The Bastion of the Evangelium, upon which the enemy had long been

concentrating all their forces, formed a sharply protruding angle. Its

flanks were not sufficiently protected by other works of defense.

Accordingly, by directing against the left flank of the bastion the fire

of their principal batteries, the enemy had opened a breach in the

rampart by the repeated pounding of their shots. At the place where the

breach was effected, the upper part of the earthworks, to a width of

about fifty feet, crumbled down into the moat, filling it up so fully as

to render an assault practicable. Thanks to this mass of debris which

answered the purpose of a bridge, the assailants could cross the fosse

on a run, could scale the last steps of the last wall already laid in

ruins, and could enter the city, provided they could bear down the

defenders who stood in the breach. From the top of the bastion the eye

swept the plain far and wide. A cannon-shot off, the long line of the

enemy's trenches could be seen, stretching from the suburb of St. Eloi

on the edge of the salt marshes, to the suburb of Colombier. That line

bounded the field from end to end; it intercepted the roads to Limoges

and Nantes at the crossings of which the batteries were erected which

broke a breach through the bastion. The whole stretch between the

trenches of the besiegers and the fortifications of the city--one time

covered with trees and houses--now lay bare, exposed, devastated, and

deeply furrowed by the projectiles. Beyond the desert waste, lay the

enemy's entrenchments--earthworks strengthened with gabions and trunks

of trees, and here and there crenelated with the embrasures for their

batteries. Behind that line of earthworks, the tops of the officers'

tents, surmounted with bannerets and floating pennants, could be seen.

Finally, on the extreme horizon rose the undulating and woody hills. The

breach once made, the Catholics suspended their fire in order to open it

again shortly before marching to the assault. It was in answer to the

thunder of the cannonade, which announced an imminent and decisive

attack, that the old pastor crossed the square of the City Hall at the

head of his bevy of Rochelois women, recruited the Bombarde and her

companions, and wended his course to the Bastion of the Evangelium. At

that place about one-half of the defenders of La Rochelle were gathered,

ready for a stubborn conflict. The other troops, distributed in other

places, were to be on the alert to repel other attacks. The Council of

defense foresaw that the enemy, while hurling one column against the

breach, would undoubtedly attempt a simultaneous assault upon other

places; consequently women were commissioned to close up the breach as

best they might with logs of wood and other material. Colonel Plouernel,

upon whom the defense of the bastion that day devolved, and Captain

Gargouillaud, in charge of the artillery, gave their last orders. The

bourgeois cannoniers were pointing their pieces in advance upon the open

and absolutely exposed ground which the royalists had to cross when they

sallied from their trenches in order to reach the opposite side of the

fosse where the breach was effected. The breach was wide; nevertheless,

before they could reach the parapet, the besiegers would have to clamber

over a heap of debris ten or eleven feet high, on the top of which a

redoubtable engine of defense was mounted, and placed in charge of the

women of La Rochelle. This engine of war, an invention of Master Barbot

the boilermaker, received the name of the _censer_. It consisted of a

huge copper basin, holding a ton, suspended from iron chains at the end

of a long beam that revolved upon an axis, and was so adjusted to a post

firmly set in the ground, that by means of a slight motion imparted to

the beam, the huge caldron would empty upon the heads of the assailants

the deadly fluid that it was filled with, to wit, a mixture of boiling

tar, sulphur and oil. A number of Rochelois women, Theresa Rennepont and

Cornelia my betrothed among them, were busy either keeping up the fire

under the copper basin, or pouring into it the oil, tar and sulphur from

little kegs that lay near at hand. With her sleeves rolled back above

her elbows, and leaving her strong white arms exposed, Cornelia stirred

the steaming mixture with an iron rod supplied with a wooden handle.

Master Barbot--his head covered with an iron morion, his chest protected

with a brigandine, and his cutlass and dagger by his side--leaned upon

the barrel of his arquebus and smiled complacently upon his invention.

From time to time he would address the women and girls at work.

"Courage, my brave girl!" he said to Cornelia. "Mix up the oil well with

the tar and sulphur. Make the mixture thick, soft, and toothsome, like

those omelettes made of eggs, flour and cheese that you are so skilled

in dishing up, and which your good father and myself relish so much! But

the devil take those dainty thoughts! In these days of dearth one may

deem himself happy if he but have a handful of beans. By the way of

famine and of your father--the heavy clouds that are rising yonder in

the south almost always announce a change of wind. Mayhap we shall see

this very day the brigantines of Captain Mirant, loaded with wheat and

powder, sailing before the wind into port, every inch of sail spread to

the breeze, and successfully running the gauntlet of the royalist guns.

Long live the Commune!"

"May God hear you, Master Barbot! I would then embrace my father this

very day, and the threatened famine would be at end," answered Cornelia

without interrupting her work of stirring the mixture, into which

Theresa Rennepont just emptied a bucketful of sulphur--on account of

which Master Barbot called out to her:

"No more sulphur, my dear Theresa. The tar and oil must predominate in

the infernal broth. The sulphur is thrown in only to improve the taste

by pleasing the eye with the pretty bluish flame, that gambols on the

surface of the incandescent fluid. Now, my little girls, turn the beam

just a little to one side in order to remove the basin from the fire

without cooling off the broth. We shall swing it back over the fire the

instant the Catholics run to the assault--then we shall dish up the

broth to them, hot and nice."

While these Rochelois women were thus engaged in preparing the censer,

others rolled enormous blocks of stone--the debris of the bastion that

was shattered by the enemy's cannonade--and placed them in such

positions over the breach that a child's finger could hurl them down

upon the assaulting column. Others rolled barrels of sand, which after

having served for protection to the arquebusiers on the ramparts, were

likewise to be rolled down the steep declivity which the enemy had to

climb. Finally, a large number of women were busy preparing stretchers

for the wounded. These women worked under the direction of Marcienne,

Odelin's widow. Theresa and Cornelia, left for a moment at leisure from

their work on the censer, came over to the widow, and were presently

joined by Louis Rennepont and Antonicq.

"Mother," said Antonicq, tenderly addressing Marcienne, "when I left the

house this morning at dawn you were asleep; I could not tell you

good-bye--embrace me!"

Marcienne understood what her son meant. A murderous assault was about

to be engaged. Perhaps they were not to meet again alive. She took

Antonicq in her arms, and pressing him to her breast she said in a moved

yet firm voice: "Blessings upon you, my son, who never caused me any

grief! If, like your father, you should die in battle against the

papists, you will have acted like an upright man to the very end. Should

I succumb, you will carry with you my last blessing. And you also,

Cornelia," added Marcienne, "I bless you, my child. I shall die happy in

the knowledge that Antonicq found in you a heart worthy of his own in

virtue and bravery. You have been the best of daughters to your

parents--you will likewise be a tender wife to your husband."

Odelin's widow was giving expression to these sentiments when Louis

Rennepont, after exchanging in a low voice a few words with his wife

Theresa, words such as the solemnity of the occasion prompted, cried out

aloud: "Look yonder! there, under us--among the debris of the breach--is

not that the Franc-Taupin? Your uncle seems to be emerging from

underground. He must be preparing some trick of his trade."

"It is he, indeed!" exclaimed Antonicq, no less surprised than his

brother-in-law. "And there is my apprentice Serpentin also--who is

following the Franc-Taupin out of the hole."

These words drew the attention of Cornelia, Theresa and Odelin's widow.

They looked down the steep slope formed by the ruins of that portion of

the bastion that the enemy had demolished. The Franc-Taupin had emerged

from a narrow and deep excavation, dug under the ruins. A lad of

thirteen or fourteen years followed him. They covered up the opening

that had given them egress. After doing so, Serpentin, the apprentice of

the armorer Antonicq, went down upon his knees, and moving backward on

all fours, uncoiled, under the directions of the Franc-Taupin, a long

thin fuse, the other end of which was deep down the excavation which

they had just covered. Still moving towards the parapet, Serpentin

continued to uncoil the fuse, and, upon orders from the Franc-Taupin,

stopped at about twenty paces from the wall and sat down on a stone.

"Halloa, uncle!" cried Antonicq, leaning over the edge of one of the

embrasures. "Here we are; come and join us."

Hearing his nephew's voice, the Franc-Taupin raised his head, made him a

sign to wait, and after giving Serpentin some further directions, the

aged soldier clambered over the ruins with remarkable agility for a man

of his years, and walked over to where Antonicq stood waiting for him.

"Where do you come from, uncle?"

"Well, my boy, what do you expect of me? A _taupin_ I was in my young

days, and now in my old days I relapse into my old trade. I come from

underground, through a shaft that I dug through the ruins with the aid

of Serpentin, about a hundred paces from here. There I laid a mine,

right in the middle of the breach where the good Catholics will soon be

running to the assault. The moment I see them there I shall lovingly set

the fuse on fire--and, triple petard! the St. Bartholomew lambkins will

leap up in the air yelling and spitting fire like five hundred devils,

their heads down, their legs skyward. The dance will end with a shower

of shattered limbs."

"Well schemed, my old mole!" said Master Barbot. "Fire below, fire

above, like the beautiful sheets that I hammer on the anvil. The burning

lava of my censer will blaze over the skulls of the royalists, your fuse

will blaze under the soles of their feet, and hurl the miscreants into

the air capering, turning somersaults, whirling, cavorting, and--" but

suddenly breaking off, Master Barbot let himself down upon the ground,

and joining the word to the deed, called out:

"Down upon your faces, everybody! Look out for the bullets!"

Master Barbot's advice was quickly followed. Everybody near him threw

himself down flat at the very moment that a volley of bullets whistled

overhead or struck the parapet, some ricocheting and upturning gabions

and logs of wood, others plowing their way through the debris where the

imperturbable Serpentin was seated near the fuse that led down to the

mine. Despite the danger, the brave lad did not budge from his post. A

lucky accident willed it that none of the besieged was wounded by this

first salvo of artillery. Master Barbot, the first one to rise to his

feet, cast his eyes upon the enemy's batteries, which were still partly

wrapped in the clouds of smoke from the first discharge, perceived the

first ranks of the assaulting column sallying from its trenches, and

instantly gave the signal:

"Everyone to his post! The enemy is advancing!"

"To arms! Rochelois, to arms!"

Master Barbot's call, was answered by a long roll of drums, ordered by

Colonel Plouernel. His strong and penetrating voice rose above the din,

and his words were heard:

"Soldiers, to the ramparts! Cannoniers, to your pieces! Fire, all along

the line!"

"May God guard you, mother, sister, Cornelia!" said Antonicq.

"May God guard you, my wife!" said Louis Rennepont.

"So long, comrade Barbot!" cried the Franc-Taupin, pulling a tinder box

from his pocket and sliding down the slope of the breach to rejoin

Serpentin. "I shall get myself ready to make the limbs of those St.

Bartholomew lambkins scamper through the air."

