THE DEATH OF THE PERSECUTED.
When the flight had been conducted for about two miles in the midst of
the perfect darkness which surrounded the whole scene--for the lights
and torches which had appeared in the town had been extinguished with
the exception of one or two, on leaving it--the voice which had before
addressed Clemence de Marly again spoke nearer, apparently giving
command, as some one in authority over the others.
"Where is the litter?" he exclaimed.--"Where is the litter that was
brought for the good minister? Bring it hither: he will be more easy
in that."
Clemence had kept as near as she could to the spot where Claude de
l'Estang was carried, and she now heard him answer in a faint and
feeble voice,--
"Do not move me: in pity do not move me. My limbs are so strained and
dislocated by the rack, that the slightest movement pains me. Carry me
as I am, if you will; but move me not from this bed."
"Well, then, place these two ladies in the litter," said the same
voice. "We shall go faster then."
Without asking her consent, Clemence de Marly was placed in the small
hand-litter which had been brought for the pastor; her maid took the
place by her side, and, lifted on the shoulders of four men, she was
carried on more quickly, gaining a faint and indistinct view of what
was passing around, from the more elevated situation in which she now
was.
They were mounting slowly the side of the hill, about two miles from
the town of Thouars, and she could catch a distant view of the dark
towers and masses of the town as it then existed, rising above the
objects around. From thence, as far as her eye was able to
distinguish, a stream of people was flowing on all along the road to
the very spot where she was, and several detached parties were seen
here and there, crossing the different eminences on either side, so
that the force assembled must have been very considerable. She
listened eagerly for any sound from the direction of Thouars,
apprehensive at every moment that she would hear the firing renewed;
for she knew, or at least she believed she knew, that Albert of
Morseiul, with the better disciplined band which he seemed to command,
would be the last to leave the city he had so boldly entered. Nothing,
however, confirmed her expectation. There was a reddish light over the
town, as if there were either fires in the streets, or that the houses
were generally lighted up; but all was silent, except a dull distant
murmur, heard when the sound of the marching feet ceased from any
cause for a moment. Few words passed between Clemence and her
attendant; for though Maria was a woman of a calm determined spirit in
moments of immediate danger, and possessed with a degree of religious
zeal, which was a strong support in times of peril and difficulty, yet
the scenes in the prison and the dungeon, the horrors which she had
only dreamt of before brought actually before her eyes, had not
precisely unnerved, but had rendered her thoughtful and silent. The
only sentence which she ventured to address to her mistress, without
being spoken to, was,--
"Oh, Madam, is the young Count so much to blame, after all?"
"Alas, Maria," replied Clemence, in the same low tone, "I think that
all are to blame, more or less. Deep provocation has certainly been
given; but I do think that Albert ought to have acted differently. He
had not these scenes before his eyes when he fled to put himself at
the head of the insurgents; and ere he did so, he certainly owed
something to me and something to the King. Nevertheless, since I have
seen what I have seen, and heard what I have heard, I can make excuses
which I could not make before."
The attendant made no reply, and the conversation dropped. The march
continued rapidly for three or four hours, till at length there was a
short halt; and a brief consultation seemed to take place between two
or three of the leaders on horseback. The principal part of the men on
foot, exhausted as it appeared by great exertion, sat or lay down by
the road side; but ere the conference had gone on for above five
minutes, a cavalier, followed by several other men on horseback, came
up at the full gallop; and again the deep mellow tones of that
remarkable voice struck the ear of Clemence de Marly, and made her
whole frame thrill. His words, or as they appeared commands, were but
few; and, without either approaching the side of Claude de l'Estang or
herself, he rode back again in haste, and the march was renewed.
Ere long a fine cold rain began to fall, chilling those it lighted on
to the very heart; and Clemence thought she perceived that as they
advanced the number of people gradually fell away. At length, after a
long and fatiguing march through the night, as the faint grey of the
dawn began to appear, she found that, at the very utmost, there were
not above a hundred of the armed Protestants around her. The party was
evidently under the command of a short but powerfully made man, on
horseback, whom she recognised as the person who had carried the
unfortunate novice Claire in his arms to the house of Claude de
l'Estang. He rode on constantly by the side of the bed in which the
good pastor was carried on men's shoulders, and bowing down his head
from time to time, he spoke to him with what seemed words of comfort
and hope. They were now on a part of the road from Thouars towards
Nantes, that passed through the midst of one of those wide sandy
tracts called in France _landes_, across which a sort of causeway had
been made by felled trees, rough and painful of passage even to the
common carts of the country. This causeway, however, was soon quitted
by command of Armand Herval. One party took its way through the sands
to the right; and the rest, following the litters, bent their course
across the country, towards a spot where a dark heavy line bounded the
portion of the _landes_ within sight, and seemed to denote a large
wood of the deep black pine, which grows better than any other tree in
that sandy soil. It was near an hour before they reached the wood; and
even underneath its shadow the shifting sand continued, only
diversified a little by a few thin blades of green grass, sufficient
to feed the scanty flocks of sheep, which form the only riches of that
tract.
