In the mean time, the Prince d'Auvergne and I returned to our quarters, and bidding me kindly adieu, as I was to depart early on the following morning, he left me, as he thought, to repose. Sleep, however, was not destined to visit my eyes that night. It was with difficulty, my right hand and arm being still bound up in its wooden case, that I was able to open the letter of Louise; and oh! when I did open it, what pain did it inflict! The letter has been since destroyed, so that I cannot give it accurately; but it informed me that the baroness had notified to her that her father had concluded upon a marriage between her and the Lord of Blaye. Her consent, she said, had never been asked and the marchioness had immediately left her stupified and thunderstruck. The only consolations she had, the poor girl said, were, in the first place, that the man himself was absent with the army, and likely to be absent for long; and, in the second, that La Tour assured her that the baron himself had fixed that the marriage should not take place for some time. To give me some comfort under such circumstances, she said, "You know me, Henry, and know that I would rather die. But, oh! that I could see you, and speak with you now, if it were but for a few hours!" It may well be conceived that the time now seemed to lag; and, when I at length set off upon my journey towards Champigny, every league seemed extended to two or three, every minute was protracted into days. I was the first in the saddle in the morning, the last to feel fatigue at night. But still, as all the various military movements had disturbed the posts, and we rode our own horses, our journey was in reality slow, and seemed to me still slower. There were but few events in that journey which I need dwell upon. The party which went through it was divided by their particular circumstances, by their religion and habits, and each kept much apart from the other. I, belonging to the higher class of the land, was separated from the rest both by my rank and by my faith; and my servants, being Protestants, were, of course, not sought by the attendants of the Duke of Montpensier. The intendant, indeed, of the Prince d'Auvergne generally rode by my side, a step farther back, endeavouring to beguile the way with different stories of the scenes which he had seen in a long life, and the descriptions of objects which I had never beheld. He told a tale pleasantly enough, and his descriptions were vivid and accurate. I showed a sufficient degree of interest in what he said to flatter his vanity a little, and induce him to go on.