"And you, my brave girls, to the censer!" cried Master Barbot to the

Rochelois women. "Replace the caldron over the fire, and, when you hear

me give the order: 'Serve it hot!' turn it and empty it over the heads

of the assailants. You others, hold your levers ready near those stones

and hogsheads of sand. When you hear me say: 'Roll!' push hard and let

it all come down upon them."

Suddenly, fresh but more distant and redoubling detonations of artillery

in the direction of the Congues Gate announced the enemy's intention of

making a diversion by attempting two simultaneous attacks upon the city.

The pastor arrived at that moment upon the ramparts at the head of his

troop of women whom the Bombarde and her companions had joined. Some

reinforced the women charged with rolling the stones upon the

assailants; others organized themselves to transport the wounded;

finally a third set, armed with cutlasses, pikes and axes, made ready to

resist the assailants at close quarters. At the head of these the

Bombarde brandished a harpoon.

His best marksmen had been placed by Colonel Plouernel in the

underground casemates, thereby forming, on the other side of the

circumvallation, a second line of defense, the loop-holes of which,

bearing a strong resemblance to the airholes of a cavern, allowed a

murderous fire to be directed upon the enemy. Finally, the companies of

arquebusiers were massed upon the breach, which was defended by

heaped-up beams and gabions that the Rochelois women assisted in

bringing together. A solemn silence reigned among the besieged during

the short interval of time that the royalists occupied in rushing

through the distance that separated them from the outer edge of our

moat. All of us felt that the fate of La Rochelle depended upon the

issue of the assault.

Old Marshal Montluc was in chief command of the Catholics. Monsieur Du

Guast, at the head of six battalions of veteran Swiss troops, led the

column, with Marshal Montluc in the center, and in the rear Colonel

Strozzi, one of the best officers of the Catholic army. His task was to

reinforce and sustain the attack in case the first companies wavered, or

were repulsed. These troops advanced in good order, drums beating,

trumpets blaring, colors flying, and captained by the flower of the

nobility--the Dukes of Guise and Aumale, the Bastard of Angouleme, Henry

of Bearn, who was now the King's brother-in-law, and Henry of Conde. The

two renegates now were in arms against our cause. Finally, there were

also Mayenne, Biron, Cosseins, D'O, Chateau-Vieux, and innumerable other

noble captains, all crowding near the King's brother, the Duke of Anjou,

who marched in the center at the side of Marshal Montluc. The moment

that the front ranks of the vanguard reached the thither side of the

fosse, Alderman Gargouillaud considered the enemy to be within reach of

his cannoniers, and gave the order for a plunging and ricocheting fire.

The effect of the salvo was deadly. The thunder-struck vanguard wavered

and recoiled. The Rochelois gained time to reload their pieces. A second

discharge, fully as deadly as the first, mowed down as many as before,

and increased the indecision of the assailants. Old Marshal Montluc,

Biron and Cosseins revived the shaken courage of their troops, held

them, and forced them back. The dash was made. Leaving the dead and

wounded behind, the column crossed the moat; it answered with its

arquebuses those of the besieged as it pushed up the slope of the

breach, receiving the cross fire from the casemates upon both its

flanks, while, from the companies ranged upon the ramparts, its front

was met with a hailstorm of bullets. Despite severe losses, the

royalists steadily climbed up the slope of the breach. The Franc-Taupin

and his aide, who until that instant lay flat upon their faces behind a

heap of debris, suddenly rose and ran towards the circumvallation as

fast as their legs could carry them. They had fired the fuse. Hardly

were they at a safe distance, when the mine took fire under the feet of

the enemy. A frightful explosion threw up a spout of earth, dust and

rocks, interspersed with jets of fire, fulgent like lightning through

thick clouds of smoke. The smoke slowly dissipated. The slope of the

breach reappeared to view. It was torn up and cut through by a deep and

wide cleft, the sides of which were strewn with the dismembered bodies

of the dead and dying. The soldiers of the vanguard who escaped the

disaster were seized with terror, turned upon their heels, rushed back

upon their center, trampled it down, threw it into a panic, and spread

consternation, crying that the passage of the breach was mined under the

feet of the besiegers. The ranks were broken; confusion reigned, the

rout commenced. The Rochelois cannoniers now worked their pieces in

quick succession, and plowed wide gaps into the compact mass of the

fleeing invaders, while the Franc-Taupin, standing beside one of the

embrasures and calmly crossing his hands behind his back, remarked to

Master Barbot:

"Well, comrade, there they are--heads, arms, trunks, legs. They have

danced the saraband to the tune of my mine. I have given a ball to the

Catholics, to the defenders of the throne and the altar!"

"Ha! Ha!" replied the boilermaker. "The St. Bartholomew lambkins are

going back faster than they came. Should they come back again I shall

dish up to them my steaming basin in order to comfort the lacerated

feelings of those cut-throats whom the Pope has blessed."

The royalist soldiers could not be rallied by their officers until they

were beyond the reach of our guns. They were then re-formed into a new

column. The most daring of their captains placed themselves resolutely

at their head in order to lead them back to the assault. Preceding this

phalanx of intrepid men by several paces, a Cordelier monk, holding a

crucifix in one hand and a cutlass in the other, rushed forward to be

the first to storm the breach, shouting in a piercing voice the ominous

slogan of St. Bartholomew's night: "God and the King!" The monk's

example and the enthusiasm of the captains carried the assailants away.

They forgot their recent panic, and turned about face to renew the

struggle, shouting in chorus "God and the King!" In vain did the fire of

the besieged make havoc among them. They closed ranks; they rushed

forward at the double quick; they ran up the slope of the breach; they

even passed beyond the chasm produced by the late mine explosion. At

that moment Master Barbot called out to the Rochelois women in charge of

the censer: "Quick! Quick! my daughters! Pour it down hot upon the

Catholic vermin! Anoint the devout papists with our holy and consecrated

oil!"

And immediately turning to the other set of women charged with rolling

stones down upon the enemy's heads, "To work, my brave women!" shouted

the boilermaker. "Crush the infamous pack to dust! Exterminate the brood

of Satan!"

Instantly a flood of incandescent oil, bitumen and sulphur poured down

like a wide sheet of flame upon the front ranks of the besiegers. They

recoiled, trampled down the ranks behind them, and emitted hideous cries

of anguish. Every drop of the molten liquid bored a hole through the

flesh to the bone. At the same moment enormous blocks of stone and

masses of sand rolled, rapid and irresistible, down the slope of the

breach, overthrowing, breaking, crushing, smashing whatever stood in

their way. Joined to this murderous defense was the frightfully

effective fire of our arquebusiers, who shot unerringly, at close range,

themselves safe, upon a foe in disorder. And yet, however decimated and

broken, the royalists stuck to the assault until they finally reached

the circumvallation. The exchange of arquebus shots then ceased and a

furious hand-to-hand struggle ensued with swords, cutlasses and pikes.

No quarter was given. The conflict was pitiless. The Rochelois women,

among them Cornelia, armed with the iron rod of the censer, and the

Bombarde, brandishing her harpoon, vied with the men in deeds of daring.

These Rochelois women were everywhere among the male combatants, and cut

a wide swath with their weapons, wielded by their white yet nervy arms,

after the fashion of the Gallic women who made a front to the legions of

Caesar. Twice did Colonel Plouernel, Captain Normand, Alderman

Gargouillaud, Master Barbot, Antonicq Lebrenn, Louis Rennepont and their

fellow defenders drive the Catholics back beyond the breach; twice did

the Catholics, superior in numbers, drive the Rochelois back to the

terrace of the rampart. Thus did the battle fluctuate, when Mayor

Morrisson came to the aid of the Protestants with a fresh troop of

citizens. The timely reinforcement changed the face of the struggle. For

a third time rolled back beyond the breach, the assailants were

precipitated into the pits or whipped down the slope. Their rout then

became complete, wild, disordered. Our arquebusiers, whose fire had

stopped during the hand-to-hand conflict, now took aim again, and

decimated the fleeing, while our artillery mowed them down. This time

the royalist rout was complete--final. Those of them who escaped the

carnage, made haste to place themselves behind the shelter of their own

lines.

Victory to the Rochelois! Oh, sons of Joel, victory! Long live the

Commune!

CHAPTER XI.

CAPTURE OF CORNELIA.

The victory of the Rochelois was a bloody one, and dearly did we pay for

it. We numbered over eleven hundred of our people killed or disabled,

men and women. Cornelia Mirant received a wound upon the neck; the

Bombarde perished in the breach. Marcienne, Odelin's widow, was struck

by a bullet and killed near the rampart as she was bringing aid to a

wounded soldier; Antonicq's arm was run through by a pike; Colonel

Plouernel was carried to his house in a nearly dying condition with two

arquebus shots in his chest. Louis Rennepont, his wife Theresa, Master

Barbot, the Franc-Taupin and Serpentin, his assistant in mining, came

safe and sound out of the engagement. The Rochelois gathered in the dead

and wounded. The Lebrenn family carried to their house the corpse of

Odelin's widow. A sad funeral march! But, alas, in these distressful

times the exigencies of the public weal have precedence over the holiest

of sorrows. One enjoys leisure to weep over his dead only after having

avenged them. The triumph of a day does not remove the apprehensions for

the morrow. The royalist assault, so valiantly repelled by the people of

La Rochelle, might be renewed the very next day, due to the large

reserve forces of the Catholic army, only a small portion of which took

part in the attack upon the Bastion of the Evangelium. The City Council

urged all the remaining able-bodied citizens to proceed without delay to

repair the breach, seeing that the moon, then at her full, would light

them at their work during the whole night. Fresh defenses were to be

immediately raised upon the side of the assaulted bastion. Then, also,

famine was staring the city in the face. Precautions were needed against

that emergency. Captain Mirant's ships, which were to revictual the city

and replenish its magazines of war, still failed to be descried at sea,

notwithstanding a strong wind rose from the southwest towards sunset.

The last bags of beans were distributed among the combatants, whose

exhaustion demanded immediate attention after the day's conflict. The

supply barely sufficed to allay the pangs of hunger. Consequently, in

order to insure food for the next day, the women and children were

summoned by the aldermen to be at the Two Mills Gate by one o'clock in

the morning, the hour of low tide, and favorable for the digging of

clams. The gathering of these mollusks offered a precious resource to

the besieged, but it was as perilous as battle itself. The Bayhead

redoubt, raised by the royalists at the extremity of the tongue of land

that ran deep into the offing, could sweep with its cannon the beach on

which the clams were to be dug. Towards one in the morning the City Hall

bell rang the summons. Upon hearing the agreed-upon signal, the

Rochelois women of all conditions issued forth with those of their

children who were considered strong enough to join the expedition. Each

was equipped with a basket. They met at the Two Mills Gate where they

found the wife and two daughters of Morrisson the Mayor. They set the

example of public spirit. Accordingly, while the male population of La

Rochelle was busily engaged in repairing the breach, the women and

children sallied forth from the city in search of provisions for all.

Although smarting from her wound, and despite the protests of Antonicq,

Cornelia Mirant determined to share with Theresa Rennepont the risks of

the nocturnal expedition after clams. She joined the troop of women and

children.

