Chapter 7 The Queen's Pastoral

Either very gravely gay,

Or very gaily grave,--W. M. PRAED

Montpipeau, though in the present day a suburb of Paris, was in the

sixteenth century far enough from the city to form a sylvan

retreat, where Charles IX, could snatch a short respite from the

intrigues of his court, under pretext of enjoying his favourite

sport. Surrounded with his favoured associates of the Huguenot

party, he seemed to breathe a purer atmosphere, and to yield

himself up to enjoyment greater than perhaps his sad life had ever

known.

He rode among his gentlemen, and the brilliant cavalcade passed

through poplar-shaded roads, clattered through villages, and

threaded their way through bits of forest still left for the royal

chase. The people thronged out of their houses, and shouted not

only 'Vive le Roy,' but 'Vive l'Amiral,' and more than once the cry

was added, 'Spanish war, or civil war!' The heart of France was,

if not with the Reformed, at least against Spain and the

Lorrainers, and Sidney perceived, from the conversation of the

gentlemen round him, that the present expedition had been devised

less for the sake of the sport, than to enable the King to take

measures for emancipating himself from the thraldom of his mother,

and engaging the country in a war against Philip II. Sidney

listened, but Berenger chafed, feeling only that he was being

further carried out of reach of his explanation with his kindred.

And thus they arrived at Montpipeau, a tower, tall and narrow, like

all French designs, but expanded on the ground floor by wooden

buildings capable of containing the numerous train of a royal

hunter, and surrounded by an extent of waste land, without fine

trees, though with covert for deer, boars, and wolves sufficient

for sport to royalty and death to peasantry. Charles seemed to sit

more erect in his saddle, and to drink in joy with every breath of

the thyme-scented breeze, from the moment his horse bounded on the

hollow-sounding turf; and when he leapt to the ground, with the

elastic spring of youth, he held out his hands to Sidney and to

Teligny, crying 'Welcome, my friends. Here I am indeed a king!'

It was a lovely summer evening, early in August, and Charles bade

the supper to be spread under the elms that shaded a green lawn in

front of the chateau.

Etiquette was here so far relaxed as to

permit the sovereign to dine with his suite, and tables, chairs,

and benches were brought out, drapery festooned in the trees to

keep off sun and wind, the King lay down in the fern and let his

happy dogs fondle him, and as a hers-girl passed along a vista in

the distance, driving her goats before her, Philip Sidney marvelled

whether it was not even thus in Arcadia.

Presently there was a sound of horses trampling, wheels moving, a

party of gaily gilded archers of the guard jingled up, and in their

midst was a coach. Berenger's heart seemed to leap at once to his

lips, as a glimpse of ruffs, hats, and silks dawned on him through

the windows.

The king rose from his lair among the fern, the Admiral stood

forward, all heads were bared, and from the coach-door alighted the

young Queen; no longer pale, subdued, and indifferent, but with a

face shining with girlish delight, as she held out her hand to the

Admiral. 'Ah! This is well, this is beautiful,' she exclaimed; 'it

is like our happy chases in the Tyrol. Ah, Sire!' to the King,

'how I thank you for letting me be with you.'

After her Majesty descended her gentleman-usher. Then came the

lady-in-waiting, Madame de Sauve, the wife of the state secretary

in attendance on Charles, and a triumphant, coquettish beauty, than

a fat, good-humoured Austrian dame, always called Madame la

Comtesse, because her German name was unpronounceable, and without

whom the Queen never stirred, and lastly a little figure, rounded

yet slight, slender yet soft and plump, with a kitten-like

alertness and grace of motion, as she sprang out, collected the

Queen's properties of fan, kerchief, pouncet-box, mantle, &c., and

disappeared in to the chateau, without Berenger's being sure of

anything but that her little black hat had a rose-coloured feather

in it.

The Queen was led to a chair placed under one of the largest trees,

and there Charles presented to her such of his gentlemen as she was

not yet acquainted with, the Baron de Ribaumont among the rest.

'I have heard of M. de Ribaumont,' she said, in a tone that made

the colour mantle in his fair cheek; and with a sign of her hand

she detained him at her side till the King had strolled away with

Madame la Sauve, and no one remained near but her German countess.

Then changing her tone to one of confidence, which the high-bred

homeliness of her Austrian manner rendered inexpressibly engaging,

she said, 'I must apologize, Monsieur, for the giddiness of my

sister-in-law, which I fear caused you some embarrassment.'

