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Chapter XXIXChapter XXIX
Chapter XXIX
And here we find that persons of our acquaintance were sharers in the
wide - spread alarm.
One who saw not Don Abbondio, the day that the news were suddenly spread
of the descent of the army, of its near approach, and destructive proceedings,
knows very little of what embarrassment and consternation really are. They are
coming! there are thirty, there are forty, there are fifty thousand! they are
devils, heretics, antichrists! they`ve sacked Cortenuova! they`ve set fire to
Primaluna! they`ve devastated Introbbio, Pasturo, Barsio! they`ve been seen at
Balabbio! they`ll be here to - morrow! - such were the reports that passed
from mouth to mouth; some hurrying to and fro, others standing in little
parties; together with tumultuous consultations, hesitation whether to fly or
remain, the women assembling in groups, and all utterly at a loss what to do.
Don Abbondio, who had resolved before any one else, and more than any one
else, to fly, by any possible mode of flight, and to any conceivable place of
retreat, discovered insuperable obstacles and fearful dangers. `What shall I
do?` exclaimed he: `Where shall I go?` The mountains, letting alone the
difficulty of getting there, were not secure: it was well known that the
German foot soldiers climbed them like cats, where they had the least
indication or hope of finding booty. The lake was wide; there was a very high
wind: besides, the greater part of the boatmen, fearing they might be
compelled to convey soldiers or baggage, had retreated with their boats to the
opposite side: the few that had remained, were gone off overladen with people,
and, distressed by their own weight and the violence of the storm, were
considered in greater peril every moment. It was impossible to find a vehicle,
horse, or conveyance of any kind, to carry him away from the road the army had
to traverse; and on foot Don Abbondio could not manage any great distance, and
feared being overtaken by the way. The confines of the Bergamascan territory
were not so very far off but that his limbs could have borne him thither at a
stretch; but a report had been already spread, that a squadron of cappelletti
had been despatched from Bergamo in haste, who were occupying the borders to
keep the German troops in order; and those were neither more nor less devils
incarnate than these, and on their part did the worst they could. The poor man
ran through the house with eyes starting from his head, and half out of his
senses; he kept following Perpetua to concert some plan with her; but
Perpetua, busied in collecting the most valuable household goods, and hiding
them under the floor, or in any other out - of - the - way place, pushed by
hurriedly, eager and pre - occupied, with her hands or arms full, and replied:
`I shall have done directly putting these things away safely, and then we`ll
do what others do.` Don Abbondio would have detained her, and discussed with
her the different courses to be adopted; but she, what with her business, and
her hurry and the fear which she, too, felt within, and the vexation which
that of her master excited, was, in this juncture, less tractable than she had
ever been before. `Others do the best they can; and so will we. I beg your
pardon; but you are good for nothing but to hinder one. Do you think that
others haven`t skins to save, too? That the soldiers are only coming to fight
with you? You might even lend a hand at such a time, instead of coming crying
and bothering at one`s feet.` With these and similar answers she at length got
rid of him, having already determined, when this bustling operation was
finished as well as might be, to take him by the arm like a child, and to drag
him along to one of the mountains. Left thus alone, he retreated to the
window, looked, listened; or, seeing some one passing, cried out in a half -
crying and half - reproachful tone: `Do your poor Curate this kindness, to
seek some horse, some mule, some ass, for him! Is it possible that nobody will
help me! Oh, what people! Wait for me, at least, that I may go with you! wait
till you are fifteen or twenty, to take me with you, that I may not be quite
forsaken! Will you leave me in the hand of dogs? Don`t you know they are
nearly all Lutherans, who think it a meritorious deed to murder a priest? Will
you leave me here to be martyred? Oh, what a set! Oh, what a set!`
But to whom did he address these words? To men who were passing along
bending under the weight of their humble furniture, and their thoughts turned
towards that which they were leaving at home exposed to plunder; one driving
before him a young cow, another dragging after him his children, also laden as
heavily as they could bear, while his wife carried in her arms such as were
unable to walk. Some went on their way without replying or looking up; others
said, `Eh, sir, you too must do as you can! happy you, who have no family to
think for! you must help yourself, and do the best you can.`
`Oh, poor me!` exclaimed Don Abbondio; `oh, what people! what hard
hearts! There`s no charity: everybody thinks of himself; but nobody`ll think
for me! And he set off again in search of Perpetua.
