Orrain: A Romance

Chapter I

THE CRY IN THE RUE DES LAVANDIERES

My father, Rene, Vidame d'Orrain, was twice married. By his first wife he had one son, Simon, who subsequently succeeded to his title and estates, and was through his life my bitter enemy. By his second wife, whom he married somewhat late in life, he had two sons—the elder, Anne, known as the Chevalier de St. Martin from his mother's lands, which he inherited; and the younger, Bertrand—myself.

Simon betook himself early to the Court, and we heard but little of him, and that not to his credit; St. Martin went to Italy under the banner of Brissac; and as for me, my parents yielding to the persuasion of my mother's uncle, the Bishop of Seez, decided that I should become a Churchman, and I was forthwith packed off to Paris, and entered at the College of Cambrai, being then about seventeen years of age. Being remarkably tall and strongly built, with a natural taste for all manly exercises, it might have been expected that my books saw little of me; but, on the contrary, I found in them a pleasure and a companionship that has lasted through my life. Thus it happened that I made considerable progress. So much so that the good Bishop, my great-uncle, often flattered me with the ambitious hopes of some day filling his Episcopal chair—a hope that, I need not say, was never realised.