The Lost Seigneur, Excerpt by David Loux

The Lost Seigneur is a sequel to the award-winning Chateau Laux.

It is the story of Jean-Pierre du Laux, a nobleman in southern France, who was wrongly imprisoned during a time of religious intolerance and subsequently endeavors to return to his family. Many years have passed since he saw them, and his long incarceration has broken his health.

Any reunion would clearly have been impossible, without the unlikely help of a youthful companion that he meets along the way.

Excerpt

Well before Magdalena was born and had lived long enough to worry about such things as a husband who commuted to Philadelphia, and in his absence, how to get along in an empty house, a Mistral whipped along the bluffs above a French manoir. This dry, cold wind blew from the north, cutting through the Pyrenean foothills on its way to the Mediterranean. A devil wind, Jean-Pierre’s mother used to call it, as if a wind could have a heart and soul and enough prescience to set its own course. Jean-Pierre was a seigneur, which meant he had feudal oversight of ancestral lands and the people who lived on them. He was also a courtier, which meant he took frequent trips to Versailles, where he mingled with the Sun King and the other nobles. He was also a father and for the moment, at least, he watched his son, Pierre, ranging ahead of him on the bluffs, the sleeves of his cloak flapping.

Watching his son, Jean-Pierre felt a flutter of pride that he did not attempt to suppress. The lad was next in a line of succession that went back hundreds of years. The land he now romped on in such a carefree manner would be his someday. By now, the boy had reached the top of the bluff. In the river valley below was a village, which would also be his, when he, in his turn, assumed the title and role of seigneur, and Jean-Pierre’s chest swelled anew. He congratulated himself for serving his forebears well by siring such a strong and forthright soul.

Jean-Pierre raised his fingers to his lips and issued a whistle. The wind whipped the sound away, but it didn’t matter, because the boy had already turned and was looking at his father. Jean-Pierre waved. He gestured, and the boy thrust his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders, leaning into the wind as he returned to his father’s side.

Jean-Pierre clapped a hand on the youth’s shoulder, and the two of them headed back to the towering edifice that they called home. Here, in the south of France, history was a living thing. Hundreds of years could crowd a given moment, and Jean-Pierre and his wife, Eleanor, had often speculated that if the manoir could talk, what a story it might tell. For it stood, as it did now, during the proud moment when the Navarrese Henri was king of France. It stood during the turbulent times when Catholics and Protestant brethren turned on each other and shed each other’s blood.

Of particular interest to Eleanor, it stood when the southland still had a mind of its own and men and women of the Cathar faith roamed freely, healing the sick and administering the consolamentum. The consolamentum was a vow that freed one from his or her wicked coil and put them on a path that led to the waiting arms of a true and loving God. The Catholic Church considered the Cathars to be heretics and went so far as to mount a crusade against them. As a result of this crusade, the Cathars were thought to have been wiped out, slaughtered like animals and burned like rubbish. But Jean-Pierre and his wife knew that a few had survived, persisting down through the centuries, and that Eleanor, herself, was one.

Now, with the Dragonnades coming, she was afraid that her secret would be discovered, and Jean-Pierre tried to be patient with her. In his mind, his status as a courtier would protect them both—him as a Protestant and her as the coreligionist that others therefore assumed her to be.

He scoffed at Eleanor’s concerns that if the Catholic king considered Protestants such an affront that he tried to force their conversion by billeting Dragonnades in their homes, then how would he respond to finding a Cathar in his realm?

By now, he and Pierre had neared the manoir, and his son left his side and headed for the barracks, where a couple of Jean-Pierre’s bodyguards braved the mistral enough to hunker in the shelter of one of the walls, playing cards. Jean-Pierre knew how much his son loved the company of the seigneur’s guard. The men let him pull up a stool when they played their games, sharing their lewd jokes and treating him as one of them, and Jean-Pierre couldn’t imagine Pierre would not always enjoy such privilege, because this was the life he was born to. This was who he was destined to be.

Catching up with his son, Jean-Pierre watched the two guardsmen play their hands. He couldn’t resist pointing out to the one named Thierry that, sheltered from the mistral though he might be, the wind could steal his cards and hand them to his opponent, if he did not grip them tighter. Thierry and Arnaud both laughed, slapping the table and reshuffling for new hands, and Jean-Pierre took his leave, heading for the house, with his son in tow. Eleanor met them at the door, her face etched with the worry that she carried of late. Pierre pecked her on the cheek and made for the stairs, while Jean-Pierre steered her toward the drawing room.

“Any news?” she queried.

“Everything will be okay,” he assured her. “Tomorrow we will leave for Versailles and will be gone a fortnight at most. There is nothing to worry about.”

“But what if it’s too late? What if the king has made up his mind and it can’t be changed? What will we do when the Dragonnades arrive and are at our door?”

Jean-Pierre gave his head a shake.

“Do you not trust me?” he challenged her.

“Of course, but . . .”

“Do you not have faith that I can protect my family? My home?”

“Of course, my love,” she demurred.

“There you have it, then!” he exclaimed, reveling in the sense of power that coursed through his veins. He never could have imagined that Eleanor had a valid point that was well worth considering, for in his mind, he was not the sort of man that things happened to. He was the one who pointed and made his wishes known. He always had others to do his bidding, and they were always eager to comply.

Ebook Universal link: https://books2read.com/u/4DMa0k

Paperback universal link: https://mybook.to/The-Lost-Seigneur

Meet David Loux

David Loux is the author of Chateau Laux, a critically acclaimed, award-winning novel that tells the story of a shocking incident in eighteenth century America. His second novel, The Lost Seigneur expands on the themes detailed in Chateau Laux. and completes the story of a French family’s migration to America in the eighteenth century.

He lives in the Eastern Sierra with his wife, Lynn.