"Then there were, in truth, brigands with you, my good father," said the king.
"In sooth were there, sire," replied the priest; "some of the best brigands between this and Naples; and I have a shrewd notion that Corse de Leon was there himself."
"Indeed!" said the king, with a smile; "then I wish I had been there also: I would give half a province to see that man, who seems to have been born for a general, and become a brigand by accident."
"Brissac writes me word, sire," said the Maréchal de Vieilleville, "that Corse de Leon has served you better in Piedmont than any three captains in your service."
"That may well be," said the king; "but yet we must not too openly favour such gentry. Now, lady, we have interrupted you too long."
"I have but little more to say, sire," replied Isabel de Brienne: "as those who had delivered us were carrying us back to the castle in safety, I had full opportunity--the first time for years--of speaking with my promised husband, who informed me that he came, not only to seek my hand, but to bear despatches from Monsieur de Brissac to my Lord of Masseran there. What I have to tell farther is not altogether of my own knowledge; but let him deny the facts if he can, for there are persons who can prove them if he does deny them. He received intelligence that Monsieur de Rohan brought him despatches and directions of an unpleasant kind, and he left the chateau that he might not receive them. He also ordered that admittance should be refused both to my mother and myself; and I had reason to believe that a new scheme was formed for compelling me to wed the Count de Meyrand. In these circumstances, your majesty, I saw no chance of escape but in doing as I did do. I was far from your protecting arm; I was, in fact, in the power and at the disposal, not of my mother, but of a stranger to our house and nation; and I knew that if I delayed or hesitated, even for a few days, I was likely to be borne far away beyond the power of rescue or deliverance. I held that my father's will and wishes justified me in what, at other times, might have been a rash, perhaps an improper act; and, having the opportunity both of seeing him I loved and escaping with him, I did not hesitate; our purpose being immediately to seek your presence, and cast ourselves at your majesty's feet, entreating your gracious pardon. We were afterward seized at the altar, as your majesty has been told; and I was then carried away, as if with the purpose of taking me to some remote place, but, in reality, to give the opportunity of a mock deliverance by the Count of Meyrand;" and she gave a brief account of what had taken place after the count came apparently to her rescue. "I doubt not that he was carrying me to Paris," she continued, "and might ultimately have brought me to your majesty's presence; but I neither chose to be entirely in his power and at his disposal after all that had happened, nor to quit that part of the country where I had reason to believe my brother was or might soon be, and where my husband--yes, sire, my husband, for a vow had been spoken which nothing but death could do away--where my husband lay a captive in the hands of that dangerous man. With the aid of Father Willand here I made my escape; but alas! alas! it was only to find that he who had loved me well and truly was no longer in life to protect and guide me. I found, sire, that he had died a horrible death in the castle of Masseran, by the falling of the tower under which he was confined."