`Oh, I just wanted you!` said she. `Your money?`
`What shall we do?`
`Give it me, and I`ll go and bury it in the garden here by the house,
together with the silver and knives and forks.`
`But . . .`
`But, but; give it here; keep a few pence for whatever may happen; and
then leave it to me.`
Don Abbondio obeyed, went to his trunk, took out his little treasure, and
handed it to Perpetua, who said: `I`m going to bury it in the garden, at the
foot of the fig - tree;` and went out. Soon afterwards she reappeared with a
packet in her hand containing some provision for the appetite, and a small
empty basket, in the bottom of which she hastily placed a little linen for
herself and her master, saying, at the same time, `You`ll carry the breviary,
at least!`
`But where are we going?`
Where are all the rest going? First of all, we`ll go into the street; and
there we shall see and hear what`s best to be done.`
At this moment Agnese entered, also carrying a basket slung over her
shoulder, and with the air of one who comes to make an important proposal.
Agnese herself, equally resolved not to await guests of this sort, alone
as she was in the house, and with a little of the money of the Unnamed still
left, had been hesitating for some time about a place of retreat. The
remainder of those scudi, which in the months of famine had been of such use
to her, was now the principal cause of her anxiety and irresolution, from
having heard how, in the already invaded countries, those who had any money
had found themselves in a worse condition than anybody else, exposed alike to
the violence of the strangers and the treachery of their fellow - countrymen.
True it was that she had confided to no one, save Don Abbondio, the wealth
that had fallen, so to say, into her lap; to him she had applied, from time to
time, to change her a scudo into silver, always leaving him something to give
to some one who was poorer than herself. But hidden riches, particularly with
one who is not accustomed to handle much, keep the possessor in continual
suspicion of the suspicion of others. While, however, she was going about
hiding here and there, as she best could, what she could not manage to take
with her, and thinking about the scudi, which she kept sewn up in her stays,
she remembered that, together with them, the Unnamed had sent her the most
ample proffers of service; she remembered what she had heard related about his
castle`s being in so secure a situation, where nothing could reach it, against
its owner`s will, but birds; and she resolved to go and seek an asylum there.
Wondering how she was to make herself known to the Signor, Don Abbondio
quickly occurred to her mind; who, after the conversation we have related with
the Archbishop, had always shown her particular marks of kindness; the more
heartily, as he could do so without committing himself to any one, and, the
two young people being far enough off, the probability was also distant that a
request would be made him which would have put this kindness to a very
dangerous test. Thinking that in such confusion the poor man would be still
more perplexed and dismayed than herself, and that this course might appear
desirable also to him, she came to make the proposal. Finding him with
Perpetua, she suggested it to them both together.
`What say you to it, Perpetua?` asked Don Abbondio.
`I say that it is an inspiration from Heaven, and that we mustn`t lose
time, but set off at once on our journey.`
`And then . . .`
`And then, and then, when we get there, we shall find ourselves very well
satisfied. It is well known now that the Signor desires nothing more than to
benefit his fellow - creatures; and I`ve no doubt he`ll be glad to receive us.