About four or five hundred Rochelois women issued forth from the Two

Mills Gate, situated near the Lantern Tower, in search of clams to feed

the population. They were soon upon the beach. Bounded on the right by a

ledge of rocks, the beach extended to the left as far as the roadstead

in front of the inner port of La Rochelle, a roadstead narrowed towards

its entrance by two tongues of land, each of which was armed with a

hostile redoubt. The Bayhead redoubt could at once cover with its fire

the narrow entrance of the bay, and sweep the full length and breadth of

the beach upon which the Rochelois women now scattered and were actively

engaged in picking up at the foot of the rocks, aided by the light of

the moon, the mollusks that they came in search of. At the start the

Bayhead redoubt gave them no trouble, although the enemy's attention

must undoubtedly have been attracted by the large number of white

head-covers and scarlet skirts, the time-honored costume of the

Rochelois women. Already the baskets were handsomely filling with

clams--the "celestial manna" as Mayor Morrisson called them--when

suddenly a bright flash of light threw its reflection upon the small

puddles of water on the beach, a detonation was heard, and a light cloud

of smoke rose above the redoubt. A shiver ran over the clam-digging

Rochelois women, and profound silence took the place of their previous

chatter.

"The royalists have seen us!" said Theresa Rennepont to Cornelia. "They

have begun firing upon us."

"No!" cried Cornelia with mixed joy and alarm as she looked in the

direction of the battery. "The enemy is firing upon my father's

brigantines! There they are! There they are, at last! God be praised! If

they enter port, La Rochelle is saved from famine! Do you see them,

Theresa? Do you see, yonder, their white sails glistening in the

moonlight? The ships are drawing near. They come laden with victory to

us!"

And the young maid, moved with a joy that overcame her alarm, raised her

beautiful face to heaven, and in a voice quivering with enthusiasm

exclaimed: "Oh, Lord! Guard my father's life! Grant victory to the

sacred cause of freedom!"

All thought of the clams was instantly dropped. The women pressed close

to the water's edge; with eyes fixed upon the ships, they awaited

anxiously the issue of the combat upon which depended the victualing of

their city. It was a solemn moment; an imposing spectacle. The further

extremities of the two tongues of land that enclosed the outer bay and

left but a narrow entrance to the port, threw their black profiles upon

the waves, silvered by the moon. The four brigantines were sailing in

single file before the wind with a full spread of canvas, towards the

dangerous passage which they had to enter under the cross fire of the

enemy's redoubts. A rapid and frightful cannonade followed upon the

first shot which had startled the women. Already the first one of the

four vessels had entered the passage, when, despite the firmness of her

nature, Cornelia emitted a cry of distress and said in consternation to

Theresa:

"Look, the mast of the forward brigantine is down! It must have been

struck by a ball! Good God, my father is lost if he should be on that

vessel--dismantled--unable to move--exposed to the fire of the enemy!"

"All is lost! Alas, all is lost!"

"The brigantines are returning to the open sea!"

"Captain Mirant flees without giving battle! without answering the

enemy's fire! without giving back a single shot!"

"Come, let us return to our clams--henceforth the only resource of La

Rochelle! Let us continue picking up clams!"

"No! My father is not fleeing from battle," answered Cornelia. "By

sailing back he means to tow the dismantled ship out of harm's way. No,

Captain Mirant is not fleeing from battle! Do you not see that his

vessels are now lying to? They are not sailing away!"

The words of Cornelia, who was long familiar with nautical manoeuvres,

thanks to the many voyages she made on board her father's vessels,

revived the hopes of the Rochelois women. Their eyes returned with

renewed anxiety to the entrance of the port. But, alas, as they did so,

none perceived that soldiers of the royal army were coming out of the

Bayhead redoubt, and, screened by the shadows cast by the rocks that

were strewn to the right of the beach, were silently creeping nearer

behind the massive blocks.

"What did I tell you?" Cornelia proceeded to explain. "The brigantines

are sailing back again into the passage. The forward one, with the

dismantled vessel in tow, is opening fire upon the royalist redoubt. No!

Captain Mirant's cannons have not lost their speech!"

And so it was. The brigantine that had the dismantled vessel in tow

sailed intrepidly into the passage, returning the enemy's fire from both

broadsides. The enemy's redoubts, especially the Bayhead, being the

better equipped, replied to the brigantine. Suddenly, however, a cry of

terror escaped from all breasts. The brigantine that led was enveloped

in a thick smoke which here and there was reddened by the ruddy glow of

flames.

The agony of the women of La Rochelle redoubled. Their attention, held

captive by the spectacle in the bay, prevented their noticing the

Catholic soldiers, who, in increasing numbers, were approaching, hidden

behind the last rocks of the ledge. Suddenly the echoes around the rocks

repeated, like the reverberations of thunder, the roar of a tremendous

explosion. The dismantled vessel, which carried a full load of powder,

was blown into the air after being set on fire, not by the enemy, but

by Captain Mirant himself; and, as it blew up, it partly dismantled the

Bayhead redoubt. The manoeuvre was successful. Not only was the redoubt

crippled, but a large number of the soldiers and cannoniers who manned

it perished under the ruins of their own batteries. So soon as the

intrepid mariner saw one of his vessels disabled from proceeding on its

voyage, he had taken her in tow; veered about with the end in view of

withdrawing his flotilla from the enemy's fire long enough to enable him

to perfect his newly conceived strategy; heaped inflammable materials

upon the disabled ship; left the powder in her hold; transferred the

sailors to his own bottom; veered again; sailed under full canvas before

the wind straight into the passage; and leading in tow the floating

incendiary machine which he had just improvised, set it on fire, and cut

the cable just before arriving in front of the redoubt, convinced, by

his intimate acquaintance with the currents along the coast, that they

would drive ashore and against the redoubt the floating firebrand loaded

with powder, which, when exploding, would shake the royalist battery to

pieces. It happened as Captain Mirant calculated. Once the redoubt was

in ruins, Captain Mirant had nothing to fear except from the inferior

battery raised on the opposite tongue of land. The bold mariner now

proceeded on his course followed by his remaining vessels, deliberately

answering the inoffensive shots from the opposite side. Finally, with

only the perforation of some of their sails, and a few bullets lodged in

their sides, the three vessels steered straight towards the entrance of

the interior port of La Rochelle, which they were to save from famine,

and re-supply with munitions of war.

"God be praised! The city is saved! May my father have come off safe and

sound from the combat!" cried Cornelia, while the other Rochelois women

loudly acclaimed with shouts of joy and hope the brilliant triumph of

the captain.

The last of the three brigantines had just entered the port when the

rattle of arquebus shots resounded from behind the rocks which bordered

the beach to the right of where the Rochelois women were assembled. It

rained bullets. Women and children, mortally wounded, dropped dead

around Theresa and Cornelia. The unexpected attack of the royalist

soldiers in ambush threw the unfortunate women into a panic. They had

come wholly unarmed, bent upon gathering clams along the beach, and not

looking for danger except from the batteries of Bayhead. It happened

that a part of that garrison consisted of troops of the guard of the

Duke of Anjou, under the command of the Marquis of Montbar, one of the

Prince's favorites, and the most noted debauchee of the whole royalist

army. So soon as he perceived the Rochelois women spread along the

beach, the Marquis set his soldiers in motion, ordered them to slide out

of the redoubt, and to creep noiselessly, under cover of the rocks and

of the shadows that they projected, with the object in view of

massacring a large number of the heroic women, whose intrepidity the

royalists had more than once tasted to their sorrow, and of seizing

several of them for the orgies of the Duke of Anjou's tent. Accordingly,

after unmasking his ambuscade by the first round of arquebus shots, the

Marquis of Montbar rushed with his soldiers upon the startled and

panic-stricken women, crying: "Kill all the old ones! Take the

handsomest and youngest prisoners! God's blood! You can easily

distinguish the pretty girls from the old and ugly! The moon is bright!"

The scene that followed was frightful to behold. Many of the "old" ones

were ruthlessly butchered, as ordered by the Catholic captain. Others,

having escaped the fire of the arquebuses and the ensuing carnage,

finding themselves unarmed, and unable to resist the soldiers, sought

safety in flight in the direction of the Two Mills Gate. Still others

stood their ground and defended themselves with the energy of despair

against the guards who sought to seize them. Among the latter was

Cornelia, who, in the turmoil, was separated from Theresa Rennepont as

both sought to reach the city. The Marquis of Montbar, happening to be

near where Cornelia was struggling in the hands of several soldiers, and

struck by the beauty of the girl, called out to his men: "Take care you

do not hurt her--keep her alive! God's blood, she is a royal morsel! I

reserve her for Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou."

Cornelia, whose wound was re-opened in her struggle with the soldiers,

felt herself losing strength and consciousness through loss of blood.

She fell in a faint at the feet of Montbar. By his orders two of his

guards raised her by her feet and shoulders, and carried her away like

a corpse. Several other Rochelois women, who were likewise carried off

captive to the Bayhead redoubt, now lying in ruins through Captain

Mirant's manoeuvre, were that night victims of the brutality of both

captains and soldiers. Finally many others succeeded in reaching the Two

Mills Gate at the moment that a company of Protestants, attracted by the

sound of arquebus shots, sallied from the city and were hastening to the

beach. Alas, it was too late! Already the inrushing tide was submerging

the dead and the dying victims of the royalist ambush. Already the water

reached the foot of the rocks and intercepted the progress of the

Rochelois. They could not pursue the enemy who, among other prisoners,

carried away the inanimate body of Captain Mirant's daughter at the very

hour that the daring mariner weighed anchor in the port of La Rochelle

amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants.

CHAPTER XII.

THE DUKE OF ANJOU.

The headquarters of the royal army were at the suburb of Font, now in

ruins. The Duke of Anjou, brother of King Charles IX, occupied at Font,

in the center of the royal encampment, a house that went by the name of

the "Reservoir," since within its yard lay the reservoir into which the

waters were gathered that the now destroyed aqueduct conducted into La

Rochelle. The Prince's headquarters, although wrecked by the war, were

repaired, and made fit for the royal guest, thanks to the industry of

his valets, who upholstered and equipped the ruins with a mass of

tapestries and furniture which the pack-mules carried in the wake of the

army. The Prince's oratory, where, either in sacrilegious derision, or

perhaps yielding to a mixture of fanaticism and lewdness, he both

performed his orisons and indulged his debaucheries, was tapestried in

violet velvet, garlanded with fringes that were gathered up by gold and

silver tassels. Daylight never penetrated the voluptuous retreat, which

only a vermillion chandelier illumined with its candles of perfumed wax.

On one side of the apartment stood a prayer-stool surmounted with an

ivory crucifix; on the opposite side was a thickly cushioned lounge. A

Turkish carpet covered the floor. A velvet portiere, closed at this

moment, communicated with an inside room.

