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But there was no contract or ceremony of betrothal, as the lovers were still very young when Henri went away to the wars, he being at the time scarce twenty years of age. When, therefore, Thérèse's hand was demanded by the count de Courance, her mother was not deterred from giving her consent by any implied obligation to the youthful heir of La Pontoise.
Artists and artisans were brought from Paris, Château Courance was converted for the time into a busy workshop, the neighborhood thrown into a fever of excitement, and the work of making ready for the wedding was urged forward with the vigor of a military campaign.
Partly narrative, partly legend and partly surmise, it gives the story of Château Courance as nearly as it will probably ever be known. Early in the eighteenth century the estates of Courance came into the possession of Raoul Boismonard du Guesclin, a minor, probably then very young. He apparently resided in Paris, and may have seen the sunset glories of the court of Louis the Great.
I said it looked to me like a foot-bath, but Perry insisted on examining it, and, removing the cover, found the bottom was a silver plate with this inscription: 'Presented by His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XIV., king of France and Navarre, to his devoted vassal and servitor, Melun du Guesclin, Sieur de Courance, Dec. 25, 1714. Perry declared he recognized it as a veritable piece of that rare faïence made by Pierre Clerissy for the Grand Monarch when he coined all his plate to pay the army in Flanders.
And then, perhaps, Madame Busque, the polite mistress of the Hôtel du Sol, has communicated the information that the obstinate pig of a stag had the stupidity to run toward Le Courance, and the chase was therefore abandoned. Why? Mais, because Le Courance is an impenetrable wilderness, and besides this with significant shrug and gesture besides, one goes not there. Not His Majesty?
Making such haste as the nature of the ground permitted, he directed his course toward a tall chestnut tree, the outlying sentinel of a host of its brethren in the park. Arriving beneath the tree, he dismounted, and was immediately addressed by an old man in peasant costume, whom he presented as Monsieur Gambeau, the intendant of Courance.
No, not even His Majesty. Continued inquiry may have elicited the fact that Château Courance, with its wide park, situated some three leagues south-west from Fontainebleau, had once been a splendid feudal residence, but was now supposed to be in ruins, having been abandoned and wholly closed to the world for the greater part of a century.
At a court audience the sovereign distinguished the soldier by removing the royal sword and scarf and with his own hands hanging the splendid guerdon over the shoulders of his subject and friend. Leaving his protégé, D'Armagnac de Foix, in charge of affairs in Paris, the count hastened to Courance, where his neighbors hailed his arrival with every demonstration of welcome.
It may have happened on such an occasion that an early return of the green-and-gold-clad cortége has indicated a failure of the day's sport, and the word "Courance" has passed from lip to lip as explaining the disappointment.
Attempts, however, have not been wanting to penetrate the mysteries surrounding Château Courance, but it is believed that none ever met with success until a very recent period. The authorities always interfered by virtue of a royal mandate, still on the statute-books of France, which forbids any entry to the demesne of Courance without the express consent of the count or his intendant.
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