



Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by
Google Books (the New York Public Library)











Transcriber's Notes:
   1. Page scan source:
      https://books.google.com/books?id=h9ghAAAAMAAJ
      (the New York Public Library)
   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].






AGNES SOREL.

A Novel




BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.,

AUTHOR OF
"LIFE OF VICISSITUDES," "PEQUINILLO," "THE FATE," "AIMS AND
OBSTACLES," "HENRY SMEATON," "THE WOODMAN," &c., &c., &c.




NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
329 & 331 PEARL STREET,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1864.






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
hundred and fifty-three, by

GEORGE P. R. JAMES,

in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the Southern
District of New York.






TO

MAUNSELL B. FIELD, ESQ.,

NOT ONLY AS THE COMPANION OF SOME OF MY LITERARY LABORS, BUT
AS MY DEAR FRIEND; NOT ONLY AS A GENTLEMAN AND A MAN
OF HONOR, BUT AS A MAN OF GENIUS AND OF FEELING;
NOT ONLY AS ONE WHO DOES HONOR TO HIS OWN
COUNTRY, BUT AS ONE WHO WOULD DO
HONOR TO ANY,

This Book is Dedicated, with sincere Regard,

BY G. P. R. JAMES.






AGNES SOREL.




CHAPTER I.


How strange the sensation would be, how marvelously interesting the
scene, were we to wake up from some quiet night's rest and find
ourselves suddenly transported four or five hundred years back--living
and moving among the men of a former age!

To pass from the British fortress of Gibraltar, with drums and fifes,
red coats and bayonets, in a few hours, to the coast of Africa, and
find one's self surrounded by Moors and male petticoats, turbans and
cimeters, is the greatest transition the world affords at present; but
it is nothing to that of which I speak. How marvelously interesting
would it be, also, not only to find one's self brought in close
contact with the customs, manners, and characteristics of a former
age, with all our modern notions strong about us, but to be met at
every turn by thoughts, feelings, views, principles, springing out of
a totally different state of society, which have all passed away, and
moldered, like the garments in which at that time men decorated
themselves.

Such, however, is the leap which I wish the reader to take at the
present moment; and--although I know it to be impossible for him to
divest himself of all those modern impressions which are a part of his
identity--to place himself with me in the midst of a former period,
and to see himself surrounded for a brief space with the people, and
the things, and the thoughts of the fifteenth century.

Let me premise, however, in this prefatory chapter, that the object of
an author, in the minute detail of local scenery and ancient customs,
which he is sometimes compelled to give, and which are often objected
to by the animals with long ears that browse on the borders of
Parnassus, is not so much to show his own learning in antiquarian
lore, as to imbue his reader with such thoughts and feelings as may
enable him to comprehend the motives of the persons acting before his
eyes, and the sensations, passions, and prejudices of ages passed
away. Were we to take an unsophisticated rustic, and baldly tell him,
without any previous intimation of the habits of the time, that the
son of a king of England one day went out alone--or, at best, with a
little boy in his company--all covered over with iron; that he betook
himself to a lone and desolate pass in the mountains, traversed by a
high road, and sat upon horseback by the hour together, with a spear
in his hand, challenging every body who passed to fight him, the
unsophisticated rustic would naturally conclude that the king's son
was mad, and would expect to hear of him next in Bedlam, rather than
on the throne of England. I let any one tell him previously of the
habits, manners, and customs of those days, and the rustic--though he
may very well believe that the whole age was mad--will understand and
appreciate the motives of the individual, saying to himself, "This man
was not a bit madder than the rest."

However, this book is not intended to be a mere painting of the
customs of the fifteenth century, but rather a picture of certain
characters of that period, dressed somewhat in the garb of the times,
and moved by those springs of action which influenced men in the age
to which I refer. It has been said, and justly, that human nature is
the same in all ages; but as a musical instrument will produce many
different tones, according to the hand which touches it, so will human
nature present many different aspects, according to the influences by
which it is affected. At all events, I claim a right to play my own
tune upon my violin, and what skills it if that tune be an air of the
olden times. No one need listen who does not like it.




CHAPTER II.


There was a small, square room, of a very plain, unostentatious
appearance, in the turret of a tall house in the city of Paris. The
walls were of hewn stone, without any decoration whatever, except
where at the four sides, and nearly in the centre of each, appeared a
long iron arm, or branch, with a socket at the end of it, curved and
twisted in a somewhat elaborate manner, and bearing some traces of
having been gilt in a former day. The ceiling was much more decorated
than the walls, and was formed by two groined arches of stone-work,
crossing each other in the middle, and thus forming, as it were, four
pointed arches, the intervals between one mass of stone-work and
another being filled up with dark- oak, much after the fashion
of a cap in a coronet. The spot where the arches crossed was
ornamented with a richly-carved pendant, or corbel, in the centre of
which was embedded a massive iron hook, probably intended to sustain a
large lamp, while the iron sockets protruding from the walls were
destined for flambeaux or lanterns. The floor was of stone, and a rude
mat of rushes was spread over about one eighth of the surface, toward
the middle of the room, where stood a table of no very large
dimensions, covered with a great pile of papers and a few manuscript
books. No lamp hung from the ceiling; no lantern or flambeau cast its
light from the walls as had undoubtedly been the case in earlier
times: the tall, quaint-shaped window, besides being encumbered by a
rich tracery of stone-work, could not admit even the moonbeams through
the thick coat of dust that covered its panes, and the only light
which that room received was afforded by a dull oil lamp upon the
table, without glass or shade. All the furniture looked dry and
withered, as it were, and though solid enough, being balkily formed of
dark oak, presented no ornament whatever. It was, in short, an
uncomfortable-looking apartment enough, having a ruinous and
dilapidated appearance, without any of the picturesqueness of decay.
Under the table lay a large, brindled, rough-haired dog, of the
stag-hound breed, but cruelly docked of his tail, in accordance with
some code of forest laws, which at that time were very numerous and
very various in different parts of France, but all equally unjust and
severe. Apparently he was sound asleep as dog could be; but we all
know that a dog's sleep is not as profound as a metaphysician's dream,
and from time to time he would raise his head a little from his
crossed paws, and look slightly up toward the legs of a person seated
at the table.

Now those