It was about eight in the evening. Cornelia Mirant, captured on the

beach of La Rochelle the night before by the Marquis of Montbar, had

just been introduced by him into the oratory of the Duke of Anjou. A

feverish agitation imparted an unwonted glow to the countenance of the

young girl. Her eyes glistened; her beauty was particularly radiant; a

certain coquetish touch was noticeable in the arrangement of her hair;

her Rochelois clothing, torn to shreds during the previous night's

encounter, had been changed for a robe of poppy-red brocade. A broad

embroidered scarf supported and concealed her right hand. The wound she

received the day before on the neck had been dressed with care by one of

the Duke's own surgeons. Monsieur Montbar--a youth barely twenty years

of age, but whose delicate features were prematurely blighted by

incontinence--had exchanged his war armor for the apparel of the court.

His hair was artistically curled. From his ears hung a pair of earrings

encrusted with precious stones; jet black frills hung down from his

wrists and encased his hands; a short mantle was thrown over his

shoulders; tight-fitting hose and a toque garnished with a brooch of

rubies completed his dainty outfit. The Marquis had just brought

Cornelia into the oratory, and was saying to her: "My pretty saucebox,

you are now in the oratory of the Prince of Anjou, brother of our

well-beloved King Charles IX."

"One feels as if in a palace of fairies!" answered Cornelia looking

around with feigned and childish wonderment. "Oh, what splendid

tapestries! What gorgeous ornaments! It seems I must be dreaming,

monseigneur! Can it be possible that the Prince, so great a Prince,

deigns to cast his eyes upon so poor a girl as I?"

"Come, my pretty lassy, do not cast down your eyes. Be sincere--you

shall ever after feel the glory of having been, if but for one day, the

mistress of the King of France's brother. But what are you thinking

about?"

"Monseigneur, all this that is happening to me seems a dream. No! You

are making sport of a poor girl. Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou does not

think of me."

"You will see him in a minute, I assure you; he is just now in

conference with Fra Herve, his confessor." And turning towards the still

closed portiere, he proceeded: "I hear the curtains drawn back, and

steps in the neighboring room--it is monseigneur."

Hardly had the Marquis pronounced these last words when the drapery was

raised, giving passage to the Duke of Anjou. The Prince was then

twenty-eight years of age; overindulgence had weakened his gait, and

imparted to his effeminate physiognomy a wily aspect, and a suggestion

of cruelty and hypocrisy to his smile; added to this, excessive

ornamentation rendered his appearance trivial and even sinister.

Monsieur Montbar took a few steps towards the Duke, whispered in his ear

and pointed to Cornelia. The girl thrilled with suppressed emotion; her

right hand, hidden in the wide folds of her scarf, seemed to twitch

convulsively and involuntarily to rise to her bosom. She contemplated

the Prince with mixed horror and curiosity. Her eyes glistened, but she

quickly lowered them before the libidinous glance of the Prince, who,

while speaking with the Marquis, regarded her covetously. He said to his

favorite: "You are right, my pet; her beauty gives promise of great

delight; leave us alone; I may call you in again."

The Marquis of Montbar withdrew. Left alone with Cornelia, the Duke of

Anjou stepped to the lounge, stretched himself out upon it nonchalantly

with his head resting on the cushion, pulled a gold comfit-holder from

his pocket, took a pastille out of it, masticated it, and after a few

minutes of silent revery said to the Rochelois:

"Approach, my pretty girl!"

Cornelia raised her eyes heavenward. Her countenance became inspired. A

slight pallor overcast it. Her glistening eyes grew moist. Distress was

stamped on her features as she muttered to herself: "Adieu, father!

Adieu, Antonicq! The hour of self-sacrifice has sounded for me!"

Surprised at the immobility of Cornelia, whose face he could not see

distinctly, the Duke of Anjou sat up and repeated impatiently:

"Approach! You seem to be deaf, as well as mute. I told you to approach.

By God's death, hurry up! Come and lie down beside me!"

Cornelia, without the Prince's noticing her motions, disengaged her arm

from the folds of the scarf, and stepped deliberately towards the lounge

on which he had again stretched himself out. Again he motioned her to

approach, saying: "Come here, I tell you. I would fear to damn myself

forever by contact with such a satanic heretic as you, but for Fra

Herve's promise to give me absolution after our amorous encounter."

And rising from his soft lounge, the Prince opened his arms to Cornelia.

The girl approached; she bowed down; then, quick as thought she seized

the Duke by the hair with her left hand, at the same time drawing out of

the folds of her scarf her right hand armed with a short sharp steel

dagger with which she struck the Prince several blows in the region of

the heart, crying: "Die, butcher of my brothers! Die, cowardly assassin

of women and children!"

The Duke of Anjou wore under his jacket a coat of mail of steel so close

meshed and well tempered that Cornelia's dagger broke under the blows

that she dealt, while the frightened Prince called out for help,

gasping: "Murder! She assassinates me! Murder!"

At the Prince's cries and the noise of the struggle between them the

Marquis of Montbar, together with several domestics of the royal

household, hurried into the oratory, from the contiguous room where they

always stood in waiting; they flung themselves upon Cornelia and seized

her by the wrists, while the Prince, freed from the grasp of the brave

maid, ran livid and demented to his prayer-stool, where he threw himself

down upon his knees, and, with lips white with terror, shivering in

every part of his body, and with his teeth clattering in his head, he

stammered: "Almighty God, thanks be to Thee! Thou hast protected Thy

unworthy servitor!" And bending low, till his forehead touched the

ground, the terrified libertine smote his chest exclaiming: "_Mea culpa!

mea culpa! mea maxima culpa!_"[84]

While the Duke of Anjou was thus giving thanks to his God for having

escaped the dagger of the young Protestant girl, she, held firmly by the

seigneurs and retainers who heaped upon her insults and threats of

death, stood erect with proud front, defied them with steady eyes, and

preserved a disdainful silence. Holding himself responsible for the

conduct of the Huguenot girl, whom he had taken to his master's bed, the

Marquis of Montbar drew his sword and was about to run her through, when

the Prince, rising from his prayer-stool cried out: "Do not kill her, my

pet! Oh, no, she must not die so soon!"

The favorite re-sheathed his sword. The Duke of Anjou, now pale with

rage, staggered to his lounge and sat down. He wiped the perspiration

from his forehead, cast a look of implacable hatred upon Cornelia, and

after regarding her in silence for a moment, said: "Well, my pretty

lass--so you meant to assassinate me!"

"Yes--because you are the worthy son of Catherine De Medici, the worthy

brother of Charles IX; because you suborned an assassin to poison

Coligny!"

The Duke of Anjou remained unmoved, and remarked with a cruel smile:

"You are a resolute girl, resolute in word and deed. I came near

learning as much at my cost! What is your name?"

"Cornelia Mirant."

"What! You are the daughter of the mariner who last night almost threw

into utter ruins our Bayhead redoubt? You are the daughter of the

devilish Huguenot who has just revictualed La Rochelle?"

The Cordelier Fra Herve had just raised the portiere and was about to

step into the oratory, when he heard the young girl declare her name to

be Cornelia Mirant. The monk immediately stopped. Half-hidden by the

tapestry, he remained on the threshold of the room and listened to the

rest of the dialogue between the Huguenot girl and the Prince.

"You must be a girl of honorable habits. How came you to yield so

readily to the propositions of the Marquis?"

"In the hope of being able to strike you dead with the dagger that I

found in the tent of your officer," boldly answered Cornelia.

"A new Judith, you seem to see in me a modern Holofernes! Everything

about you breathes courage, honor, chastity. By God! I am becoming

interested in you. You have wished my death--well, I wish that you live.

So brave a girl should not die."

"What, monseigneur! Shall this wretch escape punishment!" cried the

Marquis of Montbar, while Cornelia thought to herself with a shudder: "I

dread the clemency of the son of Catherine De Medici more than I do his

ire."

"Yes, my pet," answered the Duke of Anjou to his minion; "to-day I am in

a merciful mood. I shall practice the evangelical morality of Jesus our

Savior; I shall return good for evil! I wish well to this haughty

republican girl, worthy of the days of Sparta and Rome! I wish the brave

girl so well that--here is my sentence: Pinion the virgin's arms firmly;

have her watched carefully in order that she may not do away with

herself; and then throw her to the common soldiers of the camp. By God's

death! The gay fellows will have a dainty repast! Take away from my

sight the immaculate virgin, who will not be a virgin much longer!"

"Oh! Mercy! Mercy! Death sooner! The most horrible death! Mercy!"

stammered Cornelia, aroused from her stupor; and dropping upon her knees

at the feet of the Duke of Anjou, she raised to him her hands in

supplication, and implored in heartrending accents: "Martyrdom! For

mercy's sake, martyrdom!"

The Prince turned to his favorites: "Let the pretty heretic be taken to

the garrison on the spot--on the spot, my pets. We shall follow and

witness the sport of our soldiers."

Already was Cornelia being dragged away when Fra Herve suddenly

interposed. The courtiers bowed low before the confessor of the Duke of

Anjou.

"My son," said the Cordelier, stepping straight towards the Prince,

"revoke the order you have given. The heretic should not be thrown to

the soldiers."

"Father," broke in the Duke of Anjou with exasperation, "are you aware

the girl tried to assassinate me?"

"I know it all--both the attempted crime and its failure. You shall

revoke your order."

"God's blood! Reverend Father, seeing you know it all, I declare,

notwithstanding my profound respect for you, that I insist upon my

revenge. My orders shall be executed."

"My son, you are but a child," answered Fra Herve in a tone of

disdainful superiority; and leaning towards the Prince the monk

whispered in his ear, while Cornelia, now recognizing Fra Herve,

shuddered from head to foot.

"I dreaded the clemency of the Prince--the monk's mercy terrifies me.

Oh, Lord God, my only hope lies in You!"

"As God lives, my reverend Father, you are right! I am but a child!"

cried the Duke of Anjou, beaming with infernal joy after listening to

the confidential remarks whispered to him by the monk. He then again

addressed his favorites: "Take the heretic girl to the reverend Father's

cell. But, good Father, keep a watchful eye upon her. Her life is now as

precious to you as to me."

Cornelia was led away upon the steps of the fratricidal monk.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE BILL IS PAID.

Fra Herve lived in the house of the Reservoir of the Font suburb in a

sort of cellar that was vaulted, somber and damp as a cave, and which

one time served as the direct communication to the aqueduct by means of

a stone staircase, closed from above by a trap door. The monk's gloomy

lodging was reached through a corridor that opened into one of the rooms

situated on the ground floor, and, since the siege, transformed into a

hall reserved for the officers of the Duke of Anjou.

The interior of Fra Herve's retreat revealed the austerity of the man's

cenobitic habits. A wooden box, filled with ashes and resembling a

coffin, served him for bed. A stool stood before a rough hewn table on

which were an hour-glass, a breviary, a skull and an iron lamp. The

latter cast a pale light over the cave, in a corner of which a heavy

trap door masked the now disused stone staircase, the entrance to which

had been walled from within by the royalists, in order to prevent a

surprise from that quarter, seeing the water was turned off.

