de Pavannes. Rather for my cousin.” And I bowed.
“I have the honor on her behalf to acknowledge your congratulations, M.
le Vidame. It pleases her that our
nearest neighbor should also be the first outside the family to wish her well. You have divined truly in supposing that she
will shortly be united to M. de Pavannes.”
I suppose—for I saw the giant’s color
change and his lip quiver as I spoke—that his previous words had been only a
guess. For a moment the devil seemed to
be glaring through his eyes; and he looked at Marie and me as a wild animal at
its keepers. Yet he maintained his
cynical politeness in part. “Mademoiselle
desires my congratulations?” he said, slowly, laboring with each word it
seemed. “She shall have them on the
happy day. She shall certainly have them
then. But these are troublous
times. And Mademoiselle’s betrothed is I
think a Huguenot, and has gone to
I saw Catherine shiver; indeed she was on
the point of fainting. I broke in
rudely, my passion getting the better of my fears. “M. de Pavannes can take care of himself,
believe me,” I said brusquely.
“Perhaps so,” Bezers answered, his voice
like the grating of steel on steel. “But
at any rate this will be a memorable day for Mademoiselle. The day on which she receives her first
congratulations—she will remember it as long as she lives! Oh, yes, I will answer for that, M. Anne,” he
said, looking brightly at one and another of us, his eyes more oblique than
ever, “Mademoiselle will remember it, I am sure!”
It would be impossible to describe the
devilish glance he flung at the poor sinking girl as he withdrew, the horrid
emphasis he threw into those last words, the covert deadly threat they conveyed
to the dullest ears. That he went then
was small mercy. He had done all the
evil he could do at present. If his
desire had been to leave fear behind him, he had certainly succeeded.
Kit, crying softly, went into the house;
her innocent coquetry more than sufficiently punished already. And we three looked at one another with blank
faces. It was clear that we had made a
dangerous enemy, and an enemy at our own gates.
As the Vidame had said, these were troublous times when things were done
to men—ay, and to women and children—which we scarce dare to speak of now. “I wish the Vicomte were here,” Croisette
said uneasily after we had discussed several unpleasant contingencies.
“Or even
“He would not be much good,” replied
Croisette. “And he is at St. Antonin,
and will not be back this week. Father
Pierre too is at Albi.”
“You do not think,” said Marie, “that he
will attack us?”
“Certainly not!” Croisette retorted with contempt. “Even the Vidame would not dare to do that in
time of peace. Besides, he has not half
a score of men here,” continued the lad, shrewdly, “and counting old Gil and
ourselves we have as many. And Pavannes
always said that three men could hold the gate at the bottom of the ramp
against a score. Oh, he will not try that!”
“Certainly not!” I agreed. And so we crushed Marie. “But for Louise de Pavannes—“
Catherine interrupted me. She came out quickly, looking a different
person; her face flushed with anger, her tears dried.
“Anne!” she cried, imperiously, “what is
the matter down below—will you see?”
I had no difficulty in doing that. All the sounds of town life came up to us on
the terrace. Lounging there we could
hear the chaffering over the wheat measures in the cloisters of the
market-square, the yell of a dog, the voice of a scold, the church bell, the
watchman’s cry. I had only to step to
the wall to overlook it all. On this
summer afternoon the town had been for the most part very quiet. If we had not been engaged in our own affairs
we should have taken the alarm before, remarking in the silence the first beginnings
of what was now a very respectable tumult.
It swelled louder even as we stepped to the wall.
We could see—a bend in the street laying
it open—part of the Vidame’s house; the gloomy square hold which had come to
him from his mother. His own chateau of
Bezers lay far away in Franche Comte`, but of late he had shown a preference—Catherine
could best account for it, perhaps—for this mean house in Caylus. It was the only house in the town which did
not belong to us. It was known as the
House of the Wolf, and was a grim stone building surrounding a courtyard. Rows of wolves’ heads carved in stone flanked
the windows, whence their bare fangs grinned day and night at the church porch
opposite.