There, on the borders, and as it were in the air, the soldiers certainly won`t
come. And then, and then, we shall find something to eat there; for up in the
mountains, when this little store is gone,` and, so saying, she placed it in
the basket upon the linen, `we should find ourselves very badly off.`
`He`s converted, he`s really converted, isn`t he?`
`Why should we doubt it any longer, after all that`s known about him,
nay, after what you yourself have seen?`
`And supposing we should be going to put ourselves in prison?`
`What prison? I declare, with all your silly objections, (I beg your
pardon), you`d never come to any conclusion. Well done, Agnese! it was
certainly a capital thought of yours! And setting the basket on a table, she
passed her arms through the straps, and lifted it upon her back.
`Couldn`t we find some man,` said Don Abbondio, `who would come with us
as a guard to his Curate? If we should meet any ruffians, for there are plenty
of them roving about what help could you two give me?`
`Another plan, to waste time!` exclaimed Perpetua. `To go now and look
for a man, when everybody has to mind himself! Up with you; go and get your
breviary and hat, and let us set off.`
Don Abbondio obeyed, and soon returned with the breviary under his arm,
his hat on his head, and his staff in his hand; and the three companions went
out by a little door which led into the churchyard. Perpetua locked it after
her, rather not to neglect an accustomed form, than from any faith she placed
in bolts and door - posts, and put the key in her pocket. Don Abbondio cast a
glance at the church in passing, and muttered between his teeth: `It`s the
people`s business to take care of it, for it`s they who use it. If they`ve the
least love for their church, they`ll see to it; if they`ve not, why, it`s
their own look - out.`
They took the road through the fields, each silently pursuing his way,
absorbed in thought on his own particular circumstances, and looking rather
narrowly around; more particularly Don Abbondio, who was in continual
apprehension of the apparition of some suspicious figure, or something not to
be trusted. However, they encountered no one: all the people were either in
their houses to guard them, to prepare bundles, and to put away goods, or on
the roads which led directly to the mountain - heights.
After heaving a few deep sighs, and then giving vent to his vexation in
an interjection or two, Don Abbondio began to grumble more connectedly. He
quarrelled with the duke of Nevers, who might have been enjoying himself in
France, and playing the prince there, yet was determined to be duke of Mantua
in spite of the world; with the Emperor, who ought to have sense for the
follies of others, to let matters take their own course, and not stand so much
upon punctilio; for, after all, he would always be Emperor, whether Titius or
Sempronius were duke of Mantua; and, above all, with the governor, whose
business it was to do everything he could to avert these scourges of the
country, while, in fact, he was the very person to invite them - all from the
pleasure he took in making war. `I wish,` said he, `that these gentry were
here to see and try how pleasant it is. They will have a fine account to
render! But, in the mean while, we have to bear it who have no blame in the
matter.`
`Do let these people alone, for they`ll never come to help us,` said
Perpetua. `This is some of your usual prating, (I beg your pardon), which just
comes to nothing. What rather gives me uneasiness . . .`
`What`s the matter?`
Perpetua, who had been leisurely going over in her mind, during their
walk, her hasty packing and stowing away, now began her lamentations at having
forgotten such a thing, and badly concealed such another; here she had left
traces which might serve as a clue to the robbers, there . . .
`Well done!` cried Don Abbondio, gradually sufficiently relieved from
fear for his life to allow of anxiety for his worldly goods and chattels:
`Well done! Did you really do so? Where was your head?`
`What!` exclaimed Perpetua, coming to an abrupt pause for a moment, and
resting her hands on her sides, as well as the basket she carried would allow:
`What! do you begin now to scold me in this way, when it was you who almost
turned my brain, instead of helping and encouraging me? I believe I`ve taken
more care of the things of the house than of my own; I`d not a creature to
lend me a hand; I`ve been obliged to play the parts of both Martha and
Magdalene; if anything goes wrong, I`ve nothing to say: I`ve done more than my
duty now.`
Agnese interrupted these disputes, by beginning, in her turn, to talk
about her own grievances; she lamented not so much the trouble and damage, as
finding all her hopes of soon meeting her Lucia dashed to the ground: for, the
reader may remember, this was the very autumn on which they had so long
calculated. It was not at all likely that Donna Prassede would come to reside
in her country - house in that neighbourhood, under such circumstances: on the
contrary, she would more probably have left it, had she happened to be there,
as all the other residents in the country were doing.