'Ah, Madame,' said Berenger, kneeling on one knee as she addressed

him, and his heart bounding with wild, undefined hope, 'I cannot be

grateful enough. It was that which led to my being undeceived.'

'It was true, then, that you were mistaken?' said the Queen.

'Treacherously deceived, Madame, by those whose interest it is to

keep us apart,' said Berenger, colouring with indignation; 'they

imposed my other cousin on me as my wife, and caused her to think

me cruelly neglectful.'

'I know,' said the Queen. 'Yet Mdlle. de Ribaumont is far more

admired than my little blackbird.'

'That may be, Madame, but not by me.'

'Yet is it true that you came to break off the marriage?'

'Yes, Madame,' said Berenger, honestly, 'but I had not seen her.'

'And now?' said the Queen, smiling.

'I would rather die than give her up,' said Berenger. 'Oh, Madame,

help us of your grace. Every one is trying to part us, every one

is arguing against us, but she is my own true wedded wife, and if

you will but give her to me, all will be well.'

'I like you, M. de Ribaumont,' said the Queen, looking him full in

the face. 'You are like our own honest Germans at my home, and I

think you mean all you say. I had much rather my dear little Nid

de Merle were with you than left here, to become like all the

others. She is a good little Liegling,--how do you call it in

French? She has told me all, and truly I would help you with all my

heart, but it is not as if I were the Queen-mother. You must have

recourse to the King, who loves you well, and at my request

included you in the hunting-party.'

Berenger could only kiss her hand in token of earnest thanks before

the repast was announced, and the King came to lead her to the

table spread beneath the trees. The whole party supped together,

but Berenger could have only a distant view of his little wife,

looking very demure and grave by the side of the Admiral.

But when the meal was ended, there was a loitering in the woodland

paths, amid healthy openings or glades trimmed into discreet

wildness fit for royal rusticity; the sun set in parting glory on

one horizon, the moon rising in crimson majesty on the other. A

musician at intervals touched the guitar, and sang Spanish or

Italian airs, whose soft or quaint melody came dreamily through the

trees. Then it was that with beating heart Berenger stole up to

the maiden as she stood behind the Queen, and ventured to whisper

her name and clasp her hand.

She turned, their eyes met, and she let him lead her apart into the

wood. It was not like a lover's tryst, it was more like the

continuation of their old childish terms, only that he treated her

as a thing of his own, that he was bound to secure and to guard,

and she received him as her own lawful but tardy protector, to be

treated with perfect reliance but with a certain playful

resentment.

'You will not run away from me now,' he said, making full prize of

her hand and arm.

'Ah! is not she the dearest and best of queens?' and the large eyes

were lifted up to him in such frank seeking of sympathy that he

could see into the depths of their clear darkness.

'It is her doing then. Though, Eustacie, when I knew the truth,

not flood nor fire should keep me long from you, my heart, my love,

my wife.'

'What! wife in spite of those villainous letter?' she said, trying

to pout.

'Wife for ever, inseparably! Only you must be able to swear that

you knew nothing of the one that brought me here.'

'Poor me! No, indeed! There was Celine carried off at fourteen,

Madame de Blanchet a bride at fifteen; all marrying hither and

thither; and I--' she pulled a face irresistibly droll--'I growing

old enough to dress St. Catherine's hair, and wondering where was

M. le Baron.'

'They thought me too young,' said Berenger, 'to take on me the

cares of life.'

'So they were left to me?'

'Cares! What cares have you but finding the Queen's fan?'

'Little you know!' she said, half contemptuous, half mortified.

'Nay, pardon me, ma mie. Who has troubled you?'

'Ah! you would call it nothing to be beset by Narcisse; to be told

one's husband is faithless, till one half believes it; to be looked

at by ugly eyes; to be liable to be teased any day by Monsieur, or

worse, by that mocking ape, M. d'Alecon, and to have nobody who can

or will hinder it.'

She was sobbing by this time, and he exclaimed, 'Ah, would that I

could revenge all! Never, never shall it be again! What blessed

grace has guarded you through all?'

'Did I not belong to you?' she said exultingly. 'And had not

Sister Monique, yes, and M. le Baron, striven hard to make me good?

Ah, how kind he was!'

'My father? Yes, Eustacie, he loved you to the last. He bade me,

on his deathbed, give you his own Book of Psalms, and tell you he

had always loved and prayed for you.'

