The reaction that half a century later filled the

Gallican Church with saintliness had not set in; her ecclesiastics

were the tools of a wicked and bloodthirsty court, who hated virtue

as much as schism in the men whom they persecuted. The Huguenots

were for the most part men whose instincts for truth and virtue had

recoiled from the popular system, and thus it was indeed as if

piety and morality were arrayed on one side, and superstition and

debauchery on the other. Mr. Adderley thus found the tone of the

Ambassador's chaplain that of far more complete fellowship with the

Reformed pastors than he himself was disposed to admit. There were

a large number of these gathered at Paris; for the lull in

persecution that had followed the battle of Moncontour had given

hopes of a final accommodation between the two parties, and many

had come up to consult with the numerous lay nobility who had

congregated to witness the King of Navarre's wedding. Among them,

Berenger met his father's old friend Isaac Gardon, who had come to

Paris for the purpose of giving his only surviving son in marriage

to the daughter of a watchmaker to whom he had for many years been

betrothed. By him the youth, with his innocent face and gracious

respectful manners, was watched with delight, as fulfilling the

fairest hopes of the poor Baron, but the old minister would have

been sorely disappointed had he known how little Berenger felt

inclined towards his party.

The royal one of course Berenger could not love, but the rigid

bareness, and, as he thought, irreverence of the Calvinist, and the

want of all forms, jarred upon one used to a ritual which retained

much of the ancient form. In the early years of Elizabeth, every

possible diversity prevailed in parish churches, according to the

predilections of rector and squire; from forms scarcely altered

from those of old times, down to the baldest, rudest neglect of all

rites; and Berenger, in his country home, had been used to the

first extreme. He could not believe that what he heard and saw

among the Sacrementaires, as they were called, was what his

father had prized; and he greatly scandalized Sidney, the pupil of

Hubert Languet, by openly expressing his distaste and dismay when

he found their worship viewed by both Walsingham and Sidney as a

model to which the English Protestants ought to be brought.

However, Sidney excused all this as more boyish distaste to sermons

and love of externals, and Berenger himself reflected little on the

subject. The aspect of the venerable Coligny, his father's friend,

did far more towards making him a Huguenot than any discussion of

doctrine. The good old Admiral received him affectionately, and

talked to him warmly of his father, and the grave, noble

countenance and kind manner won his heart. Great projects were on

foot, and were much relished by the young King, for raising an army

and striking a blow at Spain by aiding the Reformed in the

Netherlands; and Coligny was as ardent as a youth in the cause,

hoping at once to aid his brethren, to free the young King from

evil influences, and to strike one good stroke against the old

national enemy. He talked eagerly to Sidney of alliances with

England, and then lamented over the loss of so promising a youth as

young Ribaumont to the Reformed cause in France. If the marriage

with the heiress could have taken effect, he would have obtained

estates near enough to some of the main Huguenot strongholds to be

very important, and these would now remain under the power of

Narcisse de Ribaumont, a determined ally of the Guise faction. It

was a pity, but the Admiral could not blame the youth for obeying

the wish of his guardian grandfather; and he owned, with a sigh,

that England was a more peaceful land than his own beloved country.

Berenger was a little nettled at this implication, and began to

talk of joining the French standard in a campaign in their present

home and described the conversation, Walsingham said,




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