Taken to the gloomy cell, Cornelia found herself alone with the monk.

She was aware there was no hope of escape or of mercy for her. The cell

had no issue other than the corridor that connected with the hall of the

Prince's officers of the guard, which was constantly crowded with the

Prince's retinue. Fra Herve's face was emaciated. His forehead, over

which a few locks of grey hair tumbled in disorder, was bony and

lustrous as the skull upon his table. Except for the somber luster of

his hollow eyes, one would at first sight take the scarred and fleshless

head of the monk for that of a corpse. He was seated on the stool.

Cornelia, standing before him, shuddered with horror. She found herself

alone with the monster who, at the battle of Roche-la-Belle, cut the

throat of Odelin, the father of Antonicq, her betrothed. Fra Herve

remained meditative for a moment, and then addressed the young girl in a

hollow voice:

"You are aware of the fate that Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou reserved

for you in punishment for your attempted murder? You were to be thrown

to the soldiers of the garrison--"

"I am in your power--what do you want of me?" interrupted Cornelia.

"The salvation of your soul."

"My soul belongs to God. I have lived and I shall die in my faith, and

in execration for the Catholic church."

"This is but another evidence of the impiousness of the Lebrenn family,

a family of reprobates, of accursed people, to whom this poor creature

was soon to be joined by even closer bonds than those that already join

her to them!"

"What! You know--?"

"A Rochelois prisoner informed me that you were the betrothed of

Antonicq, the son of him who was my brother."

"Monk, I shall not invoke to you the bonds of family--you have reddened

your hands with your brother's blood. I shall not invoke your pity--you

are pitiless. But, seeing that no heretics have been burnt for quite a

while, I hope you will consent to cause me to be condemned to the pyre

for a hardened heretic. I abhor the Pope, his Church and his priests! I

abhor them as I do Kings. I execrate all monks, and the whole tonsured

fraternity."

Cornelia calculated upon exasperating the Cordelier to fury, and thus to

wrest from him the order to be taken to immediate execution--her only

refuge from the threats of the Duke of Anjou. But the unfortunate girl

deceived herself. Fra Herve listened to her impassively, and resumed:

"You are cunning. You aspire to martyrdom because death will protect you

from the outrage that you fear. I am not your dupe. There will be no

pyre for you!"

"Woe is me!" murmured the young girl, seeing her last hope dashed. "Woe

is me! I am lost!"

"You are saved--if you will!" Fra Herve proceeded to say.

"What do I hear?" cried Cornelia perceiving a new glimmer of hope. "What

must I do? Speak!"

"Publicly abjure your heresy! Renounce Satan and your father! Humbly

implore our holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church to receive you into

her bosom at her mercy and discretion. The soilure, now upon you, being

washed off, you shall take the eternal vows and shall bury in the shadow

of the cloister the criminal life you have led in the past. Choose:

either immediate abjuration, or--to the soldiers. These pious Catholics

will slake their amorousness upon you."

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Cornelia, seized with terror, and her

head reeling. "Am I awake? Am I dreaming? Can a man, a priest, outrage a

woman's modesty to such an extent? A curse upon you, wretch!"

"What audacity! 'Outrage' a 'woman'!" put in Fra Herve with a wild and

diabolical guffaw. "Is there such a thing as a heretic being a

'_woman_'? No! A heretic is a female, like the she-wolf in the jungle.

Is there such a thing as outrage with a she-wolf?"

"Mercy!" stammered Cornelia in despair. "Have mercy upon me!"

"No mercy!" answered Fra Herve sententiously. "You shall enter a

cloister, or--you shall be given over to the lust of the soldiers. It

shall be so! And now, keep your eyes upon this hour-glass," added the

monk, pointing to the instrument for marking time that stood near the

dead man's skull. "Should you, when the water is run down, not have

decided instantly to abjure and to depart this very night to a convent,

you shall be delivered to the Catholic soldiers!"

And the monk, resting his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand,

remained silent as he looked with fixed eyes at the running of the water

from the upper into the lower bulb of the clepsydra, while fondling his

heavy chaplet with the hand that remained free.

"What am I to do?" the Protestant girl asked herself. "What am I to do

in this extremity? Almighty God, have mercy upon me!"

"One-half of the water has run down!" observed Fra Herve in his

sepulchral voice. "Decide! There is still time!"

At the lugubrious announcement Cornelia's mind began to wander; still,

one lucid thought rose clear above the growing vertigo that obsessed the

young girl's thoughts--the thought of putting an end to her life. Her

bewildered eyes sought to penetrate here and there the dark recesses of

the cell, which the dim light of the lamp threw heavily into the shade.

They sought mechanically for some article that she might use as a weapon

with which to inflict death upon herself. Suddenly Cornelia's eyes

bulged out in amazement. She held her breath and remained petrified,

thinking herself the sport of a vision. Fra Herve, because of his eyes

being fixed upon the hour-glass and his back turned to the trap door

that masked the stone stairs leading to the aqueduct, could not take in

what was happening. But Cornelia saw the trap door rise noiselessly,

inexplicably; presently, in the measure that it rose, the two hands and

then the two arms that raised it heaved in sight; simultaneously there

appeared the top of an iron casque, and an instant later the face under

the casque--and Cornelia recognized Antonicq--her betrothed, Antonicq

Lebrenn!

"The water will run out before you have time to say an _Ave_," warned

the Cordelier in a hollow voice, without removing his eyes from the

clepsydra, and he added: "Heretic! Heretic! Make haste! Abjure your

idolatry! If not you shall be thrown to the soldiers, you shall be given

to the good Catholics of the whole army!"

The imminence of the danger and the prospect of safety restored the

young girl's presence of mind. The instant her eyes discovered her

betrothed she became silent, motionless, watchful. The last threats of

the monk reached Antonicq's ears at the moment when he had completely

raised the trap door, and wrung from him despite himself an exclamation

of fury. Fra Herve turned sharply around and bounded from his seat in

bewilderment at the sight of the young man leaping into the room from

underground. Cornelia, in full control of herself, and remembering that

the monk's cell was separated from the hall of the officers of the guard

by a short corridor of only about twenty paces, ran back to the door

that opened on the corridor intending to close it, and bolt it from

within. Fra Herve divined the young girl's purpose, and, meaning to

prevent it, precipitated himself upon her. That instant Antonicq reached

his betrothed, disengaged her from the clutches of the monk, seized him

by the shoulders and flung him back violently. Free once more, Cornelia

quickly carried out her purpose. She closed the door gently, and bolted

and barred it from within, thus shielding herself and Antonicq behind a

barrier that the officers of the Duke of Anjou would consume

considerable time before they could succeed in breaking down. At the

very moment that Cornelia closed the door Fra Herve sounded the alarm

in a sufficiently penetrating voice to be heard in the hall of the

guards:

"Help! Treason! To arms! Help! The Huguenots!"

But instantly the Cordelier's voice expired upon his lips. A vigorous

hand seized him by the throat, the blade of a dagger shone in the air

and twice plunged into the fratricide's breast. He fell over backward,

bathed in his own blood, straightened himself for an instant, foamed at

the mouth, and breathed his last;--and a muffled voice cried

"_Twenty-five_--the bill is paid. Now I can die in peace. My sister and

her daughter are avenged! The ransom of the crime is paid in full."

The Franc-Taupin had emerged from under ground after Antonicq, and

preceded Captain Mirant, who rushed to his daughter's embrace while the

Franc-Taupin stabbed the fratricidal monk to death.

"Let us flee!" said Cornelia to her father and her betrothed, after

responding to their demonstrations of tenderness. "The monk's cries

reached the hall of the guards at the head of the corridor. I hear them

coming. Do you hear those steps? The sound of those approaching voices?"

"We have nothing to fear. Your presence of mind, my dear girl, has

insured our safe retreat. They will find it no easy task to enter the

cell. The door is thick, the bolt solid," remarked the Franc-Taupin,

examining and fastening more tightly the bolt with imperturbable

calmness. "Cornelia, Antonicq, and you, Captain Mirant, descend to the

aqueduct quickly, and wait for me just this side of the mine that I

planted in the underground passage, and near which Master Barbot and

the sailors are waiting for our signal."

Turning to Serpentin, the apprentice, who also came in after Captain

Mirant the Franc-Taupin said:

"Come here, my gay fellow--bring me the little machine and implements.

We shall serve up a peppery broth to the royalists."

Cornelia, her father and Antonicq hastened to descend the stairs of the

underground passage that the trap door masked. Hardly had they

disappeared, leaving the Franc-Taupin and the apprentice behind in Fra

Herve's cell, when they heard violent knocks given at the door, and a

confused noise of voices calling out:

"Fra Herve! Fra Herve!"

The Marquis of Montbar was heard saying: "A minute ago he cried: 'Help!

Treason!' He now makes no answer. The witch may have strangled the

reverend Father!"

And the voices outside continued to cry tumultuously: "Fra Herve! Fra

Herve! We can not get in! The door is bolted from within. The devil take

it! Open to us, Fra Herve! We come to help you!"

"Quick! Bring levers and an axe--or, better yet, let us break in the

door!" the voice of the Marquis of Montbar was again heard to say. "Run

for a company of my soldiers! We shall wait here. Hurry up!"

"Oh! Oh!" observed the Franc-Taupin, after silently listening to the

observations from the other side of the door, to which he had glued his

ears. "The royalists are inviting themselves in large numbers to the

banquet that I am preparing for them! And why not? When there is broth

for five guests, there is enough for ten, if the housekeeper is

economical. Just wait, my friends! My broth is cooking! It is so

toothsome that a single spoonful will do the work for twenty or thirty

persons."

"Master Josephin, here are the implements and the little machine," said

Serpentin in a low voice, as he drew out of a bag that he brought

suspended from his shoulders and handed over to the Franc-Taupin a heavy

iron box about one foot long and six inches high and wide. The box,

filled full with powder, was pierced in the center by a narrow slit

through which a sulphured fuse was inserted. The Franc-Taupin took in

his hands the redoubtable petard, examined the structure of the door

minutely, and after a moment's reflection inserted the iron box with no

little difficulty under the lower hinge. The Franc-Taupin then rose, and

patting the apprentice upon the cheek said to him in a low voice:

"Tell me, my lad, why do I place the little machine so tightly between

the floor and the hinge?"

Serpentin reflected for a moment, scratched his ear, and then reeled off

his answer after the fashion of a boy who recites his lesson:

"Master, you place the little machine in that way in order that, when it

blows up, it may tear up the door along with the hinge; the torn up

hinge will tear up the masonry in which it is fastened; the torn up

masonry will tear up a part of the wall; and the torn up wall will bring

down the ceiling. As a result of all this the debris will roll down

upon the St. Bartholomew lambkins, whose flesh will have been scratched

by the flying fragments of the little machine which will have been

hurled in all directions, and will have whistled and ricocheted like

artillery balls."