In the midst of the wood--where they had found or formed a little
oasis around them--were two shepherds' cottages; and to these the
party commanded by Armand Herval at once directed its course. An old
man and two boys came out as they approached, but with no signs of
surprise; and Claude de l'Estang was carried to one of the cottages,
into which Clemence followed. She had caught a sight of the good man's
face as they bore him past her, and she saw that there was another sad
and painful task before her, for which she nerved her mind.
"Now, good Antoine," said Armand Herval, speaking to one of the
shepherds, "lead out the sheep with all speed, and take them over all
the tracks of men and horses that you may meet with. You will do it
carefully, I know. We have delivered the good man, as you see; but I
fear--I fear much that we have after all come too late, for the
butchers have put him to the question, and almost torn him limb from
limb. God knows I made what speed I could, and so did the Count."
The old shepherd to whom he spoke made no reply, but listened, gazing
in his face with a look of deep melancholy. One of the younger men who
stood by, however, said, "We heard the firing. I suppose they strove
hard to keep him."
"That they assuredly did!" replied Herval, his brows knitting as he
spoke; "and if we had not been commanded by such a man, they would not
only have kept him, but us too. One half of our people failed us.
Boursault was not there. Kerac and his band never came. We were full
seven hundred short, and then the petard went off too soon, and did no
good, but brought the whole town upon us. They had dragoons, too, from
Niort; and tried first to drive us back, then to take us in flank by
the tower-street, then to barricade the way behind us; but they found
they had to do with a Count de Morseiul, and they were met every
where, and every where defeated. Yet, after all," continued the man,
"he will ruin us from his fear of shedding any blood but his own. But
I must go in and see after the good man; and then speed to the woods.
We shall be close round about, and one sound of a conch[3] will bring
a couple of hundred to help you, good Antoine."
---------------------
[Footnote 3: This large shell is used in many of the sea-coast
districts of France still, for the purpose of giving signals. The
sound, when properly blown, is very powerful and peculiar. They assert
that across a level country it can be heard six miles. I have myself
heard it more than two, and so distinctly, that it must have been
audible at a much greater distance.]
---------------------
Thus saying, he went into the cottage, where Clemence had already
taken her place by the side of the unhappy pastor's bed; and, on the
approach of Herval, she raised her finger gently to indicate that he
slept. He had, indeed, fallen into momentary slumber, utterly
exhausted by suffering and fatigue; but the fallen temples--the
sharpened features--the pale ashy hue of the countenance, showed to
the eyes of Clemence, at least, that the sleep was not that from which
he would wake refreshed and better. Herval, less acute in his
perceptions, judged differently; and, after assuring Clemence in a
whisper that she was quite in safety there, as the woods round were
filled with the band, he left her, promising to return ere night.
Clemence would fain have asked after Albert of Morseiul, and might,
perhaps, have expressed a wish to see him; but there were strange
feelings of timidity in her heart which kept her silent till the man
was gone, and then she regretted that she had not spoken, and accused
herself of weakness. During the time that she now sat watching by the
pastor's side, she had matter enough for thought in her own situation.
What was now to become of her, was a question that frequently
addressed itself to her heart; and, more than once, as she thus sat
and pondered, the warm ingenuous blood rushed up into her cheek at
thoughts which naturally arose in her bosom from the consideration of
the strange position in which she was placed. Albert of Morseiul had
not seen her, she knew. He could not even divine or imagine that she
was at Thouars at all, much less in the prison itself; but yet she
felt somewhat reproachfully towards him, as if he should have divined
that it was she whom he saw borne along, not far from the unhappy
pastor. Though she acknowledged, too, in her own heart, that there
were great excuses to be made for the decided part which her lover had
taken in the insurrection of that part of the country, still she was
not satisfied, altogether, with his having done so; still she called
him, in her own heart, both rash and ungrateful.
On the other hand, she remembered, that she had written to him in
haste, and in some degree of anger, or, at least, of bitter
disappointment; that she had refused, without explaining all the
circumstances which prevented her, to share his flight as she had
previously promised; that, hurried and confused, she had neither told
him that, at the very time she was writing, the Duchess de Rouvre
waited to accompany her to the court, and that to fly at such a moment
was impossible; nor that, during the whole of the following day, she
was to remain at Versailles, where the eyes of every one would be upon
her, more especially attracted towards her by the news of her lover's
flight, which must, by that time, be generally known. She feared, too,
that in that letter she had expressed herself harshly, even unkindly;
she feared that those very words might have driven the Count into the
desperate course which he had adopted, and she asked herself, with
feelings such as she had never experienced before, when contemplating
a meeting with Albert of Morseiul, how would he receive her?
