It was about the year 1468, when their feuds were at the highest,
though a dubious and hollow truce, as frequently happened, existed
for the time betwixt them, that the present narrative opens. The
person first introduced on the stage will be found indeed to be of
a rank and condition, the illustration of whose character scarcely
called for a dissertation on the relative position of two great
princes; but the passions of the great, their quarrels, and their
reconciliations involve the fortunes of all who approach them; and
it will be found, on proceeding farther in our story, that this
preliminary chapter is necessary for comprehending the history of
the individual whose adventures we are about to relate.



CHAPTER II: THE WANDERER

Why then the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open.

ANCIENT PISTOL


It was upon a delicious summer morning, before the sun had assumed
its scorching power, and while the dews yet cooled and perfumed
the air, that a youth, coming from the northeastward approached the
ford of a small river, or rather a large brook, tributary to the
Cher, near to the royal Castle of Plessis les Tours, whose dark and
multiplied battlements rose in the background over the extensive
forest with which they were surrounded. These woodlands comprised a
noble chase, or royal park, fenced by an enclosure, termed, in the
Latin of the middle ages, Plexitium, which gives the name of Plessis