"Wise--wise answer, my lad," observed the Franc-Taupin pinching the

apprentice's ear with a satisfied look. "Continue to profit by my

lessons in this manner, and you will become an accomplished miner, and

you then will be able to contribute handsomely towards the scattering

into fragments of a goodly number of papists and royalists. Now, off

with you, hurry down the stone steps, and wait for me at the bottom."

Serpentin obeyed. The Franc-Taupin knelt down at the threshold of the

door, took from his belt a horn of powder and spilt along the floor a

sufficient quantity to quite cover up the fuse. Thereupon, retreating on

his knees, he laid down a long train of powder. The train skirted Fra

Herve's corpse and ended at the opening of the trap door, down which he

descended. Josephin stopped on the stair so that only his head appeared

above the level of the flooring. Listening in the direction of the door,

behind which he could hear a confused noise of voices, he said to

himself: "The Catholic vermin is swarming behind the door, but I still

have time to cut my _twenty-fifth_ notch."

He took the little stick which he habitually carried hung on a string

from a buttonhole of his jacket, pulled out his dagger, and cutting into

the wood, the aged soldier said:

"Hena, my sister's daughter, was plunged twenty-five times into the

flames by the priests of the Church of Rome. I have just put to death

my twenty-fifth Roman Catholic and Apostolic priest!"

As he murmured these words to himself, Josephin contemplated the corpse

of Fra Herve, stretched out upon his back in a pool of blood, with

stiffened arms, clenched fists and half bent knees. The light from the

lamp shed its pale luster upon the monk's face upon which the agony of

death was still stamped. The jaws were close set; foam oozed out at the

lips; the corpse's glassy and fixed eyes still seemed to preserve their

threatening aspect from the depth of their cavities.

"Oh!" exclaimed the Franc-Taupin with a terrible sigh, "How many times,

alas! how very many times, seated at the hearth of my poor sister, when

the unfortunate being who lies there dead and still foaming at his mouth

with rage was a little boy, how often I took him and his younger brother

Odelin upon my knees! caressed their little blonde heads! kissed their

plump cheeks! Joining in their infantine amusements, I entertained them,

I gladdened them with my Franc-Taupin songs! In those days Herve

equalled his brother in the gentleness of his character and the kindness

of his heart. The two were the joy, the pride, the hope of my sister and

of Christian! But one day a monk, a demon, Fra Girard, took possession

of the mind of unhappy Herve, dominated it, led it astray, corrupted it,

and debased it forever! Oh! priests of Rome! priests of Rome! A curse

upon you! Alas! out of the sweet boy, whom I loved so dearly, you made a

bloodthirsty fanatic, a wrathful madman, a fratricide--and it became my

duty to smite him with my dagger--him--him--my own sister's child!"

The Franc-Taupin was drawn from his revery by the ringing sound of blows

struck with maces and the butts of arquebuses against the door from

without, and splintering its woodwork, while, rising above the tumult,

the voice of the Marquis of Montbar was heard crying: "To work! Strike

hard! Harder still! Break in the door!"

"Well! The hour has come for the St. Bartholomew lambkins to dance in

the air!" said the Franc-Taupin. Without hurrying, without losing his

calmness, he pulled from his pocket a tinder box, a wick and a flint and

steel. Striking upon the flint with the iron, he hummed between his

teeth the old song that the memories of Odelin's and Herve's infancy had

recalled to his mind:

"A Franc-Taupin had an ash-tree bow,

All eaten with worms, and all knotted its cord;

His arrow was made out of paper, and plumed,

And tipped at the end with a capon's spur.

_Derideron, vignette on vignon! Derideron!_"

During the song of the old soldier, who calmly continued to strike at

the flint, the blows aimed at the door redoubled in violence. Presently

it was heard to crack, yield, break, and one of its fragments fell

inside the apartment. Immediately thereupon Josephin applied the lighted

wick to the train of powder and vanished underground letting down the

heavy trap door over his head. The train of powder took fire, shot along

its course as rapid as a flash of lightning, and reached the fuse of

the petard, which exploded with a great crash at the very moment when

the door, finally broken through, offered a passage to the Marquis of

Montbar, closely followed by his henchmen. Like himself, they were blown

up, mutilated or killed by the fragments of the iron box which flew into

pieces. The masonry of the door, being torn down by the explosion,

ripped the rest of the wall after it, bringing down the ceiling which

fell in a heap upon the heads of the royalists.

Cornelia, Antonicq, Master Barbot, Captain Mirant and six resolute

mariners who accompanied him but whose help was not needed, were soon

joined at the bottom of the aqueduct by the apprentice and the

Franc-Taupin. Josephin forthwith blew up the mine that he had laid at

that place in order completely to obstruct the passage of the royalists

in case they attempted to pursue the fugitives. The whole party soon

arrived safe and sound at La Rochelle, where they met Louis Rennepont

and his wife, a prey to mortal anxiety upon the issue of the enterprise,

which had that morning been planned, upon Theresa's bringing back from

the beach the news of Cornelia's capture and reservation for the Duke of

Anjou.

* * * * *

The bloody defeat, sustained by the royalists at the assault of the

Bastion of the Evangelium, was the presage of the raising of the siege

of La Rochelle. After two other stubbornly contested encounters, at

which the royalist forces were again repulsed, the Duke of Anjou

commissioned several seigneurs as parliamentarians to the Rochelois

with propositions of peace. The majority of the City Council took the

stand that the Huguenots refused to lay down arms until a new royal

edict consecrated their rights and their liberty. The minority of the

City Council, aware of the worthlessness of all royal edicts, favored

breaking with royalty for all time. The view of the majority prevailed.

Commissioners were appointed by both sides, to agree upon the bases of a

new edict. The Catholic commissioners were the Seigneur of La Vauguyon,

Rene of Villequier, Francis of La Baume, the Count of Suze, the Seigneur

of Malicorne, Marshal Montluc, Armand of Gontaut-Biron, and the Count of

Retz. The Rochelois commissioners were two bourgeois, Morrisson the

Mayor, and Captain Gargouillaud. The reformers stoutly maintained their

position, and stipulated for the same, not in the name of their own city

only, but in the name of all the reformers of the Protestant Republican

Union. These stipulations were subsequently rejected by the Union, so

soon as they became known, upon the just ground of the rest of the

Union's not having been consulted, and of its declining to recognize the

royal authority. Thus, thanks to their bold insurrection and their

heroic resistance the Rochelois imposed upon Charles IX the new edict of

July 15, 1573. This edict consecrated and extended all the rights

previously conquered by the reformers. A clause in this edict, which was

a crushing document to the Catholic party, provided: "That all armed

insurrections which took place AFTER THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 23, 1572, are

amnestied." Thus Charles IX was made to admit that the reformers had

justly drawn the sword to avenge the crime of St. Bartholomew's night!

Thus the siege of La Rochelle was disgracefully raised by the Catholic

army. This expedition cost the King immense sums of money, and he lost

in the course of the several assaults upon the city, and also from

sickness, about twenty-two thousand men. Among the seigneurs and

captains killed during the siege were the Duke of Aumale, Clermont,

Tallard, Cosseins, Du Guast, etc., besides over three hundred subaltern

officers.

Thus you see, Oh, sons of Joel! the glorious issue to the Rochelois of

the siege of their city once more consecrates this truth, so often

inscribed in the annals of our plebeian family: "Never falter! Let us

struggle, let us battle without flagging. It is fatedly decreed that,

only and ever through force, arms in hand, through INSURRECTION, we can

conquer our freedom and our rights, which are ever denied to us, ignored

and violated by our eternal foes--ROYALTY AND THE CHURCH OF ROME."

EPILOGUE.

On this day, the 29th of September, 1609, I, Antonicq Lebrenn, now in my

sixty-first year, close, on our farm of Karnak, this legend of our

family, which is the continuation of the narrative written and

bequeathed to us by my grandfather Christian the printer and friend of

Robert Estienne.

Immediately upon the raising of the siege of La Rochelle I married

Cornelia Mirant. Shortly after I put into execution a project that I had

long been fondly nursing--that of moving to Brittany and establishing

myself in the neighborhood of the cradle of my family. Before leaving La

Rochelle, Colonel Plouernel, who recovered from his wounds sustained in

the siege, renewed his offer of leasing out to me a farm belonging to

the seigniorial estate of Mezlean, a patrimony of his wife's father, and

known as the Karnak farm by reason of its being in the close

neighborhood of the druid stones that bear that name. These stones are

still extant, ranged in wide avenues, as they stood in the days of

Julius Caesar, when our ancestress Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen,

offered herself to the gods as a holocaust, in the hope of causing them

to render the arms of the Gauls victorious in their impending struggle

for independence. I accepted Colonel Plouernel's offer, an offer that

also pleased Cornelia and her father, who, as he continued almost

constantly to travel by water between La Rochelle and Vannes, a port

located near Karnak, foresaw, as happened in fact, that he would spend

near us all the time that he did not spend aboard ship. I sold my

armorer's shop. Leaving my sister Theresa and her husband Louis

Rennepont at La Rochelle, where the latter practiced the profession of

law, and taking with us my uncle the Franc-Taupin, who promised to

himself the pleasure of rocking our children on his knees and singing to

them his Franc-Taupin songs, as he had done to my father Odelin, my

ill-starred aunt Hena, and my uncle Herve of sad memory, we departed

from La Rochelle and settled down on our farm of Karnak on October 20 of

the year 1573.

My sister Theresa and her husband Louis Rennepont still reside in the

old Protestant city. Every year they come to see us. Thanks to the

numerous trips that his profession compelled him to make to Paris, my

brother-in-law came in contact with several Huguenots who were well

informed on current events. His conversations with them, together with

extracts from several books that were published concerning leading

public men and important occurrences, furnished him with copious

materials which he left with me. These materials enable me here to make

a summary sketch of the leading events since the siege of La Rochelle

was raised:

The edict of pacification of La Rochelle was not wholly satisfactory to

the Huguenots of the other provinces. The example of the Low Countries,

then in successful revolt against the monarchic-clerical power of Spain,

and organized upon the republican pattern, inspired their brothers in

France to renewed efforts. The "Politicals" gained new recruits every

day. The Prince of Conde, ashamed of his act of desertion, fled the

court and issued a manifesto from Strasburg repudiating his abjuration.

Measures were in train to renew the war, and to overthrow Charles IX,

when his death gave a new turn to affairs.

The monster expired in 1574, barely twenty-four years of age and haunted

by his bloody deeds. "Oh! nurse, nurse!" he would cry in agonies of

terror; "Oh! nurse, how much blood--it is St. Bartholomew's blood! Oh!

how many murders--how many victims struggling to escape under the sword.