'Ah! his Psalms! I shall love them! Even at Bellaise, when first

we came there, we used to sing them, but the Mother Abbess went out

visiting, and when she came back she said they were heretical. And

Soeur Monique would not let me say the texts he taught me, but I

WOULD not forget them. I say them often in my heart.'

'Then,' he cried joyfully, 'you will willingly embrace my

religion?'

'Be a Huguenot?' she said distastefully.

'I am not precisely a Huguenot; I do not love them,' he answered

hastily; 'but all shall be made clear to you at my home in

England.'

'England!' she said. 'Must we live in England? Away from every

one?'

'Ah, they will love so much! I shall make you so happy there,' he

answered. 'There you will see what it is to be true and

trustworthy.'

'I had rather live at Chateau Leurre, or my own Nid de Merle,' she

replied. 'There I should see Soeur Monique, and my aunt, the

Abbess, and we would have the peasants to dance in the castle

court. Oh! if you could but see the orchards at Le Bocage, you

would never want to go away. And we could come now and then to see

my dear Queen.

'I am glad at least you would not live at court.'

'Oh, no, I have been more unhappy here than ever I knew could be

borne.'

And a very few words from him drew out all that had happened to her

since they parted. Her father had sent her to Bellaise, a convent

founded by the first of the Angevin branch, which was presided over

by his sister, and where Diane was also educated. The good sister

Monique had been mistress of the pensionnaires, and had evidently

taken much pains to keep her charge innocent and devout. Diane had

been taken to court about two years before, but Eustacie had

remained at the convent till some three months since, when she had

been appointed maid of honour to the recently-married Queen; and

her uncle had fetched her from Anjou, and had informed her at the

same time that her young husband had turned Englishman and heretic,

and that after a few formalities had been complied with, she would

become the wife of her cousin Narcisse. Now there was no person

whom she so much dreaded as Narcisse, and when Berenger spoke of

him as a feeble fop, she shuddered as though she knew him to have

something of the tiger.

'Do you remember Benoit?' she said; 'poor Benoit, who came to

Normandy as my laquais? When I went back to Anjou he married a

girl from Leurre, and went to aid his father at the farm. The poor

fellow had imbibed the Baron's doctrine--he spread it. It was

reported that there was a nest of Huguenots on the estate. My

cousin came to break it up with his gens d'armes O Berenger, he

would hear no entreaties, he had no mercy; he let them assemble on

Sunday, that they might be all together. He fired the house; shot

down those who escaped; if a prisoner were made, gave him up to the

Bishop's Court. Benoit, my poor good Benoit, who used to lead my

palfrey, was first wounded, then tried, and burnt--burnt in the

PLACE at Lucon! I heard Narcisse laugh--laugh as he talked of the

cries of the poor creatures in the conventicler. My own people,

who loved me! I was but twelve years old, but even then the wretch

would pay me a half-mocking courtesy, as one destined to him; and

the more I disdained him and said I belonged to you, the more both

he and my aunt, the Abbess, smiled, as though they had their bird

in a cage; but they left me in peace till my uncle brought me to

court, and then all began again: and when they said you gave me up,

I had no hope, not even of a convent. But ah, it is all over now,

and I am so happy! You are grown so gentle and so beautiful,

Berenger, and so much taller than I ever figured you to myself, and

you look as if you could take me up in your arms, and let no harm

happen to me.'

'Never, never shall it!' said Berenger, felling all manhood,

strength, and love stir within him, and growing many years in heart

in that happy moment. 'My sweet little faithful wife, never fear

again now you are mine.'

Alas! poor children. They were a good way from the security they

had begun to fancy for themselves. Early the next morning,

Berenger went in his straightforward way to the King, thanked him,

and requested his sanction for at once producing themselves to the

court as Monsieur le Baron and Madame la Baronne de Ribaumont.

At this Charles swore a great oath, as one in perplexity, and bade

him not go so fast.

'See here,' said he, with the rude expletives only too habitual

with him; 'she is a pretty little girl, and she and her lands are

much better with an honest man like you than with that pendard of

a cousin; but you see he is bent on having her, and he belongs to a

cut-throat crew that halt at nothing. I would not answer for your

life, if you tempted him so strongly to rid himself of you.'

'My own sword, Sire, can guard my life.'

'Plague upon your sword! What does the foolish youth think it

would do against half-a-dozen poniards and pistols in a lane black

as hell's mouth?'

