e, dear child!" he said. "Teach
me what would give you pleasure, and I will give you all you can desire.
Grow strong! be well! I will show you how to ride a mare as pretty and
gentle as yourself. Nothing shall ever thwart or trouble you. Tete-Dieu!
all things bow to me as the reeds to the wind. I give you unlimited
power. I bow to you myself as the god of the family."

The father carried his son into the lordly chamber where the mother's
sad existence had been spent. Etienne turned away and leaned against the
window from which his mother was wont to make him signals announcing
the departure of his persecutor, who now, without his knowing why, had
become his slave, like those gigantic genii which the power of a
fairy places at the order of a young prince. That fairy was Feudality.
Beholding once more the melancholy room where his eyes were accustomed
to contemplate the ocean, tears came into those eyes; recollections of
his long misery, mingled with melodious memories of the pleasures he had
had in the only love that was granted to him, maternal love, all
rushed together upon his heart and developed there, like a poem at once
terrible and delicious. The emotions of this youth, accustomed to live
in contemplations of ecstasy as others in the excitements of the world,
resembled none of the habitual emotions of mankind.

"Will he live?" said the old man, amazed at the fragility of his heir,
and holding his breath as he leaned over him.

"I can live only here," replied Etienne, who had heard him, simply.

"Well, then, this room shall be yours, my child."

"What is that noise?" asked the young man, hearing the retainers of
the castle who were gathering in the guard-room, whither the duke had
summoned them to present his son.

"Come!" said the father, taking him by the hand and leading him into the
great hall.

At this epoch of our history, a duke and peer, with great possessions,
holding public offices and the government of a province, lived the life
of a prince; the cadets of his family did not revolt at serving him.
He had his household guard and officers; the first lieutenant of his
ordnance company was to him what, in our day, an aide-de-camp is to a
marshal. A few years later, Cardinal de Richelieu had his body-guard.
Several princes allied to the royal house--Guise, Conde, Nevers, and
Vendome, etc.--had pages chosen among the sons of the best families,--a
last lingering custom of departed chivalry. The wealth of