The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1879-07-19
OUR STORY TELLER.
FAITHFUL BLANCHE.

IcntuIy, NuIlstidH iutu lllgHt dlHOSG DE
pardoned if they despaired of Chris
tianity, there was yet, as is ever the case
in the midst of all that is most odious
and repulsive, much that was most adj
mirable in the conduct of the human
actors.
Devastated from one end to the other
no less by the hostile incursions of the
terrible English invaders than by the
exactions and expressions of their own
hereditary lords-France was little more
through all her borders than a wide, I'M
cultivated, unreaped desert
Famine was in the land, and pesti-
lence, and fire, and the sword and there
was none to help the people. Their lords
were themselves impoverished, and I'M
able to equip, much less subsst the
armies which should have protected the
children of the soil were unable to sup
port their own families and followers
in their accustomed opulence, much
less to feed or assist the perishing pop
ulation.
The foreign enemy laid waste the
country far and wide to maintain their
intrusive garrisons; and, worst of all,
organized bands of marauders of all ma
tions -Bretons and Englishmen, Flem-
ings and Germans, Hollauders and
Welchmen-nay but Frenchmen them
selves traversed the country day and
night, pillaging, plundering, with no
pretext beyond the love of rapine and
havoc.
And this, and worse than this, was the
state of France when, maddened by
misery, brutalized by bondage, hopeless
of life and careless of death-for what
terror has the gibbet or the AK, the
spear-point or the edge of the sword, to
him who is doomed to perish of starva-
ton THE wretched populace of the rural
districts, hereditary slaves, not enamel
pated but enfranchised at one lawless
blow, leaped headlong into the fercest
saturnalia of RIGHTEOUSNESS, of butchery,
of wanton and unmeaning barbarism.
In the very height of this dark
period, when above sixty castles and
good houses had been sacked by the pop
ulace under their fendish leader,
jacques Caillet, while the mobiles were
IN paralysis and dismay, for their best
and bravest were absent on the crusade
against the heathens of Prussia, and the
ladies of the land to the number of
above three hundred, with the duchesses
of Normandy and Orleans, had taken
refuge in the market place of Meaux,
where they expected hourly to be be-
sieged and captured, a deed of loyalty
and valor was done by poor peasant
girl worthy to be enshrined among
the finest feats of female heroism !;
although the histories are mute concern
ing her.
About thirty miles to the northeast Of
Paris, and about half that distance from
Meaux, the market-place of which,
situated on an island of the Marine, is
tolerably strong and with a good gar
rison capable of defense, lies the
little borough-in those days mere
hamlet of hats collected around the base
OF small feudal-keep-of Nanteuil lie
Haudouin.
This keep of Nanteuil was the strong
hold of siegneur far more commonly
odious than most of his class.
For time it had escaped assault.
Now, however, it came, on wild night
in the early part of April, when ire
mendous storm of wind and rain was
washing away the remains of deep
snowfall and swelling every brook into a
torrent, that the fierce shouts of a
tumultuous crowd, and the glare of thou
sand of resinous torches, defying the
tempest, haring over sea of heads,
among forest of spears and halberts,
announced to the garrison of the castle
OF Nanteuil that their respite was at an
end.
With the morrow the garrison knew
they must be assaulted, and that by
twenty thousand men as yet unchecked
by single failure in their career of
cruel history-knew also, that they had
no choice but to defend themselves and
die under shield easily, or expire in I'M
told agonies, erucifed or impaled, or
slowly roasted at the stake.
The Lord of Nanteuil, husband no
longer, was still a father, and of one
daughter Strange it was that such a
father should have called sucn erea-
ture daughter. For in feature and
form, mind and affections, she was as
near to perfection as anything can be
that is human. Yet that very beauty
was now like to prove her bane, not the
antidote to her perils.
And he, tyrant and monster as he was,
and in all other things incapable of hui
man feeling, loved that fair gentle being
az he loved nothing else on earth or in
heaven. Coward as he was, he would
have braved the worst fortunes of the tor
mentors to preserve not more her life
than her honor.
There was for himself No hope; for
her but one, and that almost hopeless.
In the castle of Nanteuil, as in most of
the old feudal keeps, there was a secret
subterranean passage issuing far beyond
the outworks, beyond the probable lines
of the besiegers. But as it was intended
onlya as means of escape against foreign
ices, not against rebels and traitors, il
opened not far from the center of the
village, through the cellar of the house
of one of the chief vassals of the castle
now one of the chief leaders of the
Jacques.
This was the only hope, and for her he
resolved to try it. For any beyond her
self concealment was impossible, for her
it would have been SO likewise, but for
solitary chance. That vassal, that arch
rebel, Nicholas Maiilart, was, like hi.
hated lord, widowsr left With children