In short, in thinking of the Count, she felt that she had been
somewhat in the wrong in regard to her conduct towards him. But she
felt, also, at the same time, that he had been likewise in the wrong,
and, therefore, what she had first to anticipate were the words of
mutual reproach, rather than the words of mutual affection. Such was
one painful theme of thought, and how she was to shape her own
immediate conduct was another. To return to the house of the Duc de
Rouvre seemed utterly out of the question. She had been found in the
prison of Claude de l'Estang. Her religious feelings could no longer
be concealed; her renunciation of the Catholic faith was sure, at that
time, to be looked upon as nothing short of treason; and death or
eternal imprisonment was the only fate that would befall her, if she
were once cast into the hands of the Roman Catholic party.
What then was she to do? Was she to throw herself at once upon the
protection of Albert of Morseiul? Was she to bind her fate to his for
ever, at the very moment when painful points of difference had arisen
between them? Was she to cast herself upon his bounty as a suppliant,
instead of holding the same proud situation she had formerly
held,--instead of being enabled to confer upon him that which he would
consider an inestimable benefit, while she herself enhanced its value
beyond all price, by the sacrifice of all and every thing for him? Was
she now, on the contrary,--when it seemed as if she had refused to
make that sacrifice for his sake,--to come to him, as a fugitive,
claiming his protection, to demand his bounty and his support, and to
supplicate permission to share the fate in which he might think she
had shown a disinclination to participate, till she was compelled to
do so?
The heart of Clemence de Marly was wrung at the thought. She knew that
Albert of Morseiul was generous, noble, kind-hearted. She felt that,
very likely, he might view the case in much brighter hues than she
herself depicted it to her own mind; she felt that, if she were a
suppliant to him, no reproach would ever spring to his lips; no cold
averted look would ever tell her that he thought she had treated him
ill. But she asked herself whether those reproaches would not be in
his heart; and the pride, which might have taken arms and supported
her under any distinct and open charge, gave way at the thought of
being condemned, and yet cherished.
How should she act, then? how should she act? she asked herself; and
as Clemence de Marly was far from one of those perfect creatures who
always act right from the first impulse, the struggle between
contending feelings was long and terrible, and mingled with some
tears. Her determination, however, was right at length.
"I will tell him all I have felt, and all I think," she said. "I will
utter no reproach: I will say not one word to wound him: I will let
him see once more, how deeply and truly I love him. I will hear,
without either pride or anger, any thing that Albert of Morseiul will
say to me, and then, having done so, I will trust to his generosity to
do the rest. I need not fear! Surely, I need not fear!" and, with this
resolution, she became more composed, the surest and the strongest
proof that it was right.
But, to say the truth, since the perils of the night just passed,
since she had beheld him she loved in a new character; since, with her
own eyes, she had seen him commanding in the strife of men, and every
thing seeming to yield to the will of his powerful and intrepid mind,
new feelings had mingled with her love for him, of which, what she had
experienced when he rode beside her at the hunting party at Poitiers,
had been but, as it were, a type. It was not fear, but it was some
degree of awe. She felt that, with all her own strength of mind, with
all her own brightness of intellect and self-possession, there were
mightier qualities in his character to which she must bow down: that
she, in fact, was woman, altogether woman, in his presence.
As she thus thought, a slight motion on the bed where Claude de
l'Estang was laid made her turn her eyes thither. The old man had
awoke from his short slumber, and his eyes, still bright and
intelligent, notwithstanding the approach of death and the exhaustion
of his shattered frame, were turned towards her with an earnest and a
melancholy expression.
"I hope you feel refreshed," said Clemence, bending over him. "You
have had some sleep; and I trust it has done you good."
"Do not deceive yourself, my dear child," replied the old man. "No
sleep can do me good, but that deep powerful one which is soon coming.
I wait but God's will, Clemence, and I trust that he will soon give
the spirit liberty. It will be in mercy, Clemence, that he sends
death; for were life to be prolonged, think what it would be to this
torn and mangled frame. Neither hand nor foot can I move, nor were it
possible to give back strength to my limbs or ease to my body. Every
hour that I remain, I look upon but as a trial of patience and of
faith, and I will not murmur: no, Clemence, not even in thought,
against His almighty will, who bids me drag on the weary minutes
longer. But yet, when the last of those minutes has come, oh! how
gladly shall I feel the summons that others dread and fly from! I
would fain, my child," he said, "I would fain hear: and from your
lips: some of that blessed word which the misguided persecutors of our
church deny unmutilated to the blind followers of their faith, though
every word therein speaks hope, and consolation, and counsel, and
direction to the heart of man."