The foolish young WAS thinking how could a king so full of fiery

words and strange oaths bear to make such an avowal respecting his

own capital and his own courtiers. All he could do was to bow and

reply, 'Nevertheless, Sire, at whatever risk, I cannot relinquish

my wife; I would take her at one to the Ambassador's.'

'How, sir!' interrupted Charles, haughtily and angrily, 'if you

forget that you are a French nobleman still, I should remember it!

The Ambassador may protect his own countrymen-none else.'

'I entreat your Majesty's pardon,' said Berenger, anxious to

retract his false step. 'It was your goodness and the gracious

Queen's that made me hope for your sanction.'

'All the sanction Charles de Valois can give is yours, and

welcome,' said the King, hastily. 'The sanction of the King of

France is another matter! To say the truth, I see no way out of

the affair but an elopement.'

'Sire!' exclaimed the astonished Berenger, whose strictly-

disciplined education had little prepared him for such counsel.

'Look you! if I made you known as a wedded pair, the Chevalier and

his son would not only assassinate you, but down on me would come

my brother, and my mother, and M. de Guise and all their crew,

veritably for giving the prize out of the mouth of their satellite,

but nominally for disregarding the Pope, favouring a heretical

marriage, and I know not what, but, as things go here, I should

assuredly get the worst of it; and if you made safely off with your

prize, no one could gainsay you--I need know nothing about it--and

lady and lands would be your without dispute. You might ride off

from the skirts of the forest; I would lead the hunt that way, and

the three days' riding would bring you to Normady, for you had best

cross to England immediately. When she is one there, owned by your

kindred, Monsieur le cousin may gnash his teeth as he will, he must

make the best of it for the sake of the honour of his house, and

you can safely come back and raise her people and yours to follow

the Oriflamme when it takes the field against Spain. What! you are

still discontented? Speak out! Plain speaking is a treat not often

reserved for me.'

'Sire, I am most grateful for your kindness, but I should greatly

prefer going straightforward.'

'Peste! Well is it said that a blundering Englishman goes always

right before him! There, then! As your King on the one hand, as

the friend who has brought you and your wife together, sir, it is

my command that you do not compromise me and embroil greater

matters than you can understand by publicly claiming this girl.

Privately I will aid you to the best of my ability; publicly, I

command you, for my sake, if you heed not your own, to be silent!'

Berenger sought out Sidney, who smiled at his surprise.

'Do you not see,' he said, 'that the King is your friend, and would

be very glad to save the lady's lands from the Guisards, but that

he cannot say so; he can only befriend a Huguenot by stealth.'

'I would not be such a king for worlds!'

However, Eustacie was enchanted. It was like a prince and princess

in Mere Perinne's fairy tales. Could they go like a shepherd and

shepherdess? She had no fears-no scruples. Would she not be with

her husband? It was the most charming frolic in the world. So the

King seemed to think it, though he was determined to call it all

the Queen's doing--the first intrigue of her own, making her like

all the rest of us--the Queen's little comedy. He undertook to

lead the chase as far as possible in the direction of Normandy,

when the young pair might ride on to an inn, meet fresh horses, and

proceed to Chateau Leurre, and thence to England. He would himself

provide a safe-conduct, which, as Berenger suggested, would

represent them as a young Englishman taking home his young wife.

Eustacie wanted at least to masquerade as an Englishwoman, and

played off all the fragments of the language she had caught as a

child, but Berenger only laughed at her, and said they just fitted

the French bride. It was very pretty to laugh at Eustacie; she

made such a droll pretence at pouting with her rosebud lips, and

her merry velvety eyes belied them so drolly.

Such was to be the Queen's pastoral; but when Elisabeth found the

responsibility so entirely thrown on her, she began to look grave

and frightened. It was no doubt much more than she had intended

when she brought about the meeting between the young people, and

the King, who had planned the elopement, seemed still resolved to

make all appear her affair. She looked all day more like the

grave, spiritless being she was at court than like the bright young

rural queen of the evening before, and she was long in her little

oratory chapel in the evening. Berenger, who was waiting in the

hall with the other Huguenot gentlemen, thought her devotions

interminable since they delayed all her ladies. At length,

however, a page came up to him, and said in a low voice, 'The Queen

desires the presence of M. le Baron de Ribaumont.'

He followed the messenger, and found himself in the little chapel,

before a gaily-adorned altar, and numerous little shrines and

niches round. Sidney would have dreaded a surreptitious attempt to

make him conform, but Berenger had no notion of such perils,--he

only saw that Eustacie was standing by the Queen's chair, and a

kindly-looking Austrian priest, the Queen's confessor, held a book

in his hand.