I see them--Oh! what wicked councillors I had! Oh, God! Oh, God! have

mercy upon me!"[85]

Charles IX was followed by his brother the Duke of Anjou, who, in the

meantime, had been elected King of Poland. Apprized by his mother of his

brother's decease, he fled his Polish kingdom, and mounted the French

throne under the name of Henry III. True to his family traditions, Henry

III sought at first to violate the Edict of La Rochelle. Finding this

act of treachery unfeasible, he vacillated between extreme reaction and

progress. This course earned for him the suspicion of the Catholic

clergy and he was assassinated by a Dominican monk, James Clement, in

1589.

War again broke out, with Henry of Bearn now at the head of the

Huguenots, to whom he returned during the reign of Henry III. Henry of

Bearn now claimed the crown by inheritance as Henry IV, besieged Paris,

and was finally crowned, but not until he once more abjured

Protestantism. His reign was benign and favorable to the Reformation. In

1598 the Edict of Nantes was signed, granting the Huguenots absolute

freedom of conscience. The policy of Henry IV enraged the priesthood,

and he also fell a victim to the assassin's knife. The assassin's name

was Francis Ravaillac. "Nine days after the death of Henry IV, on

Tuesday, May 23, 1610, an altercation took place between Monsieur

Leomenie and Father Cotton in full council. Leomenie said to the Jesuit

that it was he _and his Society of Jesus that murdered the King_. On

that same day, Ravaillac, being interrogated by the commission, answered

_in accordance with the maxims of the Jesuits Mariana, Becanus and

others, whose writings recommend the killing of a tyrant_."

The death of Henry IV conjured away the danger that Rome, the Empire and

Spain saw themselves threatened with--the Christian Republic and the

perpetual peace of Europe. The fresh murder, also committed at the

instigation of the disciples of Loyola, had fatal consequences. But

sooner or later Right triumphs over Wrong, Justice over Iniquity.

Therefore, Oh, sons of Joel! no faltering. Some day the Universal

Republic will unfurl the red banner of freedom, and will break the yoke

both of the Roman Church and of this royalty that has oppressed Gaul

for so many centuries.

As to our own family, Cornelia Mirant with whom I have now been married

thirty-seven years, gave me after twenty years of our wedded life, a son

whom I have named Stephan. We have lived on our farm near the sacred

stones of Karnak, and not far from Craigh, the high hill upon which,

according to our family traditions, stood the house of our ancestor Joel

in the days of Julius Caesar. My uncle the Franc-Taupin remained with us

to the end of his long and eventful life. He died on the 12th of

November, 1589.

My brother-in-law Louis Rennepont continues to exercise his profession

at La Rochelle. The youngest of his sons, Marius Rennepont, embraced the

career of merchant mariner and sailed away, when still very young, on

board a merchant vessel commanded by one of Captain Mirant's friends.

Captain Mirant died in 1593. That same year we lost our old friend

Master Barbot, the boilermaker of the isle of Rhe.

I preserved amicable relations to the end with Colonel Plouernel, since

the battle of Roche-la-Belle the head of his house. Shortly before his

death we visited upon his invitation the old Castle of Plouernel, where

our ancestor Den-Brao the mason was buried alive together with other

serfs in the donjon constructed by themselves, and out of which Fergan

the Quarryman, Den-Brao's son, rescued his own child, a poor boy whose

blood was to assist the incantations of Azenor the Pale, the mistress of

Neroweg VI. Nothing is left to-day of that feudal edifice but imposing

ruins. Its place is now taken by a magnificent castle built in the style

of the Renaissance, and raised at the foot of the mountain. Colonel

Plouernel's son remained faithful to the Reformed religion, but, after

his death, his son abjured Protestantism and took up his residence at

the court of Louis XIII, the successor of Henry IV, with whom he became

a favorite. The new head of the family never returned to his own castle,

which, together with the vast domains attached to it, is ruled by the

bailiffs of the seigniories of Plouernel and Mezlean.

Once, on the occasion of a trip to the port of Vannes, I met a traveler

just arrived from Germany, who informed me of the death of Prince

Charles of Gerolstein, a descendant of one of the branches of our

plebeian family whose ancestor was Gaelo, one of the companions of old

Rolf, the chief of the Northman pirates. Prince Charles left a son

behind, heir of his principality, who remains faithful to the Reformed

religion.

Our life has run peaceful and happy at this place. We cultivate our

fields, and they satisfy our wants. My son Stephan, now sixteen years of

age, helps me in my field labors. He is of a kind, timid and diffident

disposition, although born of so intrepid a mother as Cornelia. He will,

I hope, live peacefully here, unless the civil discords, which already

begin to threaten the minority of Louis XIII, should extend into

Brittany.

I shall here close this narrative which my grandfather Christian the

printer began under the reign of Francis I. I shall join it to the

archives and relics of our family together with the pocket Bible printed

by my grandfather, and which his daughter Hena, baptized in religion

Sister St. Frances-in-the-Tomb, held in her hands before she was plunged

twenty-five times into the flames on the 21st of January, 1535, under

the eyes of King Francis I, to the greater glory of the Roman Catholic

and Apostolic Church.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Tire-Laines means literally Wool-Pluckers.

[2] Tire-Soies: literally Silk-Pluckers.

[3] Mauvais-Garcons; literally Bad Boys.

[4]

From the bowels of the earth I have cried up to thee, O, Lord;

O, Lord, give ear unto my voice.

May thy ears be ready to listen

To the voice of my supplications.

[5] This whole sermon la a reproduction from the records of the time.

See Merle d'Aubigne, _History of the Reformation in the XVI Century_,

vol. 1. p. 332. (Pp. 86, 87, edition H. W. Hagemann Publishing Co., New

York, 1894.)

[6] We consider it our duty to cite literally the monstrous fact against

which the heart rises in revolt, and reason feels indignant:

"Sub commissariis insuper ac praedicatoribus veniarum imponere ut si

quis, per impossibile. _Dei genetricem_, semper virginem violasset, quod

eundem indulgentiarum vigore absolvere posset luce clarius

est...."--(l'ositiones fratris J. Tezelil, quibus defendit indulgentias

contra Lutherum. Theses 99, 100 and 101). Cited by Merle d'Aubigne,

_History of the Reformation in the XVI Century_, p. 86, edition H. W.

Hagemann Publishing Co., New York, 1894.

[7] Merle d'Aubigne. _History of the Reformation in the XVI Century_,

vol. I, pp. 328, 329. (P. 88, edition H. W. Hagemann Publishing Co., New

York, 1894.)

[8] The seat of the University of Paris.

[9] For these horrible calumnies spread by the clergy against the

Reformation, see De Thou, vol. I, book II, p. 97.

[10] In Spanish, as well as French, "woman" and "wife" are the same

word. Loyola punned upon the word.

[11] For a thrilling account of one of these invasions, see "The Iron

Arrow Head," the tenth of this series.

[12] "Executio ad alios pertinet."--Bellarmin, vol. I, chap. VII, p.

147.

[13] Mariana, _De Rege, vol. I_, chap. VI, p. 60.

[14] "'Alas', the monk explained, ' ... men have arrived at such a pitch

of corruption now-a-days, that unable to make them come to us, we must

e'en go to them, otherwise they would cast us off altogether; ... our

casuists have taken under consideration the vices to which people of

various conditions are most addicted, with a view of laying down maxims

which ... are so gentle that he must be a very impracticable subject

indeed who is not pleased with them.'"--Blaise Pascal, _Letters to a

Provincial_, Letter VI, pp. 219, 220, edition Houghton, Osgood & Co.,

Boston, 1880.

[15] _Practice According to the School of the Society of Jesus (Praxis

ex Societatis Jesu Schola)._ The passage reads: "Si habitum dimmittat ut

furetur occulte, vel fornicetur."--Treatise 6, example 7, number 103.

Also in Diana: "Ut eat incognitus ad lupanar."--Cited by Blaise Pascal,

_Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VI, p. 215, edition Houghton, Osgood &

Co., Boston, 1880.

[16] Father Gaspar Hurtado, _On the Subject of Sins (De Sub. Pecc._),

diff. 9; Diana, p. 5; treatise 14, r. 99.--Cited by Blaise Pascal,

_Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VII, p. 234, edition Houghton, Osgood

& Co., Boston, 1880.

[17] Father Anthony Escobar of Mendoza, _Exposition of Uncontroverted

Opinions in Moral Theology_, treatise 7, example 4, no. 223.--Cited by

Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VI, p. 226, edition Houghton,

Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[18] Father Etienne Bauny, _Summary of Sins_ (1633), sixth edition, pp.

213, 214.--Cited by Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VI, p.

226, edition Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[19] "Non ut malum pro malo reddat, sed ut conservet honorem." are the

words of Reginaldus, in _Practice According to the School of the Society

of Jesus_, book 21, no. 62, p. 260. Also Lessius, _Concerning Justice

(De Justitia)_, book 2, chap. 9, division 12, no. 79.--Cited by Pascal,

_Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VII, pp. 233, 234, edition Houghton,

Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[20] Sanchez, _Moral Theology_, book 2, chap. 39, no. 7.--Cited by

Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VII, p. 237, edition Houghton,

Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[21] Molina, vol. 1, treatise 2, division 88, no. 6. Also Escobar,

_Moral Theology_, treatise 6, example 6, no. 48.--Cited by Pascal,

_Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VIII, pp. 249, 250, edition Houghton,

Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[22] Father Bauny, _Summary of Sins_, chap. 14.--Cited by Pascal,

_Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VIII, p. 252, edition Houghton, Osgood

& Co., Boston, 1880.

[23] "Media benevolentia."--Escobar, _Moral Theology_, treatise 3,

example 5, no. 4.33,34.--Cited by Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_,

Letter VIII, p. 253, edition Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[24] Lessius, confirmed by Escobar, treatise 3, example 2, no.

163.--Cited by Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VIII, pp. 254,

255, edition Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[25] Lessius, book 2, chap. 14, division 8; approved and endorsed by

Escobar: "Quamvis mulier illicite acquirat, licite tamen retinet

acquisita." treatise 1, example 8, no. 59.--Cited by Pascal, _Letters to

a Provincial_, Letter VIII, pp. 257, 258, edition Houghton, Osgood &

Co., Boston, 1880.

[26] Lessius, book 2, chap. 14, division 8. Also Escobar, treatise 1,

example 9, no. 9.--Cited by Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_, Letter

VIII, p. 256, edition Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[27] Vasquez, _Treatise upon Alms_, chap. 4. So, also, Diana.--Cited by

Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VI, p. 214, edition Houghton,

Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[28] Escobar, treatise 3, example 1, no. 23; treatise 5, example 5, no.

53.--Cited by Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_, Letter VIII, p. 258,

edition Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[29] Sanchez, part 2, book 3, chap. 6, no. 13; Filiutius, treatise 25,

chap. 11, nos. 331, 328.--Cited by Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_,

Letter IX, pp. 276, 277, edition Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[30] Father Bauny, _Summary of Sins_, p. 148.--Cited by Pascal, _Letters

to a Provincial_, Letter IX, p. 279, edition Houghton, Osgood & Co.,

Boston, 1880.