"Alas! good father," replied Clemence, "the Bible which I always carry
with me, was left behind when I came to see you in prison, and I know
not where to find one here."
"The people in this, or the neighbouring cottage, have one," said the
pastor. "They are good honest souls, whom I have often visited in
former days."
As the good woman of the cottage had gone out, almost immediately
after the arrival of the party, to procure some herbs, which she
declared would soothe the pastor greatly, Clemence proceeded to the
other cottage, where she found an old man with a Bible in his hand,
busily reading a portion thereof to a little boy who stood near. He
looked up, and gave her the book as soon as she told him the purpose
for which she came, and then, following into the cottage where the
pastor lay, he and the boy stood by, and listened attentively while
she read such chapters as Claude de l'Estang expressed a wish to hear.
Those chapters were not, in general, such as might have been supposed.
They were not those which hold out the glorious promises of
everlasting life to men who suffer for their faith in this state of
being. They were not such as pourtray to us, in its real and spiritual
character, that other world, to which the footsteps of all are
tending. It seemed as if, of such things, the mind of the pastor was
so fully convinced, so intimately and perfectly sure, that they were
as parts of his own being. But the passages that he selected were
those in which our Redeemer lays down all the bright, perfect, and
unchangeable precepts for the rule and governance of man's own
conduct, which form the only code of law and philosophy that can
indeed be called divine. And in that last hour it seemed the greatest
hope and consolation which the dying man could receive, to ponder upon
those proofs of divine love and wisdom which nothing but the Spirit of
God himself could have dictated.
Thus passed the whole of the day. From time to time Clemence paused,
and the pastor spoke a few words to those who surrounded him: words of
humble comment on what was read, or pious exhortation. At other times,
when his fair companion was tired, the attendant Maria would take the
book and read. No noises, no visit from without, disturbed the calm.
It seemed as if their persecutors were at fault; and though from time
to time one of the different members of those shepherd families passed
in or out, no other persons were seen moving upon the face of the
_landes_; no sounds were heard but their own low voices throughout the
short light of a November day. To one fresh from the buzz of cities,
and the busy activity of man, the contrast of the stillness and the
solitude was strange; but doubly strange and exceeding solemn were
they to the mind of her who came, fresh from the perturbed and fevered
visions of the preceding night, and saw that day lapse away like a
long and quiet sleep.
Towards the dusk of the evening, however, her attendant laid her hand
upon her arm as she was still reading, saying, "There is a change
coming;" and Clemence paused and gazed down upon the old man's
countenance. It looked very grey; but whether from the shadows of the
evening, or from the loss of whatever hue of living health remained,
she could hardly tell. But the difference was not so great in the
colour as in the expression. The look of pain and suffering which,
notwithstanding all his efforts to bear his fate with tranquillity,
had still marked that fine expressive countenance, was gone, and a
calm and tranquil aspect had succeeded, although the features were
extremely sharpened, the eye sunk, and the temples hollow. It was the
look of a body and a spirit at peace; and, for a moment, as the eyes
were turned up towards the sky, Clemence imagined that the spirit was
gone: but the next moment he looked round towards her, as if inquiring
why she stopped.
"How are you, Sir?" she said. "You seem more at ease."
"I am quite at ease, Clemence," replied the old man. "All pain has
left me. I am somewhat cold, but that is natural; and for the last
half hour the remains of yesterday's agony have been wearing away, as
I have seen snow upon a hill's side melt in the April sunshine. It is
strange, and scarcely to be believed, that death should be so
pleasant; for this is death, my child, and I go away from this world
of care and pain with a foretaste of the mercies of the next. It is
very slow, but still it is coming, Clemence, and bringing healing on
its wings. Death, the messenger of God's will, to one that trusts in
his mercy, is indeed the harbinger of that peace of God which passes
all understanding."
He paused a little, and his voice had grown considerably weaker, even
while he spoke. "God forgive my enemies," he said at length, "and the
mistaken men who persecute others for their soul's sake. God forgive
them, and yield them a better light; for, oh how I wish that all men
could feel death only as I feel it!"
Such were the last words of Claude de l'Estang. They were perfectly
audible and distinct to every one present, and they were spoken with
the usual calm sweet simplicity of manner which had characterised all
the latter part of his life. But after he had again paused for two or
three minutes, he opened his lips as if to say something more, but no
sound was heard. He instantly felt that such was the case, and ceased;
but he feebly stretched forth his hand toward Clemence, who bent her
head over it, and dewed it with her tears.
When she raised her eyes, they fell upon the face of the dead.