The Queen came to meet him. 'For my sake,' she said, with all her

sweetness, 'to ease my mind, I should like to see my little

Eustacie made entirely your own ere you go. Father Meinhard tells

me it is safer that, when the parties were under twelve years old,

the troth should be again exchanged. No other ceremony is needed.'

'I desire nothing but to have her made indissolubly my own,' said

Berenger, bowing.

'And the King permits,' added Elisabeth.

The King growled out, 'It is your comedy, Madame; I meddle not.'

The Austrian priest had no common language with Berenger but Latin.

He asked a few questions, and on hearing the answers, declared that

the sacrament of marriage had been complete, but that--as was often

done in such cases--he would once more hear the troth-plight of the

young pair. The brief formula was therefore at once exchanged--the

King, when the Queen looked entreatingly at him, rousing himself to

make the bride over to Berenger. As soon as the vows had been

made, in the briefest manner, the King broke in boisterously:

'There, you are twice marred, to please Madame there; but hold your

tongues all of you about this scene in the play.'

Then almost pushing Eustacie over to Berenger, he added, 'There she

is! Take your wife, sir; but mind, she was as much yours before as

she is now.'

But for all Berenger had said about 'his wife,' it was only now

that he really FELT her his own, and became husband rather than

lover-man instead of boy. She was entirely his own now, and he

only desired to be away with her; but some days' delay was

necessary. A chase on the scale of the one that was to favour

their evasion could not be got up without some notice; and,

moreover, it was necessary to procure money, for neither Sidney nor

Ribaumont had more than enough with them for the needful

liberalities to the King's servants and huntsmen. Indeed Berenger

had spent all that remained in his purse upon the wares of an

Italian pedlar whom he and Eustacie met in the woods, and whose

gloves 'as sweet as fragrant posies,' fans, scent-boxes, pocket

mirrors, Genoa wire, Venice chains, and other toys, afforded him

the mean of making up the gifts that he wished to carry home to his

sisters; and Eustacie's counsel was merrily given in the choice.

And when the vendor began with a meaning smile to recommend to the

young pair themselves a little silver-netted heart as a love-token,

and it turned out that all Berenger's money was gone, so that it

could not be bought without giving up the scented casket destined

for Lucy, Eustacie turned with her sweetest, proudest smile, and

said, 'No, no; I will not have it; what do we two want with love-

tokens now?'

Sidney had taken the youthful and romantic view of the case, and

considered himself to be taking the best possible bare of is young

friend, by enabling him to deal honourably with so charming a

little wife as Eustacie. Ambassador and tutor would doubtless be

very angry; but Sidney could judge for himself of the lady, and he

therefore threw himself into her interests, and sent his servant

back to Paris to procure the necessary sum for the journey of

Master Henry Berenger and Mistress Mary, his wife. Sidney was, on

his return alone to Paris, to explain all to the elders, and pacify

them as best he could; and his servant was already the bearer of a

letter from Berenger that was to be sent at once to England with

Walsingham's dispatches, to prepare Lord Walwyn for the arrival of

the runaways. The poor boy laboured to be impressively calm and

reasonable in his explanation of the misrepresentation, and of his

strong grounds for assuming his rights, with his persuasion that

his wife would readily join the English church--a consideration

that he knew would greatly smooth the way for her. Indeed, his own

position was impregnable: nobody could blame him for taking his own

wife to himself, and he was so sure of her charms, that he troubled

himself very little about the impression she might make on his

kindred. If they loved her, it was all right; if not, he could

take her back to his own castle, and win fame and honour under the

banner of France in the Low Countries. As the Lucy Thistlewood,

she was far too discreet to feel any disappointment or displeasure;

or if she should, it was her own fault and that of his mother, for

all her life she had known him to be married. So he finished his

letter with a message that the bells should be ready to ring, and

that when Philip heard three guns fired on the coast, he might

light the big beacon pile above the Combe.

Meantime 'the Queen's Pastoral' was much relished by all the

spectators. The state of things was only avowed to Charles,

Elisabeth, and Philip Sidney, and even the last did not know of the

renewed troth which the King chose to treat as such a secret; but

no one had any doubt of the mutual relations of M. de Ribaumont and

Mdlle. de Nid de Merle, and their dream of bliss was like a

pastoral for the special diversion of the holiday of Montpipeau.