The sight of the different places they passed brought these thoughts to
Agnese`s mind more vividly, and increased the ardour of her desires. Leaving
the footpath through the fields, they had taken the public road, the very same
along which Agnese had come when bringing home her daughter for so short a
time, after having stayed with her at the tailor`s. The village was already in
sight.
`We will just say "how d`ye do" to these good people,` said Agnese.
`Yes, and rest there a little; for I begin to have had enough of this
basket; and to get a mouthful to eat too,` said Perpetua.
`On condition we don`t lose time; for we are not journeying for our
amusement,` concluded Don Abbondio.
They were received with open arms, and welcomed with much pleasure; it
reminded them of a former deed of benevolence. `Do good to as many as you
can,` here remarks our author, `and you will the more frequently happen to
meet with countenances which bring you pleasure.`
Agnese burst into a flood of tears on embracing the good woman, which was
a great relief to her; and could only reply with sobs to the questions which
she and her husband put about Lucia.
`She is better off than we are,` said Don Abbondio; `she`s at Milan, out
of all danger, and far away from these diabolical dangers.`
`Are the Signor Curate, and his companion, making their escape, then?`
asked the tailor.
`Certainly,` replied both master and servant, in one breath.
`Oh, how I pity you both!`
`We are on our way,` said don Abbondio, `to the Castle of * * *.`
`That`s a very good thought; you`ll be as safe there as in Paradise.`
`And you`ve no fear here?` said Don Abbondio.
`I`ll tell you, Signor Curate: they won`t have to come here to halt, or,
as you know the saying is, in polite language, in ospitazione: we are too much
out of their road, thank Heaven. At the worst, there`ll only be a little party
of foragers, which God forbid! - but, in any case, there`s plenty of time. We
shall first hear the intelligence from the other unfortunate towns, where they
go to take up their quarters.`
It was determined to stop here and take a little rest; and as it was just
the dinner - hour, `My friends,` said the tailor, `will do me the favour of
sharing my poor table: at any rate, you will have a hearty welcome.`
Perpetua said she had brought some refreshment with them; and after
exchanging a few complimentary speeches, they agreed to put all together, and
dine in company.
The children gathered with great glee round their old friend Agnese. Very
soon, however, the tailor desired one of his little girls (the same that had
carried that gift of charity to the widow Maria; who knows if any reader
remembers it?) to go and shell a few early chestnuts, which were deposited in
one corner, and then put them to roast.
`And you,` said he to a little boy, `go into the garden, and shake the
peach - tree till some of the fruit falls, and bring them all here; go. And
you,` said he to another, `go, climb the fig - tree, and gather a few of the
ripest figs. You know that business too well already.` He himself went to tap
a little barrel of wine; his wife to fetch a clean table - cloth; Perpetua
took out the provisions; the table was spread; a napkin and earthenware plate
were placed at the most honourable seat for Don Abbondio, with a knife and
fork which Perpetua had in the basket; the dinner was dished, and the party
seated themselves at the table, and partook of the repast, if not with great
merriment, at least with much more than any of the guests had anticipated
enjoying that day.
`What say you, Signor Curate, to a turn out of this sort?` said the
tailor; `I could fancy I was reading the history of the Moors in France.
`What say I? To think that even this trouble should fall to my lot!`
`Well, you`ve chosen a good asylum,` resumed his host; `people would be
puzzled to get up there by force. And you`ll find company there; it`s already
reported that many have retreated thither, and many more are daily arriving.`
`I would fain hope,` said Don Abbondio, `that we shall be well received.