The noise drew our eyes in this direction;
and there lolling in a window over the door, looking out on the street with a
laughing eye, was Bezers himself. The
cause of his merriment—we had not far to look for it—was a horseman who was
riding up the street under difficulties.
He was reining in his steed—no easy task on that steep greasy pavement—so
as to present some front to a score or so of ragged knaves who were following
close at his heels, hooting and throwing mud and pebbles at him. The man had drawn his sword, and his oaths
came up to us, mingled with shrill cries of “Vive la messes!” and half drowned by the clattering of the horse’s
hoofs. We saw a stone strike him in the
face, and draw blood, and heard him swear louder than before.
“Oh!” cried Catherine, clasping her hands
with a sudden shriek of indignation, “my letter! They will get my letter!”
“Death!” exclaimed Croisette. “She is right! It is M. de Pavannes’ courier! This must be stopped! We cannot stand this, Anne!”
“They shall pay dearly for it, by our
Lady!” I cried, swearing myself. “And in
peace time too—the villains! Gil! Francis!” I shouted, “where are you?”
And I looked round for my fowling-piece,
while Croisette jumped upon the wall, and forming a trumpet with his hands,
shrieked at the top of his voice, “Back! He bears a letter from the Vicomte!”
But the device did not succeed, and I
could not find my gun. For a moment we
were helpless, and before I could have fetched the gun from the house, the
horseman and the hooting rabble at his heels had turned a corner and were
hidden by the roofs.
Another turn however would bring them out
in front of the gateway, and seeing this we hurried down the ramp to meet
them. I stayed a moment to tell Gil to
collect the servants, and, this keeping me, Croisette reached the narrow street
outside before me. As I followed him I
was nearly knocked down by the rider, whose face was covered with dirt and
blood, while fright had rendered his horse unmanageable. Darting aside I let him pass—he was blinded
and could not see me—and then found that Croisette—brave lad!—had collared the
foremost of the ruffians, and was beating him with his sheathed sword, while
the rest of the rabble stood back, ashamed, yet sullen, and with anger in their
eyes. A dangerous crew, I thought; not
townsmen, most of them.
“Down with the Huguenots!” cried one, as I
appeared, one bolder than the rest.
“Down with the canaille!” I retorted, sternly eyeing the ill-looking ring. “Will you set yourselves above the king’s
peace, dirt that you are? Go back to
your kennels!”
The words were scarcely out of my mouth,
before I saw that the fellow whom Croisette was punishing had got hold of a
dagger. I shouted a warning, but it came
too late. The blade fell, and—thanks to
God—striking the buckle of the lad’s belt, glanced off harmless. I saw the steel flash up again—saw the spite
in the man’s eyes: but this time I was a step nearer, and before the weapon
fell, I passed my sword clean through the wretch’s body. He went down like a log, Croisette falling
with him, held fast by his stiffening fingers.
I had never killed a man before, nor seen
a man die; and if I had stayed to think about it, I should have fallen sick
perhaps. But it was no time for thought;
no time for sickness. The crowd were
close upon us, a line of flushed threatening faces from wall to wall. A single glance downwards told me that the
man was dead, and I set my foot upon his neck.
“Hounds! Beasts!” I cried, not
loudly this time, for though I was like one possessed with rage, it was inward
rage, “go to your kennels! Will you dare
to raise a hand against a Caylus? Go—or when
the Vicomte returns, a dozen of you shall hang in the market-place!”
I suppose I looked fierce enough—I know I
felt no fear, only a strange exaltation—for they slunk away. Unwillingly, but with little delay the group
melted, Bezers’ following—of whom I knew the dead man was one—the last to
go. While I still glared at them, lo! The
street was empty; the last had disappeared round the bend. I turned to find Gil and half-a-dozen servants
standing with pale faces at my back.
Croisette seized my hand with a sob.
“Oh, my lord,” cried Gil, quaveringly.
But I shook one off, I frowned at the other.
“Take up this carrion!” I said, touching
it with my foot, “and hang it from the justice-elm. And then close the gates! See to it, knaves, and lose no time.”