The transparency of their indifference in company, their meeting

eyes, their trysts with the secrecy of an ostrich, were the

subjects of constant amusement to the elders, more especially as

the shyness, blushes, and caution were much more on the side of the

young husband than on that of the lady. Fresh from her convent,

simple with childishness and innocence, it was to her only the

natural completion of her life to be altogether Berenger's, and the

brief concealment of their full union added a certain romantic

enchantment, which added to her exultation in her victory over her

cruel kindred. She had been upon her own mind, poor child, for her

few weeks of court life. She had been upon her own mind, poor

child, for her few weeks of court life, but not long enough to make

her grow older, though just so long as to make the sense of her

having her own protector with her doubly precious. He, on the

other hand, though full of happiness, did also feel constantly

deepening on him the sense of the charge and responsibility he had

assumed, hardly knowing how. The more dear Eustacie became to him,

the more she rested on him and became entirely his, the more his

boyhood and INSOUCIANCE drifted away behind him; and while he could

hardly bear to heave his darling a moment out of his sight, the

less he could endure any remark or jest upon his affection for her.

His home had been a refined one, where Cecile's convent purity

seemed to diffuse an atmosphere of modest reserve such as did not

prevail in the court of the Maiden Queen herself, and the lad of

eighteen had not seem enough of the outer world to have rubbed off

any of that grace. His seniority to his little wife seemed to show

itself chiefly in his being put out of countenance for her, when

she was too innocent and too proud of her secret matronhood to

understand or resent the wit.

Little did he know that this was the ballet-like interlude in a

great and terrible tragedy, whose first act was being played out on

the stage where they schemed and sported, like their own little

drama, which was all the world to them, and noting to the others.

Berenger knew indeed that the Admiral was greatly rejoiced that the

Nid de Merle estates should go into Protestant hands, and that the

old gentleman lost no opportunity of impressing on him that they

were a heavy trust, to be used for the benefit of 'the Religion,'

and for the support of the King in his better mind. But it may be

feared that he did not give a very attentive ear to all this. He

did not like to think of those estates; he would gladly have left

them all the Narcisse, so that he might have their lady, and though

quite willing to win his spurs under Charles and Coligny against

the Spaniard, his heart and head were far too full to take in the

web of politics. Sooth to say, the elopement in prospect seemed to

him infinitely more important than Pope or Spaniard, Guise or

Huguenot, and Coligny observed with a sigh to Teligny that he was a

good boy, but nothing but the merest boy, with eyes open only to

himself.

When Charles undertook to rehearse their escape with them, and the

Queen drove out in a little high-wheeled litter with Mne. la

Comtesse, while Mme. De Sauve and Eustacie were mounted on gay

palfreys with the pommelled side-saddle lately invented by the

Queen-mother, Berenger, as he watched the fearless horsemanship and

graceful bearing of his newly-won wife, had no speculations to

spend on the thoughtful face of the Admiral. And when at the

outskirts of the wood the King's bewildering hunting-horn--sounding

as it were now here, now there, now low, now high--called every

attendant to hasten to its summons, leaving the young squire and

damsel errant with a long winding high-banked lane before them,

they reckoned the dispersion to be all for their sakes, and did not

note, as did Sidney's clear eye, that when the entire company had

come straggling him, it was the King who came up with Mme. De Sauve

almost the last; and a short space after, as if not to appear to

have been with him, appeared the Admiral and his son-in-law.

Sidney also missed one of the Admiral's most trusted attendants,

and from this and other symptoms he formed his conclusions that the

King had scattered his followers as much for the sake of an

unobserved conference with Coligny as for the convenience of the

lovers, and that letters had been dispatched in consequence of that

meeting.

Those letters were indeed of a kind to change the face of affairs

in France. Marshal Strozzi, then commanding in the south-west, was

bidden to embark at La Rochelle in the last week of August, to

hasten to the succour of the Prince of Orange against Spain, and

letters were dispatched by Coligny to all the Huguenot partisans

bidding them assemble at Melun on the third of September, when they

would be in the immediate neighbourhood of the court, which was

bound for Fontainebleau. Was the star of the Guises indeed waning?

Was Charles about to escape from their hands, and commit himself to

an honest, high-minded policy, in which he might have been able to

purify his national Church, and wind back to her those whom her

corruptions had driven to seek truth and morality beyond her pale?

Alas! there was a bright pair of eyes that saw more than Philip

Sidney's, a pair of ears that heard more, a tongue and pen less

faithful to guard a secret.




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