I know this brave Signor; and when I once had the pleasure of being in his
company, he was so exceedingly polite.`
`And he sent word to me,` said Agnese, `by his most illustrious Lordship,
that if ever I wanted anything, I had only to go to him.`
`A great and wonderful conversion!` resumed Don Abbondio: `and does he
really continue to persevere?`
`Oh yes,` said the tailor; and he began to speak at some length upon the
holy life of the Unnamed, and how, from being a scourge to the country, he had
become its example and benefactor.
`And all those people he kept under him . . . that household . . .`
rejoined Don Abbondio, who had more than once heard something about them, but
had never been sufficiently assured of the truth.
`They are most of them dismissed,` replied the tailor; `and they who
remain have altered their habits in a wonderful way! In short, this castle has
become like the Thebaid. You, Signor, understand these things.`
He then began to recall, with Agnese, the visit of the Cardinal. `A great
man,` said he, `a great man! Pity that he left us so hastily; for I did not,
and could not, do him any honour. How often I wish I could speak to him again,
a little more at my ease.`
Having left the table, he made them observe an engraved likeness of the
Cardinal, which he kept hung up on one of the door - posts, in veneration for
the person, and also that he might be able to say to any visitor, that the
portrait did not resemble him; for he himself had had an opportunity of
studying the Cardinal, close by, and at his leisure, in that very room.
`Did they mean this thing here for him?` said Agnese. `It`s like him in
dress; but . . .`
`It doesn`t resemble him, does it?` said the tailor. `I always say so,
too; but it bears his name, if nothing more; it serves as a remembrance.`
Don Abbondio was in a great hurry to be going; the tailor undertook to
find a conveyance to carry them to the foot of the ascent, and having gone in
search of one, shortly returned to say that it was coming. Then, turning to
Don Abbondio, he added, `Signor Curate, if you should ever like to take a book
with you up there to pass away the time, I shall be glad to serve you in my
poor way; for I sometimes amuse myself a little with reading. They`re not
things to suit you, being all in the vulgar tongue; but, perhaps . . .`
`Thank you, thank you,` replied Don Abbondio; `under present
circumstances, one has hardly brains enough to attend to what we are bid to
read.`
While offering and refusing thanks, and exchanging condolence, good
wishes, invitations, and promises to make another stay there on their return,
the cart arrived at the front door. Putting in their baskets, the travelling
party mounted after them, and undertook, with rather more ease and tranquility
of mind, the second half of their journey.
The tailor had related the truth to Don Abbondio about the Unnamed. From
the day on which we left him, he had steadily persevered in the course he had
proposed to himself, atoning for wrongs, seeking peace, relieving the poor,
and performing every good work for which an opportunity presented itself. The
courage he had formerly manifested in offence and defence now showed itself in
abstaining from both one and the other. He had laid down all his weapons, and
always walked alone, willing to encounter the possible consequences of the
many deeds of violence he had committed, and persuaded that it would be the
commission of an additional one to employ force in defence of a life which
owed so much to so many creditors; and persuaded, too, that every evil which
might be done to him would be an offence offered to God, but, with respect to
himself, a just retribution; and that he, above all, had no right to
constitute himself a punisher of such offences. However, he had continued not
less inviolate than when he had kept in readiness for his security, so many
armed hands, and his own. The remembrance of his former ferocity, and the
sight of his present meekness, one of which, it might have been expected,
would have left so many longings for revenge, while the other rendered that
revenge so easy, conspired, instead, to procure and maintain for him an
admiration, which was the principal guarantee for his safety. He was that very
man whom no one could humble, and who had now humbled himself. Every feeling
of rancour, therefore, formerly irritated by his contemptuous behaviour, and
by the fears of others, vanished before this new humility: they whom he had
offended had now obtained, beyond all expectation, and without danger, a
satisfaction which they could not have promised themselves from the most
complete revenge - the satisfaction of seeing such a man mourning over the
wrongs he had committed, and participating, so to say, in their indignation.
