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From the recently discovered memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire
By Robert Neilson Stephens
Author of "The Continental Dragoon," "The Road to Paris," "Philip
Winwood," etc.
1897
Hitherto I have written with the sword, after the fashion of greater men,and requiring no secretary. I now take up the quill to set forth,correctly, certain incidents which, having been noised about, stand indanger of being inaccurately reported by some imitator of Brantome and Del'Estoile. If all the world is to know of this matter, let it knowthereof rightly.
It was early in January, in the year 1578, that I first set out forParis. My mother had died when I was twelve years old, and my father hadfollowed her a year later. It was his last wish that I, his only child,should remain at the château, in Anjou, continuing my studies until theend of my twenty-first year. He had chosen that I should learn manners asbest I could at home, not as page in some great household or as gentlemanin the retinue of some high personage. "A De Launay shall have no masterbut God and the King," he said. Reverently I had fulfilled hisinjunctions, holding my young impulses in leash. I passed the time insword practice with our old steward, Michel, who had followed my fatherin the wars under Coligny, in hunting in our little patch of woods,reading the Latin authors in the flowery garden of the château, or in myfavorite chamber,—that one at the top of the new tower which had beenbuilt in the reign of Henri II. to replace the original black tower fromwhich the earliest De Launay of note got the title of Sieur de laTournoire. All this while I was holding in curb my impatient desires. Soalmost resistless are the forces that impel the young heart, that theremust have been a hard struggle within me had I had to wait even a monthlonger for the birthday which finally set me free to go what ways Ichose. I rose early on that cold but sunlit January day, mad witheagerness to be off and away into the great world that at last lay opento me. Poor old Michel was sad that I had decided to go alone. But theonly servant whom I would have taken with me was the only one to whom Iwould entrust the house of my fathers in my absence,—old Michel himself.I thought the others too rustic. My few tenants would have made awkwardlackeys in peace, sorry soldiers in war.
Michel had my portmanteau fastened on my horse, which had been broughtout into the courtyard, and then he stood by me while I took my lastbreakfast in