[31] Escobar, chapter on thieving, treatise 1, example 9, no. 13.--Cited

by Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_, Letter IX, p. 281, edition

Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[32] "Ob naturalem fastus inclinationem"--Escobar, treatise 1, example

8, no. 5.--Cited by Pascal, _Letters to a Provincial_, Letter IX, pp.

279, 280, edition Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1880.

[33] Father Bauny, _Summary of Sins_, p. 165.--Alluded to by Pascal,

_Letters to a Provincial_, Letter IX, p. 279, edition Houghton, Osgood &

Co., Boston, 1880.

[34] To the greater glory of God.

[35] Confession of Faith of the English Reformers.--Theodore de Beze,

_Ecclesiastical Annals_, vol. 1, pp. 109-118.

[36] This charming passage is to be found in _The Book of Master Bernard

Palissy_; quoted in the _Protestant Review_, vol. I, p. 23.

[37] Form adopted by the Consistory

[38] Protestant marriage service, according to the Psalms of David;

translated into French by Clement Marot, Geneva.

[39] _History of the Town of Paris_, by Dom Felibien, of the

congregation of St. Maur; Paris, 1725, vol. V, p. 343. Also given in the

_Registers of the Town Hall of Paris_, and the _Registers of the

Parliaments_, folios 507-686.

[40] Dom Felibien, _History of the Town of Paris_, vol. V, pp. 343-347;

_French Ceremonial_, pp. 940 and following; _Registers of the Town Hall

of Paris_, etc.

[41] De Thou, _History of France_, book I, p. 271.

[42] These monstrosities seem to exceed the boundaries of the possible.

Let us quote literally the text of the historians:

"On the evening of the same day (January 21, 1535) the six culprits were

taken to the parvise of Notre Dame, where the fires were prepared to

burn them. Above the pyres rose a sort of scaffolding on which the

patients were tied fast. The fire was then lighted under them, and the

executioners, GENTLY slacking the rope of the lever, allowed the

miscreants to dip down to the level of the flames, in order that they be

caused to feel the sharpest smart; they were then raised up again, kept

hanging ablaze in midair, and, after having been several times put

through that painful torment, they were dropped into the flames where

they expired." (_History of France_ by Father Daniel of the Society of

Jesus, vol. IV, page 41, Paris, 1751.)

"On the said day (January 21, 1535) in the presence of the King, the

Queen and all the court, and after the aforesaid remonstrances, the six

heretics were brought forward to make the _amende honorable_ before the

church of Notre Dame of Paris, and immediately after they were burned

alive." (_Acts and Deeds of the Kings of France and England_, by Jean

Bouchet. Poitiers, 1557, in-folio, pp. 271-272.)

"In order to purge their sin, the said heretics were burned to death on

the said day (January 21, 1535) at several places, as the King passed

by, while in vain the poor sufferers cried and implored him for mercy."

(_History of the State of Religion_, by Jean Sleidan. 1557, vol. IX, p.

137). (Quotations from Catholic works.)

[43] _Exhortation of the King of France against the Heretics_, Jean

Bouchet, Poitiers, 1557, in-folio, p. 272.

[44] On the subject of this decree, which was later forcibly annulled,

see _Extracts of the Registers of the Parliament of Paris_, LXXVI, folio

113, collated and extracted by M. Taillandier.--Cited in the

introduction to the _History of the Printing Press in Paris, Memoirs of

the Society of Antiquaries_, vol. XII.

[45] It was no infrequent occurrence to cause the tongues of heretics to

be cut out, in order to prevent them from confessing aloud the

Evangelical doctrine as they marched to the stake.--See the following

citation, from Theodore of Beze.

[46] "Among those burnt at Paris that day, January 21, 1535, were: John

Dubourg, a merchant-draper of Paris, living in St. Denis Street, at the

sign of the Black Horse; Etienne Laforge, of Tournay, but long an

inhabitant of Paris, a man very rich and very charitable; a

schoolmistress named Mary La Catelle; and Anthony Poille, an architect

formerly of Meaux, and blessed of God in that he carried off the palm

among the martyrs, for having been the most cruelly treated. He had his

tongue cut out, as more fully it is set forth in the book of the

martyrs."--_Ecclesiastical Chronicles_, Theodore of Beze, vol. I, p. 1.

[47] "Jacques Bonhomme," literally Goodman Jack, or Jack Drudge.

[48] Contribution in forced labor.

[49] Latin: "Let us pray."

[50] Brantoine, _Illustrious Women_, vol. IX, p. 171.

[51] _Register Journal of L'Etoile_, p. 28.

[52] The queen's words are historical. The book was _Marvelous

Discourses on Catherine De Medici_, by Robert Estienne, Geneva, 1565.

[53] _Register Journal of L'Etoile_, p. 30.

[54] That was the familiar appellation at court of Princess Marguerite,

the daughter of Catherine of Medici and Henry II, so famous for her

excesses. She married Henry IV, who later divorced her.

[55] De Thou, _History of France_, book LXXIV, p. 240.

[56] _Register Journal of L'Etoile_, supplement, p. 57.

[57] _Register Journal of L'Etoile_, supplement, p. 198.

[58] _Register Journal of L'Etoile_, p. 234. It is impossible to cite in

full this all too true satire on the abominable morals of the court of

France in the sixteenth century.

[59] _Register Journal of L'Etoile_, supplement, pp. 236, 239.

[60] _Register Journal of L'Etoile_, supplement, p. 239.

[61] "Driven thereto by the Cardinal of Lorraine, who blamed the conduct

of the Duke of Anjou, the Queen came to the army in person in order to

enlighten herself upon the mistake of not having engaged battle before

the enemy's forces had effected a junction, that is, after the death of

the Duke of Deux-Ponts, who was poisoned by some wine presented to him

by a wine merchant of Avallon. Her Majesty wished to take the field with

Marshal Tavannes."--_Memoirs of Gaspard of Sault, Seigneur of Tavannes._

pp. 322-323.

[62] Letters of Pius V. March 23-April 13, 1569, at Catena--_Life Of

Pius_ V, p. 85.

[63] De Thou, _History of France_, LXXXV, p. 129.

[64] Machiavelli, _The Prince_, chap. 18.

[65] _Journal and Memoirs of Francis of Lorraine_, Duke of Aumale and of

Guise, containing the affairs of France and the negotiations with

Scotland, Italy and Germany, pp. 664-665.

[66] Exodus 21, 23-25.

[67] Morning prayer of the guard, 1569.--_Protestant Review_, vol. I, p.

105.

[68] The document, here reproduced, is the literal testament of Admiral

Coligny, taken from the original manuscripts of the National Library,

Collection of Puy, vol. LXXXI. This document, of so great a historic

value, was first published in full in 1852 by the Historical Society of

French Protestants, vol. I. p. 263. That which, in our estimation,

imparts a double interest to the testament, is the circumstance that it

was written by the Admiral during the war (June, 1569) after the battle

of Jarnac and before the battle of Montcontour.

[69] _Register Journal of L'Etoile_, p. 217. The original of this

monstrous letter was deposited among the manuscripts of the National

Library of France by decree of the Convention, the 11th, Ventose, year

II of the Republic. The immortal Constitutionals wished thus to nail

royalty once more to the pillory of history.

[70] "While the admiral was in camp, Dominic, one of his chamber valets,

convicted of having tried to poison his master, was hanged.... Having

been captured by La Riviere, captain of the guard of the Duke of Anjou,

he was overwhelmed with promises; he was made to expect everything, if

he would poison his master. Dominic yielded, received money and a

poisonous powder, and returned to the camp of Monsieur Coligny."--De

Thou, _History of France_, vol. V, p. 626-627. See the same historian on

the poisoning of the Duke of Deux-Ponts, of Dandolet, and others.

[71] Inhabitants of the fortified city of La Rochelle.

[72] For the details of this battle, see De Thou, vol. V. p. 500;

_Memoires of Gaspard of Sault_, Seigneur of Tavannes, vol. I, p. 323 and

following. _Memoires of Francis of Lanoue_, vol. I, p. 623, and

following.

[73] _Memories of the State of France under Charles IX_, vol. 1, pp.

5-12.

[74] "Contre-Un" (Against-One) is the title at a book written in the

sixteenth century by Estienne of La Boetie against monarchy.

[75] La Boetie is to-day known mainly through the friendship that united

him to Montaigne, and which inspired the latter to write one of his most

charming passages.

La Boetie was born in Sarlat, November 1, 1530; he died in Germignat,

near Bordeaux, August 18, 1563. He left several works, all of which are

to-day almost unknown. Unquestionably the most curious of his

productions is the one mentioned by Montaigne in these terms:

"My power of handling not being such that I dare to offer as a fine

piece richly painted and set off according to art, I have therefore

thought best to borrow one of Estienne of La Boetie, and such a one as

will honor and adorn all the rest of my work: namely, a discourse that

he called _Voluntary Servitude_, which others have since further

baptized the _Contre-Un_, a piece written in his younger years, by way

of essay, in honor of liberty against tyranny, and which has since been

in the hands of several men of great learning and judgment, not without

singular and merited commendation, for it is finely written and as full

as anything can possibly be."--Montaigne, Essays, Book I, chap. 27.

[76] An allusion to the Vision of Victoria, depicted in "The Casque's

Lark," the fifth of this series.

[77] It is certain that Admiral Coligny's head departed for Rome;

whether it ever arrived there is not known. Mandelot, the Governor of

Lyons, acknowledged receipt of a letter from Charles IX ordering the

nobleman "_to arrest the carrier of the head, and to take the same away

from him_."--Extracts from the correspondence of Mandelot, published by

M. Paulin, Paris, 1845, p. 119.

[78] Out of respect for our female readers we dare not here quote the

_Register Journal of L'Etoile_, page 81, where is found _in extenso_ the

conversation, marked by a savage obscenity, between the Queen and the

court ladies who accompanied her. The conversation is confirmed by all

contemporaneous historians.

[79] See "The Brass Bell," number two in this series.

[80] See "The Carlovingian Coins," the ninth of this series.

[81] See, on the siege of La Rochelle, the daring manoeuvres of Captain

Mirant; the combat sustained by Barbot the boilermaker, single-handed

against two companies; the firing of the stranded ship _L'Ensensoir_ by

the Rochelois women, and their heroism in the combats in which they took

part, _History of La Rochelle and of the Country of Aunis_, by Arcere

1756, 2 vols. in quarto. I refer my readers to that excellent work in

order that those who would wish to certify the facts may see that all

the episodes herein narrated concerning the siege of La Rochelle are

strictly historic.

[82] As thrillingly recounted in "The Pilgrim's Shell," the twelfth work

of this series.

[83] As an instance of the proud and noble bearing of the staunch

republicans in this Council, the story is told that when it was found

that in the passport issued by the Duke of Anjou the Rochelois were

designated as "rebels," they refused to accept it, and Anjou was forced

to send another passport.--_History of La Rochelle_, by Arcere, p. 417.

[84] "I am guilty, I am guilty, I am very guilty."

[85] _Register Journal of L'Etoile_, p. 34.