More than one, whose bitterest and greatest sorrow had been, for many years,
that he saw no probability of ever finding himself, in any instance, stronger
than this powerful oppressor, that he might revenge himself for some great
injury, meeting him afterwards alone, unarmed, and with the air of one who
would offer no resistance, felt only an impulse to salute him with
demonstrations of respect. In his voluntary abasement, his countenance and
behaviour had acquired, without his being aware of it, something more lofty
and noble; because there was in them, more clearly than ever, the absence of
all fear. The most violent and pertinacious hatred felt, as it were,
restrained and held in awe by the public veneration for so penitent and
beneficent a man. This was carried to such a length, that he often found it
difficult to avoid the public expression of it which was addressed to him, and
was obliged to be careful that he did not evince too plainly in his looks and
actions the inward compunction he felt, nor abuse himself too much, lest he
should be too much exalted. He had selected the lowest place in church, and
woe to any one who should have attempted to pre - occupy it! it would have
been, as it were, usurping a post of honour. To have offended him, or even to
have treated him disrespectfully, would have appeared not so much a criminal
or cowardly, as a sacrilegious act: and even they who would scarcely have been
restrained by this feeling on ordinary occasions, participated in it, more or
less.
These and other reasons sheltered him also from the more remote
animadversions of public authority, and procured for him, even in this
quarter, the security to which he himself had never given a thought. His rank
and family, which had at all times been some protection to him, availed him
more than ever, now that personal recommendations, the renown of his
conversion, was added to his already illustrious and famous, or rather
infamous, name. Magistrates and nobles publicly rejoiced with the people at
the change; and it would have appeared very incongruous to come forward
irritated against a man who was the subject of so many congratulations.
Besides, a government occupied with a protracted, and often unprosperous, war
against active and oft - renewed rebellions, would have been very well
satisfied to be freed from the most indomitable and irksome, without going in
search of another: the more so, as this conversion produced reparations which
the authorities were not accustomed to obtain, nor even to demand. To molest a
saint seemed no very good means to ward off the reproach of having never been
able to repress a villain; and the example they would have made of him would
have had no other effect than to dissuade others, like him, from following his
example. Probably, too, the share that Cardinal Federigo had had in his
conversion, and the association of his name with that of the convert, served
the latter as a sacred shield. And, in the state of things and ideas of those
times, in the singular relations between the ecclesiastical authority and the
civil power, which so frequently contended with each other without at all
aiming at mutual destruction, nay, were always mingling expressions of
acknowledgment, and protestations of deference, with hostilities, and which
not unfrequently co - operated towards a common end, without ever making
peace, - in such a state of things, it might almost seem, in a manner, that
the reconciliation of the first carried along with it, if not the absolution,
at least the forgetfulness, of the second; when the former alone had been
employed to produce an effect equally desired by both.
Thus that very individual, who, had he fallen from his eminence, would
have excited emulation among small and great in trampling him under - foot,
now, having spontaneously humbled himself to the dust, was reverenced by many,
and spared by all.
True it is, that there were, indeed, many to whom this much - talked - of
change brought anything but satisfaction: many hired perpetrators of crime,
many other associates in guilt, who thereby lost a great support on which they
had been accustomed to depend, and who beheld the threads of a deeply - woven
plot suddenly snapped, at the moment, perhaps, when they were expecting the
intelligence of its completion.
But we have already seen what various sentiments were awakened by the
announcement of this conversion in the ruffians who were with their master at
the time, and heard it from his own lips: astonishment, grief, depression,
vexation; a little, indeed, of everything, except contempt and hatred. The
same was felt by the others whom he kept dispersed at different posts, and the
same by his accomplices of higher rank, when they first learned the terrible
tidings; and by all for the same reasons. Much hatred, however, as we find in
the passage elsewhere cited from Ripamonti, fell to the share of the Cardinal
Federigo. They regarded him as one who had intruded like an enemy into their
affairs; the Unnamed would see to the salvation of his own soul: and nobody
had any right to complain of what he did.
