But the greatest singularity was, in the eyes of Arthur, the total absence of armed men and soldiers in this peaceful country.  In England, no man stirred without his long bow, sword, and buckler.  In France, the hind wore armour even when he was betwixt the stilts of his plough.  In Germany, you could not look along a mile of highway, but the eye was encountered by clouds of dust out of which were seen, by fits, waving feathers and flashing armour.  Even in Switzerland, the peasant, if he had a journey to make, though but of a mile or two, cared not to travel without his halbert and two-handed sword.  But in Provence all seemed quiet and peaceful, as if the music of the land had lulled to sleep all its wrathful passions.  Now and then a mounted cavalier might pass them, the harp at whose saddle-bow, or carried by one of his attendants, attested the character of a troubadour, which was affected by men of all ranks; and then only a short sword on his left thigh, borne for show rather than use, was a necessary and appropriate part of his equipment.

[Next is a finely-wrought scene of Arthur’s interview with Margaret in a monastery, “on the very top of Mount Saint Victoire.”]

So much was Arthur awed by the scene before him, that he had almost forgotten, while gazing from the bartizan, the important business which had brought him to this place, when it was suddenly recalled by finding himself in the presence of Margaret of Anjou, who, not seeing him in the parlour of reception, had stept upon the balcony, that she might meet with him the sooner.

The Queen’s dress was black, without any ornament except a gold coronal of an inch in breadth, restraining her long black tresses, of which advancing years, and misfortunes, had partly altered the hue.  There was placed within the circlet a black plume with a red rose, the last of the season, which the good father who kept the garden had presented to her that morning, as the badge of her husband’s house.  Care, fatigue, and sorrow, seemed to dwell on her brow and her features.  To another messenger, she would in all probability have administered a sharp rebuke, for not being alert in his duty to receive her as she entered; but Arthur’s age and appearance corresponded with that of her loved and lost son.  He was the son of a lady whom Margaret had loved with almost sisterly affection, and the presence of Arthur continued to excite in the dethroned queen the same feelings of maternal tenderness which they had awakened on their first meeting in the Cathedral of Strasburg.  She raised him as he kneeled at her feet, spoke to him with much kindness, and encouraged him to detail at full length his father’s message, and such other news as his brief residence at Dijon had made him acquainted with.

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