From time to time, the greater part of the ruffians in his household,
unable to accommodate themselves to the new discipline, and seeing no
probability that it would ever change, gradually took their departure. Some
went in search of other masters, and found employment, perchance, among the
old friends of the patron they had left; others enlisted in some terzo^1 of
Spain or Mantua, or any other belligerent power; some infested the highways,
to make war on a smaller scale, and on their own account; and others, again,
contented themselves with going about as beggars at liberty. The same courses
were pursued by the rest who had acted under his orders in different
countries. Of those who had contrived to assimilate themselves to his new mode
of life, or had embraced it of their own free will, the greater number,
natives of the valley, returned to the fields, or to the trades which they had
learnt in their early years, and had afterwards abandoned for a life of
villainy; the strangers remained in the castle as domestic servants; and both
natives and strangers, as if blessed at the same time with their master, lived
contentedly, as he did, neither giving nor receiving injuries, unarmed, and
respected.
[Footnote 1: A regiment consisting of three thousand soldiers.]
But when, on the descent of the German troops, several fugitives from the
threatened or invaded dominions arrived at his castle to request an asylum,
he, rejoiced that the weak and oppressed sought refuge within his walls, which
had so long been regarded by them at a distance as an enormous scarecrow,
received these exiles with expressions of gratitude rather than courtesy; he
caused it to be proclaimed that his house would be open to any one who should
choose to take refuge there; and soon proposed to put, not only his castle,
but the valley itself, into a state of defence, if ever any of the German or
Bergamascan troops should attempt to come thither for plunder. He assembled
the servants who still remained with him (like the verses of Torti, few and
valiant); addressed them on the happy opportunity that God was giving both to
them and himself of employing themselves for once in aid of their fellow -
creatures, whom they had so often oppressed and terrified; and with that
ancient tone of command which expressed a certainty of being obeyed, announced
to them in general what he wished them to do, and, above all, impressed upon
them the necessity of keeping a restraint over themselves, that they who took
refuge there might see in them only friends and protectors. He then had
brought down from one of the garrets all the fire - arms, and other warlike
weapons, which had been for some time deposited there, and distributed them
among his household; ordered that all the peasants and tenants of the valley,
who were willing to do so, should come with arms to the castle; provided those
who had none with a sufficient supply; selected some to act as officers, and
placed others under their command; assigned to each his post at the entrance,
and in various parts of the valley, on the ascent, and at the gates of the
castle; and established the hours and methods of relieving the guards, as in a
camp, or as he had been accustomed to do in that very place during his life of
rebellion.
In one corner of this garret, divided from the rest, were the arms which
he alone had borne, his famous carabine, muskets, swords, pistols, huge
knives, and poniards, either lying on the ground, or set up against the wall.
None of the servants laid a finger on them; but they determined to ask the
Signor which he wished to be brought to him. `Not one of them,` replied he;
and whether from a vow or intentional design, he remained the whole time
unarmed, at the head of this species of garrison.
He employed, at the same time, other men and women of his household or
dependents, in preparing accommodation in the castle for as many persons as
possible, in erecting bedsteads, and arranging straw beds, mattresses, and
sacks stuffed with straw, in the apartments which were now converted into
dormitories. He also gave orders that large stores of provisions should be
brought in for the maintenance of the guests whom God should send him, and who
thronged in in daily increasing numbers. He, in the mean while, was never
stationary; in and out of the castle, up and down the ascent, round about
through the valley, to establish, to fortify, to visit the different posts, to
see and to be seen, to put and to keep all in order by his directions,
oversight, and presence. Indoors, and by the way, he gave hearty welcomes to
all the new comers whom he happened to meet; and all, who had either seen this
wonderful person before, or now beheld him for the first time, gazed at him in
rapture, forgetting for a moment the misfortunes and alarm which had driven
them thither, and turning to look at him, when, having severed himself from
them, he again pursued his way.
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